The inmates were seated round an immense peat fire, placed, according to the custom of the country, in the middle of the floor. They made way for the travellers; and Sandy Wright, drawing his seat nearer the fire, began to chafe the hands and feet of the boy, who was almost insensible from cold and fatigue. “Bring us a mutchkin o’ brandy here,” said the boatman, “to drive out the cauld frae our hearts; an’, as supper canna be ready for a while yet, get me a piece bread for the boy. He has had a narrow escape, puir little fellow; an’ maybe there’s some that would miss him, lanerly as he seems. Only hear how the win’ roars on the gable, an’ rattles at the winnocks and the door. It’s an awfu’ night in the Moray Firth.” “It’s no gude,” continued the boatman, as he tendered a half glass of the brandy and a cake of bread to his _protégé_, “it’s no gude to be ill-set to boys. My own loon, Willie, that’s the liftenant now, taught me a lesson o’ that. He was a wild roytous laddie, fu’ o’ droll mischief, an’ desperately fond o’ doos an’ rabbits. He had a doo’s nest out in the Crookburn Wood; but he was muckle in the dread o’ fighting Rob Moffat, the gamekeeper; an’, on the day it was ripe for harrying, what did he do but set himself to watch Rob, at his house at the Mains? He saw him setting off to the hill, as he thought, wi’ his gun an’ his twa dogs; an’ then awa sneaks he to the burn, thinking himsel’ out o’ Rob’s danger. He could climb like a cat, an’ so up he clamb to the nest; an’ then wi’ his bonnet in his teeth, an’ the twa doos in his bonnet, he drapped down frae branch to branch. But, as ill luck would hae it, the first thing he met at the bottom was muckle Rob. The cankered wretch raged like a madman, an’ laying hold on the twa birds by the feet, he dawded them about Willie’s face till they were baith massacred. It was an ill-hearted cruel thing; an’, had I been there, I would hae tauld him sae on the deafest side o’ his head, lang though he be. Willie cam’ hame wi’ his chafts a’ swelled an’ bluidy, an’ the greet, puir chield, in his throat, for he was as muckle vexed as hurt. He was but a thin slip o’ a callant at the time; but he had a high spirit, an’, just out o’ the healey, awa he went in young Captain Robinson’s lugger, an’ didna come near the place, though he sent his mither pennies now an’ then by the Campvere traders, for about five years. Weel, back he cam’ at last, a stalwart young fallow o’ sax feet, wi’ a grip that would spin the bluid out at the craps o’ a chield’s fingers; an’ we were a’ glad to see him! ‘Mither,’ said he, ‘is fighting Rob Moffat at the Mains yet?’ ‘O ay!’ quo’ she. ’Weel, then, I think I’ll call on him in the morning,’ says he, ‘an’ clear aff an old score wi’ him;’ an’ his brow grew black as he spoke. We baith kent what was working wi’ him; an’, after bedtime, his mither, puir body, gaed up a’ the length o’ the Mains to warn Rob to keep out o’ the way. An’ weel