To-morrow evening, the steamer from Loch Linnhe for Oban and Glasgow, would touch at Loch Ora, and with it, Callum and I were to leave our native district for ever. The bitter, crushing, and painful sinking of the heart that accompanied this conviction was increased by the knowledge that never again would I see the face or hear the voice of Laura. Grinding poverty on one hand, and wealth on the other, had reared a solid rampart between us; yet I still loved Laura, despite the hopelessness of that love, which made me feel more bitterly than ever that a poor gentleman is the most miserable of all God's creatures.
Callum, my fosterer, though to me, ever gentle as a woman and faithful as a dog, was alternately morose or silent, and appalled by our approaching departure; and as he lay that night on some freshly-pulled heather, in a corner of poor Father Raoul's humble hut, I heard him sobbing under the tattered plaid which enveloped his head and shoulders; for his gallant heart and strong resolution were failing him at last.
My whole thoughts were of Laura now, for my hopeless separation from her, conflicted with my regret on leaving my desolated home. The craving desire to see her once again became uncontrollable, and desiring Callum to wait for me, by a near and familiar path—never again to be trod by me—I hastened up the glen, which led directly to the new manor-house of Glen Ora.
It was a narrow road which led of old to the stronghold of our tribe, and there had been a time when none could have thought that a Mac Innon would ever ascend it in such bitterness of soul as I then endured. The tower—the home of a race whose source even tradition failed to trace—was demolished now, and the huge square modern villa of the baronet crowned its site; but all unchanged with its shade of silver birch was the bramble-covered path by which for ages
'The hunter of deer and the warrior trod
To his hills that encircle the sea.'
Everything spoke to me of home and farewell. The murmur of the dark pines that shaded the hills; the hiss of a little cascade, falling in foam down the old grey rocks, like the end of a silvery scarf; the sun lingering like a globe of fire above the dark shoulder of Ben Ora. The little cascade seemed to have its source in the clouds, and, like a silver shower, the light wind flung its spray abroad upon the turf and flowers.
A moment I lingered there, and thought it would be a boon to be dead and buried in peace on that green mountain slope, where the heather might wave and the deer bound over me; for the dread of dying in a far distant land is strong in the heart of every mountaineer.
But enough of such thoughts and themes.
Full of them, however, I reached the new birchen avenue which led to the elegant manor-house of Sir Horace Everingham, and without having conceived how I should achieve the desired interview with Laura, or what means to pursue.
I lurked among the trees and shrubbery, watching the windows for nearly half an hour, fearing to be seen, hopeless of seeing her alone if I saw her at all, and trembling with anxiety, for every moment was of priceless value to me. I saw the falling shadows lengthening to the eastward, and knew that when the sun sank below the shoulder of the Ben, the Highland steamer would be at the pier of the loch.
An exclamation of joy escaped me, as a drawing-room window which unfolded to the floor was opened, and she—Laura herself—stepped out into the gravel-walk of the garden, not a pistol-shot distant from where I was concealed.
She was attired in a very becoming evening costume; she had her broad hat slung by its ribbons over her left arm, and had an open volume in her right hand. She looked pale and thoughtful, but was neither sad, nor bearing a trace of tears. This disappointed me, as she must have known that this was the eve of my final departure; but the claim I had on her regard and memory was too slight—and among so many gay friends and accomplished admirers, and amid so much luxury, it might easily be effaced and forgotten.
My heart beat like lightning, as she approached and entered a summer-seat, which was shrouded by a little dome, and four sides of iron wire, in the fashion of a Turkish kiosk, and was covered completely with roses and honeysuckle. I quickly crept towards it, and—-as my evil fortune would have it—had only time to ensconce and conceal myself among the ample laurel-bushes close by, when the voice of the gay and laughing Fanny Clavering, who had been asleep, I presume, in the arbour, fell suddenly on my ear, as she at once resumed what appeared to be a former conversation. To all this I was compelled to listen. It may be the reverse of etiquette to repeat what passes in private, and still more so, aught we may chance to overhear; but there would be a fearful hiatus in many a veracious history, in mine in particular, without those opportune eaves-droppings; besides, I believe that no man in this world could resist the desire to listen, 'with all the ears in his head,' if he deemed himself the subject of conversation between two pretty women. Thus, as much that passed between these fair friends concerned myself, I hearkened with an anxiety that was the more painful, as I dared not, for very shame, avow or discover myself.
The two girls were seated near each other. Laura had resigned her book, and was twirling the ribbons of her broad summer hat round her slender fingers. Fanny had her white hands thrust into the pockets of a very bewitching little black silk apron, and her beautiful features, her fine eyes, and nose retroussé, wore the most droll and arch expression in the world.
'Come now, Fanny, don't be silly,' said Laura.
'Is it possible that you have lived to the age of twenty without having one dear little affair of the heart?'
'Not one, Fanny—and you?—'
'Oh, don't speak of my heart, pray—it has been broken twenty times. But, don't you know, love, that an engagement of the heart is a most delightful thing?'
'Perhaps so—but mine is only formed for friendship.'
'Fiddlestick! one lover is worth a hundred friends.'
'Nay, Fanny; I think one friend worth a thousand lovers; and I never met with a man capable of inspiring in me more than the merest friendship.'
'And how about my brother Tom?'
'Nay, nay, Fanny; now don't look so archly.'
'Well, then—our young Highland friend?'
Laura was silent, and became very pale.
'Speak?'
'You are a dear droll!' said Laura, making an effort to laugh, after a pause; 'well—he is both handsome and winning.'
'But so innocent—so particularly verdant.'
'Yet that innocence of dissipated life charms me.'
'I am excessively amused! But you cannot—dare not, encourage this idea. Love him—oh, Laura, such a mésalliance! the imaginary chief of a beggarly burned up tract in the West Highlands. The last of the Mohicans!'
'Mésalliance!' reiterated Laura, with an air of pique; 'what is our family, which dates from the Restoration, when compared to his, which, for aught that I know, dates from the days of Ossian.'
'Immensely superior, I should say—for the gentlemen of Ossian's time knew deuced little about making up a book on the Oaks, or knowing the points of the winner of the Derby, as I do—or of Bank-stock, or shares or railway scrip, and so forth, as Sir Horace does.'
'But then, Fanny dear, think of what I owe him—that dreadful rescue of yesterday? Oh, there is nothing I admire so much as bravery in a man!'
'But this is a boy.'
'Well—a brave boy—and are we much more than girls?'
'Such a little sophist it is! If you run on thus I shall end by loving that tall fellow who hunts the foxes. I own to be immensely delighted with him. Is he not a love of a man, with his magnificent black beard?'
'You have spoken more of him than I have done of his master.'
'Perhaps I am in love with him,' said Fanny, with a roguish expression in her beautiful eyes.
'Scarcely,' replied Laura, with a little reserve; 'for it is your style to yawn and fret to-day over all that enchanted you yesterday. You tire of everything.'
'And thus would very soon tire, I fear, of such a lover as your Allan Mac Innon. He is but a wild Highland boy—I should like a man with a lofty presence—a man of whom I should feel proud, even when I had tired of him, and ceased to love him.'
'Oh, Fanny! I am proud of him, in my own quiet and unobtrusive little way. He is so bold, so hardy, so active, and so manly!' said poor Laura, blushing deeply at her own energy, while my heart beat with tumultuous joy; 'his eyes, too—do they not tell the history of a sad and thoughtful life? He is like the Mac Ivor of Waverley.'
'There it is! you have caught the tartan fever, which is nearly as bad as the scarlet one, and may be worse now, since the Line have lost their epaulettes. Well, I should like a lover of whom one would not be ashamed to make one's husband.'
'Husband—'
Laura was silent; and, trembling with joy, I forgot all about poor Callum Dhu, who was seated patiently with my baggage on the pier, awaiting the steamer which was now coming down the loch.
'Young Mac Innon is so poor, so wild, so strange!' resumed the painfully plain-spoken Fanny.
'These only make me the more his friend.'
'And we all know that "friendship in woman is kindred to love." He is quite like a young robber.'
'Well,' replied Laura, taking up her lively friend's rattling manner, 'I always thought it would be divine to marry a bandit! When we travelled from Rome to Naples, I looked daily for a handsome young brigand in a sugar-loaf hat, velvet jacket, and those red bandages which no outlaw is ever without—a Masseroni—a Fra Diavalo—but, alas! none ever came, and we jogged as quietly along the Appian Way as if it had been Rotten Row or the Canterbury-road.'
'But as we have had enough about Allan Mac Innon, now let us recur to our constant theme—my brother Tom and his old suit—or his friend, Snobleigh.'
Recur, thought I.
'I could learn to love your brother, perhaps, Fanny, because he is gentlemanly, kind, and lovable; but, as for Snobleigh—the fop, the mouthing idler—who would propose just as coolly as he would light a cigar, button his glove, or stroke a horse's knee, do not speak of such an atrocity as marriage with him—and yet he has proposed to me twice.'
'And been rejected?' asked Fanny, her dark eyes flashing with a mixture of fun and pique.
'Yes—rejected, yet still he loiters here, devoid alike of spirit and delicacy.'
'How did he receive your refusal?'
'Such was his provoking coolness, that I could have boxed his ears. Stroking his buff-coloured moustache, which, as you know, finds him a vast fund of employment, he adjusted his round collar and long-skirted surtout, and yawned out, "Vewy well, Miss Lawa—it don't mattaw—aw-aw—but, wemembaw that, the—aw—choicest gifts of God and of the Gwenadiaw Gawds, are—aw-aw—at your feet."'
Fanny's loud and ringing laugh at her friend's description was interrupted by the bell to dress for dinner; on which she murmured something about her attire, and in her usual volatile manner, sprang away, leaving Laura to follow her as she chose.
All that I had overheard proved unmistakably the interest I had in Laura's heart—a discovery that proved the foundation of much joy and pride and future misery to me.
All that followed is dim and wavering now, as a dream of years long past.
She was about to leave the saloon, when I stood before her, trembling in heart and in every limb. She grew very pale on seeing me, and I pressed her white passive hands to my lips and to my breast, and in such language as the agony of the moment supplied, I thanked her for the interest she took in one so miserable as I—and I prayed her to remember me when gone, for never more would my voice fall on her ear; I prayed, too, that God might bless her, and while thus pouring out the long-treasured secret of my heart, without daring once to touch her lips, though she stood beside me, pale and passive as a marble statue, I sprang away, as the voice of Clavering was heard in the shrubbery close by. I reached the avenue, and leaving the park and plantations far behind me, rushed like a deer down the glen to reach the steamer.
There was yet time to pause a moment!
I looked back to the old primeval woods which shaded the mansion-house of Glen Ora, and to the fire-scathed mountains that overhung it. Strange to say, I had now no bitterness in my heart, for Laura was their heiress, and I loved her more than all the world. I gave a parting glance at that beloved scenery now deepening in the summer gloaming. Glen Ora was dark and silent now—dark as if the shadow of death lay on it—and silent and voiceless as the grave, the last home of our people.
Sorrow and love were struggling in my heart, and sad, solemn, and terrible thoughts rose within me.
As each familiar object faded away and melted into night, then came to my heart the bitter conviction that I was a houseless wanderer, with the wide world all before me—that I was without country, friends, or home—but of the right mettle to become a brave and reckless soldier.
My country indeed!
I would have cursed her! What did I owe her? nothing. But she owed me a debt of blood—the blood of more than thirty of my own name and kindred, who had perished in her reckless wars—dying bravely sword in hand, and in the king's service—for in legions have the men of the clans gone forth to battle for Britain, and now ruin, treachery, extirpation and obloquy, with the garbage of the public press, are heaped upon the remnant who remain.