"Blithe bird of the wilderness, sweet is thy song, Blithe lark of the wildwood, O, all the day long, A-singing so cheerily in the green tree, Thy anthem dispels gloom and sorrow from me; Thou sayest in thy song, 'What can sadness avail? Injustice shall fall and the good shall prevail.'" Old Hunter Tom seemed wrapped up in the melody and utterly oblivious to all things around him. With a low plaintive interlude, he continued: "Yet bird of the wilderness, sad is our lot, Our home confiscated, our name a sad blot; The Cornish chief stricken at Prestonpan's fight, Wounded at Culloden for King and the right, And captured at Braddock's defeat in the glen Was----" There was an outcry from one of the auditors, that interrupted the melody. "Hunter Tom! Hunter Tom! Where did you get that song? Where?" The old man had paused with the bow in midair, and with a vexed look at being interrupted, and then, seeing the flushed countenance and gleaming eyes of his patient, thought the heat was too much for him, and that his head was affected. "The heat of the sun has affected his head, Hugh. Come let us get him in the shade." "No! No! Where did you get that melody?" excitedly. "I told ye that I was going to sing ye some of my own songs. It's my own song, lad," soothingly, "and now, Hugh----" [Illustration: "Sweet bird of the wilderness, sweet is thy song"] "Oh! God be thanked! My father! My father!" striving to arise to his feet. "The poor lad is raving, Hugh," and yet with some pallor in his bronzed features. "I am not raving! You are my father and I am your son!" The violin crashed to the ground and was splintered on a projecting rock. "No, no, you are raving, lad. I have no son. They are all dead, these many years." "Mr. Ande," said the pilot, striving in vain to calm him. "Mr. Trembath----" "What!" exclaimed the old man in agitated tones. "Is thy name Trembath? Thy father's name, lad?" "Major Thomas Trembath." "Of where?" The old man asked the question with trembling, faltering lips, eager, yet fearful of mistake. "Of Cornwall, and Major under----" "My son--my son!" The cry that went up rent the air and startled even the birds o'erhead. Old Tom was down on his knees, his arms encircling his patient, and with streaming eyes uplifted to the heavens, he murmured fervently, "God, great God, I thank thee! Thou art very good." And then to his new-found son: "But they told me that mother and you were dead. The black sealed letter! Who sent it? It reached me after Proctor and Tecumseh's defeat at the----Ah! I see it all. Another scheme of Lanyan's! A curse upon their race! But no, I must be merciful since God has been merciful to me in restoring to me, in my old age, a son. Thy mother, lad?" "Is well when I left home and there will be many happy days for her when we return! and as for me, I'm not dead, although the Indians did near finish me." "And ye were all these years searching for me?"