Kenneth McAlpine Part 34

"Why, the biggest and the best surprise I've had for many a day. But how are you? and where have you come from last? and how goes the farm out in the West?"

Harvey put a dozen other questions, but he gave his friends no time to answer one.

I leave my readers to guess whether or not they spent a pleasant, happy evening together. Ay, and not one, but many. For Harvey was not going to let them go for a long time, you may be sure. So they stayed on and on for weeks. There was plenty of sport and fun to be got all day, but, nevertheless, the evenings were always most pleasant. There was so much to talk about, and so much to tell each other, that time fled on swallows' wings, and it was always pretty near the--

"Wee short 'oor ayout the twal,"

before they parted for the night.

Need I say that one of the first places visited by Kenneth and Archie-- and they stole away all alone--was Kooran's grave, and the fairy knoll?

They were delighted to find the former carefully kept, and quite surprised to find the latter completely furnished. The inside was a cave no longer, except in shape. It was a library, a boudoir, call it what you may.

"How mindful of dear Harvey!" said Kenneth.

"Yes, indeed," replied Archie; "and think, too, of his goodness to my dear father, of the comfortable house he dwells in, and the smiling little croft around it."

"Harvey," said Kenneth with enthusiasm, "is one of Nature's n.o.blemen.

"'Away with false fashion, so calm and so chill, Where pleasure itself cannot please; Away with cold breeding, that faithlessly still Affects to be quite at its ease.

For the deepest in feeling is highest in rank, The freest is first of the band: And Nature's own n.o.bleman, friendly and frank, Is the man with his heart in his hand.'"

"Come, I say, Kennie, my learned old man, when you are talking poetry, and such ringing verses, too, as these, I dare say you imagine I must sing small; but bide a wee, lad, there is two of us can play at the same game. What say you if I match Burns against your Tupper? Hear then."

And, with figure and head erect, with arms extended and open palm, Archie spoke,--

"Is there for honest poverty, That hangs his head and a' that?

The coward-slave, we pa.s.s him by, And dare be poor for a' that.

What though on homely fare we dine, Wear hodden-grey [coa.r.s.e, woollen, undyed cloth] and a' that, Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that.

"A prince can make a belted knight, A marquis, duke and a' that; But an honest man's above his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that. [Try.]

Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree for a' that."

[Bear the gree, _i.e._, be triumphant.]

"Bravo! Archie, lad. Glad to see that you haven't forgotten your Scotch, though we've talked little but English for many a long day.

"Ah! well," he continued, after a pause, "I was just thinking, Archie, how kind Providence has been to us."

"But mind you, Kenneth, we've worked hard."

"I'm not saying we haven't, Archie, I'm not saying we haven't. We _have_ worked; and I say shame on the sheep who huddles down in a corner and nurses himself, and thinks that Heaven will give him every blessing for the asking. We must work as well as pray."

"Do you know, Archie, that one terrible night at sea, while we were rounding the Horn with a whole gale of wind blowing and a smothering sea on, when it was so dark you couldn't have seen a sheet of white paper held at arm's length, and when we all of a sudden knew from the frightful cold we were surrounded by ice, when at last the ship was struck and began to leak, and no one had a hope of seeing the morn break--that down below I stole just one half minute to open my Book?

And my eyes fell upon the ninety-first Psalm, and I took comfort and heart at once; I knew we would be saved, and next day the captain complimented me on having been so daring, so fearless, and cheerful.

Ah! lad, little did he know that the bravery in my breast was no bravery of mine; it _had been put there by Him_. Call this faith of mine folly if you like, I don't care; it suits _me_, and it has saved me more than once, and comforted me a thousand times.

"Do you mind the time," Kenneth went on, changing the subject, "when you and I used to herd the sheep here with dear old Kooran and Shot?"

"Can I e'er forget it, Kenneth?"

Sitting on the top of the fairy knoll there, the two young men had quite a long talk about bygone times. I have said "young men;" and they were so, though they might not have appeared to be in the eyes of boys and girls, but as they talked they seemed to grow younger still. Kenneth could almost imagine he saw the smoke curling up from his mother's cot in the glen, and Kooran feathering away through the heather to fetch his dinner. [See Book One, chapter one.]

A day or two after this the three friends went together over the hills to pay a visit to the fisherman's cot by the beach.

Duncan Reed was so glad to see them. He was not so very much altered in appearance. They found him seated in the sunlight, with a very large Bible on his lap, and an immense pair of hornrimmed spectacles on his nose.

Duncan drops out of the story here. He is gone years ago. Suffice it to say he had his wish--he sleeps beside the sea.

On their return journey they visited the ruins of old Nancy Dobbell's cottage. Harvey McGregor made one remark which explains much.

"That old woman," he said, "alone knew my secret."

Pa.s.sing onwards towards the forest, Kenneth ventured to ask for the first time about Jessie Grant.

"Heigho!" replied Harvey; "I cared not to mention it in my letter, but that family were in reduced circ.u.mstances even before the father and mother died; now poor Jessie lives at Helensburgh in a humble cottage with her aunt."

"And she is not--"

"No, not married."

A thrill of joy went through Kenneth's heart. It was not unaccompanied by a kind of satisfied feeling of pride. He could not quite forget the time when proud Mr Redmond offered him the position of ghillie on his premises.

Need I say that Kenneth soon found Jessie out? She was more beautiful than ever in his eyes.

Archie and Kenneth took rooms at Helensburgh--for sake of the fishing.

At least Kenneth said it was for sake of the fishing; but he did not look Archie quite straight in the face when he made the remark.

When, after a few weeks, Kenneth proposed marriage to Jessie, his offer was--refused.

Why? Truth to tell, Jessie loved him, but she said to herself, "Now he is rich and I am poor, it cannot be."

I do not know whether this was a pardonable pride in Jessie or not.

Perhaps it was.

Then came an evening when Kenneth, Archie, and Jessie were strolling together on the banks of the loch. It was to be the last night in Scotland of the two American farmers, as they called themselves, and she could not refuse to go with them to see the sun set behind the mountains.

Kenneth felt very sad, and spoke but little, Jessie hardly at all; in fact, she felt that it would not take much to make her cry.

Archie was still a student of natural history, and a new species of fern caught his eye. He must climb the fence, must commit a trespa.s.s even to find it, and his companions strolled on.

It was hardly an evening calculated to inspire hope or joy. A breeze roughened the lake, and went moaning through the almost leafless trees; the fields were bare or ploughed, the hedgerows looked sickly, and the brackens--so lovely in summer--were brown or broken down or bent.

Still, the robin sang in the woods. That was something.

Kenneth and Jessie leant against a stile to wait for Archie; but that fern required a deal of examination.

"Archie seems in no hurry," said Jessie, looking back.

"He has found a flower of some kind, I suppose," replied Kenneth.