Gordon Stables

“ But looking earthward, all around the hills and fields were dark and bare, for winter had not yet donned her mantle of snow.
And now Kenneth has come out of doors almost before the sun is risen, for there are fowls to be fed, and rabbits and guinea-pigs, and the cow herself to be seen to, before he takes his own breakfast and starts to meet Dugald to enjoy a day among the hills.
What a change! The hoar frost has been falling gently all the livelong night. The good fairies seem to have been at work while others slept, changing the world to what he now sees it, and so silently too. ”

“ Kenneth lay on his oars, and let the boat float wherever the tide cared to take her.
“What a lovely night, Archie!” said Kenneth at last. “What a lovely colour is in the sky! The clouds are gold, the sea is gold, the consuls’ houses and the sultan’s palace are roofed in gold, the lofty palm-trees are tipped with gold, and the waves are rippling and lisping on sands of gold.” ”

“ Have you been ice-logged in a sea-way in such a vessel, no land, nor even a berg, in sight—only the restless waves, that twanged and hummed, and sang in the frosty air as they passed you, with bows and bulwarks, decks and spars, and rigging and blocks, mere shapes of ice, and ice alone to all appearance, the men’s caps and coats, and hair and beards, so white with the freezing spray, that they looked, as they moved to and fro on the slippery decks, like the ghostly crew of a ghost ship? ”

“ Night on an unknown river, which, dark and deep and sluggish, is rolling onwards to the distant ocean through a wild and beautiful district in the interior, nay, but ill the very centre of Africa. The centre it may well be called, for it is near the equator, and hundreds of miles from the Indian Ocean. Night on the river, but not darkness. A round moon has risen, the clouds, dazzled by its splendour, have parted to let it pass; its light is flooding hill and dell and forest, and changing the river itself to—apparently—a moving flood of molten gold. ”

“ Oh! how gently she is stealing down now on the peaceful scene around Kenneth and Kooran. Far down the glen yonder, where the river broadens out in the valley, there lie long clouds of grey mist, with the tall spruce pines glimmering green and ghost-like through them. They are the trailing garments of Evening. Gradually they change to crimson as the sun’s parting rays fall on them.
But day lingers long on the hill-tops, among the steel-grey rocks, among boulders that stand boldly out from the dark background like blocks of snow, and among patches of purple heather. ”

“ Kenneth, true lover of nature, could never have dreamt of scenery like that which he now gazed on daily. Oh the luxuriance of an African tropical woodland! what pen could describe, what pencil or brush portray it!
Yes, there were deadly things to be avoided, but one gets careless of even them, or, at least, used to them, so that in time not even a great snake dangling from a branch in front of him makes him shudder; nor is he greatly alarmed if he comes suddenly on the African “tiger,” as the leopard is called, enjoying a siesta at noon-tide under a tree. ”

“ Ambition—well guided—is a noble thing. All my three heroes were ambitious. Harvey’s ambition, perhaps, was tinctured with some degree of pride. He fought long and manfully for fortune, and when he fell, he had the grace to own it. Kenneth’s and Archie’s ambition was more to be admired, and I love the man or boy who has a feeling of independence in his breast, and who, if he should fail in one line of life, turns cheerfully to another, with a determination to do his duty, and never give up. ”

“ Kenneth, Archie, and Harvey are seen sitting around the camp fire. It is a whole hour after sunset, and yet there is plenty of light in the sky. There are rocks and pine trees around, a brawling stream not far off. There is a tall rugged mountain in the distance; its highest peaks are snow-clad. Southwards away, grey clouds are heaped up on the horizon, a slight scimitar-shaped moon is shining in the north-west, and ominous little dark clouds are drifting over it. ”

“ It is not from this moon that the light comes, but from a strange yellowish after-glow, which tinges all the western horizon, and, mingling with the blue above, evolves a peculiar shade of green.
“Heap more wood on the fire, Archie,” said Kenneth. “I’m growing quite an old man, I think. It is only a year since we left Africa and rounded the Horn, hardly nine months since we bade adieu to civilisation, and became wanderers and vagabonds in this wild dreary land, gold-hunting as usual, and yet it seems to me an age.” ”

“ As they walked on over the hills, Kenneth by golden-haired Jessie’s side, the sky above them blue and clear, the clouds on the horizon looking like snow-white feathers, and the bees making drowsy music among the pinky heath, Kenneth got his child-companion to talk and tell him more about the great world, that mighty ocean of life that lay in the far beyond, the ceaseless throb of whose billows was hardly ever heard among those peaceful hills. ”

“ Have you been in such a craft when she was being squeezed in this pack, the one dark spot in the midst of a limitless plain of dazzling snow-clad ice, all lifting and rolling and moving with the pressure of the invisible waves that are passing swiftly underneath? Have you ever heard the terrible sounds an ice-pack emits, when the swell from a distant storm comes sweeping under it, the groaning, the wailing, grinding, griding noise, as if the ocean on which you stood were filled with old-world monsters in their dying agonies? ”

“ A Highland mountain, clad almost to the summit in purple heather. On the right a ravine, half hidden by drooping birch trees. On the left a pine forest. Sheep grazing in the foreground. Smoke upcurling from a humble cottage in the distance. A shepherd-boy talking to his dog; between them a lamb is lying on the ground.
“It is dead, Kooran, dead, dead, dead. It is as dead as ever a lamb was, Kooran. Ay, my doggie, I ken you’re sorrowful and anxious, but you may stand there and lick its little face and legs, till this time the morn, Kooran, but you can never bring back life to it again. ”

“ On the mountain brow, the heather is bursting into bloom and bee-haunted. Down in the lower lands the corn is growing long and green, mingled with orange of marigold and crimson blush of wild poppy, and the meadows snowed over with gowan and scented clover. Fish leap gladly in stream and tarn, the lofty pines wave their dark plumes in the sunny air, and every wood and copse is filled with melody. ”

“ The truth cannot be flattery.”
“The coffee,” said Archie, “is delicious.”
“Heigho!” sighed Kenneth. “I am so happy to-night, dear Archie. I believe it will really do me good to tell you of some of the troubles I have come through; it will dilute my joy.
“I don’t know, Archie, old man, how ever I became a sailor. I’m not quite sure, mind you, that I am altogether a sailor yet at heart, though I dearly love the sea, and a roving life is the life for a man of my temperament. Señor is smiling; he will never admit I am a man. ”

“ They have bidden farewell to that beautiful coast, which in some parts is so enchanting, with its wealth of vegetation, its grand old woods, its fruit trees, its flower-trees, its flowers themselves, the life and loveliness that teems everywhere on the earth, in the air, in the sea, on the little islands, green and feathery, that peep up here and there out of the blue, on mountain top, and even in its caves, that I feel sad as well as sorrowful. ”

“ The camp fire is drowned out, and our trio are fain to seek the shelter of a cave on the wooded hillside. None too soon; with a crashing roar, louder and more continued than any thunder ever heard, the storm bursts upon them with hurricane force. And all that night it continues. The pine trees have fallen in all directions. The river has risen in spate. Through the darkness they can see the ghostly glimmer of its foam, and they can hear the hurtling sound of the mighty boulders as they roll along. ”

“ The wire-netting around the poultry run, and the cobwebs that depend from outhouse eaves, are shiny silver lace-work all. A glorious morning, a wondrous scene; why, even the humble clothes line is changed into a white and feathery cable, and the tufts of grass that grow on the pathways are tufts of grass no longer, but radiant bunches of snow-white feathers.
Adown the glen, where Kenneth wanders at last, everything around him is of the same magical beauty, a beauty that is increased tenfold when he reaches the woods. ”

“ I have been a rover ever since, a wanderer and a vagabond; thrice have riches been within my grasp, thrice has Fortune dashed the cup aside. And am I to go now that my father is in his long home and claim my patrimony? My pride forbids; I’d rather be a ghillie on the old estate, or a keeper, than proud laird of it all.”
“Stay,” said Kenneth, laying his hand kindly on Harvey’s shoulder. “Not for your own sake should you do this thing, but remember you have a mother and sister, still alive it is to be hoped. Do you never think of them?” ”

“ Glen Alva. Down in the clachan and lowlands, and around the mansion house, the autumnal tints are on the trees; the chestnuts, the lime and the maples have turned a rich yellow, and soon the leaves will fall; but the elm and oak retain their sturdy green. So do the waving pines. High on the hillsides the heather still blooms. There is silence almost everywhere to-day. Silence on mountain and silence in forest. Only the sweet plaintive twitter of the robin is heard in garden and copse. ”

“ The last part of Kenneth’s sentence was lost in a peal of thunder.
“Stand by! Jump, Archie. There is a comber.”
They both leapt on the top of the capstan as an immense green sea swept over the bows and came tearing aft, carrying everything movable before it.
When it passed away, and the water found partial exit by the scuppers,—
“I don’t think there will be much pleasure in a walk to-night, Kennie,” said Archie. “Wouldn’t I like to be back again on that flower mountain of yours!”
“Poor dear old Gasco!” said Kennie with a sigh. “You find good among people of all nations.” ”

“ Not far from Kooran’s extended tail, a field-mouse begins to sing a little song. She is hidden in under the dry moss, through which she has driven all sorts of smooth round tunnels, for quite an engineer is the field-mouse, and the only wonder is she ever finds her way back again to her nest, through such a labyrinthic network of half-lighted lanes. ”

“ Then Evening goes to the hedgehog, to the fox, to the foumart, the whitterit, the bat, and the vole.
“Come out now, come out now,” she cries to these, “for the moon is coming, and danger has fled with the daylight far over the hills.”
But the lithe green snake, and the deadly adder, and the toad have heard the invitation too, and lie closer under cover or creep into their holes, for enemies are abroad.
Then slowly and solemnly over the distant hills uprises the moon.
And so gloaming gives place to night. ”

“ Jessie is here with her governess and Miss Grant, and Kenneth strong and well again, to say nothing of Kooran and Shot, and last—probably least—Archie McCrane.
They have gained the brow of a hill overlooking the wide Atlantic. Far beneath them the sea-birds are wheeling and shrieking among the rocks, while out on the sea’s blue breast is many a little white sail, some so far, far away that though they have three masts, and must therefore be mighty ships, they seem from here not a bit bigger than a sixpenny piece. ”

“ They could have led you to the home of the red deer and moor-cock. They knew the tricks and the manners of every bird that built in hedgerow or furze bush, in thicket of spruce or pine-top or larch, in the hay or the heather or the growing corn, among sedges by the sides of lonely lochs or tarns, in banks or holes by the side of the stream, in hillock or stony cairn, or far up the mountain’s side almost at the snow line itself.
They knew every bird by its name (in Scotch) , by its eggs, by its nest, either in shape or in lining, and they knew where to look for every nest. ”

“ It is the lion-king of the forest. He loves not the moonlight. It baulks him of his prey; so there is anger in that growl. But you hardly can tell whence it comes; at one moment, it sounds over yonder among the rocks, next, down in that lonesome ravine, and next, in the forest behind you.
Look at those great birds. They fly so closely over our heads that their mighty wings overshadow us for a moment, and we can hear the rustling, creaking sound made by their feathers. There is something lying dead in the valley beyond the hill, and these are vultures going to gorge by the moonlight. ”

“ They say the gold is guarded by evil spirits, that the hills where it is to be found are encircled by giant forests, by terrible swamps, the breath of which is more feared by the Arab than spear of savage foeman.”
“We can but try,” said Kenneth.
“Zona,” said Archie, “did ever you hear the line of that old song, ‘The March of the Cameron Men,’ which says, ‘Whatever a man dares he can do’?”
“Gentlemen all,” replied Zona, “the Arab is the most daring of all men who live; the Arab has sought this gold that we are going in quest of; the Arab has failed! ”