I
It was in the sixties that a southern distiller, who had grown rich
through owning many public-houses and much selling of bad gin, bought
Glenalder from its poverty-stricken laird, and cleared out the last of
the Macdonalds from Lochaber. They arose and departed on a fine spring
day, when the buds were bursting on the trees, and the thorn was white
as snow, and the birds were bringing forth their young, and the heather
was beginning to bloom. Early in the morning, while the grass was yet
wet with dew and the sun had not come over the hill, Ian Dhu, at the
head of the Glen, with his brothers and their families, their sons and
their sons' wives, began the procession, which flowed as a stream of
sorrow by the side of the Alder, all the day, gathering its rivulets
from every forsaken home. When it reached the poor little clachan, where
were the kirk and the graveyard, the emigrants halted, and leaving
their goods upon the road went in to worship God for the last time in
Glenalder kirk. A very humble sanctuary, with earthen floor and bare
benches, and mightily despised by the kind of southron who visited
the new laird's mansion, but beautiful and holy to those who had been
baptised there, and married there, and sat with their heart's love
there, and who, in that place, but after many years and in old age, had
received the sacrament. When they were all in their places, the minister
of the Glen, who would fain have gone with them, but was now too old,
ascended the pulpit and spake to them from the words, “He went out, not
knowing whither he went,” charging them never to forget their native
country nor their fathers' faith, beseeching them to trust in God and do
righteousness, calling them all kinds of tender names in the warm Gaelic
speech, till they fell a-weeping, men and women together, and the place
was full of lamentation. After which Alister Macdonald, who had been
through the Crimean War and the Mutiny, and now was a catechist great
in opening mysteries, committed them to the care of their fathers' God.
They would hardly leave the kirk, and the sun was westering fast when
they came to the elbow of the hill where the traveller gets his last
look of the Glen. There they sang “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let
my right hand forget her cunning,” but it was Glenalder they meant, a
parcel of whose earth each family carried with them into exile; and as
the pipes played “Lochaber no more” they went away for ever from the
land they loved and which had cast them forth. For an hour the minister
and Alister, with a handful of old people, watched their kinsfolk till
they could see them no more, and then they went back, no one speaking
with his neighbour, to the empty Glen.
Besides the huge staring castle, with its lodges, built by the
foreigner, there are only some twenty houses now in all bonnie
Glenalder. Tourists venturing from the main road come, here and there,
across a little heap of stones and the remains of a garden, with some
patches of bright green still visible among the heather. It is the
memorial of a home where generation after generation of well-built,
clean-blooded, God-fearing Highland folk were raised. From those humble
cottages went up morning and evening the psalm of praise to God. From
them also came hardy men to fill the ranks of the Highland regiments,
who had tasted none of the city vices and did not know what fear was.
Nor were they a fierce or morose people, for the Glen sounded of
a summer evening with the sound of the pipes, playing reels and
strathspeys, and in the winter time the minister would lend his barn for
a dance, saying, like the shrewd man he was, “The more dancing the less
drinking.” The very names of those desolate homesteads and the people
that lived therein are now passing out of mind in Glenalder, but away
in North-West Canada there is a new Glenalder, where every name has
been reproduced, and the cuttings of the brier roses bloom every year in
memory of the land that is “far awa.” And if any man from Lochaber, or
for that matter from any part of Scotland, lights on this place, it will
be hard for him to get away from the warm hearts that are there, and he
must depart a better man after hearing the kindly speech and seeing the
sword dance once more.
While the exiles halted on the elbow of the hill, each man, woman and
child, according to his size and strength, carried a stone from the
hillside and placed it on a heap that grew before their eyes, till it
made a rough pyramid. This was called the Cairn of Remembrance, and as
often as any one of the scanty remnant left the Glen to go south it was
a custom that his friends should accompany him to this spot and bid him
farewell, where the past pledged him to love and faithfulness. It was
here therefore that Henry Rutherford parted from Magdalen Macdonald as
he went to his last session at the Divinity Hall.
“It's four years since I came first to Glenalder to teach the school in
the summer-time, Magdalen, an' little I thought then I would ever be so
near the ministry or win my sweetheart in the Glen.” They were sitting
on a heather bank below the cairn, and as he spoke his arm slipped
round her waist He was a typical Scot, with bony frame, broad shoulders,
strong face, deep-set eyes of grey, and the somewhat assertive and
self-sufficient manner of his race. She was of the finest type of
Highland beauty, with an almost perfect Grecian face, fair hair dashed
with gold, eyes of the blue of the Highland lochs, and a queenly
carriage of head and body. Deep-bosomed and unfettered by fashionable
city dress, with strong hand and firm foot, she had the swinging gait
and proud independence of the free hill woman.
“Had it not been for you,” he went on, “I had never persevered; it was
your faith put strength in me and hope, and then... the help you gave
me; I can never forget or repay you. To think that you should have
slaved that I should have books and--better food.”
“Hush, I command you, for I will not be hearing another word, and if you
are saying more I will be very angry. It is not good that any man should
be a minister and not keep his word. And the day I gave you the purse
with the two or three pieces of gold you made a promise never to speak
about that day again. It is not many quarrels we have had, Henry, and
some will be good quarrels, for afterward we were loving each other more
than ever. But it was not good when you would lay the bits of gold on
that very stone there--for I am seeing them lie in the hollow--and say
hot words to me.”
“Magdalen, I put the purse itself in my breast, and I loved you more
than ever for your thought of me and your sacrifice, and I wanted
to kiss you, and... you ordered me to stand off, and your eyes were
blazing. Lassie, you looked like a tigress; I was feared of you.”
“It was not for me to have my gifts given back, and if I was driving
home the cows and milking the white milk into the pail, and churning the
sweet yellow butter, all that my love should not be wanting anything, it
is not for him to be so proud and mighty.”
“But I did take your kindness at last, and it was more than two or
three pounds, and so it was you that sent me to Germany. You gave me my
learning, and some day, when we're in our manse together, I'll show you
all my books and try... to repay your love.”
“Henry, it will come over me at times in the twilight, when strange
sights are seen, that we shall never be together in our house. Oh, yes,
I have seen a room with books round the walls, and you will be sitting
there, but I am not seeing any Magdalen. Wait a minute, for there will
be another sight, and I am not understanding it. It is not this land,
but where it will be I do not know; but I will be there in a beautiful
room, and I will be in rich dress, but I am not seeing you.
“Do not speak.” She rose up and looked at Rutherford, holding him at
arm's length, with her hand upon his shoulder. “Have you got the broken
piece?” He thrust his hand into his breast, and showed the jagged half
of a common penny hung round his neck by a blue ribbon.
“My half will be here”--Magdalen touched her bosom--“but maybe it will
be better for me to give you it, and then... you will be free; each of
us... must drink the cup that is mixed. The visions will be very clear,
though I have not the second sight.”
“What is the meaning of all this talk, Magdalen?” Rutherford's face
was pale, and his voice vibrated. “Are you tired of me because I am not
bonnie of face, but only a plain Scot, or is it that you will not wait
till I win a home for you, or have you seen another man--some glib
English sportsman?”
“God forgive you, Henry Rutherford, for saying such words; is it Alister
Macdonald's granddaughter that would play her lover false? Then let him
drive the skean dhu into her heart.”
“Then it is me you suspect, and it is not what I have deserved at your
hands, Magdalen. A Scot may seem cold and hard, but he can be 'siccar,'
and if I keep not my troth with you, and deal not by you as you have by
me, then may God be my judge and do unto me as I have done unto you.”
They looked into one another's eyes, and then tears put out the fire in
hers, and she spoke with a wail in her voice.
“This is all very foolish talk, and it is this girl that will be sorry
after you are gone and I am sitting lonely, watching the sun go down.
But it was a thought that would be coming over my mind, for you will be
remembering that I am a Highlander; but it is not that you will not be
faithful to me or I to you, oh, no, and I have put it away, my love. Now
may God be keeping you”--and she took his hand--“and prospering you
in all your work, till you have your heart's desire in knowledge and
everything... that would be good for you. This is the prayer Magdalen
Macdonald will be offering for you every morning and night and all the
day when it is winter-time and the snow is heavy in Glenalder.” Then she
kissed him full upon the lips as in a sacrament, and looking back he saw
her standing against the evening light, the perfect figure of a woman,
and she waved to him, whom he was not to see again for ten long years.