“There’s no cut that I can see,” said Junkie, inspecting the head critically; “he’s only stunned, I think. Noo, Tonal’, cut away to the hoose. Run as ye never ran before and tell them. I’ll stop beside him for fear his heed slips in again.”
Donald went off like a shot. Junkie went a few steps with him, intending to fetch another divit. Looking back, he saw what made him sink into the heather, and give a low whistle. Donald heard it, stopped, and also hid himself, for MacRummle was seen trying to rise. He succeeded, and staggered to dry land, when, sitting down on a stone, he felt himself all over with an anxious expression. Then he felt a lump on the back of his head, and smiled intelligently. After that he squeezed as much water out of his garments as he could, quietly took down his rod, ascertained that the fish in his basket were all right, then looked with some perplexity at the big divit lying in the shallow close to where he stood, and finally, with a highly contented expression of countenance, wended his way homeward.
The two boys gave him time to get well out of sight in advance, and then followed his example, commenting sagely as they went, on the desirability of possessing pluck in old age, and on the value of the various lessons they had learned that day.
Chapter Ten.
A Wildish Chapter.
It was the habit of our three friends—Bob Mabberly, John Barret, and Giles Jackman—during their residence at Kinlossie, to take a stroll together every morning before breakfast by the margin of the sea, for they were fond of each other’s company, and Mabberly, as a yachtsman, had acquired the habit of early rising. He had also learned to appreciate the early morning hours as being those which present Nature in her sweetest, as well as her freshest, aspect—when everything seems, more than at other periods of the day, to be under the direct influence of a benignant Creator.
It was also the habit of Captain McPherson and his man, James McGregor, to indulge daily in similar exercise at about the same hour, but, owing probably to their lives having been spent chiefly on the sea, they were wont to ramble up a neighbouring glen in preference to sauntering on the shore.
One bright calm morning, however, when the sky was all blue and the loch was like a mirror, the two seamen took it into their heads to desert the glen and ramble along the shore. Thus it came to pass that, on returning homeward, they encountered our three friends.