But not only did the poorest among the crofters, or squatters as they might have been called, love the winsome, happy-visaged boy, but many of them looked upon him with a strange mixture of superstition and awe. He was supposed to bear a kind of charmed life, because a mystery hung over his advent which might never, never be cleared up. For Creggan was an ocean-child in the truest sense of the word. When a mere infant he had been found in a small boat which was stranded on the rock-bound Isle of Kilmara, off the shores of Skye, one morning after a gale of wind. In this islet, which indeed is but little more than a sea-girt rock, he had dwelt for many years with the strange being who had picked him up half-frozen, and had wooed him back to life, and became not only a father to him but a tutor as well.
A strange being indeed was old Tomnahurich, the Hermit of Kilmara, the name by which he was generally known. Only old people could remember his coming to and taking possession of the island, which probably belonged to no one in particular, although in summer-time a few sheep used to be sent to crop the scanty herbage that grew thereon. But one beautiful spring morning,—with snow-white cloudlets in the blue sky, and a light breeze rippling the Minch, till from the mainland of Skye it looked like some mighty river rolling onwards and north 'twixt the Outer and Inner Hebrides,—some fisher-lads on landing were confronted by a tall, brown-bearded stranger, dressed in seaman's clothes, and with a cast of countenance and bearing that showed he was every inch a sailor. He had come out from a cave, and into this, with smiles and nods and talking in the purest of Gaelic, he had invited the young fellows. They found a fire burning here, and fish boiling; there was a rude bench, several stools, and various articles of culinary utility, to say nothing of a row of brown stone bottles, the contents of one of which he begged them to taste.
But where the hermit had come from, or how or why he had come, nobody could tell, and he never even referred to his own history.
He had ceased to dwell in the cave after a time, and with wood from a shipwrecked barque he had built himself, in a sheltered corner, a most substantial though very uncouth kind of a dwelling-hut. As the time went on, silver threads had begun to appear in the brown of the hermit's beard; and now it was nearly white. He was apparently as strong and sturdy as ever, notwithstanding the wintryness of his hair, and the boy loved his strange guardian far more than any friend he had, and was never so happy anywhere as at the rude fireside of his island home.
We never think of what Fate may have in store for us, especially when we are young, nor at what particular date fortune's tide may be going to flow for us.
This morning, for instance, when Creggan came on shore with Oscar, he had no idea that anything particular was going to happen. He had first and foremost drawn up his little boat—the very skiff it was in which he had been cradled on the billowy ocean,—then gone straight away up to the manse. Here he was a great favourite, and M'Ian, the kind-hearted minister, had for years been his teacher, educating the boy with his own two children, Rory and Maggie, both his juniors.
I am not going to say that Creggan was more clever than children of his age usually are, but as the instruction he received was given gratuitously or for love, he felt it to be his bounden duty to learn all he could so as to gratify his teacher.
His English was therefore exceptionally good already, and he had made good progress in geography, history, arithmetic, and knew the first two books of Euclid; and he could even prattle in French, which he had learned from the hermit. It was usual for Creggan to spend an hour or two playing with Rory and little winsome Maggie, after lessons, but to-day they were going with their father to the distant town of Portree, so, after bidding them good-bye he shouldered his little gun, a gift from M'Ian, and, whistling for Oscar, went off to the cairns to find a rabbit or two.
The cairns where the rabbits dwelt were small rounded hills about a quarter of a mile inland from the wild cliffs that frowned over the deep, dark sea. These knolls were everywhere covered with stones, and hundreds of wild rabbits played about among these. But no sooner had Creggan shot just one than the rest disappeared into their burrows as if by magic. The boy had plenty of patience, however, so he simply lay down and began to read. Not to study, though. His school-books he had left in the graveyard on an old tombstone, and near to the last resting-place of the romantic Flora M'Donald, the lady who had saved the unfortunate Prince Charlie Stuart.
After half an hour he secured two more rabbits, and as the sun began to wester, he strolled slowly backwards towards the spot where he had beached his boat, with no intention, however, of putting out to sea for some little time.