Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and SeaStables, Gordon
General
Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea
Stables, Gordon
Fiction
"Adieu, adieu; my native land
Fades o'er the waters blue;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native land, good-night."
Byron.
Scene: Kenneth and Archie still seated in the verandah of the Spaniard's
cottage. The light from the casement window is streaming outwards
through the creepers and climbing plants all around them; the beautiful
bell-like flowers, down-drooping, touch their very faces. But all the
colour up there in the verandah's roof does not belong to these flowers.
No, for birds are sheltering their bright wings from the night dews;
that rich orange spot in the corner is a bird, so is that patch of
crimson and steel, and yonder one of snow-white and blue. If you looked
steadily for a moment at them, you could see round heads turned
downwards and wondering beads of eyes. The birds are considering
whether or not all is safe, or whether they had better fly away out into
the night and the darkness.
Kenneth is waiting for the Senor to come. There is hardly a sound
except a gentle sighing of wind among the trees, now and then the shriek
of a night bird, the constant chirp of cicada, or rap, rap, rap, of
green lizard as he beats to death some unhappy moth he has captured.
"Now, Senor, come and sit you down. Light your great pipe. That is
right. Thanks, yes, both Archie and I will have a little palm-leaf
cigarette. Coffee? Oh! delightful! Archie: old man, there isn't any
one in all the wide world ever made coffee half so well as the Senor
Gasco. Flattery, Senor? No, not a bit of it. The truth cannot be
flattery."
"The coffee," said Archie, "is delicious."
"Heigho!" sighed Kenneth. "I am so happy to-night, dear Archie. I
believe it will really do me good to tell you of some of the troubles I
have come through; it will dilute my joy.
"I don't know, Archie, old man, how ever I became a sailor. I'm not
quite sure, mind you, that I am altogether a sailor yet at heart, though
I dearly love the sea, and a roving life is _the_ life for a man of my
temperament. Senor is smiling; he will never admit I am a man. But I
have come through _so_ much, and the years I have spent since I left the
dear old glen have been indeed eventful, and seem a long, long time.
"But, Archie, lad, when I began my wanderings through the world, I can
tell you my ambition was very great indeed. I determined, you know, to
make my fortune, and I determined to make it in a very short time. The
details of the process of fortune-manufacture, however, didn't present
themselves to me, all at once anyhow. I turned my back on Glen Alva,
and so full was my heart that I put at least ten miles behind me before
I sat down to rest. I got inside a wood at last, and seated myself
beneath a tree, and counted my money, three shillings and
fivepence-halfpenny! Well, many a man has begun the world on less.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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