Is it much further, to the grey mare's stable?" faltered the
passenger.

The two boys roared with laughter, Max gazing from one to the other
rather pitifully.

"Did I say something very stupid?" he asked mildly.

"Yes, you said stable," cried Kenneth, wiping his eyes. "I say, Scood,
wait till he sees the Grey Mare."

"Yes; wait till she sees the Grey Mare," cried Scood, bending double
with mirth.

Max drew in a long breath, and gazed straight before him at the sea, and
then to right and left of the fiord through which they were rapidly
sailing. He saw the shore some three miles away on their left, and a
couple to their right, a distance which they were reducing, as the boat,
with the wind well astern, rushed on.

"It's too bad to laugh at you," said Kenneth, smoothing the wrinkles out
of his face.

"I don't know what I said to make you laugh," replied Max, with a
piteous look.

"Then wait till you see the Grey Mare's Tail, and you will."

"I don't think I want to see it. I would rather you set me ashore, and
let me walk."

"Didn't I tell you that you couldn't walk home? Besides, every one goes
to see the Grey Mare's Tail--eh, Scood?"

There was a nod and a mirthful look which troubled the visitor, who sat
with his face contracted, and a spasm seeming to run through him every
time the boat made a leap and dive over some wave.

They were running rapidly now toward a huge mass of rock, which ran
gloomy looking and forbidding into the sea, evidently forming one of the
points of a bay beyond. The mountains came here very close to the sea,
and it was as if by some convulsion of nature the great buttress had
been broken short off, leaving a perpendicular face of rock, along whose
narrow ledges grey and black birds were sitting in scores.

"See the birds?" cried Kenneth, as they sped on rapidly, Max gaining a
little confidence as he found that the boat did not go right over from
the pressure of the wind on the sail.

"Are those birds?" he said.

"Yes; gulls and cormorants and puffins. Did you feed Macbrayne's
pigeons as you came along?"

"No," said Max quietly; "I did not see them."

"Oh, come, I know better than that. Didn't you come up Loch Fyne in the
Columba?"

"The great steamer? Yes."

"Well, didn't you see a large flock of grey gulls flying with you all
the way?"

"Oh yes, and some people threw biscuits to them. They were like a great
grey and white cloud."

"Well, I call them Macb