rising,practically speaking--theory being another thing. Allan was often awayat the river hours and hours before breakfast, and the beautiful dishesof mountain trout that lay on the table, so crisp and still, had beenfrisking and gambolling only a short time before in their nativestreams. But Allan's friends--well, it may have been the Highland air,you know, which is remarkably strong and pure, but anyhow, neither ofthem thought of stirring until the first gong pealed its thunders forth.It was not that they did not get a good example set them by the sun,for, it being now the month of May, that luminary deemed it his duty toget up himself, and to arouse most ordinary mortals, shortly after fouro'clock.
The list of ordinary mortals, so far as the castle was concerned,included old Janet the cook, and most of the other servants andretainers, and all the dogs, and all the cocks and hens, and ducks andgeese, and turkeys, to say nothing of pigs and pigeons, sheep andcattle; and as every single mortal among them felt himself bound as soonas his eyes were open to express his feelings audibly, and in his ownpeculiar fashion, you can easily believe that the din and the hubbubaround Arrandoon at early morning were something considerable. Whetherasleep or awake, Ralph had an easy mind, nothing bothered him. Ibelieve he could have slept throughout general quarters at sea, withcannon thundering overhead, if he had a mind to; but with Rory it wassomewhat different, and the cock-crowing used to fidget him in hisdreams. If there had been only one cock, and that cock had crowed tillhis comb fell off, it would have been merely monotonous, and Rory wouldhave slumbered on in peace, but there were so many cocks of so manystrains. The game-cocks crowed boldly and bravely, and their tonesclearly proved them kings of the harem; the bantams shrieked defiance atevery other cock about the place, but no cock about the place took anyheed of them; the cowardly Shanghais kept at a safe distance from thegame-birds, and shouted themselves hoarse; and besides these there wasthe half-apologetic, half-formed crow of the cockerels, who got thrasheda dozen times everyday because they dared to mimic their betters.
These sounds, I say, fidgeted our poetic Rory; but when half a dozenfantail pigeons would alight outside the window, and strut about andcry, "Coo, coo, troubled with you, troubled with you," then Rory wouldbecome more sensible, and he would open one eye to have a look at theclock on the mantelpiece. Mind you, he wouldn't open both eyes for theworld, lest he should awaken altogether.
"Oh!" he would think to himself, "only five o'clock; gong won't go forthree hours yet. How jolly!"
Then he would turn round on the other side and go to sleep again. Thecocks might go on crowing, and the pigeons might preen their feathersand "coo-coo" as much as they pleased now. Rory heard no more until"Ur-ur--R-Rise, Ur-ur--R-Ralph and Rory," roared the gong.
One _particular_ morning Rory had opened his one eye just as usual, hadhis look at the clock, had rejoiced that it was still early, and hadturned himself round to go off once more to the land of Nod, when,suddenly, there arose from beneath such an inexpressible row, such anindefinable din, as surely never before had been heard around the Castleof Arrandoon. The horses stamped and neighed in their stables, thecattle moaned a double bass, the pigs squeaked a shrill tenor, the fowlall went mad.
"Whack, whack, whack!" roared the ducks.
"Kank, kank, kank?" cried the geese.
"Hubbub--ub--ub--bub!" yelled the turkeys.
Rory sat bolt upright in bed, with _both_ eyes open, more fully awakethan ever he had felt in his life before.
"Hubbub, indeed!" says Rory; "indeed, then, I never heard such a hubbubbefore in all my born days. Ralph, old man, Ralph. Sit up, my boy. Iwonder what the matter can be."
"And so do I," replied Ralph, without, however, offering to stir; "butsurely a fellow can wonder well enough without getting out of bed towonder."
"Ooh! you lazy old horse!" cried Rory; "well, then, it's myself that'llget up."
Suiting the action to the word, Rory sprang out of bed, and next momenthe had thrown open his "sulky" window and popped his head and shouldersout. He speedily drew them in again and called to Ralph, and the wordshe used were enough to bring even that matter-of-fact hero to his sidewith all the speed he cared to expend.
What they saw I'll try to explain to you.
Eagles had been far more numerous this season than they had been foryears. McBain knew this well, and Allan McGregor knew it to his cost,for in an eyrie on a distant part of his estate a pair of these kinglybirds had established themselves, and brought forth young, and, judgingfrom the number of lambs they had carried off, a terribly rapaciousfamily they were. Although five miles from the castle, Allan hadseveral times gone to the place at early morn for the purpose of gettinga ride-shot at these birds; but although he knew the very ledge on whichthe nest was laid--there is little building about an eagle's nest--hehad always been unsuccessful, for the favourites of Jove were wary, andcould scent danger from afar.
So day by day the lambs went on diminishing, and the shepherds went ongrumbling, but they grumbled in vain. Upwards and upwards in circlingflight the eagles would soar, as if to hide themselves in the sun'seffulgence, until they were all but invisible to the keenest eye. Theywould then hover hawk-like over their innocent prey, until chancefavoured them, when there would be a swift, unerring, downward rush, andoften before the very eyes of the astonished keepers the lamb was seizedand borne in triumph to the eyrie.
The glen, or rather gorge, which the eagles had chosen for their home,is one of the wildest and dreariest I ever traversed; at the bottom ofit lies a brown and weird-looking loch about two miles long, one side ofwhich is bounded by birch-trees, through which a road runs, and if yougaze across this loch, what think you do you see beyond? Why, a blackand beetling wall of rock rising sheerly perpendicular up out of thewater, and towering to a height of over one thousand feet. Although theloch is five hundred yards wide, you can hardly get rid of theimpression that this immense wall of rock is bending towards you fromthe top, and about to fall and crush your pigmy body to atoms. Nowonder the loch itself is still and dark and treacherous-looking, and nowonder the natives care not to traverse the glen by day, or that theygive it a wide berth at night, for the place has an evil name, and theysay that often and often at the hour of midnight the water-kelpie'sfiendish laugh is heard at the foot of the rock, followed by the plashand sullen plunging sound which a heavy body always emits when sinkingin very deep water.
Remember that I do not myself believe in water-kelpies, nor any otherkelpies whatever, and I have fished for char (the _Salmo umbla_) in theloch, and traversed the glen in the starlight, yet I never came acrossanything much worse-looking than myself--so there!
Now it was in the middle of this rocky precipice, on a ledge of stone,that the kingly birds had made their nest of sticks and turf, with justas little regard to the laws of avine architecture as the cushat of theEnglish copse evinces. It was an airy abode, yet for all that aprettier pair of young ones than the two that lay therein, both thefather and mother eagle averred, had never yet been seen or hatched. Itis needless to say that they were very fond of their progeny, and alsovery fond of each other, so that when one lovely morning the she-eaglesaid to the he one,--
"What is for breakfast, dear?" it was only natural that the he oneshould reply, "Anything you like, my love."
"Well then," said she, "we've been having nothing but mutton, mutton,mutton for weeks. I'm sure the children would like a change, and I knowI should."
Then the royal eagle lowered his eyebrows, and scratched his ear withone great toe, as if very deep in thought, and then his countenancecleared all at once, a grim smile stole over his face, and he said,--
"I have it. Babies are scarce, you know, but I'll bring you a turkey."
"Oh!" said her royal highness, "that _will_ be nice, and the featherswill help to keep the children warm."
So away the eagle soared, and about ten minutes afterwards he alightedwith a rush right in the middle of the poultry yard at Arrandoon Castle.Hence the hubbub which had aroused both Ralph and Rory.
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Now had the bird of Jove not been so greedy, I feel bound to believe hecould have left the yard almost as quickly as he had entered it oneturkey the richer, and his royal helpmeet and children would not havebeen disappointed in their breakfast. But no, "I may just as well behanged for a sheep as a lamb," he thought to himself, and so he alightedon the back of the oldest and biggest turkey cock he could see. But hedid not find this bird so easy a prey as he could have wished; indeedthe turkey at once made up his mind to have a tussle for it; he did notmean to accept so hasty an invitation to breakfast--in an eyrie of allplaces. So by hook and by crook he managed to scramble half-way underthe wooden grain-house, eagle and all. Next moment the eagle bitterlyrepented of his rashness, for every bird in the place attacked him,