Prester John | Page 8

stones. I picked up a loose bit of rock and hurled it with all
my force in his direction. It broke before it reached him, but a
considerable lump, to my joy, took him full in the face. Then my terrors
revived. I slipped behind the waterfall and was soon in the thicket, and
toiling towards the top.

I think this last bit was the worst in the race, for my strength was failing,
and I seemed to hear those horrid steps at my heels. My heart was in
my mouth as, careless of my best clothes, I tore through the hawthorn
bushes. Then I struck the path and, to my relief, came on Archie and
Tam, who were running slowly in desperate anxiety about my fate. We
then took hands and soon reached the top of the gully.
For a second we looked back. The pursuit had ceased, and far down the
burn we could hear the sounds as of some one going back to the sands.
'Your face is bleeding, Davie. Did he get near enough to hit you?'
Archie asked.
'He hit me with a stone. But I gave him better. He's got a bleeding nose
to remember this night by.'
We did not dare take the road by the links, but made for the nearest
human habitation. This was a farm about half a mile inland, and when
we reached it we lay down by the stack- yard gate and panted.
'I've lost my lantern,' said Tam. 'The big black brute! See if I don't tell
my father.'
'Ye'll do nothing of the kind,' said Archie fiercely. 'He knows nothing
about us and can't do us any harm. But if the story got out and he found
out who we were, he'd murder the lot of US.'
He made us swear secrecy, which we were willing enough to do, seeing
very clearly the sense in his argument. Then we struck the highroad and
trotted back at our best pace to Kirkcaple, fear of our families gradually
ousting fear of pursuit. In our excitement Archie and I forgot about our
Sabbath hats, reposing quietly below a whin bush on the links.
We were not destined to escape without detection. As ill luck would
have it, Mr Murdoch had been taken ill with the stomach-ache after the
second psalm, and the congregation had been abruptly dispersed. My
mother had waited for me at the church door, and, seeing no signs of
her son, had searched the gallery. Then the truth came out, and, had I

been only for a mild walk on the links, retribution would have
overtaken my truantry. But to add to this I arrived home with a
scratched face, no hat, and several rents in my best trousers. I was well
cuffed and sent to bed, with the promise of full-dress chastisement
when my father should come home in the morning.
My father arrived before breakfast next day, and I was duly and
soundly whipped. I set out for school with aching bones to add to the
usual depression of Monday morning. At the corner of the Nethergate I
fell in with Archie, who was staring at a trap carrying two men which
was coming down the street. It was the Free Church minister - he had
married a rich wife and kept a horse - driving the preacher of yesterday
to the railway station. Archie and I were in behind a doorpost in a
twinkling, so that we could see in safety the last of our enemy. He was
dressed in minister's clothes, with a heavy fur-coat and a brand new
yellow-leather Gladstone bag. He was talking loudly as he passed, and
the Free Church minister seemed to be listening attentively. I heard his
deep voice saying something about the 'work of God in this place.' But
what I noticed specially - and the sight made me forget my aching
hinder parts - was that he had a swollen eye, and two strips of
sticking-plaster on his cheek.
CHAPTER II
FURTH! FORTUNE!
In this plain story of mine there will be so many wild doings ere the
end is reached, that I beg my reader's assent to a prosaic digression. I
will tell briefly the things which happened between my sight of the man
on the Kirkcaple sands and my voyage to Africa. I continued for three
years at the burgh school, where my progress was less notable in my
studies than in my sports. One by one I saw my companions pass out of
idle boyhood and be set to professions. Tam Dyke on two occasions ran
off to sea in the Dutch schooners which used to load with coal in our
port; and finally his father gave him his will, and he was apprenticed