Youth, that is so long (and all too momentary), and leaves for ever such a memory, soon, forgets. So it was that in a little while Gilian and Nan were on the friendliest of terms, listening to Black Duncan’s stories. As they listened, the girl sat facing the den stair, so that her eyes were lit to their depths, her lips were flaming red. The seaman and the boy sat in shadow. The seaman, stretched upon a bunk with his feet to the Carron stove, the boy upon a firkin, could see her every wave of fancy displayed upon her countenance. She was eager, she was piteous, she was laughing, in the right key of response always when the stories that were told were the straightforward things of a sailor’s experience--storms, adventures, mishaps, passion, or calm. She had grown as Gilian had grown, in mind as in body; and thinking so, he was pleased exceedingly. But the tales that the boy liked were the tales that were not true, and these, to Gilian’s sorrow, she plainly did not care for; he could see it in the calmness of her features. When she yawned at a tale of Irish mermaidens he was dashed exceedingly, for before him again was the sceptic who had laughed at his heron’s nest and had wantonly broken the crystal of the Lady’s Linn. But by-and-by she sang, and oh! all was forgiven her. This time she sang some songs of her father’s, odd airs from English camp-fires, braggart of word, or with the melodious longings of men abroad from the familiar country, the early friend. “I wish I was a soldier,” he found himself repeating in his thought. “I wish I was a soldier, that such songs might be sung for me.” A fury at the futility of his existence seized him. He would give anything to be away from this life of ease and dream, away where things were ever happening, where big deeds were possible, where the admiration and desire were justified. He felt ashamed of his dreams, his pictures, his illusions. Up he got from his seat upon the firkin, and his head was in the shadows of the smoky timbers. “Sit down, lad, sit down,” said the seaman, lazy upon his arm upon the shelf. “There need be no hurry now; I hear the rain.” A moan was in the shrouds, the alarm of a freshening wind. Some drops trespassed on the cabin floor, then the rain pattered heavily on the deck. The odours of the ship passed, and in their place came the smell of the cut timber on the shore, the oak’s sharpness, the rough sweetness of the firs, all the essence, the remembrance of the years circled upon the ruddy trunks, their gatherings of storm and sunshine, of dew, showers, earth-sap, and the dripping influence of the constant stars. “I cannot stay here, I cannot stay here! I must go,” cried the lad, and he made to run on deck. But Duncan put a hand out as the lowest step was reached, and set him back in his place. “Sit you there!” said he. “I have a fine story you never heard yet And a fighting story too.” “What is it? What is it?” cried Nan. “Oh! tell us that one. Is it a true one?”