_Old Friends._
I made the journey by easy stages, chiefly on the back of a favourite
black horse, which had carried me well in several fights, and had come
out of them scarred, like his master, but sound in wind and limb. It was
night when I reached the village lying nearest to my birth place.
When I woke in the morning, I found the whole region filled with a white
mist, hiding the mountains around. Now and then a peak looked through,
and again retired into the cloudy folds. In the wide, straggling street,
below the window at which I had made them place my breakfast-table, a
periodical fair was being held; and I sat looking down on the gathering
crowd, trying to discover some face known to my childhood, and still to
be recognized through the veil which years must have woven across the
features. When I had finished my breakfast, I went down and wandered
about among the people. Groups of elderly men were talking earnestly;
and young men and maidens who had come to be _fee’d_, were joking and
laughing. They stared at the Sassenach gentleman, and, little thinking
that he understood every word they uttered, made their remarks upon him
in no very subdued tones. I approached a stall where a brown old woman
was selling gingerbread and apples. She was talking to a man with long,
white locks. Near them was a group of young people. One of them must
have said something about me; for the old woman, who had been taking
stolen glances at me, turned rather sharply towards them, and rebuked
them for rudeness.
“The gentleman is no Sassenach,” she said. “He understands everything
you are saying.”
This was spoken in Gaelic, of course. I turned and looked at her with
more observance. She made me a courtesy, and said, in the same language:
“Your honour will be a Campbell, I’m thinking.”
“I am a Campbell,” I answered, and waited.
“Your honour’s Christian name wouldn’t be Duncan, sir?”
“It is Duncan,” I answered; “but there are many Duncan Campbells.”
“Only one to me, your honour; and that’s yourself. But you will not
remember me?”
I did not remember her. Before long, however, urged by her anxiety to
associate her Present with my Past, she enabled me to recall in her
time-worn features those of a servant in my father’s house when I was a
child.
“But how could you recollect me?” I said.
“I have often seen you since I left your father’s, sir. But it was
really, I believe, that I hear more about you than anything else, every
day of my life.”
“I do not understand you.”
“From old Margaret, I mean.”
“Dear old Margaret! Is she alive?”
“Alive and hearty, though quite bedridden. Why, sir, she must be within
near sight of a hundred.”
“Where does she live?”
“In the old cottage, sir. Nothing will make her leave it. The new laird
wanted to turn her out; but Margaret muttered something at which he grew
as white as his shirt, and he has never ventured across her threshold
again.”
“How do you see so much of her, though?”
“I never leave her, sir. She can’t wait on herself, poor old lady. And
she’s like a mother to me. Bless her! But your honour will come and see
her?”
“Of course I will. Tell her so when you go home.”
“Will you honour me by sleeping at my house, sir?” said the old man to
whom she had been talking. “My farm is just over the brow of the hill,
you know.”
I had by this time recognised him, and I accepted his offer at once.
“When may we look for you, sir?” he asked.
“When shall you be home?” I rejoined.
“This afternoon, sir. I have done my business already.”
“Then I shall be with you in the evening, for I have nothing to keep me
here.”
“Will you take a seat in my gig?”
“No, thank you. I have my own horse with me. You can take him in too, I
dare say?”
“With pleasure, sir.”
We parted for the meantime. I rambled about the neighbourhood till it
was time for an early dinner.