ssity and superfluous whim was never exceeded. His
pleasure was to pin on his person whatever gay-coloured cotton
handkerchiefs he could get hold of; so that, with one of these behind
and one before, spread out across back and chest, he always looked
like an ancient herald come with a message from knight or nobleman. So
incongruous was his costume that I could never tell whether kilt or
trousers was the original foundation upon which it had been
constructed. To his tatters add the bits of old ribbon, list, and
coloured rag which he attached to his pipes wherever there was room,
and you will see that he looked all flags and pennons--a moving grove
of raggery, out of which came the screaming chant and drone of his
instrument. When he danced, he was like a whirlwind that had caught up
the contents of an old-clothes-shop. It is no wonder that he should
have produced in our minds an indescribable mixture of awe and
delight--awe, because no one could tell what he might do next, and
delight because of his oddity, agility, and music. The first sensation
was always a slight fear, which gradually wore off as we became anew
accustomed to the strangeness of the apparition. Before the visit was
over, wee Davie would be playing with the dangles of his pipes, and
laying his ear to the bag out of which he thought the music came
ready-made. And Willie was particularly fond of Davie, and tried to
make himself agreeable to him after a hundred grotesque fashions. The
awe, however, was constantly renewed in his absence, partly by the
threats of the Kelpie, that, if so and so, she would give this one or
that to Foolish Willie to take away with him--a threat which now fell
almost powerless upon me, but still told upon Allister and Davie.

One day, in early summer--it was after I had begun to go to school--I
came home as usual at five o'clock, to find the manse in great
commotion. Wee Davie had disappeared. They were looking for him
everywhere without avail. Already all the farmhouses had been
thoroughly searched. An awful horror fell upon me, and the most
frightful ideas of Davie's fate arose in my mind. I remember giving a
howl of dismay the moment I heard of the catastrophe, for which I
received a sound box on the ear from Mrs. Mitchell. I was too
miserable, however, to show any active resentment, and only sat down
upon the grass and cried. In a few minutes, my father, who had been
away visiting some of his parishioners, rode up on his litt