ngy old den." She swung herself down as she
spoke and stood at the foot of the companion with the laugh renewed upon
her lips, a gush of happy heart.

"Indeed, Miss Nan, and I was not sleeping at all," said Black Duncan,
standing up and facing her; "if I was sleeping would there be a boy with
me here listening to the stories of the times when I was scouring the
oceans and not between here and the Clyde in your father's vessel?"

"Oh! a boy!" cried the girl, taken a little aback. "I did not know there
was a boy."

"And a glen boy, too," said the seaman, speaking in a language wherein
he knew himself more the equal of his master's daughter. "I told him
of Erin O and the music in its streets, and he does not make fun of my
telling like you, Miss Nan, because he understands."

The girl peered into the dark of the cabin at the face of Gilian that
seemed unwontedly long and pallid in the half light, with eyes burning
in sepulchral pits, repeating the flash of the embers. She was about his
own age--at most no more than a month or two younger, but with a glance
bold and assured that spoke of an early maturity.

"Oh! a Glen Aray boy," said she. "I never much care for them. You would
be telling him some of the tales there is no word of truth in."

"The finest tales in the world are like that," said Black Duncan.

She sat on the edge of a bunk and swung a little drab jean shoe.

The glamour of Black Duncan's stories fled for Gilian before this
presence like mist before a morning wind. So healthy, so ruddy, so
abrupt, she was so much in the actual world that for him to be dreaming
of others seemed a child's weakness.

"I was in the town with uncle," she said, "and I heard you were sailing
away to-morrow, and I thought I would come and say good-bye."

She spoke as prettily in her Gaelic as in her English.

"Ah, _mo run_," said the seaman, putting out his arms as to embrace her,
"am not I pleased that you should have Black Duncan in your mind so much
as to come and say 'fair wind to your sail'?"

"And you'll bring me the beads next time?" she said hastily.

"That will I," said he, smiling; "but you must sing me a song now or I
might forget them."

"Oh, I'll sing if----." She paused and looked doubtfully at Gilian, who
was still open-mouthed at her breezy vehemence.

"Never mind the boy," said the seaman, stretching himself to enjoy the
music at his ease; "if you make it 'The Rover' he will understand."

The afternoo