CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

A SHORT, BECAUSE A SAD ONE.

"Why do summer roses fade, If not to show how fleeting All things bright and fair are made, To bloom awhile as half afraid To join our summer greeting?"

"Now," said Frank one evening to me, "a little change is all that is needed to make the child as well again as ever she was in her life."

"I think you are right, Frank," was my reply; "change will do it--a few weeks' residence in a bracing atmosphere; and it would do us all good too; for of course you would be of the party, Frank?"

"I'll go with you like a shot," said this honest-hearted, blunt old sailor.

"What say you, then, to the Highlands?"

"Just the thing," replied Frank. "Just the place--

"`My heart's in the Hielans. My heart is not here; My heart's in the Hielans, chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer and following the roe-- My heart's in the Hielans, wherever I go.'"

"Bravo! Frank," I cried; "now let us consider the matter as practically settled. And let us go in for division of labour in the matter of preparation for this journey due north. You two old folks shall do the packing and all that sort of thing, and Ida and I will--get the tickets."

And, truth to tell, that is really all Ida and myself did do; but we knew we were in good hands, and a better caterer for comfort on a journey, or a better baggage-master than Frank never lived.

He got an immense double kennel built for Aileen and Nero; all the other pets were left at home under good surveillance, not even a cat being forgotten. This kennel, when the dogs were in it, took four good men and true to lift it, and the doing so was as good as a Turkish bath to each of them.

We had a compartment all to our four selves, and as we travelled by night, and made a friend of the burly, brown-bearded guard, the dogs had water several times during the journey, and we human folks were never once disturbed until we found ourselves in what Walter Scott calls--

"My own romantic town."

A week spent in Edinburgh in the sweet summer-time is something to dream about ever after. We saw everything that was to be seen, from the Castle itself to Greyfriars' Bobby's monument, and the quiet corner in which he sleeps.

Then onward we went to beautiful and romantic Perth. Then on to Callander and Doune. At the latter place we visited the romantic ruin called Doune Castle, where my old favourite Tyro is buried. In Perthshire we spent several days, and once had the good or bad fortune to get storm-stayed at a little wayside hotel or hostelry, where we had stopped to dine. The place seemed a long way from anywhere. I'm not sure that it wasn't at the back of the north wind; at all events, there was neither cab nor conveyance to be had for love nor money, and a Scotch mist prevailed--that is, the rain came down in streams as solid and thick as wooden penholders. So we determined to make the best of matters and stay all night; the little place was as clean as clean could be, and the landlady, in mutch of spotless white, was delighted at the prospect of having us.

She heaped the wood on the hearth as the evening glome began to descend; the bright flames leapt up and cast great shadows on the wall behind us, and we all gathered round the fire, the all including Nero and Aileen; the circle would not have been complete without them.

No, thank you, we told the landlady, we wouldn't have candles; it was ever so much cosier by the light of the fire. But, by-and-by, we would have tea.

Despite the Scotch mist, we spent a very happy evening. Ida was more than herself in mirth and merriment; her bright and joyous face was a treat to behold. She sang some little simple Highland song to us that we never knew she had learned; she said she had picked it up on purpose; and then she called on Frank to "contribute to the harmony of the evening"--a phrase she had learned from the old tar himself.

"Me!" said Frank; "bless you, you would all run out if I began to sing."

But we promised to sit still, whatever might happen, and then we got the "Bay of Biscay" out of him, and he gave it that genuine, true sea-ring and rhythm, that no landsman, in my opinion, can imitate. As he sang, in fact, you could positively imagine you were on the deck of that storm-tossed ship, with her tattered canvas fluttering idly in the breeze, her wave-riddled bulwarks, and wet and slippery decks. You could see the shivering sailors clinging to shroud or stay as the green seas thundered over the decks; you could hear the wind roaring in the rigging, and the hissing boom of the breaking waters, all about and around you.

He stopped at last, laughing, and--

"Now, Gordon, it is your turn at the wheel," he said. "You must either sing or tell a story."

"My dear old sailor man," I replied, "I will sing all the evening if you don't ask me to tell a story."

"But," cried Ida, shaking a merry forefinger at me, "you've got to do _both_, dear."

There were more stories than mine told that night by the "ingleside" of that Highland cot, for Frank himself must "open out" at last, and many a strange adventure he told us, some of them humorous enough, others pathetic in the extreme. Frank was not a bad hand at "spinning a yarn," as he called it, only he was like a witness in a box of justice: he required a good deal of drawing out, and no small amount of encouragement in the shape of honest smiles and laughter. Like all sailors, he was shy.

"There's where you have me," Frank would say. "I am shy; there's no getting over it; and no getting out of it but when I know I'm amusing you, then I could go on as long as you like."

I have pleasing reminiscences of that evening. As I sit here at my table, I have but to pause for a moment, put my hands across my eyes, and the Rembrandt picture comes up again in every feature. Yonder sits Frank, with his round, rosy face, looking still more round and rosy by the peat-light. Yonder, side by side, with their great heads pointing towards the blaze, lie the "twa dogs," and Ida crouched beside them, her fair face held upwards, and all a-gleam with happiness and joy.

When lights were brought at last, it was plain that the honest old landlady, bustling in with the tea-things, had dressed for the occasion, and from the pleased expression on her face I felt sure she had been listening somewhere in the gloom behind us.

The cottage where we went at last to reside in the remote Highlands was a combination of comfort and rusticity, and Ida especially was delighted with everything, more particularly with her own little room, half bedroom, half boudoir, and the rustic flowers which old Mrs McF-- brought every day were in her eyes gems of matchless beauty.

Then everything out of doors was so new to her, and so beautiful and grand withal, that we did not wonder at her being happy and pleased.

"When I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath--"

So sings Byron. Well, _he_ had some kind of training to this species of progression. Ida had none. _She_ was a young Highlander from the very first day, and a bold and adventuresome one too. Nor torrent, cataract, nor cliff feared she. And no bird, beast, or butterfly was afraid of Ida.

Her chief companion was a matchless deerhound, whom we called Ossian.

Sometimes, when we were all seated together among the heather, Ossian used to put his enormous head on her lap and gaze into her face for minutes at a time. I've often thought of this since.

Nero, I think, was a little piqued and jealous when Ossian went bounding, deer-like, from rock to rock. Ah! but when we came to the lake's side, then it was Ossian's turn to be jealous, for in the days of his youth he had neglected the art of swimming, in which many of his breed excel.

Two months of this happy and idyllic life, then fell the shadow and the gloom.

There was nothing romantic about Ida's illness and death. She suffered but little pain, and bore that little with patience. She just faded away, as it were; the young life went quietly out, the young barque glided peacefully into the ocean of eternity.

Poor Frank had an accident in the same year, and ere the winter was over succumbed to his injuries. He died on such a night as one seldom sees in England. The bravest man dared not face that terrible snowstorm unless he courted death. Therefore I could not be with Frank at the end.

The generous reader will easily understand why I say no more than these few words about my dear friend's death. Alas! how few true friends there are in this world, and it seems but yesterday he was with us, seems but yesterday that I looked into his honest, smiling face, as I bade him good-bye at my garden gate.