come from a very far-off land?"
"_Yes_, a very very far-off land."
"And is it very beautiful there?"
"Very _very_ beautiful."
"I _would_ like to go to that far-off beautiful land. How do you getthere?"
"We fly."
"Yes, I know, but I can't, though I once tried I made a pair of wingsout of an old umbrella; they were so awkward, though, and would notwork.
"But I meant," continued Harry, "which way do you go?"
"Southward and southward and southward, and westward and westward andsouthward again."
"What a funny road! I should get dead tired before I was halfway."
"So do we: then we look about for a ship or a rock, if at sea, andalight to rest."
"And aren't you afraid the sailors may shoot you?"
"Oh no; for sailors do so love to see us on the yards. [How true!G.S.] They dearly love us. We remind them of England and their cottagehomes and their wives and little ones, and of apple orchards and flowerymeadows and crimson poppies in the fields of green waving corn, and allkinds of beautiful things."
"No wonder they love you!"
"Yes; they do so love us; I've seen the tears start to the eyes oflittle sailor lads as they gazed at us. And I know the men tread morelightly on the deck for fear of scaring us away."
"And when rested you just go on again?"
"Yes, on and on and on."
"I should lose my head."
"We don't--something seems to guide us onward."
"I suppose you see some terrible sights? Have you seen a shipwreck?_I_ should like to."
"Oh no, no, you would not. If you once saw a shipwreck, or a shipfoundering at sea, you would never never forget it."
"Tell me."
"I cannot. No one could. But somehow it is usually at night we witnessthese awful scenes. I have seen a ship sailing silently over themoonlit water, the yellow light streaming from her ports, and I haveheard the sounds of music and laughter, and the voices of glad childrenat play. And I have seen the same vessel, but a short hour after,drifting on in the darkness to the pitiless rocks before a white squall.Ah! white was the squall, white were the waves, but not more white thanthe scared, dazed faces of those poor shrinking, moaning beings whorushed on deck when she struck."
"What did you do?"
"Flew away. Just flew away."
"Tell me more."
"What shall I tell you of?"
"About your own bright home in the far-off land."
"Shall I speak to you of the coralline sea that laves the tree-fringedshores of Africa?"
"Yes, yes, tell me of that."
"Rippling up through the snakey roots of the mangrove trees, bathing thegreen branches that stoop down to kiss them--oh! 'tis a lovely sea, whenthe great sun shines, and the cyclone and squall are far away, calm andsoft and blue. Yet not all blue, for on the coral flats it is a tendergreen, and grey where the cloud shadows fall on it. But all placid, allwarm and dreamy as if fairies dwelt in caves beneath. Then the littlegreen islands seem to float above the sea as if only just let down fromheaven.
"Sometimes great sharks float upwards from the dark depths beneath, andbask on the surface with their fins above the water, and white sea-gullscome and perch upon them just as starlings do on sheep at home."
"How strange! Don't the sharks try to kill the birds?"
"No, they like it, and I think the birds sing to them and lull them tosleep, or that they tell them tales of far-off lands as I am speakingnow to you.
"But on the coral reefs, where the sea, at a distance, looks so sweetlygreen, if you were there in a boat and looked away down to the bottom,oh! what a sight would be spread out before you! A garden of shrubs andwaving flowers more lovely than anything ever seen on land."
"How I should like to go there! But the interior of Africa is verygorgeous too, is it not?"
"Yes, to us who can fly quickly from place to place, through flowerygroves, where birds and blossoms vie with each other in the beauty oftheir colours, where the butterflies are like fans, of crimson and greenwhere the very lizards and every creeping thing, are adorned withrainbow tints and ever-changing bright metallic sheen."
"There are dark corners, though, in this strange land of yours, arethere not?"
"Yes, dark, dark corners; but I must not tell you of these, of the deepgloomy forest, where the gorilla howls, and wretched dwarfs have theirabode, or of the great swamp lands in which the dreadful crocodile and athousand other slimy creatures dwell, and where, in patches of forest,the mighty anacondas sleep. Nor of the wondrous deserts of sand, nor ofthe storms that rise sometimes and bury caravans of camels and menalive. No, we swallows think only of the beauty of our African home, ofits roaring cataracts, its wooded hills, its peaceful lakes and broadshining rivers, and of the glorious sunshine that gladdens all.
"But now I must go. Pray let me free. I have much to do before thesummer is over, and that kind something beckons me back again--back tothe land of the sun."
"Go, birdie, go, and some day I too will take my flight to the Land ofthe Sun."
Book 1--CHAPTER SIX.
HARRY'S SCHOOL-DAYS--LOST IN A SNOWSTORM.
Harry Milvaine had aunts and uncles in abundance, and about as manycousins as there are gooseberries on an ordinary-sized bush; for he hadfirst cousins and second and third cousins, and on and on to, I verilybelieve, forty-second cousins. They count kinship a long way off in theScottish Highlands.
And they used all to visit occasionally at Beaufort Hall. They did notall come at once, to be sure, else, if they had, there would have beenno beds to hold them. They would have had to sleep in barns and byres,under the hayricks and out on the heather.
Oh, it was no uncommon thing now for Harry to sleep on the heather. Onsummer nights he would often steal out through the casement window ofhis bedroom, which opened on to the lawn, and go quietly away to ahealthy hill not far off. Here he would pull a bundle of heather for apillow, and lie down rolled in his plaid with Eily in his arms and abook in his hand. As long as there was light he would read. When itgrew semi-dark he would sleep, and awake in the morning as fresh as ablackbird.
Once only he had what some boys would consider an ugly adventure. Onawaking one morning he felt something damp and cold touch his knee--hewore the kilt. He quickly threw off the plaid, and there, close by him,was an immense green-yellow snake. The creature was coiled up somewhatin the form of the letter W. It was fully as thick as the neck part ofan ordinary violin, and it glittered all over as if varnished. Awholesome, healthy snake, I assure you. He raised his head and hissedat Harry. That snake would have fain got away. Very likely he had saidto himself the night before:
"I'll creep in here for warmth and get away again in the morning, beforethe human being is awake."
But the snake had overslept himself and was caught napping.
Now there are two animals that do not like to turn tail when fairlyfaced--a cat and a snake. Both feel they are at a disadvantage whenrunning away.
I have often proved this with snakes. Give them a fair offing, and theywill glide quickly off; but catch them unawares, and get close up tothem, and they will face you and fight.
Harry knew this and lay perfectly still. Granting that these greatgreen-yellow Highland snakes are not poisonous, they _bite_, and it isnot nice to be bitten by a snake of any kind.
Just at that moment, however, Eily returned from the woods where she hadbeen hunting on her own account. She took in the situation at a glance.Next moment she had whirled the snake round her head and dashed ityards away, where it lay writhing with a broken back. Many dogs areclever at killing snakes. Then she came and licked her master's hand.
Every time any of Harry's aunts came they made this remark:
"How the boy does grow, to be sure!" Every time one of Harry's unclescame he made some such remark as this:
"He'll be as big a man as his father. He is a true Highlander and atrue Milv
aine."
Harry liked his uncles and aunts very well after a fashion, but he caredlittle or nothing for his cousins. Some of them called him the hermit.Harry did not mind. But he would coolly lock his garden gate and sitdown to read or to write, or begin working at his lathe, while hiscousins would be playing cricket in the paddock; then perhaps he wouldcome out, look for a moment, with an air of indifference, at the game,then whistle on Eily and go off to the woods or the river. This wasexceedingly inhospitable of Harry, I must confess, only I must paint myhero in his true colours.
"Why don't you play with your cousins, dear?" his mother would ask.
"Oh, mamma!" Harry would reply, "what _are_ they to me? I have books,a gun, and a fishing-rod, and I have Eily; what