Great was the anxiety at Beaufort Hall, as Harry's home was called, when
the shadows fell and the stars peeped out from the sky's blue vault.
Poor fragile Mrs Milvaine was almost distracted, but her husband took
matters more easily, more philosophically let us call it.
"Don't fidget, my darling," he said, "they'll turn up all right in a
short time. Just you see now, and it won't do the triflingest morsel of
good to worry yourself. No, nor it won't bring them a minute sooner."
"They may have fallen into the river," said Mrs Milvaine.
"Well, I don't deny that people have fallen into rivers before now, but
the probability is, they haven't," replied the farmer-laird. [A farmer
who owns the acres he tills.]
"They may have lost themselves in the forest, and may wander in it till
they die."
"Nonsense, my love."
"Harry may have climbed a tree, fallen down and been killed, and Miss
Campbell may even now--"
"Stop, stop, dear! what an imagination you have, to be sure?"
"They may both be gored to death by that fearful bull, their mangled
bodies may--"
Mr Milvaine put his fingers in his ears.
But when eleven o'clock rang out from the stable tower, and still the
lost ones did not appear, then even the laird himself got fidgety. He
threw down his newspaper.
But he did not permit his wife to notice his uneasiness. He quietly lit
his pipe.
"I'll go and look for them," he said, and left the room. He returned
presently wrapped in a Highland plaid, with a shepherd's crook in his
hand, much taller than himself, and that is saying a good deal, for this
Scottish laird stood six feet two in his boots, and was well made in
proportion.
He bent down and kissed his wife.
"Don't fret, I'll soon find them," he said. "They have gone botanising,
I suppose, and have lost themselves, and are doubtless in Widow
McGregor's cottage, or in the cleerach's hut."
Out he went. Rob Roy McGregor himself never had a more manly stride.
He went to the stable gallery first, or rather to the foot of the stair.
"John!" he cried,--"John! John!"
"Yes, yes, sir," was the reply, and a stream of light shot out into the
darkness as John threw open the door.
"Miss Campbell and Master Harry are lost somewhere in the forest. Bring
a bull's-eye lantern, and let us look for them. Bring the
rhinoceros-hide whip, too; we may come across some poachers."
In five minutes more master and man had started.
John was nearly as tall as his master. This was partly the reason why
the laird had engaged him. Coachmen do not often have great brown
beards and moustaches, but John had; coachmen do not often wear the
Highland dress, but John did, and a fine-looking fellow he was when so
arrayed. But every horse and every cart about this farmer-laird's place
was big. The dog-cart had been specially built for him, and there was
not another such in the country.
Away they went then.
It was half-past eleven when they started, and twelve by watch when they
found themselves in the forest.
"It is always hereabout they do be," said John. "Just hereabouts, sir."
Then they shouted, singly.
Then they shouted again--together this time; shouted and listened, but
there was no answering call.
There was a rushing sound among the tall spruces, and a
flap-flap-flapping of wings, as startled wild pigeons fled from their
nests away out into the dreary depths of the forest.
There was the too-whit, to-who-oo-oo of an owl in the distance, but no
other sound responded to their shouting.
"We'll go straight on to the widow's," said the laird.
"Right, laird."
So on they went again, often pausing to wave the bull's-eye, to shout,
and to listen.
All in vain.
When they reached Widow McGregor's cottage all was darkness and silence
within.
They knocked nevertheless, knocked again and again, and at last had the
satisfaction of hearing a match lighted, then a light shone through the
door seams, and a voice--a somewhat timorous and quavering one--
demanded:
"Wha's there at this untimeous hoor o' nicht?"
"It's me, Mrs McGregor; me, Laird Milvaine. Don't be alarmed."
The bolt flew back, and master and man entered.
Of course the lost ones were not there, and the widow shook and trembled
with fear when she heard the story.
She had only to say that the cleerach, who was a kind of forest ranger
or keeper, had seen both the lost ones that afternoon gathering wild
flowers.
"We'll go to his house at once."
It was only two miles farther on.
They bade the widow good-night, and started. She told them, last thing,
that she would go to her bed and pray for them.
But they had not gone quite one mile and a half, when a brawny figure
sprang from behind a tree, and a stentorian voice shouted:
"You thieving scoundrels, I have you now! Stop, and hold up your arms,
or by the powers above us I'll blow the legs of you off!"
The flash of John's lantern revealed a stalwart keeper with
double-barrelled gun presented full towards them.
"It's me and my man John," said the farmer, quietly. [The author is not
to blame for the honest laird's bad grammar.]
"Heaven have a care of me, sir," cried the cleerach. "If I'd fired I'd
ne'er have been forgiving mysel'. Sure it was after the poachers I was.
But bless me, laird, what brings you into the forest at such an hour?"
The story was soon told, and together they marched to the cleerach's
cottage. A one-roomed wooden hut it was, built in a clearing, and
almost like that of a backwoodsman. The only portion not wood was the
hearth and the chimney.
All the information the cleerach could give them was hardly worth
having, only he had seen Miss Campbell and young Harry, and they were
then taking the path through the forest that led away to the river and
past the field where the bull was.
"Then goodness help us," exclaimed the farmer. "I fear something has
happened to them."
Nothing could be done till daylight. So the three sat by the fire, on
which the cleerach heaped more logs; for, summer though it was, the
night was chill, and a dew was falling. It was quite a keeper's
cottage, no pictures on the walls except a Christmas gift-plate or two
from the London Illustrated Weeklies, and some Christmas cards. But
stuffed heads and animals stood here and there in the corners, and skins
of wild creatures were nailed up everywhere. Skins of whitterit or
weasel, of foumart or pole-cat, of the wild cat itself, of great
unsightly rats, of moles and of voles, and hawks and owls galore.
Scotchmen do not easily let down their hearts, so these men--and men
they were in every sense of the word--sat there by the fire telling each
other wild, weird forest tales and stories of folk-lore until at length
the daylight streamed in at the window--cold and comfortless-looking--
and almost put out the fire. "Will you have breakfast, laird, before
you start?" The laird said, "Yes."
The fire was replenished, and soon the keeper's great kettle was
boiling. Then in less than five minutes three huge dishes of oatmeal
brose was made, and--that was the breakfast, with milk and butter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Towsie Jock never moved from under the tree all the night long. Poor
Miss Campbell was weary, tired, and cramped, but she dared not sleep.
Once or twice she caught herself half-dreaming, and started up again in
fright, and thanked Heaven she had not gone quite to sleep.
How long, long the stars seemed to shine, she thought! Would they never
fade? Would morning never, never come?
But see, through the green leafy veil a glimmer of dawn at last, and she
lifts up her thoughts in prayer to Him who has preserved them.
How soundly Harry sleeps in her arms! How beautiful the boy looks, too,
in his sleep! The young image of his stalwart father.
The light in the east spreads up and up, and the stars pale before it,
and disappear. Then the few clouds there are, begin to light up, and
finally to glow in dazzling crimson and yellow.
She is wondering when assistance will come. But the sun shoots up, and
help appears as far away as ever.
"Towsie, Towsie," mutters the boy in his sleep, and smiles.
A whole hour passes, and hope itself begins to die in the poor girl's
breast, when oh! joy, from far away in the forest comes a shout.
"Coo-ee-ee!"
Then a shrill whistle. Then silence. She knows that assistance is not
far off, if she can only make them hear. She knows that the silence
which succeeds the shouting means that they are listening for a
response.
She tries to answer, but no sound much louder than a whisper can she
emit. The cold dews have rendered her almost voiceless.
Now she shakes and tries to arouse Harry.
"Harry, Harry, awake, dear!"
"Whe--where am I?" cries the boy, rubbing his eyes.
"In the forest, Harry; in a tree."
"Oh, I remember now," says Harry, smiling, and looking down; "and
there's Towsie. What a jolly sleep I've had, Guvie! Have you?"
Again came the shout, this time somewhat nearer.
"Answer, dear; answer, I'm _so_ hoarse. Cry as loud as you can."
Harry did as told. It would hardly be heard fifty yards away, however.
But it had one effect. It roused Towsie Jock. All his wrath seemed at
once to return, and he prepared once more to attack the tree.
"Towsie Jock, Towsie, Towsie!" sang the boy.
For the life of him he could not help it.
"Wow-ow-ow-wo-ah!" roared the bull.
That was a sound that could be heard for one good mile at least.
The three men advancing to the rescue heard it.
For the first time since he had left home the farmer-laird felt real
dread and fear. In his imagination he could see the mangled bodies of
his son and the governess, with the bull standing guard over them.
"Come on, men. Great heavens! I fear the worst now."
Milvaine had his strong, tall crook, John his terribly--punishing hide
whip, the cleerach had a double-barrelled gun.
The bull--infuriated now beyond measure--came roaring to meet them.
The cleerach fired at his legs. The shot but made him stumble for a
moment; it had no other effect. On he came wilder than ever. He seemed
to single the farmer himself out, and charged him head down. Mr
Milvaine met the charge manfully enough. He leapt nimbly to one side,
striking straight home with the iron-shod end of the crook. It wounded
the bull in the neck, but ill would it have fared with the farmer had he
not got speedily behind a tree.
Whack, whack, whack. John is behind the bull with his whip of hide.
The bull wheels round upon him ere ever he can escape, and runs him
between his horns against a tree.
John has seized the horns, and thus they stand man and brute locked in a
death grip.
The farmer has stumbled and fallen in running to John's assistance. The
cleerach is loading again, when help comes from a most unexpected
quarter, and Eily herself rushes on the scene.
She at once seizes the bull by the hock. The roar he emits is one of
agony and rage, but John is free.
Eily easily eludes the bull's charge. He follows a little way towards
the gate, then turns, when she fixes him again. And this game continues
until the bull is fairly into the field.
Whenever the bull turns Eily seizes his hock; whenever he gives her
chase she runs farther into the field, barking defiantly.
"I think, men, we may safely leave the brute to Eily," said Laird
Milvaine; "but where _can_ the dear children be!"
"Safe, safe, safe!" cried a voice from the tree.
Miss Campbell could speak now.
"Thank God!" was the fervent ejaculation breathed by every lip.
An hour afterwards Harry was in his mother's arms, laughing and crowing
with delight as he related to his mamma all the fun of what he called
the jolly match with Towsie.
His mother's eyes were red with weeping, but she was laughing now
nevertheless.
Book 1--CHAPTER FOUR.
HARRY MILVAINE, LANDED PROPRIETOR--HIS BUNGALOW, AND HOW HE BUILT
IT--"I'LL BE A SAILOR, TO BE SURE."
Were I to tell one-half of the adventures of the child Harold, as his
father called him, I would fill this whole book with them, and would not
have space to say a word about his career as a youth and young man. So
I shall not begin.
No more vivacious reader of books of biography, travel, and adventure,
perhaps ever existed than Harry Milvaine was when about the age of ten.
I have often wondered when he slept.
At midsummer in the far north of Scotland there is light enough all
night to read by. Harry took advantage of this, and would continue at a
book from sunset till sunrise.
The boy had a deal of independence of character and real good feeling.
"I must have light to read by all night in winter," he said to himself,
"but it would be unfair to burn my father's candles. I'll make some."
There was an odd old volume in Mr Milvaine's library, called "The Arts
and Sciences," which was a very great favourite with Harry because it
told him everything.
It taught him how to make moulded candles. He possessed a tin
pen-and-pencil case. This made a first-rate mould. He collected fat,
he got a wick and fixed it to the bottom of the case and held it in the
position described by the book, then he poured in the melted fat, and
lo! and behold, when it cooled, a candle was the result. He worked, in
his own little tool-house, away down among the shrubbery at the bottom
of the lawn, and made many candles. John, the coachman, admired them
very much, and so did the female servants.
"Dear me?" said one old milk-maid, "it's your father, Master Harry, that
should be proud of his bonnie, bonnie boy."
This old milk-maid had a beard and moustache that many a city clerk
would have envied, and she was reputed to be a witch accordingly, but
she dearly loved little Harry, and Harry loved her, and made a regular
confidante of her.
She did not give him bad advice either. One example in proof of this.
Harry came to her one day in great grief. He was not crying, but his
mouth was pursed up very much, and he was very red in the face.
"Oh, Yonitch, Yonitch!" he exclaimed, in bitterness, "what _shall_ I do?
I've shot papa's favourite cock."
"Shot him dead? Have you, dear?" said Yonitch.
"Oh, dead enough, Yonitch. I fired at him, and my arrow has gone clean
through his breast. I don't think I really meant it, though."
Yonitch ran down with him to the paddock to view the body, and there
certainly never was a much "deader" cock. The arrow was still sticking
in his breast.
"What shall I do? Shall I bury the cock and run away?"
"That would not be brave, dear. No Highlander runs away. Go straight
to your father and tell him."
Harry did so.
"What's the matter, lad?" said his father. "Hold up your head. What is
it?"
"Papa," replied the boy, not daring to look up, but speaking to a plough
that stood near. "Papa, I took my bow and arrows--"
"Yes, boy."
"And I went down the paddock."
"Well?"
"And I fired at the cock."
"Yes."
"And I'm afraid he--wants to be--buried."
"Well, well, well, never mind, boy; I forgive you because you've come
like a man and like a Highlander and told me. We'll put the poor cock
in the pot and have him for dinner."
"Oh, no, no, dear papa," cried Harry, looking up now for the first time,
"I could not bear to see him cooked."
"Well, go and bury him yourself, then."
Harry ran off happy, and Yonitch and he dug a grave and buried the poor
cock's corpse, and it took Harry a whole week's work in the tool-house
to fashion him a "wooden tombstone," and write an epitaph. The epitaph
ran as follows:--
here lies
papa's poor cotching chiney cock
croolly slane by harry
with his bow and arrie.
he sleeps in peas.
That tool-house and workshop of Harry's was quite a wonderful place.
And wonderful, indeed, were the things Harry turned out of it. I'm not
joking. He really did make good useful articles--boxes, picture frames,
a footstool for his mother, a milking-stool for Yonitch, and an
extraordinary rustic-looking, but comfortable, arm-chair for his father.
It had a high back and a carpet bottom, and seated in it, on the
verandah on a summer's evening, with his pipe and his paper, papa did
look the very quintessence of comfort and jollity.
But Harry might often have been seen at the village carpenter's shop,
taking lessons in the useful art of joinery.
In return for the high-backed chair, his father presented him, when
Christmas came round, with a turning lathe. Then I think that Harry's
cup of bliss was full to overflowing.
But his workshop soon proved too small to hold all his belongings. He
secured a piece of ground from his father in a quiet and sheltered
corner of the paddock, and within this he determined to do great things,
as soon as spring brought out the daisies, and the ground was dry.
Now let me tell the reader, before I go a line farther on with my story,
that though I am bound, in justice to my young hero, to say that he
never neglected his lessons, nor his prayers, dear lad, still I do not
wish to make him out a greater saint than perhaps most boys of his age
are.
He is painted from the life, mind you, and I have not hid his failings
from you. Nor need I hesitate to say that a fight between Harry and
some village lad was of no very rare occurrence, and it was no uncommon
thing to meet him coming homewards after one of these tulzies, with his
jacket all covered with mud and his face all covered with blood.
So there! I hide nothing, good or bad.
Harry was going to do great things then with his bit of ground. He felt
himself to be a small landed proprietor, a laird in miniature. He
thought and planned in his spare moments all the livelong winter. He
even put his plans on paper. This he did in the stillness of night, by
the light of his own moulded candles.
Harry was immensely rich--at least he thought himself so. He had a
money-box in the shape of a dog-kennel that stood on the mantelpiece of
his own room, and goodness only knows how much money it did _not_
contain. For years back, whenever he had received sixpence or a
shilling from a relation or friend, pop! it had gone into the kennel.
Half-crowns were too big to go in, but he changed them for smaller
coins, and in they went. There was one whole sovereign in and one half
one.
But Harry had not depended altogether for his riches on the charity of
friends and relations. No, for he was a wealthy dealer in live stock.
Not cattle and horses, nor sheep and pigs. Harry's was a London market,
and a world-wide market. His medium for sale was a paper called _The
Exchange and Mart_, and his stock consisted of canaries, siskins, and
British birds of all kinds. The latter he found in the woods and wilds,
and reared by hand. He also sold guinea-pigs, white rats, piebald mice,
hedgehogs, and snakes.
So no wonder he had amassed wealth.
And now spring came. The robin left the gateway where he had been
singing so sweetly all the winter, and went away to the woods to build
himself a nest. The primroses came out in the copses, and as soon as
the blackbird and thrush saw them they started singing at once.
The trees all burst into bud and then into leaf. The young corn grew
green in the fields, seeing which the lark tried how high he could mount
and how loud he could sing.
And the wind blew soft and warm from the west, and the sun shone forth
bright and clear, and dried up the roads and the fields, and chased
every bit of snow away from the glens and straths, only permitting it to
remain here and there in the hollows on the mountain tops.
Then Harry prepared for action.
It may be thought strange that Harry had no companions of his own age.
But I am writing the history of a strange and wayward boy, a boy who
never wanted or sought for companionship, a kind of miniature edition of
Robinson Crusoe he was, only he liked Yonitch to come and look at his
work sometimes. There was also the joiner's man, who used to come up
now and then and give Harry hints about "this, that, or t'other." So
the boy did not feel lonely.
Andrew was this joiner's man's name. He was a kind of
Jack-of-all-trades.
And never went about without his snuff-box.
He was very fond of Harry. In two evenings he dug and levelled and
raked all Harry's estate for him, and Harry was duly thankful, because
digging is very hard work.
Harry bought snuff for Andrew, and Andrew was happy.
Wire fencing now occupied our hero's attention. He went all by himself
(accompanied by Eily, of course) to a neighbouring town to buy the
galvanised iron mesh, and found that the money he had taken from his
kennel for this purpose was more than sufficient.
Next he planned his garden, and laid out and gravelled his walks,
bordering them nicely with old bricks. He gravelled quite a large space
at one end, because here he was to build his house.
The floor of this was laid first and plastered over with a mixture of
Portland cement and sand, and when dry it was as hard and firm as
marble.
Then the uprights were put in, one for each corner, and the roof put on.
At this work he received valuable assistance from Andrew, and paid him
in snuff.
The roof Andrew thatched, and when the house was built, it was a very
rustic and very romantic one indeed; partly bungalow, partly
summer-house.
Lovely flowering climbers were planted, quick growing ones, wild
convolvulus and clematis, with a few roses, and before the summer was
half done all the walls were covered with a wealth of floral beauty.
Inside everything was neatness and regulation. One end was the working
end, tool-bench, and lathe. All the rest of the house or room was like
a boudoir, a sofa, chairs, a bookcase, brackets, candlesticks, a mirror
or two, flower vases--all perfect and beautiful.
And all devised by Harry's own hands.
Am I not right in saying he was a kind of second edition of Robinson
Crusoe?
The garden, too, was well planted, and all along the wire fence,
entirely covering it, were wild convolvuluses.
Miss Campbell was permitted to visit the hermit Harry in his charming
abode. But _not_ to mention _lessons_. Harry's was quite a
pleasure-house, and lessons would have been out of keeping altogether in
it. But she had to read stories to him.
Yonitch was another invited guest. _She_ did not read stories. But she
told the most wonderful fairy tales, and even ghost stories, that ever
any one listened to.
One day, when Harry was away fishing, his father happened to look into
his quarters and took the liberty of having a peep through his books.
They were nearly all books of adventure and travel, and mostly sea
stories, with just a sprinkling of poetry.
Harry's father went away--thinking.
How was this to end? He wished his son, his only son, to remain at home
with him, to grow up with him, and help to farm his little estate. But
those books? What could the boy's bent be?
That evening, after supper, he asked Harry straight what he would like
to be.
Harry had an old-fashioned way of speaking, as boys have who are brought
up by themselves, and only hear their elders talk.