However, he would not remain much longer a dweller in the stone cottage. For three months, and little more, he had been free from the promise given to his dying father, and there was nothing to keep him. He had remained thus far because his mother had appeared to expect it, and because he would not leave her entirely alone. The sun had set when he left the castle, and by the time he had reached the edge of the woods flanking the cove, and within which stood the cottage, it had grown quite duskish. So nearly dark was it, that when he had entered the wood it seemed really like night. The fancy struck him as he took the first step into the woodland path, that he saw a moving figure, not unlike that of a man, a short distance away on his right hand. His thought for the moment was to stop and speak, but he heard nothing; and as the thing, whatever it was, had disappeared, he kept on. He had not gone a great way--perhaps half the distance through the wood--when his attention was called to the pattering of feet behind him. He bent his ear and listened, and presently he stopped and turned. “Ah, Guy! Is it you?” “Yes, sir. I’ve been waitin’ for ye a long time.” It was a boy--a bright-faced, bright-eyed, handsome youngster of fourteen, named Guy Carrol. He was son of a sister of old Donald Rodney, and for four years almost, he had been the old smuggler’s _protégé_. His mother, whom Donald had loved warmly, had been first widowed, and then, when her boy had reached the age of ten years, she had died; and, dying, she had given the boy to her brother, and he had promised that he would care for him as though he had been his own. For three years the old uncle had sent the lad to school, and then, when the little fellow had teased, and coaxed, and begged, and fairly prayed, Rodney had yielded, and taken him to sea with him. But he would not have done it if he could have looked ahead and seen just what the voyage was to be. The heart of the orphan boy had turned towards our hero the first time he had ever seen him. Percy had gone on board the brig about a year before, and met the little fellow in the gangway, and something in the handsome boyish face and in the great bright, honest eyes, had at once appealed to his deepest heart, and he had laid his hand on the boy’s head and blessed him, and spoke cheerily and encouragingly to him; had hoped he would love his old uncle and grow up to be a good man and true. It was not much to do, but it proved the turning point in the boy’s life; and from that time he had worshiped Percy Maitland. “Well, here I am, at length. What can I do for you?” “It isn’t for me, sir. It is for yourself. Uncle Donald bade me come out and speak with ye. Wait a bit. S’pose we go on a little. There’s a place close by where there’s more room.” “Room, my boy! What in the world--” “Sh! Speak low, sir! We don’t know whose ears may be near us. Where there’s more room we’d be more likely to see ’em.”