Three Boys | Page 2

as bile."
"Is there, father?" said Kenneth, who was spreading the rich yellow churning a full quarter of an inch thick.
"Is there, sir! Yes, there is. As I know to my cost. Ah!" he added, with a sigh, and his face wrinkled and made him look ten years older; "but there was a time when I did not know the meaning of the word!"
"Oh, I say, father," cried Kenneth merrily, "don't! You're always pretending to be old, and yet you can walk me down stalking, and Long Shon says you can make him sore-footed any day."
"Nonsense! nonsense!" said The Mackhai, smiling.
"Oh, but you can, father!" said Kenneth, with his mouth full. "And see how you ran with that salmon yesterday, all among the stones."
"Ah, yes! I manage to hold my own; but I hope you'll husband your strength better than I did, my boy," said The Mackhai, with a sigh.
"I only hope I shall grow into such a fine man!" cried Kenneth, with his face lighting up, as he gazed proudly at his father. "Why, Donald says--"
"Tut, tut, tut! Silence, you miserable young flatterer! Do you want to make your father conceited? There, that will do."
"Coming fishing to-day, father?"
There was no answer.
The Mackhai had taken up a letter brought in that morning by one of the gillies, and was frowning over it as he re-read its contents, and then sat thoughtfully gazing out of the window across the glittering sea, at the blue mountains in the distance, tapping the table with his fingers the while.
"Wonder what's the matter!" thought Kenneth. "Some one wants some money, I suppose."
The boy's face puckered up a little as he ceased eating, and watched his father's face, the furrows in the boy's brow giving him a wonderful likeness to the keen-eyed, high-browed representative of a fine old Scottish clan.
"Wish I had plenty of money," thought Kenneth; and he sighed as he saw his father's face darken.
Not that there was the faintest sign of poverty around, for the room was tastily furnished in good old style; the carpet was thick, a silver coffee-pot glistened upon the table, and around the walls were goodly paintings of ancestral Mackhais, from the bare-armed, scale-armoured chief who fought the Macdougals of Lome, down to Ronald Mackhai, who represented Ross-shire when King William sat upon the throne.
"I can't help myself," muttered The Mackhai at last. "Here, Ken, what were you going to do to-day?"
"I was going up the river after a salmon."
"Not to-day, my boy. Here, I've news for you. Mr Blande, my London solicitor, writes me word that his son is coming down--a boy about your age."
"Son--coming down? Did you invite him, father?"
"Eh? No: never mind that," said The Mackhai hastily. "Coming down to stay with us a bit. Regular London boy. Not in very good health. You must be civil to him, Ken, and show him about a bit."
"Yes, father," said Kenneth, who felt from his father's manner that the coming guest was not welcome.
"He is coming by Glasgow, and then by the Grenadier. His father thinks the sea will do him good. Go and meet him."
"Yes, father."
"Tell them to get a room ready for him."
"Yes, father."
"Be as civil to him as you can, and--Pah!"
That ejaculation, pah! came like an angry outburst, as The Mackhai gave the table a sharp blow, and rose and strode out of the room.
Kenneth sat watching the door for a few moments.
"Father's savage because he's coming," said Kenneth, whose eyes then fell upon a glass dish of marmalade, and, cutting a goodly slice of bread, he spread it with the yellow butter, and then spooned out a portion of the amber-hued preserve.
"Bother the chap! we don't want him here."
Pe-au, pe-au, came a wailing whistle through the open window.
"Ah, I hear you, old whaupie, but I can do it better than that," said Kenneth to himself, as he repeated the whistle, in perfect imitation of the curlews which abounded near.
The whistle was answered, and, with a good-tempered smile on his face, Kenneth rose from the table, after cutting another slice of bread, and laying it upon that in his plate, so as to form a sticky sandwich.
"Scood!" he cried from the window, and barelegged Scoodrach, who was seated upon a rock right below, with the waves splashing his feet, looked up and showed his white teeth.
"Catch!"
"All right."
Down went the bread and marmalade, which the lad caught in his blue worsted bonnet, and was about to replace the same upon his curly red head, but the glutinous marmalade came off on one finger. This sticky finger he sucked as he stared at the bread, and, evidently coming to the conclusion that preserve and pomade were not synonymous terms, he began rapidly to put the sweet sandwich somewhere else.
"I wish you had kept it in your bonnet, Scood."
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