"I say, Max," he cried, "did you ever see Sneeshing dance the fling?

No, I never showed you. Here, give me those joints of my fly-rod," and he pointed to them in a corner of the room.

Max fetched them; and as Kenneth took them and let them fall over his shoulder, Sneeshing shuffled out of the bedclothes and began to bark.

"Draw out that pillow," said Kenneth.

Max obeyed wonderingly; and rather feebly, but laughing the while, Kenneth tucked the pillow half under his left arm.

"What are you going to do?" cried Max.

"Wait a moment, and you'll see. Get back, you two--get back!"

Dirk and Bruce backed to the bottom of the bed, and sat up watching eagerly, while Sneeshing threw up his head and howled.

"Quiet, stupid!" cried Kenneth; "it isn't Tonal'."

"How wow!" howled Sneeshing.

"Be quiet, sir! Yes, I will."

He threatened the dog with one of the joints of the rod, and then threw it back over his left shoulder, as he lay with his head raised, and began to squeeze the pillow in imitation of a bag with its pipes.

"Now, Sneeshing, go ahead! Give us the Hieland Fling!"

Then, in imitation of the pipes, Kenneth began, and not badly,--

"Waugh! waugh!" and went on with the air "Tullochgorum," but Sneeshing only threw up his head and howled.

"Do you want me to whack you?" cried Kenneth. "Now, then, up you go, and we'll begin again."

"Waugh! waugh!"

Sneeshing had flinched from the rod, and now he gave his master a piteous look, but rose up on his hind legs and began to lift first one and then the other, drooping his forepaws and then raising them as he turned solemnly round to the imitation music. Twice over he came down on all-fours, for the bed was very soft and awkward on account of Kenneth's legs and its irregularities, but he rose up again, and the mock pipes were in full burst, and the dogs who formed the audience evidently in a great state of excitement, as they blinked and panted, when there was a tremendous roar of laughter, which brought all to a conclusion, the dogs barking furiously as Mr Curzon came forward with The Mackhai.

"Bravo! bravo!" he exclaimed. "There, I don't think you will want any more of my physic now."

Kenneth lay back, looking sadly shamefaced; and his father half-pleased, half-annoyed, as he opened the door and dismissed the dogs, but not unkindly.

"I'm glad to see you so much better, Ken."

"Thank you, father. I was only showing Max--"

"How much better you are!" interposed the doctor. "Well, I'm very glad; only I'd lie still now. Don't overdo it. There, Mr Mackhai, I have done. Thank you for your hospitality. I can go to-morrow."

"No; you'll stop and have a few days' fishing."

"Not one more, thank you; but if I am up here next year, and you would let me have a day or two on your water, I should be glad."

"As many days as you like, sir, for the rest of your life," said The Mackhai warmly, "for you saved that of my boy."

Ten minutes after, when they went down-stairs, Kenneth said,--

"I say, Max, what a humbug I must have looked! But I am ever so much better. I hope old Curzon will come and fish next year."

While down-stairs his father was angrily walking up and down his study.

"As many days as he likes for the rest of his life!" he exclaimed fiercely. "Idiot--a.s.s that I have been, and that I am, to offer that which at any hour may belong to some one else."

"Well," he added, after a pause, "folly receives its punishments, and the greatest of all follies is to game."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE STAG MAX DID NOT SHOOT.

"I say, Max!" said Kenneth one day, as they sat at either end of a boat, whipping away at the surface of the rippling water of one of the inland lochs, up to which the said boat had been dragged years before, upon rough runners like a sleigh, partly by the ponies, partly by hand labour. Scoodrach was seated amidships, rowing slowly, and every now and then tucking his oar under his leg, to give his nose a rub, and grumble something about "ta flee."

This was on the occasion when the fly Max was throwing came dangerously near hooking into the gristle of the young gillie's most prominent feature.

Kenneth did not finish his sentence, for just then he hooked a trout which gave him a fair amount of play before it was brought alongside, where Scoodrach, who had ceased rowing, was ready with the landing-net.

"Let me land it," cried Max; and, taking the net, he held it as he had seen Scoodrach perform the same operation a score of times.

"All right!" cried Kenneth. "He's a beauty; pound and a half, I know.

Now then--right under."

Kenneth's elastic rod was bent nearly double, as Max leaned forward, and, instead of lowering the net well into the water so that the fish might glide into it, he made an excited poke, and struck the fish with the ring; there was a faint whish as the rod suddenly straightened; a splash as the trout flapped the water with its tail and went off free, and Max and Kenneth stared at each other.

"She couldna hae done tat," muttered Scoodrach.

"Yes, you could, stupid!" said Kenneth, glad of some one upon whom he could vent his spleen. "You've knocked ever so many fish off that way."

"I'm very, very sorry," said Max humbly.

"That won't bring back the trout," grumbled Kenneth. "Never mind, old chap, I'll soon have another. Why don't you go on throwing?"

"Because I am stupid over it. I shall never throw a fly properly."

"Not if you give up without trying hard. Go on and have another good turn. Whip away. It'll come easier soon."

Max went on whipping away, but his success was very small, for he grew more and more nervous as he saw that Scoodrach flinched every time he made a cast, as if the hook had come dangerously near his eyes.

Once or twice there really had been reason for this, but, seeing how nervous it made Max, Scoodrach kept it up, taking a malicious delight in ducking his head, rubbing his nose, and fidgeting the tyro, who would gladly have laid down his rod but for the encouraging remarks made by Kenneth.

All at once the latter turned his head, from where he stood in the bows of the boat, and began watching Max, smiling grimly as he saw how clumsy a cast was made, and the smile grew broader as he noticed Scoodrach's exaggerated mock gesticulations of dread.

Then there was another cast, and Scood ducked his head down again. Then another cast, and Scood threw his head sideways and held up one arm, but this time the side of his bare head came with a sounding rap up against the b.u.t.t of Kenneth's rod.