Fig. 12.—The Old Chest on its Journey Across the Allegheny Mountains.
Then he struck his staff thrice, and cried, or rather intoned in a loud voice these words:
O-eez; O-eez; O-eez!
Bide by the King's decrees!
Brownies-O-bonnie, and Brownies-O-braw,
Hither gae, hame gae, Brownies awa'!
At the last word the Assembly arose, and speaking all together, responded,
Brownies aye, Brownies a
Leal and true, awa', awa'!
Then they separated, the elders moving soberly, the youth scampering off hither and thither, leaping, chattering, cheering, making the grass blades twinkle with their good natured frolic. In a moment the toadstools were deserted, and a great spider-pixie crept under the vacant central hat, and began to shake his head and talk to himself while uttering a low, harsh, chuckling laugh.
Bruce, Rodney, MacWhirlie and all the elect escort, together with their families, made the voyage across the Atlantic safely though somewhat uncomfortably. But their trials were not over when they landed in Philadelphia. The chest was hoisted into a big road wagon covered with canvas, known as a "Conestoga wagon," and wheeled on for many days over the Allegheny mountains. Down by old Fort Pitt it trundled, along the banks of the beautiful river Ohio, to the frontier village of Steubenville. There the wagon stopped. Parson Wille built his cabin on Hillside. The Brownies, happy as the beasts and birds that were turned out of Noah's Ark after the flood, were released from their prison in the old chest, and took up once more old duties and pleasures in the clearings, cornfields and garden of the new home.
That was many years ago. The good parson has long since been received to a fairer Home than either Scotland or America ever gave; but his grandson, Governor Wille, lives at Hillside. It is not the same Hillside that the brave and godly minister first built his log cabin upon, you may be sure. Great changes have occurred. But the same Brownies are there; as good natured, as frolicsome, as fond of their friends and as true to them as ever, yet, we are sorry to say, not so fortunate and happy. What has troubled them?