pened since last night, and I really cannot help
thinking that presently I shall awake and find, as the story-books say, it
is all a dream.'

'You will find it all a very substantial dream, I do assure you, sir. But
help yourself to the _mate_. You will find it better than any imported
stuff.'

'Archie! Archie! Where are you?'

'Ah! ah! Yah, yah, yah!' cried Archie, hopping round behind his master.

'The sugar, Archie.'

'Ah, ah, ah! Yah, yah!'

'Is that Gaelic, Dugald?' said our Archie.

'Not quite, my cockney cousin.'

'I thought not.'

'Why?' said Dugald.

'It is much more intelligible.'

The hermit laughed.

'I think, Dugald,' he said, 'your cousin has the best of you.'

He then made us tell him all our strange though brief history, as the
reader already knows it. If he asked us questions, however, it was
evidently not for the sake of inquisitiveness, but to exchange
experiences, and support the conversation. He was quite as ready to impart
as to solicit information; but somehow we felt towards him as if he were
an elder brother or uncle; and this only proves the hermit was a perfect
gentleman.

'Shall you live much longer in this beautiful wilderness?' asked Donald.

'Well, I will tell you all about that,' replied the hermit. 'And the all
is very brief. When I came here first I had no intention of making a long
stay. I was a trapper and hunter then pure and simple, and sold my skins
and other odds and ends which these hills yield--and what these are I must
not even tell to you--journeying over the Andes with mules twice every
year for that purpose. But gradually, as my trees and bushes and all the
beauty of this wild garden-glen grew up around me, and so many of God's
wild children came to keep me company, I got to love my strange life. So
from playing at being a hermit, I dare say I have come to be one in
reality. And now, though I have money--much more than one would
imagine--in the Chilian banks, I do not seem to care to enter civilized
life again. For some years back I have been promising myself a city
holiday, but I keep putting it off and off. I should not wonder if it
never comes, or, to speak more correctly, I should wonder if it ever came.
Oh, I dare say I shall die in my own private wilderness here, with no one
to close my eyes but old Archie.'

'Do you still go on journeys to Chili?'

'I still go twice a year. I have strong fleet mules. I go once in summer
and once in winter.'