Part 43 (1/2)

”Long or short,” said he, with absent hands in his horse's mane, ”will lie with Fate, and she, my lads, is a dour jade with a secret It'll be long if ye mind of me, and unco short if ye forget me till I return.”

I went up and said farewell. I but shook his hand, and my words were few and simple. That took him, for he was always quick to sound the depth of silent feeling.

”_Mo thruadh! mo thruadh!_ Colin,” said he. ”My grief! my grief! here are two brothers closer than by kin, and they have reached a gusset of life, and there must be separation. I have had many a jolt from my fairy relatives, but they have never been more wicked than now. I wish you were with me, and yet, ah! yet----. Would her ladys.h.i.+p, think ye, forget for a minute, and shake an old friend's hand, and say good-bye?”

I turned to Betty, who stood a little back with her father, and conveyed his wish. She came forward, dyed crimson to the neck, and stood by his horse's side. He slid off the saddle and shook her hand.

”It is very good of you,” said he. ”You have my heart's good wishes to the innermost chamber.”

Then he turned to me, and while the fishermen stood back, he said, ”I envied you twice, Colin--once when you had the foresight of your fortune on the side of Loch Loven, and now that it seems begun.”

He took the saddle, waved his bonnet in farewell to all the company, then rode quickly up the street and round the castle walls.

It was a day for the open road, and, as we say, for putting the seven glens and the seven bens and the seven mountain moors below a young man's feet,--a day with invitation in the air and the promise of gifts around The mallards at morning had quacked in the Dhuloch pools, the otter scoured the burn of Maam, the air-goat bleated as he flew among the reeds, and the stag paused above his shed antlers on Torvil-side to hide them in the dead bracken.

M'Iver rode beside flowering saugh and alder tree through those old arches, now no more, those arches that were the outermost posterns where good-luck allowed farewells. He dare not once look round, and his closest friends dare not follow him, as he rode alone on the old road so many of our people have gone to their country's wars or to sporran battles.

A silence fell upon the community, and in upon it broke from the river-side the wail of a bagpipe played by the piper of Argile. It played a tune familiar in those parts upon occasions of parting and encouragement, a tune they call ”Come back to the Glen.”

Come back to the glen, to the glen, to the glen, And there shall the welcome be waiting for you.