“My head is full of plans, and I do not think that joy will let me sleep to-night for thinking of you and all that we shall do together. We'll be married early in the morning in the old kirk of Glenalder, as soon as the sun has filled the Glen and Nature has just awaked from sleep. Mona Macdonald will be your bridesmaid, I know, and she will wear white roses that shall not be whiter than her teeth. Yes, I have learned to notice all beautiful things since I knew you, Magdalen. My best man will be Carmichael of Drumtochy, who is of Highland blood himself and a goodly man to look upon, and he has his own love-story. All the Glen will come to our wedding, and will grudge that a Lowland Scot has spoiled the Glen of the Flower of Dalnabreck—yes, I know what they call you. And we shall have our breakfast in the manse, for the minister has pledged us to that, and it is he and John Carmichael that will be making the wonderful speeches! (You see how I've learned the style.) But you and I will leave them and catch the steamer, and then all the long June day we shall sit on the deck together and see distant Skye, and the little isles, and pass Mull and Ardnamurchan, and sail through Oban Bay and down Loch Fyne, and thread our way by Tighnabruaich, and come into the Firth of Clyde when the sun is going down away behind Ben Alder. Won't it be a glorious marriage day, among lochs and hills and islands the like of which travellers say cannot be found in all the world?
“Then I want to take you to Germany, and to show you the old University town where I lived one summer, and we will have one good day there, too, my bride and I. Early in the morning we shall stand in the market-place, where the women are washing clothes at the fountain and the peasants are selling butter and fruit, and the high-gabled houses rise on three sides, and the old Rathhaus, on whose roof the storks build their nests, makes the fourth. We'll go to my rooms near the Kirche, where I used to write a letter to you every day, and here is what old Frau Hepzacker will say, 'Mein Gott, der Schottlander und ein wunderschones madchen* (you will English and Gaelic this for yourself), and we will drink a glass of (fearfully sour) wine with her, and go out with her blessing echoing down the street Then we will watch the rafts coming down the Neckar from the Black Forest, and walk among the trees in the Vorstadt, where I lay and dreamed of you far away in Glenalder. And we will go to the University where you sent me... but that is never to be mentioned again; and the students in their wonderful dress will come and go—red hats and blue, besides the white, black and gold I used to wear. And in the evening we will drive through the vines and fruit-trees to Bebenhausen, the king's hunting-seat. And those will only be two days out of our honeymoon, Magdalen. It seems too good to be my lot that I should be minister of Christ's evangel—of which surely I am not worthy—and that you should be my bride, of which I am as unworthy. Next Monday I shall leave this smoky town and meet you at the Cairn of Remembrance on Tuesday morning.
“Meanwhile and ever I am your faithful lover,
“Henry Rutherford.”
Magdalen kissed the name passionately and thrust the letter into her bosom. Then she went to the edge of the heather and looked along the Glen, where she had been born and lived her twenty-two years in peace, from which she was so soon to go out on the most adventurous journey of life. When a pure-bred Highland woman loves, it is once and for ever, and earth has no more faithful wife, or mother, or daughter. And Magdalen loved Rutherford with all her heart. But it is not given unto her blood to taste unmixed joy, and now she was haunted with a sense of calamity. The past flung its shadow over her, and the people that were gone came back to their deserted homes. She heard the far-off bleating of the sheep and the wild cry of the curlew; she crooned to herself a Gaelic song, and was so carried away that she did not see the stranger come along the track through the heather till he spoke.
“Good evening; may I ask whether this is eh... Dalnabreck? and have I the pleasure of addressing Miss Macdonald?”
“Yes, I am Magdalen Macdonald”—and as she faced him in her beauty the visitor was much abashed. “Would you be wanting to see me, sir?”
“My name is Thompson, and I have the privilege of being an elder in St Bede's, Glasgow, and as I happened to be passing through Glenalder—just a few days' rest after the winter's work—how the soul wears the body!—I thought that it would be... a pleasure to... pay my respects to one of whom I have... heard from our dear pastor. Perhaps, however,”—this with some anxiety—“Mr. Rutherford may have mentioned my humble name.”
“There are so many good people in St Bede's, and they are all so kind to him, that... Henry”—the flush at her lover's name lent the last attraction to her face and almost overcame the astute iron merchant—“will not be able to tell me all their names. But I will be knowing them all for myself soon, and then I will be going to thank every person for all that has been done to... him. It is very gracious of you to be visiting a poor Highland girl, and the road to Dalnabreck is very steep; you will come in and rest in my house, and I will bring you milk to drink. You must be taking care of the door, for it is low, and the windows are small because of the winter storms; but there is room inside and a heart welcome for our friends in our little homes. When I am bringing the milk maybe you will be looking at the medals on the wall. They are my grandfather's, who was a brave man and fought well in his day, and two will be my father's, who was killed very young and had not time to get more honour.”
The elder made a hurried survey of the room, with its bits of black oak and the arms on the wall, and the deer-skins on the floor, and bookshelves hanging on the wall, and wild flowers everywhere; and, being an operator so keen that he was said to know a market by scent, he changed his plan.