eave his bed early, that he might gaze on the clouds of
the east, with their borders gold-blasted with sunrise; he would linger
in the fields that the amber and purple, and green and red, of the
sunset, might not escape after the sun unseen. And as long as he felt
the mystery, the revelation of the mystery lay before and not behind
him.

And Shargar--had he any soul for such things? Doubtless; but how could
he be other than lives behind Robert? For the latter had ancestors--that
is, he came of people with a mental and spiritual history; while the
former had been born the birth of an animal; of a noble sire, whose
family had for generations filled the earth with fire, famine,
slaughter, and licentiousness; and of a wandering outcast mother, who
blindly loved the fields and woods, but retained her affection for her
offspring scarcely beyond the period while she suckled them. The love
of freedom and of wild animals that she had given him, however, was far
more precious than any share his male ancestor had borne in his mental
constitution. After his fashion he as well as Robert enjoyed the sun
and the wind and the water and the sky; but he had sympathies with the
salmon and the rooks and the wild rabbits even stronger than those of
Robert.

CHAPTER XIX. ROBERT STEALS HIS OWN.

The period of the hairst-play, that is, of the harvest holiday time,
drew near, and over the north of Scotland thousands of half-grown hearts
were beating with glad anticipation. Of the usual devices of boys to
cheat themselves into the half-belief of expediting a blessed approach
by marking its rate, Robert knew nothing: even the notching of sticks
was unknown at Rothieden; but he had a mode notwithstanding. Although
indifferent to the games of his school-fellows, there was one amusement,
a solitary one nearly, and therein not so good as most amusements,
into which he entered with the whole energy of his nature: it was
kite-flying. The moment that the hairst-play approached near enough to
strike its image through the eyes of his mind, Robert proceeded to
make his kite, or draigon, as he called it. Of how many pleasures does
pocket-money deprive the unfortunate possessor! What is the going into a
shop and buying what you want, compared with the gentle delight of hours
and days filled with gaining effort after the attainment of your end?
Never boy that bought his kite, even if the adornment thereafter lay in
his own hands, and the pictures wer