road, that is a small
matter; but an engine that can take you up the Sound of Sleat, and
across the Minch, and all the way to Stornoway, that is an engine to be
talked about!"

But nevertheless it was with some inward trepidation that Hamish
approached Erith station; and it was with an awestruck silence that he
saw his cousin take tickets at the office; nor did he speak a word when
the train came up and they entered and sat down in the carriage. Then
the train moved off, and Hamish breathed more freely: what was this to
be afraid of?

"Did I not tell you you would be frightened?" Colin Laing said.

"I am not frightened at all," Hamish answered, indignantly.

But as the train began to move more quickly, Hamish's hands, that held
firmly by the wooden seat on which he was sitting, tightened and still
further tightened their grasp, and his teeth got clinched, while there
was an anxious look in his eyes. At length, as the train swung into a
good pace, his fear got the better of him, and he called out,--

"Colin, Colin, she's run away?"

And then Colin Laing laughed aloud, and began to assume great airs; and
told Hamish that he was no better than a lad kept for herding the sheep,
who had never been away from his own home. This familiar air reassured
Hamish; and then the train stopping at Abbey Wood proved to him that the
engine was still under control.

"Oh yes, Hamish," continued his travelled cousin, "you will open your
eyes when you see London; and you will tell all the people when you go
back that you have never seen so great a place; but what is London to
the cities and the towns and the palaces that I have seen? Did you ever
hear of Valparaiso, Hamish? Oh yes, you will live a long time before you
will get to Valparaiso! And Rio: why, I have known mere boys that have
been to Rio. And you can sail a yacht very well, Hamish; and I do not
grumble that you would be the master of the yacht, though I know the
banks and the channels a little better than you, and it was quite right
of you to be the master of the yacht; but you have not seen what I have
seen. And I have been where there are mountains and mountains of gold--"

"Do you take me for a fool, Colin?" said Hamish, with a contemptuous
smile.

"Not quite that," said the other, "but am I not to believe my own eyes?"

"And if there were the great mountains of gold," said Hamish, "why did
you not fill your pockets with the gold? and would not that be better
than