The Count, with quick tact, led off the second cheer, and the boys filed out of the class-room. Bulldog sat down at the desk, the watch before him, and covered his face with his hands. When an hour later he walked across the North Meadow there was not a boy to be seen but Bailie MacFarlane, who met him on the bridge (and passed without speaking), noticed that Bulldog was wearing his laddies' gift. Sitting in his garden that evening and looking down upon the plain, Bulldog called Nestie to his side, and pointed to the river. The evening sun was shining on the fields, ripening for harvest, and on the orchards, laden with fruit; and in the soft light, a rough weather-beaten coaster, which had fought her way through many a gale in the North Sea, and could not hold together much longer was dropping down with the tide. Newer and swifter vessels would take her place in the days to come, but the old craft had done her work well and faithfully, and now the cleanest and kindest of Scots rivers was carrying her gently to the eternal ocean. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Barbarians, by Ian Maclaren