The next morning he went down to the stairs at London Bridge, and took a boat to the yacht. He had to cross several vessels to reach it. When at length he looked down from the last of them on the deck of the little cutter, he saw Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped over his shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter’s thumbed Bible his eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, in which moved so many busy seafarers, and then turned to the docks and wharfs and huge warehouses lining the shores; and while they scanned the marvellous vision, the thoughts that arose and passed through his brain were like these: “What are ye duin’ here, Jeames the Just? Ye was naething but a fisher-body upon a sma’ watter i’ the hert o’ the hills, ’at wasna even saut; an’ what can the thochts that gaed throu’ your fish-catchin’ brain hae to du wi’ sic a sicht ’s this? I won’er gien at this moment there be anither man in a’ Lon’on sittin’ readin’ that epis-tle o’ yours but Blue Peter here? _He_ thinks there’s naething o’ mair importance, ’cep’ maybe some ither pairts o’ the same buik; but syne he’s but a puir fisher-body himsel’, an’ what kens he o’ the wisdom an’ riches an’ pooer o’ this michty queen o’ the nations, thron’t aboot him?--Is ’t possible the auld body kent something ’at was jist as necessar’ to ilka man, the busiest in this croodit mairt, to ken an’ gang by, as it was to Jeames an’ the lave o’ the michty apostles themsels? For me, I dinna doobt it--but hoo it sud ever be onything but an auld-warld story to the new warld o’ Lon’on, I think it wad bleck Maister Graham himsel’ til imaigine.” Before this, Blue Peter had become aware that some one was near him, but, intent on the words of his brother fisher of the old time, had half-unconsciously put off looking up to see who was behind him. When now he did so, and saw Malcolm, he rose and touched his bonnet. “It was jist i’ my heid, my lord,” he said, without any preamble, “sic a kin’ o’ a h’avenly Jacobin as this same Jacobus was! He’s sic a leveller as was feow afore ’im, I doobt, wi’ his gowd-ringt man, an’ his cloot-cled brither! He pat me in twa min’s, my lord, whan I got up, whether I wad touch my bonnet to yer lordship or no.” Malcolm laughed with hearty appreciation. “When I am king of Lossie,” he said, “be it known to all whom it may concern, that it is and shall be the right of Blue Peter, and all his descendants, to the end of time, to stand with bonneted heads in the presence of Lord or--no, not Lady, Peter--of the house of Lossie.”