THE FAREWELL.
A month passed, and the flag of their exile was seen flying in the
bay. The same hour the chief's horses were put to, the carts were
loaded, their last things gathered. Few farewells had to be made,
for the whole clan, except two that had gone to the bad, turned out
at the minute appointed. The chief arranged them in marching column.
Foremost went the pipes; the chief, his wife, and his mother, came
next; Hector of the Stags, carrying the double-barrelled rifle the
chief had given him, Rob of the Angels, and Donal shoemaker,
followed. Then came the women and children; next, the carts, with a
few, who could not walk, on the top of the baggage; the men brought
up the rear. Four or five favourite dogs were the skirmishers of the
column.
The road to the bay led them past the gate of the New House. The
chief called a halt, and went with his wife to seek a last
interview. Mr. Peregrine Palmer kept his room, but Mrs. Palmer bade
her daughter a loving farewell--more relieved than she cared to
show, that the cause of so much discomfort was going so far away.
The children wept. Christina bade her sister good-bye with a
hopeless, almost envious look: Mercy, who did not love him, would
see Ian! She who would give her soul for him was never to look on
him again in this world!
Kissing Mercy once more, she choked down a sob, and whispered,
"Give my love--no, my heart, to Ian, and tell him I AM trying."
They all walked together to the gate, and there the chief's mother
took her leave of the ladies of the New House. The pipes struck up;
the column moved on.
When they came to the corner which would hide from them their native
strath, the march changed to a lament, and with the opening wail,
all stopped and turned for a farewell look. Men and women, the chief
alone excepted, burst into weeping, and the sound of their
lamentation went wandering through the hills with an adieu to every
loved spot. And this was what the pipes said:
We shall never see you more, Never more, never more! Till the sea be
dry, and the world be bare, And the dews have ceased to fall, And
the rivers have ceased to run, We shall never see you more, Never
more, never more!
They stood and gazed, and the pipes went on lamenting, and the women
went on weeping.
"This is heathenish!" said Alister to himself, and stopped the
piper.
"My friends," he cried, in Gaelic of course, "look at me: my eyes
are dry! Where Jesus, the Son of God, is--there is my home! He is
here, and he is over the sea, and my home is everywhere! I have lost
my land and my country, but I take with me my people, and make no
moan over my exile! Hearts are more than hills. Farewell Strathruadh
of my childhood! Place of my dreams, I shall visit you again in my
sleep! And again I shall see you in happier times, please God, with
my friends around me!"
He took off his bonnet. All the men too uncovered for a moment, then
turned to follow their chief. The pipes struck up Macrimmon's
lament, Till an crodh a Dhonnachaidh (TURN THE KINE, DUNCAN). Not
one looked behind him again till they reached the shore. There, out
in the bay, the biggest ship any of the clan had ever seen was
waiting to receive them.
When Mr. Peregrine Palmer saw that the land might in truth be for
sale, he would gladly have bought it, but found to his chagrin that
he was too late. It was just like the fellow, he said, to mock him
with the chance of buying it! He took care to come himself, and not
send a man he could have believed!
The clan throve in the clearings of the pine forests. The hill-men
stared at their harvests as if they saw them growing. Their many
children were strong and healthy, and called Scotland their home.
In an outlying and barren part of the chief's land, they came upon
rock oil. It was so plentiful that as soon as carriage became
possible, the chief and his people began to grow rich.
News came to them that Mr. Peregrine Palmer was in difficulties, and
desirous of parting with his highland estate. The chief was now able
to buy it ten times over. He gave his agent in London directions to
secure it for him, with any other land conterminous that might come
into the market. But he would not at once return to occupy it, for
his mother dreaded the sea, and thought to start soon for another
home. Also he would rather have his boys grow where they were, and
as men face the temptations beyond: where could they find such
teaching as that of their uncle Ian! Both father and uncle would
have them ALIVE before encountering what the world calls LIFE.
But the Macruadh yet dreams of the time when those of the clan then
left in the world, accompanied, he hopes, by some of those that went
out before them, shall go back to repeople the old waste places, and
from a wilderness of white sheep and red deer, make the mountain
land a nursery of honest, unambitious, brave men and strong-hearted
women, loving God and their neighbour; where no man will think of
himself at his brother's cost, no man grow rich by his neighbour's
ruin, no man lay field to field, to treasure up for himself wrath
against the day of wrath.
THE END.