and a heap of quartz in which we thought we had found veins
of gold - such was the modest furnishing of our den. To this I
must add some broken clay pipes, with which we made believe
to imitate our elders, smoking a foul mixture of coltsfoot leaves
and brown paper. The band was in session, so following our
ritual we sent out a picket. Tam was deputed to go round the
edge of the cliff from which the shore was visible, and report
if the coast was clear.

He returned in three minutes, his eyes round with amazement
in the lantern light. 'There's a fire on the sands,' he
repeated, 'and a man beside it.'

Here was news indeed. Without a word we made for the
open, Archie first, and Tam, who had seized and shuttered his
lantern, coming last. We crawled to the edge of the cliff and
peered round, and there sure enough, on the hard bit of sand
which the tide had left by the burn mouth, was a twinkle of
light and a dark figure.

The moon was rising, and besides there was that curious
sheen from the sea which you will often notice in spring. The
glow was maybe a hundred yards distant, a little spark of fire I
could have put in my cap, and, from its crackling and smoke,
composed of dry seaweed and half-green branches from the
burnside thickets. A man's figure stood near it, and as we
looked it moved round and round the fire in circles which first
of all widened and then contracted.

The sight was so unexpected, so beyond the beat of our