and made straight for the doorway. Kooran was far too quick for it, though. He sprang up, and next moment it lay half dead apparently between his two forepaws.

"Strangest thing ever I came across," Kooran appeared to observe as he looked wonderingly up into his young master's face. "Rats flying; this must be a fairy knoll, and I feel half afraid."

"That's a bat, Kooran, a bat, boy, and you mustn't touch it. Look at its two rows of white and glittering wee teeth. Poor little thing! Kooran, it is well-nigh dead. And this cave really belongs by rights to that bat and his brothers. We'll tie it up in the napkin, and you shall carry it home, and mother will cure it and let it fly off again."

As he spoke the boy suited the action to his words.

"Yes, Kooran, this is a grand discovery. After reading 'Robinson Crusoe' so often, I've always wished to have an island all to myself; but a cave, Kooran, is nearly as good as an island. I wonder what Dugald McCrane will say about it. I'm sure he will help me to make things to furnish it, and we'll have our dinner here, Kooran, and a fire when the weather grows cold, and everything so jolly. Come, we must go this very evening and see Dugald McCrane."

True to his word, when Kenneth had driven his sheep into their fold for the night, and had eaten his supper at his mother's fireside, then, instead of taking down his books and lying down on the great wooden dais to read by the light of the little black whale-oil lamp, with its wicks of peeled and dried rushes, he got up whistled to Kooran, and said to his . mother,

"I'm going down the glen, mother."

"Dinna be lang, laddie, dinna be lang," was all his mother said.

It was a clear moonlight night, all the brighter stars were shining, and there was hardly a cloud to be seen,

A Tale of Moorland and Sea.

21

Kenneth had two long Scotch miles to walk, down into a thicket of fir trees first, across a rustic bridge, under which the brown stream was dashing and swirling and ever and anon breaking itself into foam against the boulders. It was very dark down here, but Kenneth was soon away out into the open country again, and the roar of the river was no more heard. By-and-bye the road led through a wood of oak, ash, and elm trees, with now and then the dark head of a pine tree shooting high up into the sky. The moonlight showed in patches here all along the road, there was the sound of falling water not far off, mingling with the whispering of the wind among the leaves, now crisp with the sunshine of the long bright summer, and there was occasionally the mournful cry of the brown owl, which made Kenneth feel lonesome and "eerie," and he was not sorry when he was clear of that dark gloomy wood, and saw up on a hillside the light shining yellow through the blind of Keeper McCrane's cottage.

A black retriever came rushing down, growling and showing his teeth, but when he saw it was Kenneth he wagged his bell-rope of a tail, and bade him and Kooran welcome.

Kenneth left his dog in the garden to dance and caper about with the retriever. No doubt Kooran told this black dog all about the flying rats. Kenneth just opened the door

and walked straight in.

Both Dugald and his young wife jumped up from their seats beside the fire, and welcomed Kenneth, and their only boy, a wonderful little fellow of some nine or ten summers old, with hair not unlike in colour to a bundle of oaten straw, got out of bed and ran to pull Kenneth by the jacket, without waiting to dress.

Dugald and his wife and boy all listened with wondering. eyes to the story of the fairy knoll.

"Bless me, dear laddie," said Mrs. McCrane,

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were you

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the keep the glen and see the old witch wife, Nancy D tell us all about it. They tell me she know ever happened for a hundred years back and "Will she no' be in bed?" said his wife.

"In bed?" said Dugald. "Not she. S bed till the wee short hour ayont the twal, saying what she may be doing till then."

'Well, let us go," cried Kenneth, starting One glance at the walls of the room in I that did duty as both kitchen and dining-l given a stranger an insight into both the calling of the chief inmate. Never a pict room, but dried grasses and ferns did duty i were the skins of every kind of wild animal found in the wilds of the Scottish Highlan or polecat, the whitterit or weasel, the wi ptarmigan, plovers of every kind, including t or curlew, hawks, owls, and even the golde itself stood stuffed in a corner, with glaring wings half outspread.

"Come," said Dugald.

And away went the keeper and Kenneth following closely at their masters' heels, as if from all harm.

SCENE: A long, low-thatched cottage, in the midst of a wild, bleak moorland. No other hut nor house in sight. Around the cottage is a garden or kail-yard, with a fence of flat, slab-like stones. In this is a gate half open, and hanging by one hinge. The cottage has its door in the gable, and is windowless, save for some holes 'twixt thatch and eaves, through which light is now glimmering. A bright round moon is riding in the sky, among a few white clouds, that look like wings. Coming towards the gateway, two figures may be seen, both in the Highland garb. Behind them two dogs.