As the bark which contained himself and a party of friends approached Garveloch, one fine spring morning, he saw two boats nearing the landing-place before them. As these vessels were rocked in the surf, snatches of a hoarse and wild music came from them, rising above the roar and dash of the waves. The sound was not that of any instrument, but of the rough voices of men, and it ceased when the labours of landing began. This was done with all possible awkwardness, confusion and noise, and then the companies of the two boats took their way up the rocks without perceiving the laird’s vessel, which was still at a considerable distance. Some of the men bore on their shoulders the body about to be interred, and the rest followed at their own pace, not forming themselves into any order of march, or seeming to be united by any common object. The last of the stragglers disappeared behind a projection of the rock, while the laird was preparing to be carried through the surf by two of his boatmen. He pointed out to them, with great exactness, the spot where they should land the rest of the party when they should return from Ilachanu to join him at dinner, and then took his way alone in the track of the funeral party.
He reached the burying-ground just as the ceremony was concluded; for funerals in the Highlands are hurried over with an apparent negligence and levity which shock the feelings of those who have been accustomed to the solemnity which such a service seems fitted to inspire. The only solemnity here arose from the desolation of the place. It was unenclosed, so that the wild cattle had gone over it, defacing the tombstones and cropping the coarse herbage which grew more plentifully here than elsewhere. Thistles and docks appeared where there were some traces of a path, and the fragments of broken crosses lay as rubbish beside the newly-dug grave. The laird looked among the group for the mourners. They were easily distinguished by their countenances, though they shed no tears and spoke no word. They were three boys, the two elder of whom were strong, ruddy, well-grown youths, apparently of the ages of sixteen and fourteen. The third was either some years younger, or was made to look so by his smallness of size and delicacy of appearance. He fixed the attention of the laird at once by the signs of peculiarity about him. His restlessness of eye and of manner was unlike that which arises in children from animal spirits, and contrasted strangely with the lost and melancholy expression of his countenance. His brothers seemed not to forget him for a moment, sometimes holding him by the hand to prevent his wandering from them, sometimes passing an arm round his neck to control his restlessness, sometimes speaking to him in the caressing tone which they would use to an infant. The laird, learning from some who passed out of the burying-ground that these boys were orphans, and had been attending the funeral of their father, determined to learn more about them from themselves.
“You three are brothers, I find. Which of you is the eldest?”
“I am two years older than Fergus,” answered Ronald, “and Archie is twelve, though he looks less.”
“And have you any brothers and sisters younger than you, Archie?” enquired the laird.
Archie looked in the gentleman’s face for a moment, and then away again.
“He speaks to nobody but us,” said Ronald. “He heeds no other voice,—that is, no man’s or woman’s voice. He knows the low of the cattle and the cry of the sea-fowl when a storm is coming. He wants to be down among the rocks now, ye see. We’re going, Archie, we’re going. Stay a minute.—He’s not like us, your honour sees.”
“I see, I see. He looks quite lost.”
“To a stranger,” said Fergus, “but not to us. We know his ways so well that we can always guide him, except when he is at the highest and lowest, and then it is best to leave him to himself till the fit is over.”
“He must require a great deal of watching; is there no one to take care of him but you?”