The Pirate's Gold by Gordon Stables

"Oh, would I were a boy again, / When life seemed formed of sunny years, / And all the heart then knew of pain / Was wept away in transient tears. " / SAM. F. SMITH.

It was autumn -- autumn, that is, as we reckon the seasons in the Scottish Highlands. For August was wellnigh at a close. The heather, it is true, still bloomed crimson and red on the mountain sides and the beautiful braes, but the days were now appreciably shorter, and hot though they might be during the day, soon after the sun went down,

"And left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene," the winds felt chilly, and sometimes a little raw.

This particular evening was no exception, and darkness came on a full hour sooner, with no moon and never a star to light me from the hill where I had lingered, with my beautiful Gordon setter Dash, longer than usual. I did not care to return without a fairly good bag, and the birds on the bit of shooting I called mine were getting a little wild.

I was living with the minister of Glen T -- -- in Ross-shire. He was an old man, and did not care to go to the hill much himself. "The scenery all around," he used to say smiling, "is good enough for me, and I mean to live and die here without ever leaving the glen again."

Well might he have said the scenery was good enough for him. I have never seen wilder or more beautiful in any part of the world. Had you climbed a high hill, you would have said it was a chaos of mountains; but all between these were braes clad in silver drooping birch, with here and there a patch of dark and solemn pine wood, the abode of hawks and crows, with many a bird of prey besides. Higher up was the crimson heather, while patches of snow were to be seen in clefts and hollows highest of all, and this snow never left.

But it was the multitude of small lochs or lakes that would have struck you as most marvellous of all. Not a glen that had not two or three of these, with perhaps silver streams between, and torrents or cataracts roaring down the mountain sides -- the marvel being where the water came from. At times, indeed, it appeared to roll out of the very sky itself.

Well, it was late before I fired my final cartridge, and by a fluke, for I had not aimed, bagged my last bird.

Then Dash and I started on our long journey to the manse. Ten miles if a foot; but I knew the road well, and had known it from boyhood. I had been since then all over the world, and had more wild adventures than I may ever be able to describe in print; still I remembered the road, or -- I believed I did. English fields and meadows may change in a few years into towns and streets, but the everlasting hills are the same for ages.

"Well, Dash, my boy," I said, "I'm very hungry, whatever you may be."

Dash wagged his flag of a tail to intimate that he too could do with a pick of something.

I petted and smoothed him.

"Dash," I said, "there is a short cut across the hills and along the edge of cliff Eurna -- a thousand feet perpendicular it is, Dash. It was here where a shepherd fell over after a sheep. But I've often skirted it in the dark, so don't be afraid. Let us try. This will save us four miles, doggie."

On we went now merrily enough, I singing to make the road seem shorter.

But it was getting darker and darker every minute. By the time we -- that is, Dash and I, for I ever look upon a dog as a companion second only to a human being, and often far before one -- reached Ault na Geoul, a wild, dark mountain stream that came roaring through a gorge not five hundred yards above, forming many a white and chafing rapid, and many a deep, dark pool, in which they said the kelpies[A] dwelt, night had so far fallen that scarcely could I see to gather a pocketful of round stones, the need for which will be seen presently.

It was just here where the short cut commenced, and once safely over the hill skirting one of the most dangerous cliffs in the Highlands, we should only have two miles further to walk.

We forded the stream, which was low at present, and soon after I found the little winding path, and we commenced the ascent.

The brae, and indeed all the hill, was covered with drooping birch. There was not a star to be seen to-night, and clouds which must have been half a mile through hung low over the mountains. Not that we could see them. Oh no; so dangerously dark was it that if I stretched my gun straight out in front of me I could not see the muzzle.

You will now find out what was to be the use of the stones I had collected. You must know, then, that the little path through the birch wood led almost directly up a hill or brae fully one thousand feet high, and directly on to and at right angles to the edge of the fearful precipice I have already mentioned. It then turned off to the right. The capital letter = T = will represent a plan of the situation. The shaft of the letter is the pathway leading upwards from the glen and the stream below, the upper or cross-bar is the edge of the perpendicular cliff, and close to this we must get before turning off to the right, and descending as near to the precipice edge as possible.

So long as the path led upwards I was safe enough, but by-and-by we were on level ground, and now the real danger commenced. We might walk straight over that black and fearful cliff.