Courage, True Hearts: Sailing in Search of Fortune. Stables Gordon
trout to follow, cold game, and fresh herrings with potatoes. Marmalade and honey with real oat-cakes finished the banquet.
About this time, gazing across the lawn from the great window, Duncan could see the runner bringing the post-bag. Runner he might well be called. He had come twenty miles that morning with the mails, trotting all the way.
Duncan threw open the window, and with a smile and order for postie to go round to the kitchen for a "piece" and a "drink", he received the bag.
The arrival of the runner was always one of the chief events of the day, for the Laird "let" his shootings every season, and had friends in every part of the kingdom.
So had the boys.
"Ah!" said their father, opening a letter which he had reserved to the last. "Here is one from our distant relative, Colonel Trelawney."
"Oh! do read it out," cried Flora impulsively.
Her father obeyed, as all dutiful fathers do when they receive a command from juvenile daughters.
"Maida Vale, London.
"My dear 42nd cousin, – I think that is about our relationship. Well, I was never good at counting kin, so we must let it stand at that. Heigho! That is my 42nd sigh since breakfast time, and it isn't the luncheon hour yet. But I couldn't quite tell you what I am sighing for; I think it must be for the Highland moors around you, on which I enjoyed so glorious a time in August. Heigho! (43rd). Your hills must still be clad in the crimson and purple glory of heath and heather whence scattered coveys or whirring wings spring skywards (Poetry!).
"Well now, I've got something to propose. Since his poor mother died, my boy Frank-fifteen next birthday, you know-has not seemed to thrive well. He is a capital scholar, and is of a very inventive turn of mind. He delights in the country, and when he and I bike away down into the greenery of fields and woods he always looks better and happier. But at home he has nothing to look at that is natural-a few misshapen trees only, a shaven lawn, evergreens, and twittering sparrows.
"He is lively enough, and plays the fiddle charmingly. He is only a London lad after all, and his pale face bears witness to the fact.
"Well, cousin, fair exchange is no robbery. Send me your two boys up here to spend the winter, and then I'll send the whole three down to you to put in the spring and summer. Expected results? Is that what you ask, cousin mine? Well, they are these. A little insight into London life will assist in toning down the fiery Highland exuberance of your brave lads, and will help to make them young men of the world. While a spell among your Highland hills shall put more life-blood into my boy, and make him stronger, braver, and heartier."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Duncan. "He is going to civilize us, is he, daddy dear? We'll have to wear frock-coats, long hats and long faces, and carry umbrellas. What do you think of that, Conal?"
"Why," said Conal disdainfully, "umbrellas are only for old wives and Sassenachs. The plaid for me."
"And me!"
"Well, but listen," said the Laird laughing.
"Your boys," says the colonel, "must come to us dressed in their hill-tartan kilts, and have dress tartans to wear at evening parties. The English are fond of chaffing the Scot, but, mind you, they love him all the same, and can quite appreciate all the deeds of derring-do he accomplishes on the field of battle, as well as his long-business-headedness on the Stock Exchange. Heigho! (sigh the 44th), had I been a Scot I'd have been a richer man to-day instead of having to maintain a constant fight to keep the wolf from the door. But you, dear cousin, must be fairly wealthy."
It was Laird M'Vayne's turn to sigh now, for alas! he was far indeed from rich, and, young as they were, both his boys knew it. And between you and me and the binnacle, reader, the lads used to pray every night, that Heaven might enable them when they came to man's estate, or even before, to do something for the parents who had been so good to them.
"Well," the letter ran on, "I sha'n't say any more, only you will let the laddies (that is Scotch, isn't it?) come, won't you, cousin? and if we can only find out the time of the boat's arrival, Frank and I shall be at the dock waiting for them."
"Hurrah!" cried Duncan,
"Hurrah!" cried Conal.
"And you won't be sorry to leave me and the old home, will you?" said M'Vayne.
"Oh, indeed, indeed we will, daddy," cried Duncan, "and we'll think about you all and pray for you too, every day and night. Won't we, Conal?"
"Of course we will."
Then the younger lad went and threw his arms round his father's neck, leaned his cheek against his breast, in truly Celtic fashion, and there were tears in his eyes.
"Besides," said Duncan, "the change will do us such a heap of good, and by all we read London must be the grandest place in the whole wide world."
"Streets paved with gold, eh? Houses tiled with sheets of solid silver that glitter daily in the noonday sun. No poverty, no vice, no crime in London. Is that your notion of London, my son?"
"Well," replied Duncan laughing, "it may not be quite so bright as all that, daddy, but I am sure of one thing."
"Yes?"
"If the streets are not paved with gold, nor the houses tiled with silver, there is money to be made in the city by any honest business Scot who cares to work and wants to win."
"Bravo, Duncan!
"In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word as Fail."
For the next two or three weeks, although the boys with their plucky little sister went every day either to the hill or woods to shoot, or to the burn to fish, there was very little talked about except the coming excursion to the great city of London.
Mrs. M'Vayne was at present confined to her room, and, being nervous, the thought of losing her boys even for a short four or five months made her heart feel sad indeed, and it took them all their time to reassure her.
"No, no, lads," she would cry almost petulantly; "I cannot be happy until I see you in the glen once more, safe and sound!"
Two weeks passed-oh, ever so quickly-away, and the last week was to be devoted wholly and solely to the packing of trunks, a very pleasurable and hopeful employment indeed.
Duncan was facile princeps at this work, and he kept a note-book always near, so that whenever he thought about anything he might need, he wrote it down-just as if it had not been possible to get every article he might require in great London, from a needle to an anchor.
Only, as he told his brother Conal, "It is far better to be sure than sorry."
Well, the last day-the last sad day-came round at last and farewells had to be said on both sides.
Mrs. M'Vayne kept up as well as she could, and so did the boys. Noblesse oblige, you know, for although their father was but a Highland laird, and poor at that, he was connected by blood with the chiefs of the best clans in Scotland.
Poor honest Viking had watched the packing with the very greatest of interest, and so sad did he appear that Duncan and Conal made up their minds to take him with them. And when they told him so, there really was not a much happier dog in all the British islands. For Viking was wise beyond compare, and there was very little, indeed, that he did not understand.
But Florie's grief at the loss of her brothers was beyond control, and she made no attempt to hide her tears.
Yes, the laird himself journeyed with his boys as far as Leith, and saw them safe on board.
When the good ship steamed away at last, he waved them a silent adieu, then turned and walked quickly away.
CHAPTER II. – HURRAH FOR "MERRIE ENGLAND"!
Neither Duncan nor Conal was a bad sailor, for, their father's estate being near the western sea, many a long summer's day they spent in open boats, and they sometimes went out with the herring-fishers and were heard of no more for