White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)

CHAPTER VI
A PROGRAMME

That same evening little Maggie, having made herself as smart and neat as possible, went along the dark road to the doctor's house, was admitted, and forthwith passed upstairs to Miss Douglas's own room. It was an exceedingly small apartment; but on this cold winter night it looked remarkably warm and snug and bright, what with the red peats in the fireplace, and the brilliant little lamp on the table; and it was prettily decorated too, with evidences of feminine care and industry everywhere about. And Meenie herself was there – in her gown of plain blue serge; and apparently she had been busy, for the table was littered with patterns and designs and knitting-needles and what not, while a large mass of blue worsted was round the back of a chair, waiting for the winding.

'Help me to clear the table, Maggie,' she said good-naturedly, when her visitor entered, 'and then we will get tea over: I declare I have so many things to think of that I am just driven daft.'

And then she said – with some touch of anger —

'Do you know that I saw your brother – on a cold, wet day like this – and he was walking along the road, with his jacket open, and paying no heed at all to the weather? Maggie, why do you not make him take some care of himself? In January – and he goes about as if it were June! How would you like it if he were to catch a bad cold and have to take to his bed? Why do you not make him take care of himself?'

'He would only laugh at me,' the little Maggie said ruefully. 'He doesna mind anything. I do my best to get his clothes dried when he comes in wet; but he doesna like to be bothered – especially if he's writing or reading; he says that a pipe keeps the harm away. I'm sure if you would speak to him, Meenie, he would take a great deal more care.'

'What, me!' the girl said – and there was a touch of colour in the pretty refined face; and then she added, with a good-humoured smile, 'No, he would not mind what I said, I know. But it is little matter; for with such a wilful man you can do nothing except by cunning. Do you see the wool there, Maggie?'

She laughed; but the little, red-haired, freckled girl looked rather frightened.

'Oh no, Meenie, I dare not take it,' she said. 'He would know I had not the money to buy all that wool; and then he would ask; and I should be scolded —

'Nonsense, nonsense!' the other cried, in her friendly way. 'Do you think a man would ask any such questions? It would never occur to him at all! When the jersey is all knitted and complete, you will just say to him, "Ronald, here is a jersey that I have knitted for you all by myself; and you are to put it on whenever there is a cold morning;" and you will see he will think your knitting it yourself explains everything. Ask about the wool? – he will never think of such a thing. If you hang the jersey on the nail of his bedroom door, it will be all a matter of course; I should not wonder, now, if he forgot to say "Thank you."'

'And then there is another thing,' Maggie said, rather timidly and wistfully. 'How am I to tell him that I knitted the jersey when you know that you will do the most of it? For it is always that; you did nearly all the socks that we gave to Ronald; and he thinks it was me.'

But here the good humour left Meenie Douglas's face – that was suddenly grown red and embarrassed.

'How can you talk such foolishness?' she said, rather sharply. 'If I show you here or there how you are to go on, is that doing the knitting for you? I wonder you have no more sense, Maggie. Of course, I will have to begin the jersey for you; and if I cast on the stitches for the width of the neck, what is that? It is what any one would do for you – Mrs. Murray, or one of the girls at the inn. And I hope you are not going away with that idea in your head; or sooner or later you will be telling somebody that I am knitting a jersey for your brother – that would be a fine thing!'

A timid appealing hand was put on her arm.

'I am sure that Ronald would rather never see or hear of any jersey than have anything make you angry, Meenie.'

The trouble was over in a moment: the girl was essentially quick and generous and kind-hearted; and this small lassie was about her only companion. Moreover, tea was brought in at this moment by the maidservant; and so the question of the proportion of work contributed by either of them to Ronald's woollen gear was put aside.

'And what do you think of this now, Maggie?' the elder said, with some eagerness in her face and eyes. 'You know the great preparations they are making for Monday night – the long barn is to be cleared; and they are going to have a chimney made and a fireplace; and long tables all the way down, and wooden forms to sit on; and some of the lads, they say, are talking of a chandelier to be made out of hoops, and candles stuck all the way round. And all that trouble for the grown-up folk! Is it fair? Oh, it is quite absurd to have such a deal of trouble; and all for the grown-up people. Now, if Ronald would help me – and you know he is such a favourite he always has his own way with everybody – would it not be a fine thing to ask Mr. Murray to leave all those preparations as they are for a day or two – perhaps till Wednesday – and by that time we could have messages sent to the farms round about, and all the children brought in for a soirée? Why should the grown-up people have everything? And there would be nobody but ourselves, – that's Ronald and you and I, Maggie, – for the children would have more freedom and amusement that way – you see my father is not likely to be back by then, or we might ask him – and then, with nearly a week, we could send to Tongue for a great many things – and – and – have a splendid children's party just as fine as fine could be.'

She was quite excited over this matter.

'Look,' she said, going and fetching a sheet of paper which was written over in a bold, large hand (her own handwriting was small and neat enough, but this had been assumed for so important a public purpose); 'look at the programme – it is all guess work as yet, of course, for I have not asked Ronald; but I am sure he will help us; and if he says it is to be done, then everything will go right – they will keep the barn for us; and the people will send the children; and those of them who can't go back will stay the night at the inn. I have saved my pocket-money for months for it; but who could have expected such a chance – the barn all fitted up, and the fire to keep it warm, and the chandelier? There now, Maggie, what do you think?'

The little Maggie took up the big sheet of paper, wondering; for all this was a wild and startling project amid the monotony of their life in this remote and small hamlet.

CHILDREN'S SOIREE

Inver-Mudal, Wednesday, January 23

MR. RONALD STRANG in the Chair

PROGRAMME

Psalm ...... Old Hundredth.

Service of Tea and Cake

Address ...... CHAIRMAN.

Service of Raisins

Song .. 'My love she's but a lassie yet.'. MR. RONALD STRANG.

Reading .. 'The Cameronian's Dream.'… Miss M. DOUGLAS.

Song .. 'O dinna cross the burn, Willie.'. MR. RONALD STRANG.

Pipe-Music 'Lord Breadalbane's March.'… MR. RONALD STRANG.

Service of Oranges

Hymn .. 'Whither, pilgrims, are you going?'. CHILDREN.

Duet .. 'Huntingtower.'… { Miss M. DOUGLAS { & Miss M. STRANG.

But at this point Maggie broke into pure affright.

'Oh, Meenie!' she cried – 'how can I? – before them all!'

'But only before children!' was the quick remonstrance. 'Would you have Ronald do everything? Why, look – an address – a song – a song – a march on the pipes – is he to have no rest at all?'

'But you, Meenie – you can sing so well and without trouble – I know I will spoil everything – '

'No, no, you will spoil nothing; and we will get through very well.'

'Ferry well,' she said, in spite of her Edinburgh birth; and she was evidently vastly proud of her skill in drawing up so brilliant and varied a programme. Maggie continued her reading – but now in some alarm:

Song … 'The Laird o' Cockpen.'… MR. RONALD STRANG.

Reading .. 'Jeanie Morrison.'… Miss M. DOUGLAS.

Service of Shortbread

Song … 'Gloomy Winter's now awa'.'.. MR. RONALD STRANG.

Song … 'Auld Lang Syne.'… THE COMPANY.

Vote of thanks to the Chairman … Miss M. DOUGLAS.

Finale

Pipe-Music, 'Caidil gu lo' (Sleep on till day) MR. RONALD STRANG.

Meenie looked and laughed with pleasure; she was quite proud of her skill of arrangement.

'But, Meenie,' her companion said, 'why have ye not put down a duet between you and Ronald? He can sing so well; and you; and that would be prettier far than anything. Do ye no mind the time we were a' away fishing at Loch Loyal; and we were walking back; and Ronald was telling us of what he saw in a theatre in Edinburgh? And when he told us about the young lady's sweetheart coming in a boat at night, and singing to her below the window, you knew what it was well enough – and you tried it together – oh! that was so fine! Will ye no ask him to sing that with ye?'

Meenie's face flushed somewhat; and she would have evaded the question with a little laugh but that it was repeated. Whereupon she said —

'Why, now, Maggie, you have such a memory! And I have no doubt there was nonsense going on as we were walking back from Loch Loyal – for a beautiful night it was, in the middle of summer, when there is no darkness at all in the skies all the night long. Oh yes, I remember it too; and very well; but it was amongst ourselves; we are not going to have any such nonsense before other people. And if we were to sing "O hush thee, my baby," would not the children be thinking it was a hint for them to go away to bed? And besides, surely I have asked Ronald to do enough for us; do you not think he will be surprised, and perhaps angry, when he sees how often his name comes there?'

'Indeed no, I'm sure,' Maggie said promptly. 'There's just nothing that he wouldna do for you, Meenie.'

'But I will wait till I see him in a good humour,' said her friend, laughing, 'before I ask him for so much.'

'Mich,' she said; unawares she had caught up a good many of the local touches.

'And do ye think ye could ever find him in an ill-humour wi' you?' Maggie said, almost reproachfully.

There was no answer to the question; the programme was put aside.

'Very well, then,' Meenie said, 'we will suppose that is settled. And what is next? Why, Maggie, if I had not the brain of a prime minister, I could never get through so many schemes. Oh, this is it: of course we shall be very much obliged to them if they lend us the barn and all its fittings and we should do something for them in return. And I am sure the lads will be thinking of nothing but the carpentering; and the lasses at the inn will be thinking only of the cooking of the supper, and their own ribbons and frocks. Now, Maggie, suppose you and I were to do something to make the barn look pretty; I am sure Ronald would cut us a lot of fir-branches, for there's nothing else just now; and we could fix them up all round the barn; and then – look here.'

She had got a lot of large printed designs; and a heap of stiff paper of various colours.

'We will have to make paper flowers for them, because there's none growing just now; and very well they will look among the fir-branches. Oh yes, very well indeed. Red and white roses do not grow on fir-branches – it does not need the old man of Ross to tell us that; but they will look very well whatever; and then large orange lilies, and anything to make a bold show in so big a place. And if the lads are making a chandelier out of the hoops of a barrel, we will ask them to let us put red worsted round the hoops; that will look very well too. For we must do something to thank them, Maggie; and then, indeed, when it comes to our turn, we will have the chance too of looking at the decorations when we have the children's soirée.'

Maggie looked up quickly.

'But, Meenie, you are coming to the party on Monday night too?'

There was no embarrassment on the beautiful, fine, gentle face. She only said —

'Well, no one has asked me.'

And the little Maggie flushed with shame and vexation.

'Indeed, now! Did Ronald not speak to you about it?'

'Oh, I have known about it for a long time,' she said lightly, 'and I was very glad to hear of it, for I thought it was a great chance for me to get the loan of the barn.'

'But you – you, Meenie – that they did not ask you first of all!' the younger girl cried. 'But it can only be that every one is expected to come – every one except the small children who canna sit up late. And I'm sure I did not expect to go; but Mr. Murray, he was joking and saying that I would have to dance the first dance wi' him; and Ronald said I might be there for a while. But – but – I'm no going if you're no going, Meenie.'

'But that is nonsense, Maggie,' the other said good-naturedly. 'Of course you must go. And I should like well enough – '

'I am sure Mr. Murray would put you at the head of the table – by his own side – and proud, too!' Maggie exclaimed warmly.

'And I am sure I should not wish anything like that,' Meenie said, laughing. 'I would far rather go with you. I would like to see some of the dancing.'

'Oh, Meenie,' her companion said, with eyes full of earnestness, 'did you ever see Ronald dance the sword-dance?'

'No, I have not, Maggie.'

'They say there is none can do it like him. And if he would only go to the Highland meetings, he could win prizes and medals – and for the pipe-playing too, and the tossing the caber. There is not one of the lads can come near him; but it is not often that he tries; for he is not proud.'

'I am glad that he does not go to the Highland meetings,' Meenie said, rather quietly, and with her eyes cast down.

'No, he is not proud,' said Maggie, continuing (for she had but the one hero in all the world), 'although there is nothing he canna do better than any of them. There was one of the gentlemen said to him last year – the gentleman hadna been shooting very well the day before – he said, "Ronald, let one of the gillies look after the dogs to-day, and go you and bring your gun, and make up for my mistakes;" and when he came home in the evening, he said, "It was a clean day's shooting the day; we did not leave one wounded bird or hare behind us." And another gentleman was saying, "Ronald, if ye could sell your eye-sight, I would give ye five hundred pounds for't." And Duncan was saying that this gentleman that's come for the fishing, he doesna talk to Ronald about the salmon and the loch, but about everything in the country, and Ronald knows as well as him about such things. And his lordship, too, he writes to Ronald, "Dear Ronald," and quite friendly; and when he was going away he gave Ronald his own pipe, that has got a silver band on it, and his tobacco-pouch, with the letters of his name worked in silk. And there's not one can say that Ronald's proud.'

Well, this was very idle talk; and moreover it was continued, for the red-haired and freckled little sister was never weary of relating the exploits of her handsome brother – the adventures he had had with wild-cats, and stags, and seals, and eagles, and the like; and, strangely enough, Miss Douglas showed no sign of impatience whatever. Nay, she listened with an interest that scarcely allowed her to interrupt with a word; and with satisfaction and approval, to judge by her expression; and all that she would say from time to time – and absently – was:

'But he is so careless, Maggie! Why don't you speak to him? You really must make him more heedful of himself.'

However, the night was going by; and Maggie's praises and recitals had come to an end. Meenie went down to the door to see her friend comfortably wrapped up; but there was no need of escort; the stars were shining clear, though the wind still howled blusteringly. And so they said good-bye; and Maggie went on through the dark to the cottage, thinking that Meenie Douglas was the most beautiful and sweet and warm-hearted companion she was ever likely to meet with through all her life, and wondering how it came about that Ronald and Mr. Murray and the rest of them had been so disgracefully neglectful in not inviting her to the New Year's festivities on the forthcoming Monday. Ronald, at least, should hear of his remissness, and that at once.

CHAPTER VII
AN EYRIE

'Come along, Harry, my lad,' the young keeper cried next morning to his faithful terrier, 'and we'll go and have a look up the hill.'

He slipped a cartridge or two into his pocket, more by custom than design as it were; put his gun over his shoulder; and went out into the cold clear air, the little terrier trotting at his heels. The vague unrest of the previous evening was altogether gone now; he was his natural self again; as he strode along the road he was lightly singing – but also under his breath, lest any herd-laddie should overhear —

 
Roses red, roses white,
Roses in the lane,
Tell me, roses white and red,
Where is Meenie gane!
 

And when he got as far as the inn he found that the mail-cart had just arrived, so he turned aside to have a little gossip with the small group of shepherds and others who had come to see whether there were any newspapers or letters for them. He was a great favourite with these; perhaps also an object of envy to the younger of the lads; for he lived the life of a gentleman, one might say, and was his own master; moreover, where was there any one who looked so smart and dressed so neatly – his Glengarry cap, his deerstalking jacket, his knickerbockers, his hand-knitted socks, and white spats, and shoes, being all so trim and well cared for, even in this wild winter weather? There was some laughing and joking about the forthcoming supper-party; and more than one of them would have had him go inside with them to have 'a glass,' but he was proof against that temptation; while the yellow-haired Nelly, who was at work within, happening to turn her eyes to the window, and catching sight of him standing there, and being jealous of his popularity with all those shepherd-lads and gillies, suddenly said to her mistress —

'There's Ronald outside, mem, and I think he might go away and shoot something for the gentleman's dinner.'

'Very well,' said Mrs. Murray; 'go and say that I would be very much obliged to him indeed if he would bring me a hare or two the first time he is going up the hill, but at his own convenience, to be sure.'

But that was not the message that Nelly went to deliver. She wanted to show her authority before all these half-critical idlers, and also, as a good-looking lass, her independence and her mastery over men-folk.

'Ronald,' said she, at the door of the inn, 'I think you might just as well be going up the hill and bringing us down a hare or two, instead of standing about here doing nothing.'

'Is that Highland manners, lass?' he said, but with perfect good humour. 'I'm thinking ye might say "if ye please." But I'll get ye a hare or two, sure enough, and ye'll keep the first dance for me on Monday night.'

'Indeed I am not sure that I will be at the dancing at all,' retorted the pretty Nelly; but this was merely to cover her retreat – she did not wish to have any further conversation before that lot of idle half-grinning fellows.

As for Ronald, he bade them good-morning, and went lightly on his way again. He was going up the hill anyway; and he might as well bring down a brace of hares for Mrs. Murray; so, after walking along the road for a mile or so, he struck off across some rough and partly marshy ground, and presently began to climb the lower slopes of Clebrig, getting ever a wider and wider view as he ascended, and always when he turned finding beneath him the wind-stirred waters of the loch, where a tiny dark object, slow-moving near the shores, told him where the salmon fishers were patiently pursuing their sport.

No, there were no more unsettling notions in his brain; here he was master and monarch of all he surveyed; and if he was profoundly unconscious of the ease with which he breasted this steep hillside, at least he rejoiced in the ever-widening prospect – as lochs and hills and stretches of undulating moorland seemed to stretch ever and ever outward until, afar in the north, he could make out the Kyle of Tongue and the faint line of the sea. It was a wild and changeable day; now filled with gloom, again bursting forth into a blaze of yellow sunshine; while ever and anon some flying tag of cloud would come sweeping across the hillside and engulf him, so that all he could then discern was the rough hard heather and bits of rock around his feet. It was just as one of these transient clouds was clearing off that he was suddenly startled by a loud noise – as of iron rattling on stones; and so bewildering was this unusual noise in the intense silence reigning there that instinctively he wheeled round and lowered his gun. And then again, the next second, what he saw was about as bewildering as what he had heard – a great creature, quite close by, and yet only half visible in the clearing mist, with huge outspread wings, dragging something after it across the broken rocks. The truth flashed upon him in an instant; it was an eagle caught in a fox-trap; the strange noise was the trap striking here and there on a stone. At once he put down his gun on an exposed knoll and gave chase, with the greatest difficulty subduing the eager desire of the yelping Harry to rush forward and attack the huge bird by himself. It was a rough and ludicrous pursuit but it ended in capture – though here, again, circumspection was necessary, for the eagle, with all his neck-feathers bristling, struck at him again and again with the talons that were free, only one foot having been caught in the trap. But the poor beast was quite exhausted; an examination of the trap showed Ronald that he must have flown with this weight attached to his leg all the way from Ben Ruach, some half dozen miles away; and now, though there was yet an occasional automatic motion of the beak or the claws, as though he would still strike for liberty, he submitted to be firmly seized while the iron teeth of the trap were being opened. And then Ronald looked at his prize (but still with a careful grip). He was a splendid specimen of the golden eagle – a bird that is only found here and there in Sutherlandshire, though the keepers are no longer allowed to kill them – and, despite himself, looking at the noble creature, he began to ask himself casuistical questions. Would not this make a handsome gift for Meenie? – he could send the bird to Macleay at Inverness, and have it stuffed and returned without anybody knowing. Moreover, the keepers were only charged to abstain from shooting such golden eagles as they might find on their own ground; and he knew from the make of the trap that this one must have come from a different shooting altogether; it was not a Clebrig eagle at all. But he looked at the fierce eye of the beast, and its undaunted mien; he knew that, if it could, it would fight to the death; and he felt a kind of pride in the creature, and admiration for it, and even a sort of sympathy and fellow-feeling.

'My good chap,' said he, 'I'm not going to kill you in cold blood – not me. Go back to your wife and weans, wherever they are. Off!'

And he tried to throw the big beast into the air. But this was not like flinging up a released pigeon. The eagle fell forward, and stumbled twice ere it could get its great wings into play; and then, instead of trying to soar upward, it went flapping away down wind – increasing in speed, until he could see it, now rising somewhat, cross the lower windings of Loch Naver, and make away for the northern skies.

'It's a God's mercy,' he was saying to himself, as he went back to get his gun, 'that I met the creature in the daytime; had it been at night, I would hae thought it was the devil.'

Some two or three hundred feet still farther up the hillside he came to his own eyrie – a great mass of rock, affording shelter from either southerly or easterly winds, and surrounded with some smaller stones; and here he sate contentedly down to look around him – Harry crouched at his feet, his nose between his paws, but his eyes watchful. And this wide stretch of country between Clebrig and the northern sea would have formed a striking prospect in any kind of weather – the strange and savage loneliness of the moorlands; the solitary lakes with never a sign of habitation along their shores; the great ranges of mountains whose silent recesses are known only to the stag and the hind; but on such a morning as this it was all as unstable and unreal as it was wildly beautiful and picturesque; – for the hurrying weather made a kind of phantasmagoria of the solid land; bursts of sunlight that struck on the yellow straths were followed by swift gray cloud-wreaths blotting out the world; and again and again the white snow-peaks of the hills would melt away and become invisible only to reappear again shining and glorious in a sky of brilliant blue; until, indeed, it seemed as if the earth had no substance and fixed foundation at all, but was a mere dream, an aerial vision, changed and moved and controlled by some unseen and capricious hand.

And then again, on the dark and wind-driven lake far below him, that small object was still to be made out – like some minute, black, crawling water insect. He took out his glass from its leather case, adjusted it, and placed it to his eye. What was this? In the world suddenly brought near – and yet dimly near, as though a film interposed – he could see that some one was standing up in the stern of the boat, and another crouching down, by his side. Was that a clip or the handle of the landing-net; in other words, was it a salmon or a kelt that was fighting them there? He swept the dull waters of the loch with his glass; but could make out no splashing or springing anywhere near them. And then he could see by the curve of the rod that the fish was close at hand; there was a minute or two longer of anxiety; then a sudden movement on the part of the crouching person – and behold a silver-white object gleams for a moment in the air and then disappears!

'Good!' he says to himself – with a kind of sigh of satisfaction as if he had himself taken part in the struggle and capture.

How peaceful looks the little hamlet of Inver-Mudal! The wild storm-clouds, and the bursts of sunlight, and the howling winds seem to sail over it unheeded; down in the hollow there surely all is quiet and still. And is Meenie singing at her work, by the window; or perhaps superintending Maggie's lessons; or gone away on one of the lonely walks that she is fond of – up by the banks of the Mudal Water? It is a bleak and a bare stream; there is scarce a bush on its banks; and yet he knows of no other river – however hung with foliage and flowers – that is so sweet and sacred and beautiful. What was it he wrote in the bygone year – one summer day when he had seen her go by – and he, too, was near the water, and could hear the soft murmuring over the pebbles? He called the idle verses

MUDAL IN JUNE

 
Mudal, that comes from the lonely mere,
Silent or whispering, vanishing ever,
Know you of aught that concerns us here? —
You, youngest of all God's creatures, a river.
 
 
Born of a yesterday's summer shower,
And hurrying on with your restless motion,
Silent or whispering, every hour,
To lose yourself in the great lone ocean.
 
 
Your banks remain; but you go by,
Through day and through darkness swiftly sailing:
Say, do you hear the curlew cry,
And the snipe in the night-time hoarsely wailing?
 
 
Do you watch the wandering hinds in the morn;
Do you hear the grouse-cock crow in the heather;
Do you see the lark spring up from the corn,
All in the radiant summer weather?
 
 
O Mudal stream, how little you know
That Meenie has loved you, and loves you ever;
And while to your ocean home you flow,
She says good-bye to her well-loved river! —
 
 
O see you her now – she is coming anigh —
And the flower in her hand her aim discloses:
Laugh, Mudal, your thanks as you're hurrying by —
For she flings you a rose, in the month of roses!
 

Well, that was written as long ago as last midsummer; and was Meenie still as far away from him as then, and as ignorant as ever of his mute worship of her, and of these verses that he had written about her? But he indulged in no day-dreams. Meenie was as near to him as he had any right to expect – giving him of an assured and constant friendship; and as for these passing rhymes – well, he tried to make them as worthy of her as he could, though he knew she should never see them; polishing them, in so far as they might be said to have any polish at all, in honour of her; and, what is more to the point, at once cutting out and destroying any of them that seemed to savour either of affectation or of echo. No: the rude rhymes should at least be honest and of his own invention and method; imitations he could not, even in fancy, lay at Meenie's feet. And sometimes, it is true, a wild imagination would get hold of him – a whimsical thing, that he laughed at: supposing that life – the actual real life here at Inver-Mudal – were suddenly to become a play, a poem, a romantic tale; and that Meenie was to fall in love with him; and he to grow rich all at once; and the Stuarts of Glengask to be quite complaisant: why, then, would it not be a fine thing to bring all this collection of verses to Meenie, and say 'There, now, it is not much; but it shows you that I have been thinking of you all through these years?' Yes, it would be a very fine thing, in a romance. But, as has been said, he was one not given to day-dreams; and he accepted the facts of life with much equanimity; and when he had written some lines about Meenie that he regarded with a little affection – as suggesting, let us say, something of the glamour of her clear Highland eyes, and the rose-sweetness of her nature, and the kindness of her heart – and when it seemed rather a pity that she should never see them – if only as a tribute to her gentleness offered by a perfectly unbiassed spectator – he quickly reminded himself that it was not his business to write verses but to trap foxes and train dogs and shoot hoodie-crows. He was not vain of his rhymes – except where Meenie's name came in. Besides, he was a very busy person at most seasons of the year; and men, women, and children alike showed a considerable fondness for him, so that his life was full of sympathies and interests; and altogether he cannot be regarded, nor did he regard himself, as a broken-hearted or blighted being. His temperament was essentially joyous and healthy; the passing moment was enough; nothing pleased him so much as to have a grouse, or a hare, or a ptarmigan, or a startled hind appear within sure and easy range, and to say 'Well, go on. Take your life with you. Rather a pleasant day this: why shouldn't you enjoy it as well as I?'