“--The boy went down to the river mouth and got into the small boat. She was half full of water and he baled her as well as he could with his bonnet, then pushed her off! She went up and down like a cork, and he was terrified. He thought when he went in first she would be heavy to row, but he found the lightness of her was the fearful thing. The wind slapped like a big open hand, and the water would scoop out on either side--” “Take it easy, man, take it easy; slow march,” said the Cornal. For Gilian had run into his narrative in one of his transports and the words could not come fast enough to his lips to keep up with his imagination. His face was quivering with the emotions appropriate to the chronicle. “--Then I put out the oar astern----” “--Humph! _You_ did; that’s a little more sensible way of putting it.” “I put the oar astern,” said Gilian, never hearing the comment, but carried away by his illusion; “and the wind carried us up the way of Ealan Dubh. Sometimes the big waves would try to pull the oar from my hands, wanting fair play between their brothers and the ship. [‘Havers!’ muttered the Cornal.) And the spindrift struck me in the eyes like hands full of sand. I thought I would never get to the vessel. I thought she would be upset every moment, and I could not keep from thinking of myself hanging on to the keel and my fingers slipping in weariness.” “A little less thinking and more speed with your boat would be welcome,” said the Cornal impatiently. “I’m sick sorry for them, waiting there on a wreck with so slow a rescue coming to them.” Gilian hesitated, with his illusion shattered, and, all unnerved, broke for the second time into tears. “Look at that!” cried Miss Mary pitifully, herself weeping; “you are frightening the poor laddie out of his wits,” and she soothed Gilian with numerous Gaelic endearments. “Tuts! never mind me,” said the Cornal, rising and coming forward to clap the boy on the head for the very first time. “I think we can guess the rest of the story. Can we not guess the rest of the story, Dugald?” The General sat bewildered, the only one out of the secret, into which Miss Mary’s whisper to the Cornal has not brought him. “I am not good at guessing,” said he; “a man at my time likes everything straight forward.” And there was a little irritation in his tone. “It’s only this, Dugald,” said his brother, “that here’s a pluckier young fellow than we thought, and good prospects yet for a soger in the family. I never gave Jock credit for discretion, but, faith, he seems to have gone with a keen eye to the market for once in his life! If it was not for Gilian here, Turner was wanting a daughter this day; we could hardly have hit on a finer revenge.” “Revenge!” said the General, a flash jumping to his eyes, then dying away. “I would not have said that, Colin; I would not have said that. It is the phrase of a rough, quarrelsome young soldier, and we are elders who should be long by with it.”