This was a question that took him a long time to argue. There were many sides to it. He was going to sea in obedience to an impulse. Nothing was there to prevent him. There are fathers and fathers, some of these would send forth a hue and cry and bring a boy back nolens volens. His father, Kep knew well enough, was not one of these. He would be too proud to search for his lost boy, and he knew also the nature of that boy, knew that restraint and compulsion could only tend to harden him, and that the disgrace of being brought back a prisoner would break his brave heart.
No, there was little, if any, fear of pursuit, and he had some money of his own, enough at any rate to purchase his kit and rig-out. Yes, the world was all before him. Yet the "sin" attached to his flight--ah! that was the word he could not keep from ringing in his ears.
His father's priest was Kep's best friend, and his tutor besides. Should he go and tell him? Perhaps he should, but he would not. You may get pardon for sins you have done--if you are genuinely penitent--but not for those you have it in your heart to commit. He would not see his priest. What, never again? The lad's heart gave an uneasy throb. That "never" is a long, long saddening word. So he told himself that he was not running away for good and all, only just for a few years, then if his father forgave him and asked him to return he would.
But his sister Madge--ah! how she would cry, and how bitter and hot and blinding would be those tears, for they loved each other, those two mitherless bairns, as only young sister and brother can. Kep was all the world to Madge. No boy ever so kind and gentle, so brave. None ever so pleasant and so wildly mirthfully, gleesome and humorous.
As he thought of this he took from his side pocket a tiny little black orchestra flute or piccolo. Not much bigger nor thicker was it than a fountain pen, but oh, the marvellous music he was wont to elicit from it. Mostly all Italian and German, chiefly operatic, yet the birds that perched on the golden scented furze in spring used to stop their songs to listen when Kep played, and little anxious creatures in fur used to peep wonderingly out of their holes. He took his pipe from his pocket, I say, and began to play--merrily at first, but soon mournfully and sadly. The music that he breathed into it or that welled out of it was such as he himself had never heard before. It seemed to come from his very soul, to be the very own voice of that soul; and what more sweet, if pure, than the soul of a boy of his still tender years?
This did not, could not, last long.
He dropped the magic pipe, and threw himself on his face to weep.
"Oh, Madge, oh, Madge," he sobbed, "I am going away, away--I am following destiny--and you--you--how I love you, sister! but distance can never, never divide nor sunder us. Never, Madge, never."
He spoke through his tears, as if his sister were close at his elbow.
"I'll write often and often, and you shall write to me. I may not always get your letters, but you shall always have mine. What is this?" he added, speaking more to himself now. He picked something off a bush of ling. It was one of wild Madge's hair-ribbons--they often sat down to rest, the brother and sister, in this very spot.