like ornaments on the top of every stack and pinnacle, looking down into
the _Purgle_ as she passed. The climate of Scotland had not done with
them yet: for three days they lay storm-stayed in Poolewe, and when they
put to sea on the morning of the fourth, the sailors prayed them for
God's sake not to attempt the passage. Their setting out was indeed
merely tentative; but presently they had gone too far to return, and
found themselves committed to double Rhu Reay with a foul wind and a
cross sea. From half-past eleven in the morning until half-past five at
night, they were in immediate and unceasing danger. Upon the least
mishap, the _Purgle_ must either have been swamped by the seas or bulged
upon the cliffs of that rude headland. Fleeming and Robertson took turns
baling and steering; Mrs. Jenkin, so violent was the commotion of the
boat, held on with both hands; Frewen, by Robertson's direction, ran the
engine, slacking and pressing her to meet the seas; and Bernard, only
twelve years old, deadly sea-sick, and continually thrown against the
boiler, so that he was found next day to be covered with burns, yet
kept an even fire. It was a very thankful party that sat down that
evening to meat in the hotel at Gairloch. And perhaps, although the
thing was new in the family, no one was much surprised when Fleeming
said grace over that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe the
form, so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful memory of
peril and deliverance. But there was nothing of the muff in Fleeming; he
thought it a good thing to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful
thing to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which he thought
for himself, he thought for his family also. In spite of the terrors of
Rhu Reay, the cruise was persevered in, and brought to an end under
happier conditions.

One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt-Aussee, in the Steiermark, was
chosen for the holidays; and the place, the people, and the life
delighted Fleeming. He worked hard at German, which he had much
forgotten since he was a boy; and, what is highly characteristic,
equally hard at the _patois_, in which he learned to excel. He won a
prize at a Schuetzen-fest; and though he hunted chamois without much
success, brought down more interesting game in the shape of the Styrian
peasants, and in particular of his gillie, Joseph. This Joseph was much
of a character; and his appreciations of Fleeming have a fine note of