Kenneth McAlpine Part 14

"There is something else. Look at your tablets, Miss Gale."

"Oh yes," said Miss Gale. "Here it is--Flute."

Kenneth had the flute in his pocket. He was a marvellous player for a boy. His whole soul seemed to breathe through the instrument.

To-day he played a battle-piece of his own putting together--not composing.

First came the gathering of the clans, bold, energetic, soul-touching, then the plaintive farewell to native glens, as the Highlanders marched away,--

"Maybe to return to Lochaber no more."

Next came the spirited march, then the wilder pibroch as the foe was sighted, then wilder rushing music still; the fight was going on now, you could feel that. You could hear the shrill slogan of the Highlander mingling with shout of victor and shriek of wounded. Then a pause, and anon the coronach or wail for the dead.

And so the music died away.

Down the glen now the party went, for the sun was sinking low in the west, and the fairy glen was miles from the clachan.

But Jessie must see the sheep. Dugald was acting as shepherd to-day, and doffed his Highland bonnet as the ladies approached him.

There was not a sheep there that Kenneth did not know. They bleated a kindly welcome as he approached. They even played with Kooran, making great pretence to knock him down or to hit him with their hard feet, all of which Kooran took in good part, and kindly pretended to run from them, then turning and barking in a funny remonstrative voice, as if he really were laughing at heart, and enjoyed the fun immensely, and I have no doubt he did.

Dugald took Kenneth aside.

"There is bad news come," he said; "all is lost. The glen is to be evicted."

Kenneth's heart sank within him.

The cloud then that had been gathering so long was about to burst.

It was well-nigh a year since the tenantry had been asked to leave.

They heeded not the summons. They could not believe that their own auld laird McGregor would send his people away. Little they knew. McGregor would never appear among them again. The edict sent through him was sent by or at the instigation of the new American laird. The glens were no good to him with people in them--so he said--he must have deer; he was buying the land for the "sport" it would afford him, his family and friends. Yet he doubted his own power, being a foreigner, to evict.

But that very day the last summons was given previous to forcible expulsion.

And the young men of the clachan and glens were wild. They would stand by their homesteads, they would grasp dirk and claymore, they would fight, they would die where they stood.

But at the great meeting that took place the wisdom of the grey-haired prevailed. And with sorrow, ay, and tears, they all came at last to the conclusion that resistance would be worse than useless.

They would not go till they were forced, they would stay and see the last of the dear old spot, but they would bend their necks to the yoke, they would maintain a pa.s.sive att.i.tude.

In this they showed their wisdom. The auld laird McGregor sent them a most affecting letter. "Their sorrows," it ended, "and his own misfortune had broken his heart, and though he could see them no more in life, his thoughts and mind were with them."

True, for the auld laird lived scarcely a year after the eviction of Glen Alva.

But with a portion of the remains of his fortune he paid the pa.s.sage money to America of as many of his tenants as were willing to accept his offer.

I would not harrow the feelings of my readers by describing the last sad scene in Glen Alva, when in the darkness of night the people were turned out; when more than seventy houses--well, call them huts, they were homesteads, at all events--were given to the flames; when the aged and the sick were laid on the bare hillside to shiver and to die; and when neither the wail of the widow nor plaintive cry of the suffering infant could move to pity or mercy the minions of the Yankee laird, who preferred deer to human beings.

Selah!

CHAPTER TEN.

THE LAST LINK IS BROKEN.

"Farewell, farewell, my native land, Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains."

Scene: The fairy glen once more, and in the background the fairy knoll.

Kenneth and Archie, both looking very sad, are in the foreground by a new-made grave. Kenneth has been planting a little tree there, only a young Scotch pine, dug from the moor, a treelet that had grown from a cone which the rooks had fetched from Alva's gloomy forest. Kenneth has planted the tree, and the spade has dropped from his fingers and fallen among the heather.

Archie's dog Shot is standing near. He has been watching all the proceedings. Watching, and probably wondering. For dogs _do_ think.

But where is Kooran? Kooran is under the sod. His bonnie brown eyes have closed for ever; his faithful heart will never feel love or friendship more--it has ceased to beat. Nor cry of wild bird on the mountain, nor plaintive bleat of lamb, no, nor his master's voice, will ever move him again.

"I canna but believe," says Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, "that dogs hae sowls."

There are many more believe with you, dear Hogg.

But about honest Kooran. When dogs get old, you know--and Kooran had got old before he died--a slight stiffness may be noticed in their gait.

I am positive that they begin to wonder what ails them. Wonder why they cannot run so fast as they used to, in the good days of yore.

Wonder why they get tired and out of breath so soon. Wonder, too, why master speaks so low, or why the sheep do not bleat so loudly or the birds sing so much as they used to. They do not know that this is only failure in their own powers of hearing. And they wonder also why the trees and gra.s.s and hedgerows have ceased to be so bright and green, even in spring-time, as once they were; why master's face seems dimmer.

They cannot now stand the cold so well; they seem to want a thicker coat, but alas! the coat grows thinner. They would fain seek the shelter of indoors, even curl up on the hearthrug. How seldom do they get the chance! How often they receive the brutal kick when they most need comfort!

Then comes the day when they feel the cold no longer.

It had never occurred to Kenneth that some time or other Kooran and he must part--that Kooran must die. He was ever kind and attentive to this faithful friend of his; he never forgot him. He might have been excused if he had, for the scenes at the eviction and the burning of the glen were awful enough, in all conscience, to have driven everything else out of the boy's head.

Of all the houses in the glen, that alone of Kenneth's mother had been spared. Not that she meant to accept the favour thus offered her and stay on. Both she and Kenneth were far too proud for that. But at the cottage they lived for a time. And at the cottage Kooran died.

He came wet and weary one evening and threw himself down at his master's feet.

When Kenneth spoke to him he looked pleadingly up into his face and shivered. Kenneth had never seen him shiver before. The dog went and lay before the fire, and his master covered him up with his plaid.

Kooran licked his hands.

Something, he knew not what, awoke the boy long before dawn next day, and his first thought was of his old favourite.

He peeped out at the little gable window in the garret where he lay. A pale scimitar moon was declining behind the trees. These looked black and spectre-like.

Kenneth went gently down the ladder, and lit the oil lamp. The fire was very low, and he replenished it. Then he gently lifted a corner of the plaid. The action aroused the dog, and he crawled forth. He seemed to feel for Kenneth's knee, and on this he laid his head.

Kenneth knew this was death. He put his hand tenderly on the poor dog's muzzle, for he could not hear him breathe.

The tongue came out to lick the hand. It was a farewell.

And the boys had rolled the body of poor Kooran in a piece of old tartan plaid, and, followed by Shot, carried him up to the fairy glen, and buried him near the fairy knoll. Remember they were only boys.

Then Kenneth sat down and cried. Archie had never before seen such an exhibition of weakness on the part of his friend, so what could he do but sit down and keep him company? They were only boys.