In the year 1778, Mr M'Donald, an extensive West India planter, from the island of Jamaica, came to Scotland, on a visit to his friends and relations in the West Highlands; amongst whom he spent several months, going from place to place, living a week or two here, and a week or two there, as chance or other circumstances directed. During one of these migrations, this gentleman came one day, accidentally, in a solitary place on the banks of Loch Awe, on a little kilted, barelegged, and bareheaded Highland boy, busily employed in launching a little fleet of paper-sailed boats on the lake. The situation in which Mr M'Donald was at the moment placed, was one of those which strongly predispose one to enter into conversation with whomsoever chance may throw in the way, without much regard to age, sex, or appearance. The day was delightful--it was in the middle of June; the place lonely, and the scenery around of the most sublime and beautiful kind--the most beautiful, perhaps, in the Highlands of Scotland; and this, as our readers know, is no mean character of its perfections. These were the circumstances, then, in which Mr M'Donald was placed on the occasion to which we have alluded, and on him they had the effect which they would have had on anybody else--namely, that of opening up the sympathies of his nature, of extinguishing the littleness of pride, and of inducing one general feeling of benevolence; and it was in this happy frame of mind that he now reined in his horse, and accosted the young stranger. "Well, my little fellow," he said, "what's this you're about?" The boy looked up in his face, and blushed and smiled at the same time, but made no reply, conceiving one unnecessary, as his employment was sufficiently evident. There was in that single look of the boy's, however, an expression of openness and intelligence that at once caught Mr M'Donald's fancy; and he immediately added, good-naturedly, "Where are all these ships going to?" The boy again looked up in his face and laughed, but now vouchsafed a reply:-- "To the West Indies, sir, for cargoes of rum and sugar." This was spoken in pretty fair English, though strongly tinctured with the Celtic accent. "Indeed!" rejoined Mr M'Donald; "my word, but you are an extensive trader, if it be the case, as I have no doubt it is, that all these fine ships are your own. What's your name, my little fellow?" "Duncan M'Arthur, sir." "Are you at school?" "Yes, sir; I'm just now on my way home from it." "What are you learning there?" "English, writing, and arithmetic." "Can you write pretty well?" "Ou ay, sir--middlin." "Count?" "Ay--middlin, too, sir." "That's a clever fellow. How should you like, now, to go abroad, and see the world? How should you like to go where you have just now sent these ships?"