"Gloaming o'er the glen is falling;
Little birds have ceased to sing,
Flowerets now their petals faulding
As night descends on dewy wing."
Anon.
Scene: Half-way down the glen, where heather and patches of tilled land
end, and woodland commences. Where the stream goes wimpling and
swirling round the boulders, underneath the rustic bridge.
At the corner, where, after crossing the bridge, the road takes a bend,
and is soon lost in the gloom of overhanging foliage, Kenneth is seated
on a stone.
At his feet lies Kooran, looking very knowing, because he has got his
ears pricked up, and his eyes very wide open, and his head thoughtfully
turned a little on one side.
Kooran knows that his master has come there to meet his friend the
Highland keeper, and that the retriever Shot will be with him, but the
keeper may come down from the brae-land on the right, or up the road
from the wood, or he may suddenly appear on the cliff top, after fording
the stream and climbing the rocks.
No need for Kenneth to listen; he has only to watch Kooran.
No sound can deceive Kooran. He will not move from that position till
the right moment.
Not far from Kooran's extended tail, a field-mouse begins to sing a
little song. She is hidden in under the dry moss, through which she has
driven all sorts of smooth round tunnels, for quite an engineer is the
field-mouse, and the only wonder is she ever finds her way back again to
her nest, through such a labyrinthic network of half-lighted lanes.
"Beet-ee-beet-ee-beet-ee-ee-beet-ee." So goes her song.
Kooran never moves his head; all he does is to turn one ear back towards
his tail for a moment, but _only_ one ear.
"I hear you," he seems to say. "Sing away, my pretty one you know I'm
busy, but wait a wee till Shot comes. Shot and I will soon have you out
of there. My eyes! won't we make the turf fly!"
A great bird flies right over a tree, but turns sharply in the air and
flies back affrightedly. It was a moor-cock, but he didn't know any one
was there. He has to take another road home.
A twig snaps; Kenneth looks in that direction. The dog never moves. He
knows it is only the polecat trying to reach out to a branch where a
thrush has gone to sleep.
The stream makes music in drowsy monotone, but hark! there is a plash.
It is an otter. Kooran knows it, and does not move. Then presently
there are close beside them apparently, two sharp dull thuds. It is
only mother rabbit beating her heels on the ground to drive her
over-bold little ones back into their holes, and to warn every rabbit
within hearing that danger is near, and that there are a live dog and a
live boy not far off, who can't be after any good.
Sometimes the distant bleating of sheep or the pleasant lowing of kine
falls on Kenneth's ear, and anon, far up among the mountains, there is a
strange shout, half whoop, half whistle, prolonged and mournful. At
first it is repeated about every two seconds; then Quicker and quicker
it comes, and wilder and wilder, till it ends in one long quavering
scream.
"Whoo-oop, whoo-oop, whoo-oop, whoop, whoop-oop-oop-oop-oo-oo-oo!"
It is the shriek of the curlew as he sails round and round in the air.
"Why, Kooran," says the boy at last, "what can be keeping them?"
Kooran beats his tail twice on the ground, but does not move his body.
"I hope they won't be long, dear doggie."
Kooran beats his tail once against the ground.