Harry Milvaine: or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy

Miss Campbell took a scarf from her neck and bound one of Harry’s arms tightly to a branch, lest he might sleep and slip from her grasp. For Harry had grown very silent.

“Harry, dear,” said Miss Campbell, “say your prayers.”

“Guvie,” replied the boy, “papa tells me I should bless my enemies; must I pray for Towsie Jock?”

“If you like, dear.”

Then Miss Campbell bethought her of a story, the funniest she could remember, and began it.

Harry laughed for a time. But he soon grew suddenly silent.

He was fast asleep!

Meanwhile more and more stars came out, cushat’s croodle and song of bird gave place to the deep mournful notes of the brown owl, and the gloaming deepened into night.

Book One – Chapter Three.

The Search for the Lost Ones – an Ugly Fight

Great was the anxiety at Beaufort Hall, as Harry’s home was called, when the shadows fell and the stars peeped out from the sky’s blue vault. Poor fragile Mrs Milvaine was almost distracted, but her husband took matters more easily, more philosophically let us call it.

“Don’t fidget, my darling,” he said, “they’ll turn up all right in a short time. Just you see now, and it won’t do the triflingest morsel of good to worry yourself. No, nor it won’t bring them a minute sooner.”

“They may have fallen into the river,” said Mrs Milvaine.

“Well, I don’t deny that people have fallen into rivers before now, but the probability is, they haven’t,” replied the farmer-laird. (A farmer who owns the acres he tills.)

“They may have lost themselves in the forest, and may wander in it till they die.”

“Nonsense, my love.”

“Harry may have climbed a tree, fallen down and been killed, and Miss Campbell may even now – ”

“Stop, stop, dear! what an imagination you have, to be sure?”

“They may both be gored to death by that fearful bull, their mangled bodies may – ”

Mr Milvaine put his fingers in his ears.

But when eleven o’clock rang out from the stable tower, and still the lost ones did not appear, then even the laird himself got fidgety. He threw down his newspaper.

But he did not permit his wife to notice his uneasiness. He quietly lit his pipe.

“I’ll go and look for them,” he said, and left the room. He returned presently wrapped in a Highland plaid, with a shepherd’s crook in his hand, much taller than himself, and that is saying a good deal, for this Scottish laird stood six feet two in his boots, and was well made in proportion.

He bent down and kissed his wife.

“Don’t fret, I’ll soon find them,” he said. “They have gone botanising, I suppose, and have lost themselves, and are doubtless in Widow McGregor’s cottage, or in the cleerach’s hut.”

Out he went. Rob Roy McGregor himself never had a more manly stride.

He went to the stable gallery first, or rather to the foot of the stair.

“John!” he cried, – “John! John!”

“Yes, yes, sir,” was the reply, and a stream of light shot out into the darkness as John threw open the door.

“Miss Campbell and Master Harry are lost somewhere in the forest. Bring a bull’s-eye lantern, and let us look for them. Bring the rhinoceros-hide whip, too; we may come across some poachers.”

In five minutes more master and man had started.

John was nearly as tall as his master. This was partly the reason why the laird had engaged him. Coachmen do not often have great brown beards and moustaches, but John had; coachmen do not often wear the Highland dress, but John did, and a fine-looking fellow he was when so arrayed. But every horse and every cart about this farmer-laird’s place was big. The dog-cart had been specially built for him, and there was not another such in the country.

Away they went then.

It was half-past eleven when they started, and twelve by watch when they found themselves in the forest.

“It is always hereabout they do be,” said John. “Just hereabouts, sir.”

Then they shouted, singly.

Then they shouted again – together this time; shouted and listened, but there was no answering call.

There was a rushing sound among the tall spruces, and a flap-flap-flapping of wings, as startled wild pigeons fled from their nests away out into the dreary depths of the forest.

There was the too-whit, to-who-oo-oo of an owl in the distance, but no other sound responded to their shouting.

“We’ll go straight on to the widow’s,” said the laird.

“Right, laird.”

So on they went again, often pausing to wave the bull’s-eye, to shout, and to listen.

All in vain.

When they reached Widow McGregor’s cottage all was darkness and silence within.

They knocked nevertheless, knocked again and again, and at last had the satisfaction of hearing a match lighted, then a light shone through the door seams, and a voice – a somewhat timorous and quavering one – demanded:

“Wha’s there at this untimeous hoor o’ nicht?”

“It’s me, Mrs McGregor; me, Laird Milvaine. Don’t be alarmed.”

The bolt flew back, and master and man entered.

Of course the lost ones were not there, and the widow shook and trembled with fear when she heard the story.

She had only to say that the cleerach, who was a kind of forest ranger or keeper, had seen both the lost ones that afternoon gathering wild flowers.