The next day the birds did not wait in vain for Archie. He was stirring as soon as they, having stolen out from his sister’s side at dawn, and crossed the bar of sand while the tide was yet low. When the sun peeped above the mountains of Lorn, as fair as on the preceding day, the little lad shouted and clapped his hands above his head; whereupon myriads of sea-birds rose fluttering round him, and wheeled, and dipped, and hovered with cries that would have dismayed a stranger, but which Archie always gloried in provoking. While they drove round his head like autumn leaves in a storm, the terns and gulls screaming, the auks piping, and the cormorants croaking, the boy answered them with shouts and waved his bonnet over his head. Then he clambered to the highest point he could reach that he might watch the long files of solan geese, as they took their morning flight southwards, and be sure that they were out of sight before he filled his bonnet with their eggs. His sister and Ronald observed him when they had pushed off from the beach, and were winning their way, each with a steady oar, to the deep waters beyond the bay. “Fare ye well, Archie,” shouted Ronald in a voice which made the rocks ring again; but Archie took no notice. “He is too busy to mind. See how he peeps over yon ledge that neither you nor I dare climb. I wager he finds a prize there: he’s dancing with pleasure. He has taken them all, and down he creeps,—aye, take care, my lad: that’s it; now on his knees, and there finding a step with his foot. Ye see he never slips. Now he’s down, I’ll try to win a look.” Ella sang with all the power of her lungs, and this time Archie turned, clapped his hands and stood still to watch the boat. “He will not be home sooner than we,” said Ronald. “He is happy to-day, and he will wait for the afternoon ebb.” “I have put some more bannocks in his hole,” said Ella, “and some fresh water, so he will want for nothing till night.” “And the storm cast up so much weed yesterday,” said Ronald, “that he may float all the day, if he likes.”