Chapter Twenty Four.
In the “Fa’ o’ the Year.”
“’Mid pleasures and palaces where’er we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
Old Song.
“Fareweel, fareweel, my native hame,
Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains;
Fareweel thy fields o’ storied fame,
Thy leafy shaws and sparklin’ fountains.”
A. Hume.
Scene: Glen Alva. Down in the clachan and lowlands, and around the mansion house, the autumnal tints are on the trees; the chestnuts, the lime and the maples have turned a rich yellow, and soon the leaves will fall; but the elm and oak retain their sturdy green. So do the waving pines. High on the hillsides the heather still blooms. There is silence almost everywhere to-day. Silence on mountain and silence in forest. Only the sweet plaintive twitter of the robin is heard in garden and copse. He sings the dirge of the departed summer. It is indeed the “fa’ o’ the year.”
Time: Five years have elapsed since the date of the events described in last chapter.
In my humble opinion—and I daresay many coincide with me—the great poet never spoke truer words than these:—
“There’s a Divinity that shapes our lives, Rough-hew them as we will.”
Who could have thought that Harvey McGregor, with his fearless nature, his tameless spirit, and roaming disposition, would ever have settled down in quiet Glen Alva, or that Kenneth McAlpine would have developed into a farmer in the Far West.