It was a rude thing to do; perhaps it was even unkind; but—well, he really could not help it.
He solaced himself, however, with the thought that nothing should prevent him riding over on his pony and spending an evening with them, as soon as he could leave his aristocratic friends at Benshee House.
Now, except in large towns, Christmas is not a day of great rejoicing in Scotland. But at the fisherman's cottage it was always kept, though in a very quiet way. So while mistletoe and evergreen hung in the halls of Benshee, and mirth and music were the order of the evening, Eean, with his family and a few humble guests, surrounded a table in the best room of the little cot, spread with such a variety of good things, and such a weight of good things as well, that in the brief intervals of conversation it was positively heard to creak and groan.
Nor were evergreens wanting as decorations; and it had taken Fred and Toddie a whole day to put these up after Bunko had brought them home with him from the snowy woods.
Such a splendid fire burned in the grate too as quite set cold at defiance, and crackled and roared so pleasantly, that neither the wind which howled around the chimney, nor the boom of breakers on the beach, could be heard.
There was mirth in the kitchen as well as in the best room. Bunko was there in fine form, and many of the humbler among the fisher folks, both old and young. And if Tippetty occupied a proud position to-night on the parlour hearth-rug—one-half of him on the footstool, the other half off—Keelie the collie was not a whit less snug at the other end of the house, and had quite as many bones and tit-bits placed at his disposal.
But by ten o'clock quiet once more reigned in Eean's cottage home, for guests had gone, and prayers were being said.
Seldom a night passed throughout the year, that the fisherman bard did not go out to have a look at the weather and the sea just before turning in. It must have been fully half-past eleven on this Christmas night when he opened the door and walked out into the darkness.
Darkness did I say? Well, dark enough it ought to have been, for there were neither stars nor moon, and while a wild east wind came roaring through the woods, the clouds hung close above them. But darkness, no. He noticed as soon as he shut the door a strange glitter on the white walls of the cottages, and on rounding the corner of his own house perceived, to his astonishment and consternation, that the whole of the eastern sky was illuminated by gleams of flames, and that banks of white rolling smoke obscured the sky.
His first thought was that the forest must be all on fire, and that the conflagration was rolling towards them. But this was unlikely, for the trees were green, snow-laden pines.