He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his clan.
His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket a twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a dog's freedom--oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night.
One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the tide lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk.
Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's good fortune,--of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of its friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the black rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the restlessness and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the ploys with galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the waving of branches on foreign isles to welcome one.
The road opened before him in short swatches--the sort of road a wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass; thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters.
John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of Donnacha Ban's "Coire Cheathaich":--
"O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting Out in the dew of the sunny mom! For the great red stag was never wanting, Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. My beauteous corri, my misty corri! What light feet trod thee in joy and pride! What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures, What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!"
Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it was a cloud of dust.
"What have I here?" said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees.
The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, draggled and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road.
"Boboon! Boboon!" they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his fine clothes.
He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies of their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked, ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! A stir set up in his heart that he could not put down.