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Chapter Four
The “Flower of Arrandoon” – Old Ap’s Cottage – Trial Trips and Useful Lessons
I do not think that, during any period of his former life, Allan McGregor’s foster-father was much happier than he was while engaged, with the help of his boy friends, in getting the cutter they had bought ready for her summer cruise among the Western Islands.
They were not quite unassisted in their labours though; no, for had they not the advantage of possessing skilled labour? Was not Tom Ap Ewen their right-hand man; to guide, direct, and counsel them in every difficulty? And right useful they found him, too.
Thomas was a Welshman, as his name indicates; he had been a boatbuilder all his life. He lived in a little house by the lake-side, and this house of his bore in every respect a very strong resemblance to a boat turned upside down. All its furniture and fittings looked as though at one time they had been down to the sea in ships, and very likely they had. Tom’s bed was a canvas cot which might have been white at one time, but which was terribly smoke-begrimed now; Tom’s cooking apparatus was a stove, and, saving a sea-chest which served the double purpose of dais and tool-box, all the seats in his cottage were lockers, while the old lamp that hung from the blackened rafters gave evidence of having seen better days, having in fact dangled from the cabin deck of some trusty yacht.
Tom himself was quite in keeping with his little home. A man of small stature was Tom. I will not call him dapper, because you know that would imply neatness and activity, and there was very little of either about Tom. But he had plenty of breadth of beam, and so stiff was he, apparently, that he looked as if he had been made out of an old bowsprit, and had acted for years in the capacity of figure-head to an old seventy-four. Seen from the front, Tom appeared, on week-days, to be all apron from his chin to his toes; his hard wiry face was bestubbled over in half its length with grey hairs, for Tom found the scissors more handy and far less dangerous than a razor; and, jauntily cocked a little on one side of his head, he wore a square paper cap over a reddish-brown wig. Well, if to this you add a pair of short arms, a pair of hard horny hands, and place two roguish beads of hazel eyes in under his bushy eyebrows, you have just as complete a description of Thomas Ap Ewen as I am capable of giving.
This wee wee man generally went by the name of Old Ap. Of course there were ill-natured people who sometimes, behind Tom’s back, added an e to the Ap; but, honestly speaking, there was not a bit of the ape about him, except, perhaps, when taking snuff. Granting that his partiality for snuff was a fault, it was one that you could reasonably strive to forgive, in consideration of his many other sterling qualities.
Well, Tom was master of the yard, so to speak, into which the purchased cutter was hauled to be fitted, and although McBain did not take all the advice that was tendered to him, it is but fair to say that he benefited by a good deal of it.
It would have done the heart of any one, save a churl, good to have seen how willingly those boys worked; axe, or saw, or hammer, plane or spokeshave, nothing came amiss to them. Allan was undoubtedly the best artisan; he had been used to such work before; but generally where there’s a will there’s a way, and the very newness of the idea of labouring like ordinary mechanics lent, as far as Ralph and Rory were concerned, a charm to the whole business.
“There is nothing hackneyed about this sort of thing, is there?” Ralph would say, looking up from planing a deck-spar.
“There is a deal to learn, too,” Rory might answer. “Artisans mustn’t be fools, sure. But how stiff my saw goes!”
“A bit of grease will put that to rights.” Ralph’s face would beam while giving a bit of information like this, or while initiating Rory into the mysteries of dovetailing, or explaining to him that when driving a nail he must hit it quietly on the head, and then it would not go doubling round his finger.
Old Ap and McBain were both of them very learned – or they appeared to be so – in the subject of rigging, nor did their opinions in this matter altogether coincide. Old Ap’s cottage and the yard were quite two miles – Scotch ones – from the castle, so on the days when they were busy our heroes would not hear of returning to lunch.
“Isn’t good bread and cheese, washed down with goat’s milk, sufficient for us?” Ralph might say.
And Rory would reply, “Yes, my boy, indeed, it’s food fit for a king.”
After luncheon was the time for a little well-earned rest. The young men would stroll down towards the lake, by whose banks there was always something to be seen or done for half-an-hour, if it were only skipping flat stones across its surface; while the two elder ones would enjoy the dolce far niente and their odium cum dignitate seated on a log.
“Well,” said old Ap, one day, “I suppose she is to be cutter-rigged, though for my own part I’d prefer a yawl.”
“There is no accounting for tastes,” replied McBain; “and as to me, I don’t care for two masts where one will do. She won’t be over large, you know, when all is said and done.”
“Just look you,” continued Ap, “how handy a bit of mizen is.”
“It is at times, I grant you,” replied McBain.
“To be sure,” said Ap, “you may sail faster with the cutter rig, but then you don’t want to race, do you, look see?”
“Not positively to race, Mr Ewen,” replied McBain, “but there will be times when it may be necessary to get into harbour or up a loch with all speed, and if that isn’t racing, why it’s the very next thing to it.”
“Yes, yes,” said old Ap, “but still a yawl is easier worked, and as you’ll be a bit short-handed – ”
“What!” cried McBain, in some astonishment; “an eight-ton cutter, and four of us. Call you that short-handed?”
“Yes, yes, I do, look see,” answered Ap, taking a big pinch of his favourite dust, “because I’d call it only two; surely you wouldn’t count upon the Englishmen in a sea-way.”
McBain laughed.
“Why,” he said, “before a month is over I’ll have those two Saxon lads as clever cuttersmen as ever handled tiller or belayed a halyard. Just wait until we return up the loch after our summer’s cruise, and you can criticise us as much as ever you please.”
Now these amateur yacht-builders, if so we may call them, took the greatest of pains, not only with the decking and rigging of their cutter, but with her painting and ornamentation as well. There were two or three months before them, because they did not mean to start cruising before May, so they worked away at her with the plodding steadiness of five old beavers. In their little cabin, where it must be confessed there was not too much head room, there was nevertheless a good deal of comfort, and all the painting and gilding was done by Rory’s five artistic fingers. In fact, he painted her outside and in, and he named her the Flower of Arrandoon, and he painted that too on her stern, with a great many dashes and flourishes, that any one, save himself, would have deemed quite unnecessary.
It was only natural that they should do their best to make their pigmy vessel look as neat and as nice as possible; but they had another object in view in doing so, for as soon as their summer cruise was over they meant to sell her. So that what they spent upon her would not really be money thrown to the winds, but quite the reverse. Young Ralph knew dozens of young men just as fond of sailing and adventure as he was, and he thought it would be strange indeed if he himself, assisted by the voluble Rory, could not manage to give such a glowing account of their cruise, and of all the fun and adventures they were sure to have, as would make the purchase of the Flower of Arrandoon something to be positively competed for.
When she was at last finished and fitted, and lying at anchor, in the creek of Glentroom, with the water lap-lapping under her bows, her sails all nicely clewed, and her slender topmast bobbing and bending to the trees, as if saluting them, why I can assure you she looked very pretty indeed. But there was something more than mere prettiness about her; she looked useful. Care had been taken with her ballasting, so she rode like a duck in the water. She had, too, sufficient breadth of beam, and yet possessed depth of keel enough to make her safe in a sea-way, and McBain knew well – and so, for that matter, did Allan – that these were solid advantages in the kind of waters that would form their cruising ground. In a word, the Flower of Arrandoon was a comfortable sea-worthy boat, well proportioned and handy, and what more could any one wish for?
And now the snow had all fled from the hills and the glens, only on the crevices of mountain tops was it still to be seen – ay, and would be likely to be seen all the summer through, but softly and balmily blew the western winds, and the mavis and blackbird returned to make joyous music from morning’s dawn till dewy eve. Half hidden in bushy dells, canary-coloured primroses smiled over the green of their leaves, and ferns and breckans began to unfold their brown fingers in the breeze, while buds on the silvery-scented birches that grew on the brae-lands, and verdant crimson-tipped tassels on the larches that courted the haughs, told that spring had come, and summer itself was not far distant.
And so one fine morning says McBain, “Now, Allan, if your friends are ready, we’ll go down to the creek, get up our bit of an anchor, and be off on a trial trip.”
Trial trips are often failures, but that of the boys’ cutter certainly was not. Everything was done under McBain’s directions, Allan doing nearly all the principal work, though assisted by old Ap; but if Ralph and Rory did not work, they watched. Nothing escaped them, and if they did not say much, it was because, like Paddy’s parrot, they were “rattling up the thinking.”
The day was beautiful – a blue sky with drifting cloudlets of white overhead, and a good though not stiff breeze blowing right up the loch; so they took advantage of this, and scudded on for ten miles to Glen Mora. They did not run right up against the old black pier, and smash their own bowsprit in the attempt to knock it down. No, the boat was well steered, and the sails lowered just at the right time, the mainsail neatly and smartly furled, and covered as neatly, and the jib stowed. Old Ap was left as watchman, and McBain and his friends went on shore for a walk and luncheon.
In the evening, after they had enjoyed to the full their “bit of a cruise on shore,” as McBain called it, they returned to their boat, and almost immediately started back for Glentroom. The wind still blew up the loch; it was almost, though not quite, ahead of them. This our young yachtsmen did not regret, for, as their sailing-master told them, it would enable them to find out what the cutter could do, for, tacking and half-tacking, they had to work to windward.
It was gloaming ere they dropped anchor again in the creek, and McBain’s verdict on the Flower of Arrandoon was a perfectly satisfactory one.
“She’ll do, gentlemen,” he said, “she’ll do; she is handy, and stout, and willing. There is no extra sauciness about her, though she is on excellent terms with herself, and although she doesn’t sail impudently close to the wind, still I say she behaves herself gallantly and well.”
It wanted nothing more than this to give Allan and his friends an appetite for the haunch of mountain mutton that awaited them on their return to the castle. They were in bounding spirits too; it made every one else happy just to see them happy, so that everything passed off that night as merrily as marriage bells.
The loch near the old Castle of Arrandoon is one of the great chain of lakes that stretch from east to west of Scotland, and are joined together by a broad and deep canal, which gives passage to many a stately ship. This canal, once upon a time, was looked upon as one of the engineering wonders of the world, leading as it does often up and over hills so high and wild that in sober England they would be honoured with the title of mountains.
For a whole week or more, ere the cutter turned her bows to the southward and west, and started away on her summer cruise, almost every day was spent on this loch. It is big enough in all conscience for manoeuvres of any kind, being in many places betwixt two and three miles in width, while its length is over twenty.
It might be said, with a good deal of truth, that Allan McGregor had spent his life in boats upon lakes, for as soon as his little hand was big enough to grasp a tiller he had held one. He knew all about boats and boat-sailing, and was, on the whole, an excellent fresh-water sailor. With Ralph and Rory it was somewhat different, good oarsman though the former at all events was. However, they were apt pupils, and, with good health and willingness to work, what is it a boy will not learn?
In old Ap’s cottage were models of several well-rigged vessels of the smaller class, the principal of them being a sloop, a cutter, and a yawl. Ap delighted to give lectures on the peculiar merits and rigging of these, interspersed with many a “Yes, yes, young shentlemen, and look you see,” spoken with the curious accent which Welshmen alone can give to such simple words. These models our heroes used to copy, so that, theoretically speaking, they knew a great deal about seamanship before they stepped on board the cutter to take their first cruise.
Practice alone makes perfect in any profession, and although experience is oftentimes a hard and cruel teacher, there is no doubt she docet stultos, and her lessons are given with a force there is no forgetting. Of such was the lesson Rory got one morning; he had the tiller in his hand, and was bowling along full before the wind. It seemed such easy work sailing thus, and Rory was giving more of his time than he ought to have done to conversation with his companions, and even occasionally stealing a glance on shore to admire the scenery, when all at once, “Flop! flop! crack! harsh!” cried the sail, and round came the boom. The wind was not very fresh, so there was little harm done; besides, McBain was there, and I verily believe that had that old tar gone to sleep, he would have been dozing in dog fashion with his weather eye open. But on this occasion poor Rory was scratching and rubbing a bare head.
“Crack, harsh!” he said, looking at the offending sail; “troth and indeed it is harsh you crack, I can tell you.”
“Ah!” said McBain, quietly, “sailing a bit off, you see.”
“’Deed and indeed,” replied Rory, “but you’re right, and by the same token my hat’s off too, and troth I thought the poor head of me was in it.”
It will be observed that Rory had a habit of talking slightly Irish at times, but I must do him the credit of saying that he never did so except when excited, or simply “for the fun of the thing.”
Another useful lesson that both Ralph and Rory took some pains to learn was to look out for squalls. They learned this on the loch, for there sometimes, just as you are quietly passing some tree-clad bank or brae, you all at once open out some beautifully romantic glen. Yes, both beautiful and romantic enough, but down that gully sweeps the gusty wind, with force enough often to tear the sticks off the sturdiest boat, or lay her flat and helpless on her beam ends. But the lesson, once learned, was taken to heart, and did them many a good turn in after days, when sailing away over the seas of the far North in their saucy yacht, the Snowbird.
The time now drew rapidly near for them to start away to cruise in earnest. They had spent what they termed “a jolly time of it” in Glentroom. Time had never, never seemed to fly so quickly before. They had had many adventures too; but one they had only a day or two before sailing was the strangest. As, however, this adventure had so funny a beginning, though all too near a fatal ending, I must reserve it for another chapter.
Chapter Five
Showing how Royalty Visited Arrandoon, and how our Heroes Returned the Call
The windows of the double-bedded chamber occupied by Allan McGregor’s guests overlooked both lake and glen. At one corner of it was a kind of turret recess; this had been originally used as a dressing-room, but Allan had gone to some trouble and expense in fitting it up as an own, own room for Rory. Ralph called it Rory’s “boudoir,” Rory himself called it his “sulky.” The floor of the curious little room was softly carpeted; the walls were hung with ancient tapestry; the windows neatly draped. There was a little bookcase in it, in which, much to his surprise, the young man found all his favourite poets and authors. His fiddle and music were in this turret as well; so it was all very nice and snug indeed.
Scarcely a day passed that Rory did not spend an hour or two in his “sulky,” generally after luncheon, when not on or at the lake; and even while reclining on his lounge the view that he could catch a glimpse of was just as romantic and beautiful as any boy poet could wish. There was no door between this and the bedchamber, only a curtain which could be drawn at pleasure.
Now, as I happen to love the truth for its own simple sake, I must tell you that neither Rory nor Ralph was very fond of early rising, practically speaking – theory being another thing. Allan was often away at the river hours and hours before breakfast, and the beautiful dishes of mountain trout that lay on the table, so crisp and still, had been frisking and gambolling only a short time before in their native streams. But Allan’s friends – well, it may have been the Highland air, you know, which is remarkably strong and pure, but anyhow, neither of them thought of stirring until the first gong pealed its thunders forth. It was not that they did not get a good example set them by the sun, for, it being now the month of May, that luminary deemed it his duty to get up himself, and to arouse most ordinary mortals, shortly after four o’clock.
The list of ordinary mortals, so far as the castle was concerned, included old Janet the cook, and most of the other servants and retainers, and all the dogs, and all the cocks and hens, and ducks and geese, and turkeys, to say nothing of pigs and pigeons, sheep and cattle; and as every single mortal among them felt himself bound as soon as his eyes were open to express his feelings audibly, and in his own peculiar fashion, you can easily believe that the din and the hubbub around Arrandoon at early morning were something considerable. Whether asleep or awake, Ralph had an easy mind, nothing bothered him. I believe he could have slept throughout general quarters at sea, with cannon thundering overhead, if he had a mind to; but with Rory it was somewhat different, and the cock-crowing used to fidget him in his dreams. If there had been only one cock, and that cock had crowed till his comb fell off, it would have been merely monotonous, and Rory would have slumbered on in peace, but there were so many cocks of so many strains. The game-cocks crowed boldly and bravely, and their tones clearly proved them kings of the harem; the bantams shrieked defiance at every other cock about the place, but no cock about the place took any heed of them; the cowardly Shanghais kept at a safe distance from the game-birds, and shouted themselves hoarse; and besides these there was the half-apologetic, half-formed crow of the cockerels, who got thrashed a dozen times everyday because they dared to mimic their betters.
These sounds, I say, fidgeted our poetic Rory; but when half a dozen fantail pigeons would alight outside the window, and strut about and cry, “Coo, coo, troubled with you, troubled with you,” then Rory would become more sensible, and he would open one eye to have a look at the clock on the mantelpiece. Mind you, he wouldn’t open both eyes for the world, lest he should awaken altogether.
“Oh!” he would think to himself, “only five o’clock; gong won’t go for three hours yet. How jolly!”
Then he would turn round on the other side and go to sleep again. The cocks might go on crowing, and the pigeons might preen their feathers and “coo-coo” as much as they pleased now. Rory heard no more until “Ur-ur – R-Rise, Ur-ur – R-Ralph and Rory,” roared the gong.
One particular morning Rory had opened his one eye just as usual, had his look at the clock, had rejoiced that it was still early, and had turned himself round to go off once more to the land of Nod, when, suddenly, there arose from beneath such an inexpressible row, such an indefinable din, as surely never before had been heard around the Castle of Arrandoon. The horses stamped and neighed in their stables, the cattle moaned a double bass, the pigs squeaked a shrill tenor, the fowl all went mad.
“Whack, whack, whack!” roared the ducks.
“Kank, kank, kank?” cried the geese.
“Hubbub – ub – ub – bub!” yelled the turkeys.
Rory sat bolt upright in bed, with both eyes open, more fully awake than ever he had felt in his life before.
“Hubbub, indeed!” says Rory; “indeed, then, I never heard such a hubbub before in all my born days. Ralph, old man, Ralph. Sit up, my boy. I wonder what the matter can be.”
“And so do I,” replied Ralph, without, however, offering to stir; “but surely a fellow can wonder well enough without getting out of bed to wonder.”
“Ooh! you lazy old horse!” cried Rory; “well, then, it’s myself that’ll get up.”
Suiting the action to the word, Rory sprang out of bed, and next moment he had thrown open his “sulky” window and popped his head and shoulders out. He speedily drew them in again and called to Ralph, and the words he used were enough to bring even that matter-of-fact hero to his side with all the speed he cared to expend.
What they saw I’ll try to explain to you.
Eagles had been far more numerous this season than they had been for years. McBain knew this well, and Allan McGregor knew it to his cost, for in an eyrie on a distant part of his estate a pair of these kingly birds had established themselves, and brought forth young, and, judging from the number of lambs they had carried off, a terribly rapacious family they were. Although five miles from the castle, Allan had several times gone to the place at early morn for the purpose of getting a ride-shot at these birds; but although he knew the very ledge on which the nest was laid – there is little building about an eagle’s nest – he had always been unsuccessful, for the favourites of Jove were wary, and could scent danger from afar.
So day by day the lambs went on diminishing, and the shepherds went on grumbling, but they grumbled in vain. Upwards and upwards in circling flight the eagles would soar, as if to hide themselves in the sun’s effulgence, until they were all but invisible to the keenest eye. They would then hover hawk-like over their innocent prey, until chance favoured them, when there would be a swift, unerring, downward rush, and often before the very eyes of the astonished keepers the lamb was seized and borne in triumph to the eyrie.
The glen, or rather gorge, which the eagles had chosen for their home, is one of the wildest and dreariest I ever traversed; at the bottom of it lies a brown and weird-looking loch about two miles long, one side of which is bounded by birch-trees, through which a road runs, and if you gaze across this loch, what think you do you see beyond? Why, a black and beetling wall of rock rising sheerly perpendicular up out of the water, and towering to a height of over one thousand feet. Although the loch is five hundred yards wide, you can hardly get rid of the impression that this immense wall of rock is bending towards you from the top, and about to fall and crush your pigmy body to atoms. No wonder the loch itself is still and dark and treacherous-looking, and no wonder the natives care not to traverse the glen by day, or that they give it a wide berth at night, for the place has an evil name, and they say that often and often at the hour of midnight the water-kelpie’s fiendish laugh is heard at the foot of the rock, followed by the plash and sullen plunging sound which a heavy body always emits when sinking in very deep water.
Remember that I do not myself believe in water-kelpies, nor any other kelpies whatever, and I have fished for char (the Salmo umbla) in the loch, and traversed the glen in the starlight, yet I never came across anything much worse-looking than myself – so there!
Now it was in the middle of this rocky precipice, on a ledge of stone, that the kingly birds had made their nest of sticks and turf, with just as little regard to the laws of avine architecture as the cushat of the English copse evinces. It was an airy abode, yet for all that a prettier pair of young ones than the two that lay therein, both the father and mother eagle averred, had never yet been seen or hatched. It is needless to say that they were very fond of their progeny, and also very fond of each other, so that when one lovely morning the she-eagle said to the he one, —
“What is for breakfast, dear?” it was only natural that the he one should reply, “Anything you like, my love.”
“Well then,” said she, “we’ve been having nothing but mutton, mutton, mutton for weeks. I’m sure the children would like a change, and I know I should.”
Then the royal eagle lowered his eyebrows, and scratched his ear with one great toe, as if very deep in thought, and then his countenance cleared all at once, a grim smile stole over his face, and he said, —
“I have it. Babies are scarce, you know, but I’ll bring you a turkey.”
“Oh!” said her royal highness, “that will be nice, and the feathers will help to keep the children warm.”
So away the eagle soared, and about ten minutes afterwards he alighted with a rush right in the middle of the poultry yard at Arrandoon Castle. Hence the hubbub which had aroused both Ralph and Rory.
Now had the bird of Jove not been so greedy, I feel bound to believe he could have left the yard almost as quickly as he had entered it one turkey the richer, and his royal helpmeet and children would not have been disappointed in their breakfast. But no, “I may just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” he thought to himself, and so he alighted on the back of the oldest and biggest turkey cock he could see. But he did not find this bird so easy a prey as he could have wished; indeed the turkey at once made up his mind to have a tussle for it; he did not mean to accept so hasty an invitation to breakfast – in an eyrie of all places. So by hook and by crook he managed to scramble half-way under the wooden grain-house, eagle and all. Next moment the eagle bitterly repented of his rashness, for every bird in the place attacked him, and Ralph and Rory were roaring success to them from the “sulky” window. An old turkey is usually a tough one, and do what he would the eagle could only disengage one talon from the back of his captive, if captive he could now be called, and with this and his beak he had to do battle.
Now, that discretion is the better part of valour, even an eagle knows, so when at last he did manage to disengage his other talon, although several of his foes lay dead and dying around, the eagle had had quite enough turkey, and prepared to soar.
But behold! quite an unexpected combatant makes his appearance, and goes to work at once on the eagle’s breast, and this was none other than Allan’s pet Skye, a little dog of determination, for whenever he made up his mind to lay hold of anything he did it, and stuck to it. With such a weight attached to him in such a way, rapid flight was out of the question; the eagle had only strength enough left to flutter out of the yard, and fall on the ground on the other side, there to meet – pity me, reader, for how shall I name it? Were I not writing facts this brave but discomfited eagle should have a nobler end – there to meet old Janet with a broom-handle!
“Hold, Janet, hold?” cried our gallant English Ralph from the “sulky” window; “fair play, Janet, fair play.”
Too late! The king of birds lies dead.
“Ten feet from tip to tip of his wings,” said McBain, as he stood over him about an hour after. Allan, and Ralph, and Rory were all there. “Eagle, eagle,” Rory was saying, —
“Thou hast bowed
From thine empire o’er the cloud;
Thou that hadst ethereal birth,
Thou hast stooped too near the earth,
And the hunter’s shaft hath found thee;
And the toils of Death have bound thee.”
“Hunter’s shaft, indeed,” laughed Ralph; “old Janet’s broom-handle; but come, boys, I know you are both of you game enough for anything, so I propose we go and try to bag the disconsolate widow of this royal bird. We can capture the young ones and rear them.”
“It would indeed be a pity to leave the widow to mourn,” said Rory.
“It’s a sad pity my sheep must mourn,” said Allan. When at the breakfast-table that morning, Allan said, in a seemingly unconcerned voice, —
“Mother, we mean to have a day among the eagles; they have commenced it, you know.” His mother knew well he was asking her consent, and she gave it because she would not see him unhappy. But nevertheless, she whispered to him as he left the room, —
“Oh, child! do take care of yourself, and take care of Rory. I had strange dreams about you last night.”
Our three heroes, accompanied by men carrying the wooden well-windlass with a plank or two, and plenty of length of rope, made their way over the mountain to the top of the precipice before described. McBain with his trusty rifle went down the glen, among the birch-trees at the other side of the lake. He was not only eagle-slayer, but signalman to the expedition. Keeping close to the loch, he walked onwards for fully three-quarters of a mile, then he stopped and fired his rifle in the air. He stood now as still as a statue, and so remained for fully half-an-hour, until his party had fixed the windlass to the brink of the cliff. Had this latter been flat at the top the danger would have been but small, but the ground sloped towards the brink, so that a false step or a slip meant something too awful to contemplate. Right down beneath them is the eyrie, quite one hundred feet from the top. Circling high in air, far, far above them, is the she-eagle. She is watching and wondering. If any one dares descend she will rend them in pieces. But see, something leaves the cliff-top, and goes downwards and downwards nearer and nearer to her nest. With a scream of rage she rushes from her hover, passes our friends swift as a thunderbolt, and is lost to view. She is expending her anger now, she is having revenge, and fragments of a torn garment flutter down towards the lake. McBain has thrown himself on his face; he is no mean marksman, but he will need all his skill and steadiness now, and this he knows right well.
