“Oh! but we are sure to find gold,” put in Harvey.
“Well, I don’t know, but it seems to me that this searching for gold is like chasing a wild goose or a will-o’-the-wisp. Don’t you think, Archie, we had better settle down to something more certain if more slow?”
“I do think so,” replied Archie; “and after what Harvey here has told us, that he is the son of poor old Laird McGregor, and rightful heir to the McGregor estates, he ought to go straight away home, turn that old Yankee tyrant out, and regain possession of his own. You cannot break an entail, you know.”
“Heigho!” sighed Harvey, “I have repented my quarrel with my dear old father all my life. It was my proud Highland blood that caused it in the first instance. I rushed away to sea, I changed my name, I made myself out as dead. I thought not of the kind heart I was breaking, of the grey hairs I was bringing down in sorrow to the grave. And how has fate rewarded me? I have been a rover ever since, a wanderer and a vagabond; thrice have riches been within my grasp, thrice has Fortune dashed the cup aside. And am I to go now that my father is in his long home and claim my patrimony? My pride forbids; I’d rather be a ghillie on the old estate, or a keeper, than proud laird of it all.”
“Stay,” said Kenneth, laying his hand kindly on Harvey’s shoulder. “Not for your own sake should you do this thing, but remember you have a mother and sister, still alive it is to be hoped. Do you never think of them?”
Harvey’s hands now covered his face, his form was bent forward, but the heaving of his chest told of the grief that was rending him.
“Think, too, of the Clachan restored, of the old church bell once more calling the people of the glen to worship on the Sabbath mornings. Steve the Yankee, from all accounts, is a tyrant, an oppressor, and a villain. Harvey McGregor, think of seeing your old mother once more in the dear old-fashioned pew.”
“Kenneth McAlpine!” cried Harvey, starting up, “no more of this now, you irritate, you madden me!
“But,” he added, in a more softened tone of voice, “I may promise you just one thing. If we fail this time, if I fail to find fortune, I will return to my mother like the prodigal son I have been. Though fain, oh! how fain I would be to return full-handed, rich!”