"This is a fiery trial, Lachlan, and I cannot even imagine what you are suffering. But do not despair, for that is not the letter of a bad girl. Perhaps she was impatient, and has been led astray. But Flora is good at heart, and you must not think she is gone forever."
Lachlan groaned, the first moan he had made, and then he tottered to his feet.
"You are fery kind, Maister Carmichael, and so wass Burnbrae, and I will be thankful you all, but you do not understand. Oh no, you do not understand." Lachlan caught hold of a chair and looked the minister in the face.
"She hass gone, and there will be no coming back. You would not take her name from the roll of the church, and I will not be meddling with that book. But I hef blotted out her name from my Bible, where her mother's name iss written and mine. She has wrought confusion in Israel and in an elder's house, and I … I hef no danghter. But I loved her; she nefer knew how I loved her, for her mother would be looking at me from her eyes."
The minister walked with Lachlan to the foot of the hill on which his cottage stood, and after they had shaken hands in silence, he watched the old man's figure in the cold moonlight till he disappeared into the forsaken home, where the fire had gone out on the hearth, and neither love nor hope were waiting for a broken heart.
The railway did not think it worth while to come to Drumtochty, and we, were cut off from the lowlands by miles of forest, so our manners retained the fashion of the former age. Six elders, besides the minister, knew the tragedy of Flora Campbell, and never opened their lips. Mrs. Macfadyen, who was our newspaper, and understood her duty, refused to pry into this secret. The pity of the glen went out to Lachlan, but no one even looked a question as he sat alone in his pew or came down on a Saturday afternoon to the village shop for his week's provisions. London friends thought me foolish about my adopted home, but I asked them whether they could find such perfect good manners in Belgravia, and they were silent. My Drumtochty neighbours would have played an awkward part in a drawing-room, but never have I seen in all my wanderings men and women of truer courtesy or tenderer heart.
"It gars ma hert greet tae see him," Mrs. Macfadyen said to me one day, "sae booed an' disjackit, him that wes that snod (tidy) and firm. His hair's turned white in a month, and he's awa' tae naething in his claithes. But least said is sunest mended. It's no richt tae interfere wi' another's sorrow, an' it wad be an awfu' sin tae misca' a young lassie. We maun juist houp that Flora 'll sune come back, for if she disna Lachlan 'ill no be lang wi's. He's sayin' naethin', and a' respeck him for't; but onybody can see that his hert is breakin'."
We were helpless till Marget Howe met Lachlan in the shop and read his sorrow at a glance. She went home to Whinnie Knowe in great distress.
"It wes waesome tae see the auld man githerin' his bit things wi' a shakin' hand, and speakin' tae me aboot the weather, and a' the time his eyes were sayin', 'Flora, Flora.'"
"Whar div ye think the young hizzie is, Marget?"