t waves and he floated, as it were, between
sea and sky, as free from earth's clogging influence as the gannet that
soared above.

He sought the Ramparts because for a boy of his age to read in books,
except as a task of the school, was something shameful; and he had been
long accustomed to the mid-air trip upon the walls ere some other boys
discovered him guilty, flushing and trembling with a story book in his
hand. They looked with astonishment at their discovery and were prepared
to jeer when his wits came to his rescue. He tore out one or two leaves
of the book, twisted them into a rough semblance of a boat and cast them
in the water.

"Watch," said he, "you'll see the big ones are sunk sooner than the
little ones."

"Do not tear the good book," said one of the boys, Young Islay, shocked,
or pretending to be so, at the destruction.

"Oh! it's only a stupid story," said Gilian, tearing again at the
treasure, with an agony that could have been no greater had it been his
heart. He had to forego many books from Marget Maclean to make up for
this one, but at least he had escaped the irony of his companions.

Yet not books were his first lovers and friends and teachers, so much as
the creatures of the wild, and the aspects of nature. Often the Dominie
missed him from his accustomed place at the foot of the class, and there
was no explanation to offer when he returned. He had suffered again the
wood's fascination. In the upper part of the glen he had been content
with little clumps and plantings, the caldine woods of Kincreggan or the
hazels whereof the shepherds made their crooks. But the forest lay for
miles behind the town, a great land of shade and pillars where the winds
roved and tangled. It abounded in wild life, and sounded ever in spring
and summer with songs and cries. Into its glades he would wander and
stand delirious to the solitude, tingling to the wild. The dim vistas
about him had no affrights; he was at home, he was the child of the
tranquil, the loving mother, whose lap is the pasture-land and forest.
Autumn fills those woods with the very breath of melancholy, no birds
will sing in the multitudinous cloisters except the birds of the night
whose melody is one doleful and mocking note. The bracken burns and
withers, lush grass rots and whitens above the fir-roots, the birds flit
from shade to shade with no carolling. And over all will stand the trees
sleeping with their heads a-nod.

He would walk a