"Then the voles or water rats that live in the depths of this truly English forest are not the least curious specimens of animal life to be found therein. If you happen to be reclining anywhere near a pool that by long-established custom belongs to them alone, before many minutes one, if not two of them, will come out to stare and wonder at you; they, like the hares, sit up on one end to conduct their scrutiny; and they gaze and gaze and gaze again, digging their finger joints or knuckles into their eyes, in a half-human kind of a way, to squeeze out the water, and clear their sight for one more wondering look." [My country readers, who love nature, must have noticed the voles at this queer performance.] "What is he at all? Where did he come from? What is he going to do? These are the questions those voles seem trying in vain to solve. "Here in this New Forest is a silence seldom broken save by the song of bird or cry of some wild creature in pain, while all around you is a wealth of floral beauty and verdure that is charming in the extreme. "Yes, Archie, I came ere autumn was over to love that forest well. I was not selfish enough, though, to keep all the pleasures of it quite to myself, and the Major's children often accompanied me in my rambles. I used to read Burns and Ossian to them. They liked that, but they liked the flute far better. It appealed straight to their senses. "But when autumn passed away, when the leaves fell, and the fields were bleak and bare, at night, when the wind moaned around the house which I now called home, then, Archie, I used to dream I heard the surf beating in on the rugged shores of my native land. I would start and listen, and long to be once more in Scotland. "I went, one day, to the forest all alone; I went to think. "`What are you staying here for?' perhaps said one little thought. `Major Walton may leave you money when he dies.' "I smothered that thought at its birth, and crushed many more like it. "Kind good old Major Walton! I must tear myself away; I must be independent; I must push my own way in the world. "`Heaven help me to do so,' I prayed. Then I took out the little old Bible Nancy had given me, Archie, and I found some comfort there. "I was putting it back again in my bosom when a little card dropped out; I picked it up. On it were pressed these, Archie." Kenneth took the Book from his breast as he spoke, and opening it, handed the card to Archie. "I know," said the latter: "the primrose and the bit of heather." "Yes, dear boy, foolish of me, I know; but I have never parted with them, and if I go to Davy Jones's locker--as we sailors say--if I am drowned, Archie, these flowers will sink with me.