The Big Otter. Robert Michael Ballantyne

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      “Why so?” asked Spooner.

      “Because there are some unmistakable symptoms that winter is about over, and that snow-shoe and dog-sleigh travelling will soon be impossible.”

      That Lumley was right, the change of weather during the next few days clearly proved, for a thaw set in with steady power. The sun became at last warm enough to melt ice and snow visibly. We no longer listened with interest to the sounds of dropping water from eaves and trees, for these had become once more familiar, and soon our ears were greeted with the gurgling of rills away in mysterious depths beneath the snow. The gurgling ere long gave place to gushing, and it seemed as if all nature were dissolving into liquid.

      While this pleasant change was going on we awoke with song and laugh and story the echoes of Bachelors’ Hall—at no time very restful echoes, save perhaps in the dead hours of early morning; and even then they were more or less disturbed by snoring. For our sociable Highlander, besides having roused our spirits by his mere presence to the effervescing point, was himself much elated by the mighty change from prolonged solitude to joyous companionship.

      “My spirit feels inclined,” he remarked one day, “to jump clean out of my body.”

      “You’d better not let it then,” said Lumley, “for you know it might catch cold or freeze.”

      “Not in this weather, surely,” retorted Macnab, “and if I did feel coldish in the circumstances, couldn’t I borrow Spooner’s blanket-capote? it might fit me then, for I’d probably be a few sizes smaller.”

      “Come, Mac,” said I, “give us a song. You know I’m wildly fond of music; and, most unfortunately, not one of us three can sing a note.”

      Our visitor was quite willing, and began at once to sing a wild ditty, in the wilder language of his native land.

      He had a sweet, tuneful, sympathetic voice, which was at the same time powerful, so that we listened to him, sometimes with enthusiasm swelling our hearts, at other times with tears dimming our eyes. No one, save he who has been banished to a wilderness and long bereft of music, can understand the nature of our feelings—of mine, at least.

      One evening, after our wounded man had charmed us with several songs, and we all of us had done what we could, despite our incapacity, to pay him back in kind, he pulled a sheet of crumpled paper out of his pocket.

      “Come,” said he, unfolding it, “I’ve got a poet among the men of Muskrat House, who has produced a song, which, if not marked by sublimity, is at least distinguished by much truth. He said he composed it at the rate of about one line a week during the winter, and his comrades said that it was quite a picture to see him agonising over the rhymes. Before they found out what was the matter with him they thought he was becoming subject to fits of some sort. Now, then, let’s have a good chorus. It’s to the tune of ‘The British Grenadiers.’”

      It almost seemed as though the world of ice and snow itself had taken umbrage at Macnab’s song, for, while we were yet in the act of enthusiastically prolonging the last “sno–o–ow,” there sounded in our ears a loud report, as if of heavy artillery close at hand.

      We all leaped up in excitement, as if an enemy were at our doors.

      “There it goes at last!” cried Lumley, rushing out of the house followed by Spooner.

      I was about to follow when Macnab stopped me.

      “Don’t get excited, Max, there’s no hurry!”

      “It’s the river going to break up,” said I, looking back impatiently.

      “Yes, I know that, but it won’t break up to-night, depend on it.”

      I was too eager to wait for more, but ran to the banks of the river, which at that place was fully a mile wide. The moon was bright, and we could see the familiar sheet of ice as still and cold as we had seen it every day for many months past.

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