Part 12 (1/2)

Ah! if we only knew how much our faithful dogs love us, and how much they know in times of trouble and anguish, we would be kinder to them even than we are, even now, while sorrow smees far away from us.

Presently it appeared to strike even Kooran that giving vent to his grief would result in nothing very practical, so he suddenly ceased to whine. He bent down and licked his master's cold inanimate face.

He howled once again after this, as if his very heart were breaking.

Then he looked all round him.

No help, I suppose, he thought, could come from these cold woods, and no danger.

So he emitted one little impatient bark, as if his mind were quite made up as to what he should do, turned tail, and trotted off.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

KENNETH AND JESSIE.

”Will cannot hinder nor keenness foresee What Destiny holds in the darkness for me.”

Tupper.

Scene: Dugald's garden on the cliff top. You have to climb up to it from the road that goes winding through a wooded ravine, up a few steep gravel steps. It is spring-time, and the soft west wind goes sighing through the trees.

It is gloomy enough in the ravine below, but here the sun is brightly s.h.i.+ning, and primroses are blooming on the borders, and the blue myosotis that rivals the noonday sky in the brightness of its colour.

On a wooden dais, near the keeper's door, Kenneth is lying rolled in his plaid and propped up with pillows. On the arm of the dais old Nancy's cat is seated, blinking in the suns.h.i.+ne and singing. On the pathway is Kooran, and book in hand--'tis Burns's poems--Archie is seated on a stone.

Kenneth's mother comes out and stands beside her boy, smiling and talking for a little, then goes in again. Dugald himself comes up the path, gun on shoulder, singing low, but he finishes the line in a louder voice when he sees Kenneth.

”Ah, lad! out once more,” he cries joyfully. ”Och, man! it's myself that is glad to see you.”

The moisture had gathered in the honest fellow's eye. Kenneth smiled faintly.

”You'll soon see me on foot again, the doctor says.”

”But, man, if I live to be as auld as Methuselah, I'll never forget that dreary nicht your Kooran came howling to the door. He would hardly give me time to put my plaid on, and then he led me away and away to Brownie's Howe, and I found your body--there seemed no life in it--and carried you hame here on my shoulder.

”Ay, and Kooran has never left ye one hour since then, nor Nancy's cat either. She came here the very day after Nancy's funeral. Poor auld Nancy! How quietly she wore away. And how sensible she was to the last. And she told me a story about the laird, our dear laird McGregor, that you maunna hear noo, Kenneth. Good-bye. I'm off to the hills.

Mind to keep the wind from him, Archie.”

”How I should like to go too, Archie,” said Kenneth.

”Oh!” said the boy, ”that will soon be now. And oh! how bonnie the woods are, and the birds have all begun to build.”

”Are the woods very bonnie, Archie?”

”Oh! delightful,” cried the boy. ”The moss is so soft and green under the trees. The wild flowers are creeping out and blowing on the banks.

The pine trees are all stuck over with long white-green fingers.”

”I know,” said Kenneth.