But his sister Madge--ah! how she would cry, and how bitter and hot and blinding would be those tears, for they loved each other, those two mitherless bairns, as only young sister and brother can. Kep was all the world to Madge. No boy ever so kind and gentle, so brave. None ever so pleasant and so wildly mirthfully, gleesome and humorous.
As he thought of this he took from his side pocket a tiny little black orchestra flute or piccolo. Not much bigger nor thicker was it than a fountain pen, but oh, the marvellous music he was wont to elicit from it. Mostly all Italian and German, chiefly operatic, yet the birds that perched on the golden scented furze in spring used to stop their songs to listen when Kep played, and little anxious creatures in fur used to peep wonderingly out of their holes. He took his pipe from his pocket, I say, and began to play--merrily at first, but soon mournfully and sadly. The music that he breathed into it or that welled out of it was such as he himself had never heard before. It seemed to come from his very soul, to be the very own voice of that soul; and what more sweet, if pure, than the soul of a boy of his still tender years?
He dropped the magic pipe, and threw himself on his face to weep.
"Oh, Madge, oh, Madge," he sobbed, "I am going away, away--I am following destiny--and you--you--how I love you, sister! but distance can never, never divide nor sunder us. Never, Madge, never."
He spoke through his tears, as if his sister were close at his elbow.
"I'll write often and often, and you shall write to me. I may not always get your letters, but you shall always have mine. What is this?" he added, speaking more to himself now. He picked something off a bush of ling. It was one of wild Madge's hair-ribbons--they often sat down to rest, the brother and sister, in this very spot.
He looked at it. He held the bonnie blue silk to his lips, and sighed a sigh which gave him comfort. Then he attached the ribbon to his wee flute and tied it to a button hole.
He would never part from either ribbon or flute, go where he might, over sea or land. The ribbon would be his mascot and charm danger away, the tie that would knit him to his sister and to home.