s in again."

Donald went off like a shot. Junkie went a few steps with him,
intending to fetch another divit. Looking back, he saw what made him
sink into the heather, and give a low whistle. Donald heard it,
stopped, and also hid himself, for MacRummle was seen trying to rise.
He succeeded, and staggered to dry land, when, sitting down on a stone,
he felt himself all over with an anxious expression. Then he felt a
lump on the back of his head, and smiled intelligently. After that he
squeezed as much water out of his garments as he could, quietly took
down his rod, ascertained that the fish in his basket were all right,
then looked with some perplexity at the big divit lying in the shallow
close to where he stood, and finally, with a highly contented expression
of countenance, wended his way homeward.

The two boys gave him time to get well out of sight in advance, and then
followed his example, commenting sagely as they went, on the
desirability of possessing pluck in old age, and on the value of the
various lessons they had learned that day.

CHAPTER TEN.

A WILDISH CHAPTER.

It was the habit of our three friends--Bob Mabberly, John Barret, and
Giles Jackman--during their residence at Kinlossie, to take a stroll
together every morning before breakfast by the margin of the sea, for
they were fond of each other's company, and Mabberly, as a yachtsman,
had acquired the habit of early rising. He had also learned to
appreciate the early morning hours as being those which present Nature
in her sweetest, as well as her freshest, aspect--when everything seems,
more than at other periods of the day, to be under the direct influence
of a benignant Creator.

It was also the habit of Captain McPherson and his man, James McGregor,
to indulge daily in similar exercise at about the same hour, but, owing
probably to their lives having been spent chiefly on the sea, they were
wont to ramble up a neighbouring glen in preference to sauntering on the
shore.

One bright calm morning, however, when the sky was all blue and the loch
was like a mirror, the two seamen took it into their heads to desert the
glen and ramble along the shore. Thus it came to pass that, on
returning homeward, they encountered our three friends.

"It iss fery strange that we should foregather this mornin', Mr
Mabberly," said the skipper, after greeting the young men; "for Shames
an' me was jist speakin' aboot ye. We will be thinkin' that it i