Part 18 (2/2)
These are the questions those voles seem trying in vain to solve.
”Here in this New Forest is a silence seldom broken save by the song of bird or cry of some wild creature in pain, while all around you is a wealth of floral beauty and verdure that is charming in the extreme.
”Yes, Archie, I came ere autumn was over to love that forest well. I was not selfish enough, though, to keep all the pleasures of it quite to myself, and the Major's children often accompanied me in my rambles. I used to read Burns and Ossian to them. They liked that, but they liked the flute far better. It appealed straight to their senses.
”But when autumn pa.s.sed away, when the leaves fell, and the fields were bleak and bare, at night, when the wind moaned around the house which I now called home, then, Archie, I used to dream I heard the surf beating in on the rugged sh.o.r.es of my native land. I would start and listen, and long to be once more in Scotland.
”I went, one day, to the forest all alone; I went to think.
”'What are you staying here for?' perhaps said one little thought.
'Major Walton may leave you money when he dies.'
”I smothered that thought at its birth, and crushed many more like it.
”Kind good old Major Walton! I must tear myself away; I must be independent; I must push my own way in the world.
”'Heaven help me to do so,' I prayed. Then I took out the little old Bible Nancy had given me, Archie, and I found some comfort there.
”I was putting it back again in my bosom when a little card dropped out; I picked it up. On it were pressed these, Archie.”
Kenneth took the Book from his breast as he spoke, and opening it, handed the card to Archie.
”I know,” said the latter: ”the primrose and the bit of heather.”
”Yes, dear boy, foolish of me, I know; but I have never parted with them, and if I go to Davy Jones's locker--as we sailors say--if I am drowned, Archie, these flowers will sink with me.
”But on that winter's day in the forest, Archie, these flowers seemed to speak to me, or rather the golden-haired child spoke to me through these flowers. I was back again on the hills above Glen Alva walking by her side; the sky above us was blue and clear, the clouds on the horizon looking like snow-white feathers, and the bees making drowsy music among the pinky heath.
”I started up, and the vision fled, and around me were only the bare bleak forest trees and the fading heather. The vision fled, but it left in my breast the desire stronger now than ever to make my own way in the world, by the blessing of Providence; and Providence has never deserted me yet, Archie, lad.
”I went straight home. I saw Major Walton, and talked to him, and told him all.
”He seemed sorry. The last words he said to me when I went away--and there was moisture in the old man's eyes as he spoke--were these:--
”'Mind, I'm not tired of you, and I hope to live to meet you once again.'
”I went to Southampton next day. I thought I had nothing to do but march on board some outward-bound s.h.i.+p, that they would be glad to have me.
”Alas! I was disappointed.”
[The author hopes some boy who meditates running away to sea may read these lines.]
”I was rudely jostled and laughed at, I was called a Scot, a Sawnie, a Johnny-raw, but work was never once offered me.
”I wandered about the streets, not knowing what to do. The few coins I had in my possession did not last many days.
”I felt sad and unhappy. I felt almost sorry I had left the good people who had done so much for me. The 'bairnies' had been in tears when I went away; even the black-and-tan terrier had followed me a long way down the road, and looked very 'wae and wistfu” at me with his brown beseeching eyes when I said he must go back.
”For two whole days I had hardly anything to eat. My flute, that I was fain to fall back upon, failed to support me, for the English, Archie, have not so much music and romance in their souls as the Scotch have.
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