“No,” growled the bigger boy.
“All right then,” said Barclay, wiping some blood from his cheek, “I’m not ill-willy.”
When Barclay went back to the spot where the eggs had been deposited on the moss, he was surprised to find but three.
When he returned from a scamper through the woods he found that the bird had removed all of them back to her nest, and was once more making the echoes resound from tree to tree with her cheerful song.[2]
I’m not sure that tears of joy did not flood the lad’s eyes as he heard the now happy mavis singing.
Well, on the morning after Barclay’s strange adventure at the windmill, and as soon as breakfast was over, he set out for the vicarage. A droll old rambling place it was, but cosy inside and out. The archway over the gateway was the jaw-bones of an immense whale. This led into a shrubbery, but the whole house was buried in climbers—ivy, wistaria, and many other lovely trailing, flowering trees. Away behind were gardens, lawns, and an orchard, and into these French windows opened from the house. It was indeed an ideal parson’s home. Still too, and quiet as if the house stood in some primeval forest. Only on stormy days the wind roared through the trees, and the dull boom of the breaking waves made a wondrous and solemn accompaniment to the scream and shriek of the wild birds that wheeled and circled in the air.
Barclay was always quiet and subdued in this bonnie vicarage.
The Rev. Peter Grahame was exceedingly kind to him, so was his wife, and little Maud, their only child, was always delighted when Barclay came. She was a modest little maiden of sweet thirteen, and the parson managed in the forenoon to conduct the teaching of both at the same time. After twelve Barclay was free to roam the wild woods, spend an hour or two in the sea, diving and swimming for all the world like a porcupine.
“Lad, lad,” a fisherman would say, “it’s you that’ll kill yerse’f by stoppin’ so long in the water.”
Barclay would give himself a bit of a shake as he commenced to dress, and reply, “I’m not dead yet, Dannie.”