John Splendid Part 43

"Long or short," said he, with absent hands in his horse's mane, "will lie with Fate, and she, my lads, is a dour jade with a secret It'll be long if ye mind of me, and unco short if ye forget me till I return."

I went up and said farewell. I but shook his hand, and my words were few and simple. That took him, for he was always quick to sound the depth of silent feeling.

"_Mo thruadh! mo thruadh!_ Colin," said he. "My grief! my grief! here are two brothers closer than by kin, and they have reached a gusset of life, and there must be separation. I have had many a jolt from my fairy relatives, but they have never been more wicked than now. I wish you were with me, and yet, ah! yet----. Would her ladyship, think ye, forget for a minute, and shake an old friend's hand, and say good-bye?"

I turned to Betty, who stood a little back with her father, and conveyed his wish. She came forward, dyed crimson to the neck, and stood by his horse's side. He slid off the saddle and shook her hand.

"It is very good of you," said he. "You have my heart's good wishes to the innermost chamber."

Then he turned to me, and while the fishermen stood back, he said, "I envied you twice, Colin--once when you had the foresight of your fortune on the side of Loch Loven, and now that it seems begun."

He took the saddle, waved his bonnet in farewell to all the company, then rode quickly up the street and round the castle walls.

It was a day for the open road, and, as we say, for putting the seven glens and the seven bens and the seven mountain moors below a young man's feet,--a day with invitation in the air and the promise of gifts around The mallards at morning had quacked in the Dhuloch pools, the otter scoured the burn of Maam, the air-goat bleated as he flew among the reeds, and the stag paused above his shed antlers on Torvil-side to hide them in the dead bracken.

M'Iver rode beside flowering saugh and alder tree through those old arches, now no more, those arches that were the outermost posterns where good-luck allowed farewells. He dare not once look round, and his closest friends dare not follow him, as he rode alone on the old road so many of our people have gone to their country's wars or to sporran battles.

A silence fell upon the community, and in upon it broke from the river-side the wail of a bagpipe played by the piper of Argile. It played a tune familiar in those parts upon occasions of parting and encouragement, a tune they call "Come back to the Glen."

Come back to the glen, to the glen, to the glen, And there shall the welcome be waiting for you.

The deer and the heath-c.o.c.k, the curd from the pen, The blaeberry fresh from the dew!

We saw the piper strut upon the gravelled walk beside the bridgegate, we saw Argile himself come out to meet the traveller.

"MacCailein! MacCailein! Ah the dear heart!" cried all our people, touched by this rare and genteel courtesy.

The Marquis and his clansman touched hands, lingered together a little, and the rider pa.s.sed on his way with the piper's invitation the last sound in his ears. He rode past Kilmalieu of the tombs, with his bonnet off for all the dead that are so numerous there, so patient, waiting for the final trump. He rode past Boshang Gate, portal to my native glen of chanting birds and melodious waters and merry people. He rode past Gearron hamlet, where the folk waved farewells; then over the river before him was the bend that is ever the beginning of home-sickness for all that go abroad for fortune.

I turned to the girl beside me, and "Sweetheart," said I softly, "there's an elder brother lost. It is man's greed, I know; but rich though I am in this new heart of yours, I must be grudging the comrade gone."

"Gone!" said she, with scarcely a glance after the departing figure.

"Better gone than here a perpetual sinner, deaf to the cry of justice and of nature."

"Good G.o.d!" I cried, "are you still in that delusion?" and I hinted at the truth.

She saw the story at a flash; she paled to the very lips, and turned and strained her vision after that figure slowly pa.s.sing round the woody point; she relinquished no moment of her gaze till the path bent and hid John Splendid from her eager view.

THE END.