aving left all his worldly
gear for her support; that is, he left it to me, which is the same
thing. Not without a testimony of respect for my father's memory, that
all the gear of Scotland would be cheap to me by the side of; and a few
words as to industry, energy, and the like, which, though far from being
deserved on my part, sound--like voices out of the mist upon the
mountain side--sweeter and weightier, it may be, than they deserve, when
a body hears them, as ye may say, out of the grave.

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and it's not for me to
complain of the down-break in the engines, seeing that in place of
rushing past the coast, we just crawled along the top of these grand
cliffs in the bonny sunshine, which hardly wakes a smile upon the stern
faces of them, while the white foam breaks at no allowance about their
feet. Many's the hour, Jack, I've lain on the moss, and looked down into
a dark cove to watch the tide come in, and turn blue, and green, and
tawny purple over the weeds and rocks, and fall back again to where the
black crags sit in creamy surf with sea-birds on their shoulders. Eh!
man, it's sweet to come home and see it all again; the folk standing at
their doors, and bairns sitting on the dykes with flowers in their
hands, and the waving barley-fields on the cliff tops shining against
the sea and sky, as lights and shades change their places over a woman's
hair. There were some decent bodies in the train beside me, that thought
I was daft, with my head out of the window, in an awful draught, at the
serious risk of brow-ague, not to speak of coal-smuts, which are horrid
if ye get them in your eye. And not without reason did they think so,
for I'll assure ye I would have been loth to swear whether it was spray
or tears that made my cheeks so salt when I saw the bit herring-boats
stealing away out into the blue mist, for all the world as if they were
laddies leaving home to seek their fortunes, as it might be ourselves.

"But I'm taking up your time with havers about my own country, and I
ask your pardon; though I'm not ashamed to say that, for what I've seen
of the world--tropics and all--give me the north-east coast of Scotland!

"I am hoping, at your leisure, to hear that ye both reached home, and
found all belonging to ye as ye could wish; and I'm thinking that if
Dennis wrote in French, I might make it out, for I've come by an old
French Dictionary that was my father's. GOD save the Sh