t of it. If it werena for
that wee scratch on your cheek I wouldn't hae kenned ye had been in
a fight; but as for Tom, why, he's just a perfect sight to look
upon!"

I need hardly say that my quarrel with Kinlay did in no wise alter
the friendship that existed between Thora and me. I had for her a
fondness which Tom's bullying and tyranny had no power to diminish.
Thora, indeed, was a girl whom none except those who were
influenced by envy could help admiring. She was the favourite of
all the school, and amongst us, her only enemy was her brother. My
own sympathy with her was all the greater because I knew that she
was so much the subject of his rule. I knew how he had forced her
to obey him, and to bend before all his humours and his whims, and
I was sorry for, whilst I was still unable to help her. In this
servitude we had been companions, in common with Rosson and Hercus;
and many a time had she come to me, with tears in her eyes, to tell
me of some new act of tyranny that she had suffered at her
brother's hands.

On one such occasion I found her down at the shore side with little
Hilda Paterson. She had been going out on the bay to paddle about
in a small boat that Tom was in the habit of using. He saw the two
girls taking the oars, and straightway he ordered them ashore,
striking Thora on the cheek, himself taking possession of the boat.

The two girls were standing in their disappointment on the beach
when I came up and heard their story.

"Never mind, Thora," I said. "Come along wi' me. I'll get my
father's dinghy, and we three will go for a fine sail."

I rowed them out beyond the Holms, for it was a bright calm day;
and when we got out into the breezy bay the mast was stepped, the
little lug sail hoisted, and then we went speeding over to Graemsay
island like a sheer water skimming the waves. Graemsay was our
imagined El Dorado, and on the voyage we fancied ourselves
encountering many surprising adventures. Shipwrecks and sea fights
were by no means uncommon events. We threw spars of wood over the
stern, and at the cry of "Man overboard!" the ship was put about to
pick him up. But while we easily overcame these imagined disasters,
there were some real dangers to encounter, and in the midst of our
merry talk and laughter we had ever to keep a careful watch on the
conduct of the boat, and to look out for the safest channels and
the sunken rocks. Hilda, who regarded the approach of an imagined
iceberg with