e run the skiff past the castle and
round behind into the little land-locked bay, where his visitor could
have stepped ashore in still water. But, as he afterwards told Scood,
there would have been no fun in that. So he steered in among the rocks
where the castle front faced the sea, and, after the sail had been
lowered, he manipulated the boat till they were rising and falling in
the uneasy tide, close alongside of a bundled-together heap of huge
granite rocks, where he leapt ashore.

"Now then!" he cried; "give me your hand." It was a simple thing to do,
that leaping on to the rock. All that was necessary was to jump out as
the wave receded and left a great flat stone bare; but Max Blande look
the wrong time, and stepped, as the wave returned, knee-deep among the
slippery golden fucus, and, but for Kenneth's hand, he would have
slipped and gone headlong into the deep water at the side.

There was a drag, a scramble, and, with his arm feeling as if it had
been jerked out of the socket, Max stood dripping on the dry rocks
beneath the castle, and Kenneth shouted to Scood,--

"Get your father to help you bring in those things, and make her fast,
Scood."

"Ou ay," was the reply; and Kenneth led the way toward the yawning old
gateway.

"Come along," he said. "It's only salt water, and will not give you
cold. This is where the fellows used to come to attack the castle, and
get knocked on the head. Nice old place, isn't it?"

"Yes, very," said Max breathlessly, as he clambered the difficult ascent
his companion had chosen.

"See that owl fly out? Look! there goes a heron across there--there
over the sea. Oh, you haven't got your seaside eyes yet."

"No; I couldn't see it. But do you live here?"

"To be sure we do, along with the jackdaws and ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"Oh yes, we've three ghosts here. One lives in the old turret chamber;
one in the south dungeon; and one in the guardroom over the south gate.
This is the north gateway."

Max shivered from cold and excitement, and then shrank close to his
companion, for the dogs suddenly charged into the place, the hollow
walls of the gloomy quadrangle echoing their baying, as all three,
according to their means of speed, made at the stranger.

"Down, Bruce! Dirk, be off! You, Sneeshing, I'll pitch you out of that
window! It's all right, Mr Blande; they won't hurt you."

Max did not seem reassured, even though the barking dwindled into low
growls, and