WHEREIN THE SHOES OF FORTUNE BRING ME HOME
I came down from my cam-ceiled room to a breakfast by candle-light in a
morning that was yet stormy. The landlord himself waited on me ['twas no
other than Ralph Craig that's now retired at the Whinnell), and he had
a score of apologies for his servant lass that had slept in too long, as
he clumsily set a table with his own hand, bringing in its equipment in
single pieces.
There was a nervousness in his manner that escaped me for a little in
the candle-light, but I saw it finally with some wonder, rueing I had
agreed to have breakfast here at all, and had not taken my horse, now
recovered of his lameness, and pushed on out of a neighbourhood where I
had no right in common sense to be.
If the meal was slow of coming it was hearty enough, though the host
embarrassed me too much with his attentions. He was clearly interested
in my personality.
“It's not the first time ye've been in the 'Red Lion,'” said he with
an assurance that made me stare.
“And what way should you be thinking that?” I asked, beginning to feel
more anxious about my position.
“Oh, jist a surmise o' my ain,” he answered. “Ye kent your way to the
stable in the dark, and then--and then there's whiles a twang o' the
Mearns in your speech.”
This was certainly coming too close! I hastened through my breakfast,
paid my lawing, and ordered out my horse. That took so long that I
surmised the man was wilfully detaining me. “This fellow has certainly
some project to my detriment,” I told myself, and as speedily as I might
got into the saddle. Then he said what left no doubt:
“They'll be gey glad to see ye at the Hazel Den, Mr. Greig.”
I felt a stound of anguish at the words that might in other
circumstances have been true but now were so remote from it.
“You seem to have a very gleg eye in your head,” I said, “and to have a
great interest in my own affairs.”
“No offence, Mr. Paul, no offence!” said he civilly, and indeed abashed.
“There's a lassie in the kitchen that was ance your mither's servant and
she kent your shoes.”
“I hope then you'll say nothing about my being here to any one--for the
sake of the servant's old mistress--that was my mother.”
“That _was_ your mither!” he repeated. “And what for no' yet? She'll be
prood to see ye hame.”
“Is it well with them up there?” I eagerly asked.
I rode like fury home. The day was come before I reached the dykes of
Hazel Den. Smoke was rising from its chimneys; there was a homely
sound of lowing cattle, and a horse was saddling for my father who was
preparing to ride over to the inn at Newton to capture his errant son.
He stood before the door, a little more grey, a little more bent, a
little more shrunken than when I had seen him last. When I drew up
before him with my hat in my hand and leaped out of the saddle, he
scarcely grasped at first the fact that here was his son.
“Father! Father!” I cried to him, and he put his arms about my
shoulders.
“You're there, Paul!” said he at last. “Come your ways in; your dear
mother is making your breakfast.”
I could not have had it otherwise--'twas the welcome I would have
chosen!
His eyes were brimming over; his voice was full of sobs and laughter as
he cried “Katrine! Katrine!” and my mother came to throw herself into my
arms.
My Shoes of Fortune had done me their one good office; they had brought
me home.
And now, my dear David, and Quentin, and Jean, my tale is ended, leaving
some folks who figured therein a space with their ultimate fortunes
unexplained. There is a tomb in Rome that marks the end of Prince
Charles Edward's wanderings and exploits, ambitions, follies, and
passions. Of him and of my countrywoman, Clementina Walkinshaw, you
will by-and-by read with understanding in your history-books. She
died unhappy and disgraced, yet I can never think of her but as
young, beautiful, kind, the fool of her affections, the plaything of
Circumstance. Clancarty's after career I never learned, but Thurot,
not long after I escaped from him in Dunkerque, plundered the town of
Carrickfergus, in Ireland, and was overtaken by three frigates when he
was on his way back to France. His ships were captured and he himself
was killed. You have seen Dr. MacKellar here on a visit from his native
Badenoch; his pardon from the Government was all I got, or all I wished
for, from Mr. Pitt. “And where is Isobel Fortune?” you will ask. You
know her best as your grandmother, my wife. My Shoes of Fortune, she
will sometimes say, laughing, brought me first and last Miss Fortune;
indeed they did! I love them for it, but I love you, too, and hope to
keep you from the Greig's temptation, so they are to the fore no longer.
THE END