way. "The adders run away from you if
you are walking through the heather. If you tread on one, and he bites
your boot, what then? He cannot hurt you. But suppose you are out after
the deer, and you are crawling along the heather with your face to the
ground, and all at once you see the two small eyes of an adder looking
at you and close to you--"

He shuddered slightly--perhaps it was only an expression of disgust.

"I have heard," he continued, "that in parts of Islay they used to be so
bad that the farmers would set fire to the heather in a circle, and as
the heather burned in and in you could see the snakes and adders
twisting and curling in a great ball. We have not many with us. But one
day John Begg, that is the schoolmaster, went behind a rock to get a
light for his pipe; and he put his head close to the rock to be out of
the wind; and then he thought he stirred something with his cap; and the
next moment the adder fell on to his shoulder, and bit him in the neck.
He was half mad with the fright; but I think the adder must have bitten
the cap first and expended its poison; for the schoolmaster was only ill
for about two days, and then there was no more of it. But just think of
it--an adder getting to your neck--"

"I would rather not think of it," she said, quickly. "What is the other
animal--that you hate?"

"Oh!" he said, lightly, "that is a very different affair--that is a
parrot that speaks. I was never shut up in the house with one till this
week. My landlady's son brought her home one from the West Indies; and
she put the cage in a window recess on my landing. At first it was a
little amusing; but the constant yelp--it was too much for me. '_Pritty
poal! pritty poal!_' I did not mind so much; but when the ugly brute,
with its beady eyes and its black snout, used to yelp, '_Come and kiz
me! come and kiz me!_' I grew to hate it. And in the morning, too, how
was one to sleep? I used to open my door and fling a boot at it; but
that only served for a time. It began again."

"But you speak of it as having been there. What became of it?"

He glanced at her rather nervously--like a schoolboy--and laughed.

"Shall I tell you?" he said, rather shamefacedly. "The murder will be
out sooner or later. It was this morning. I could stand it no longer. I
had thrown both my boots at it; it was no use. I got up a third time,
and went out. The window, that looks into a back yard, was open. Then I
opened the parrot's c