Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

THE master's second absence. 179
this grew to be my lord's chief occupation. The sound
of their two voices (audiljle a. great way off, for they
spoke loud) became familiar in the neighbourhood ; and
for my part I found it more agreeable than the sound of
birds. It was pretty to see the pair returning, full
of briars, and the father as flushed and sometimes as
bemuddied as the child, for they were equal sharers in
all sorts of boyish entertainment, digging in the beach,
damming of streams, and what not; and I have seen
them gaze through a fence at cattle with the same
childish contemplation.
The mention of these rambles brings me to a strange
scene of which I was a witness. There Avas one walk
I never followed myself without emotion, so often had
I gone there upon miserable errands, so much had there
befallen against the house of Durrisdeer. But the path
lay handy from all points beyond the Muckle Ross; and
I was driven, although much against my will, to take
my use of it perhaps once in the two months. It befell
when Mr. Alexander was of the age of seven or eight, I
had some business on the far side in the morning, and
entered the shrubbery, on my homeward way, about
nine of a bright forenoon. It was that time of year
when the woods are all in their spring colours, the thorns
all in flower, and the birds in the high season of their
singing. In contrast to this merriment, the shrubbery
was only the more sad, and I the more oppressed by its
associations. In this situation of spirit it struck me
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