Part 26 (1/2)

'I trust,' I said, 'so great a catastrophe will not occur in our day'

'It would be a fearful accident, and a judght'

'I want to ask you a question,' I said, 'on another subject, Moncrieff'

'You're lookin' scared, laddie What's the matter?'

I told him as much as I could

'It's a queer question, laddie--a queer question Heaven give me help to answer you! I think, as the oath was to keep a secret, you had best keep the oath, and trust to Heaven to set things right in the end, if it be for the best'

'Thanks, Moncrieff,' I said; 'thanks I will take your advice'

That very day Moncrieff set a party of then the embankment; and it was probably well he did so, for soon after the as finished another of those fearful storms, accompanied as usual by shocks of earthquake, swept over our valley, and the canal was filled to overflowing, but gave no signs of bursting Moncrieff had assuredly taken time by the forelock

One day a letter arrived, addressed to me, which bore the London post-mark

It was from Archie, and a most spirited epistle it was He wanted us to rejoice with him, and, better still, to expect him out by the very first packet His parents had yielded to his request It had been the voyage to Newcastle that had turned the scale There was nothing like pluck, he said; 'But,' he added, 'between you and e in a Newcastle collier, not to win all the honour and glory of Livingstone, Stanley, Gordon-cu, and Colonel Frederick Burnaby put in a bushel basket'

I went tearing away over the _estancia_ on s And we rejoiced together Then I went off to look for Moncrieff, and he rejoiced, to keep me company

'And mind you,' he said, 'the very day after he arrives we'll have a dinner and a kick-up'

'Of course ill,' I said 'We'll have the dinner and fun at Coila Villa, which, res besides the tower'

'Very well,' he assented, 'and after that we can give another dinner and rout at s Just a sort of return match, you see?'

'But I don't see,' I said; 'I don't see the use of two parties'

'Oh, but I do, Murdoch We must make more of a man than we do of a nowt[12] beast Now you land--Towsy Jock that lives in the Easter field?--well, I gave a dinner when he came

250 I paid for hiave a dinner and fun when the prize ra an excuse for a dinner! However, so be it: one dinner and fun for a bull, two for Archie'

'That's agreed then,' said Moncrieff

Now, my brothers and I and a party of Gauchos, with the warlike Bouanaco country; but as dear old Archie was coreed to postpone it, in order that he ht join in the fun Meanwhile we commenced to make all preparations