e," he said, as he turned it up, "a good deal ez licker
used to be to old Bill Atlas, a cure-all fer everything from death to
the toothache. Bill was quite a case in his day, an' said licker was
made fer the purpose o' drownin' sorrow. He drowned his purty stiddy
in't anyhow, an' finally was driv' to his death by the tremens."

Then he began and fiddled away for an hour, his eyes closed, his kindly
face glowing with the pleasure of his own art, and one foot keeping time
on the floor. And, to Winn's surprise, his selections were all of Scotch
origin, and the liveliest of those best of all harmonies. From one to
another he skipped, a medley of those old tunes that have lived as no
other nation's music ever did or ever will live, because none other has
quite the same life and soul.

And Winn, listening as that quaint old man fiddled away, forgot his
troubles, carried to fair Scotland's banks and braes, where Wallace
bled, Prince Charlie fought, and Bonnie Dundee rallied his henchmen to
give battle, and, too, Winn heard the love plaint of many a Scotch lad
and lassie, centuries old, and yet reaching his heart as they always did
and always will all human kind. And as, entranced, he lived once more in
the olden days of chivalry and love faithful unto death, he thought of
Mona and how she had touched the same chord in his heart only a few
hours before.

And when Jess had tired of his pastime, and Winn, on his way to his
solitary room in Rock Lane, passed the white cottage next to it, he
halted a moment, wondering if Mona was asleep, or if not, was she
thinking of him.

For such is man, and so do the rose petals of love first unclose.

[Illustration: MONA.]

CHAPTER X

MONA HUTTON

Mona Hutton was, as Winn instinctively felt that Sunday when he first
glanced into her well-like eyes, a girl but little akin to her
surroundings--a child of the island, full of strange moods and fancies,
sombre as the thickets of spruce that grew dense and dark between the
ledges of granite, and solemn as the unceasing boom of ocean billows
below its cliffs. Even as a barefoot schoolgirl she had found the sea an
enticing playmate, and to watch its white-crested waves lifting the
rockweed and brown kelpie, as they swept over the rocks and into the
gorges and fissures, was of more interest than her schoolmates. She
would hide between the ledges and watch the sea-gulls sailing over them
for hours, build playhouses in out-of-the-way sp