Ah! so far, so good. But just at this unprecedented moment of excitement Andrew, the true-penny, had encountered another Scot, who emigrated before he did, and was breezily "clacking" with him at some distance from where two breathlessly expectant girls gazed down upon the black top of the nickum's head--and at his wheeling shoulders in the great armchair.
"Oh--oh! there he goes--see--curling up his legs, drawing up his feet carefully, turning in the seat--standing up!" cried Pemrose, all Rose at this crisis, prematurely blooming, as if it were June, not May, as she stood on tiptoe to meet a dramatic moment, reveling in the thought that the daredevil did not know what a surprise awaited him on top here, what a welcome--heart-eager gratitude.
She bit her lip, however, upon the impulsive cry, for she saw two girls, younger than herself, with a ten-year-old boy, who had been watching the climber's feat from a near-by mound, turn and look at her curiously.
They were evidently acquainted with the daring usurper of the Devil's Chair.
For, having drawn up his legs until his knees touched his chin, then raised himself to a standing position on the grim stone seat, cautiously turning, his strong fingers gripping the granite chair-arms, when his back was to the precipice beneath and his face almost touching the twelve-foot, well-nigh perpendicular rock which he had to climb, he actually had the hardihood to wave his hand to them.
"Now--now comes the 'scratch'!" he shouted laughingly. "I'm going to hook on to that 'nick' in the rock, there, just over my head, and draw myself up. Had to 'shy' it coming down--for fear it would catch in my clothing."
"Didn't I--didn't I t-tell you it was him?" burst forth Pem, with all the vehemence of a little spring torrent, in Una's ear as she caught the ring of the chaffing voice which had railed at the Fates for "wishing a wreck on" to unoffending youth, and was so boldly challenging them now.
And just as free and frank in her girlish gratitude as that torrent bubbling impulsively out of the earth, when the nickum reached the crest again, she sprang forward, hand outstretched, to meet him. Her eyes, blue as the little fairy blossoms of the star-grass now, were breeze blown in the meadow of her gladness.