'Hoigh, Mac Innon!' exclaimed Callum Dhu, with a shout of triumph; 'such a feat has not been done since old Glengarry slew the wild stag in the pass of Glendulochan!'
I lifted Laura (who was faint and almost sick with terror) from her pony, and placed her on the soft grassy bank, where I besought her to be calm, as all danger was now past; but, on perceiving that my right hand and arm were drenched in blood, she uttered a cry, and clasping my left hand in hers, asked me in the most moving terms whether 'I was hurt—if I was safe—uninjured—to speak to her, to say whether I was wounded or not?'
I forget alike her exact words and my answer; for we were both trembling and confused; but in that moment of excitement each had revealed to the other, more of mutual regard than any circumstance, save danger, could have drawn forth. On recovering a little, I said,—
'For the act of to-day, I trust, Miss Everingham, that you will think of me kindly when I am gone.'
'Kindly!' she exclaimed, while her blooming prettiness became absolute beauty, as her fine eyes beamed, and her face filled with ardour, and with an expression of gratitude and joy; 'ah how can you speak so coldly—kindly?—say gratefully, lovingly, prayerfully. You will ever have all the gratitude—the esteem, my heart can feel!'
'Thanks, dear Miss Everingham,' I replied, kissing her hand, while my voice and lips trembled; 'esteem is the first element of love. Without it no passion can endure.'
She grew pale—looked down, and trembled.
'And you go?—'
'Yes.'
'But, when?' she asked, lifting her eyes sadly to mine.
'To-morrow.'
'And you return!—'
'Never.'
'Never?' she reiterated.
'Never—oh never! I go to return no more. It is the doom of our race, my dear Miss Everingham.'
'Oh say not so—but here comes dearest papa to thank you in better words than I can command.'
As she spoke, Sir Horace, accompanied by Miss Clavering, the Captain and Mr. Snobleigh, came down the mountain-path at a furious gallop, and with high alarm depicted in all their faces; however, a glance at the dead stag, at Laura seated, smiling on the bank, and her pony quietly cropping the grass beside her, explained in a moment that she was in perfect safety. Moreover, from the top of the hill, they had seen me rush upon the stag, and lay it dead at my feet. My skene-dhu, dripping with blood, explained all the rest.
'Dearest Laura—and you are safe!' exclaimed Fanny Clavering, flinging off her broad hat as she sprang from her pony, and hurried to embrace her friend; 'oh heaven, my dear girl, I wish we were all safe again in London, or at Elton Hall! We have been little more than six months in these atrocious Highlands, and yet we have first had your papa—dear old stupid thing! nearly drowned; then we were all but burned alive in the shrubbery the other night; and to-day you on the verge of being torn to pieces by a wild animal!'
'Aw—aw—Miss Everingham—you would be wilful,' yawned Snobleigh, 'and would go—aw into that fwightful jungle, where we lost you—the wood of—of—'
'Coil-chro.'
'Aw—yes—those devilish 'Ighland names!'
'I know of no better fun than to have a fine man of the Guards essaying to get his lazy tongue round an Argyleshire, or a Galway name. And so it was you, my brave fellow, who slew this noble stag?' asked the impulsive Fanny, blushing, as she laid her hand on the shoulder of Callum, who was kneeling on the grass, and feeling the dead animal with his hands.
'I—madam?—No; it was slain by the chief—my master; and it is a deed that would long be remembered in Glen Ora, were there other inhabitants now than the red-roes and the moor-fowl.'
'Aw—my dear fellow, get your hands washed, for weally that wed blood is atwocious, 'pon my soul it is.'
'Stuff, Snobleigh,' said Captain Clavering; 'what the deuce does a little blood matter? You have done well and nobly, Mac Innon; but you look a little pale—you are not hurt, I hope?'
'Not in the least.'
'Why don't you speak, Sir Horace?' said Miss Clavering, impetuously; 'have you not a tongue to thank him who saved your daughter's life?'
'I have a tongue, but not words, my dear Miss Clavering,' said the cold and pompous baronet. 'You have saved my Laura from a terrible death, sir,' he continued, addressing me with a warmth of manner somewhat unusual in him; 'stay among us, Mr. Mac Innon, and I shall leave nothing undone for your welfare—that is, if it is in my power, of course.'
'Aw—of course,' chorused the languid Snobleigh.
'Do, Mr. Mac Innon,' added Fanny Clavering, bending her bright and beautiful eyes upon me, while she laid her pretty hand upon my arm; 'do, and all the past shall be forgotten.'
'Your offer comes too late, Sir Horace,' said I, in a broken voice, 'though my heart is rent in two by this separation from my native country—with that separation every tie is broken. Restore the people—restore that now ruined hamlet and desolate glen to what it was a month ago; give me back my poor old mother from her cold grave on yonder promontory, that grave to which your severity or the cruelty of your underlings drove her, and then speak of remaining here; but not till then.'
'Arms are the natural profession of a Highlander,' said Captain Clavering, putting a hand on my shoulder in his frank English way; 'could you, Sir Horace, not do something for him at the Horse Guards?—Devilish sorry that I have no interest in that quarter myself.'
'It would afford me the utmost gratification to do so,' replied the stiff and pompous baronet, in his coldest manner; 'but really, the fact is, I do not feel myself at liberty to ask a favour from any of the present administration.'
'The deuce you don't?'
'Aw—of course,' hummed Snobleigh.
And there was an end of it; though I would have died rather than accepted the smallest favour at his hands. To be patronized by him! The idea was enough to call my mother's fiery spirit back to earth.
As a huntsman, Callum was now, by mere force of habit, proceeding to gralloch the stag with his sharpened skene; and as this work progressed, unfortunately for the legends of our glensmen, he found it to be—not two hundred years old—but a fine warrantable stag of at least six summers.
'Well, my friend, the fox-hunter,' said Clavering; 'could you not stay among us—I'll take the odds on it, Sir Horace could do something for you.'
'Likely enough,' said the baronet, mounting; 'you would make a first-rate gamekeeper.'
'Many thanks, sir,' replied Callum, touching his bonnet with a fierce and covert irony gleaming in his dark eyes; 'but the time has gone past, Englishman, for that too; we go, we go to return no more! You purchased this land, true; any other depopulating game speculator might have done so; but he who sold it to you—was it his to sell? It belonged to the people and not to him. The land was God's gift to the Gael; it is theirs, and all the produce thereof is theirs.'
'This is a thief's maxim,' said Sir Horace, sharply.
'To you it may seem so; but we have a saying among us—Breac na linne, slàt na coille, s'fiadh na fireach meirladh nach do gabh duine riamh nair as.
'What the devil is all that in English? it sounds like the croaking of frogs in a Dutch canal.'
'It means, that a fish from the stream, a stag from the mountain, or a tree from the forest are no thefts, but the right of he who wants them.'
'Why sirrah, this is poaching or trespassing, as Snaggs would tell you, had he not disappeared so unaccountably. I must teach these Highland fellows, Clavering, to respect the sacred laws of property! I have as much right to the wood and water, and game, as to anything else. "If the sun goes down on my property," says the Man made of Money, "I have a clear title to that sunset; if the clouds, over my land, are remarkably fine, they are my clouds." A noble maxim! Then does not the same rule apply to the pheasants, plover, curlew, deer, and foxes—eh?'
'You are a stranger here,' retorted Callum, 'and consequently know no better. God—blessed be his name!—never sent a little mouth into the world without providing food for it. There was a time when, in these glens, we had food enough to spare; but, a chial! for the devil came in breeks and took it away from us.'
'This bores me,' said Sir Horace: 'Clavering, assist Laura and your sister to mount; we'll send some one for the stag. Many thanks, good fellow, for your cutting and carving it thus—but please to let it alone. Ah—a good evening and a safe voyage to you, Mr. Mac Innon,' and with a brief nod, Sir Horace walked his shooting pony leisurely up the slope.
Laura and Miss Clavering reluctantly followed him; but both bade me kindly—the former silently—adieu. I knew that in the twilight she was weeping behind her veil, and my heart was deeply moved, for I might never behold her again. Snobleigh—the empty, vacant and insipid Snobleigh—bowed and cantered after them; but Clavering lingered still, and said,
'I feel sincere regret, Mac Innon, to see a bold young fellow like you, flung upon this cold and faithless world—can I do anything for you?'
'I thank you, sir—but know of nothing.'
'We are now at war with Russia—you have thus before you a noble field for action.'
'And after the treatment I have experienced in my own country, I should justly seek it in the Russian ranks. You are right, Captain Clavering—I thank you; war is the natural resource of the desperate and poor; but alas! I have neither interest nor money to enter the service.'
'Deuced awkward—and we have no volunteering in this war. But think over all I have said, for it is a devil of a thing to take to felling of trees and draining swamps in the Far West, leaving civilization far behind you, and having the Pacific and the Red men in your front, while your nearest chum dwells three hundred miles off—and there you will fight with the Indians, the earth and the elements, to feed a little herd of snivelling Yankees, who will grow up in hatred of the land their fathers came from. It won't do, my dear fellow—think over it, and if I can do anything for you, drop me a line at Glen Ora House, or at the Western Club, Glasgow, where I shall be in a day or so, about the happiest piece of business in the world. Adieu!'
With these words we separated, and Callum and I were left on the dark hill-side; the last glow of sunset had faded away, and the mysterious white stag of Loch Ora was lying at our feet dead, motionless, and still as a drift of snow.