"Home at last, lassie, you and I, and another not far off, maybe."
Kate kissed her father, and said, "One in love, dad … and faith."
CHAPTER VI.
A PLEASAUNCE.
he General read Morning Prayers in brief, omitting the Psalms and lessons, and then after breakfast, with much gossip and ancient stories from Donald, the father and daughter went out to survey their domain, and though there be many larger, yet there can be few more romantic in the north. That Carnegie had a fine eye and a sense of things who, out of all the Glen—for the Hays had little in Drumtochty in those days—fastened on the site of the Lodge and planted three miles of wood, birch and oak, and beech and ash, with the rowan tree, along the river that goes out and in seven times in that distance, so that his descendants might have a fastness for their habitation and their children might grow up in kindly woods on which the south sun beats from early spring till late autumn, and within the sight and sound of clean, running water. No wonder they loved their lonely home with tenacious hearts, and left it only because it was in their blood to be fighting. They had been out at Langside and Philiphaugh, in the '15 and the '45, and always on the losing side. The Lodge had never been long without a young widow and a fatherless lad, but family history had no warning for him—in fact, seemed rather to be an inspiration in the old way—for no sooner had the young laird loved and married than he would hear of another rebellion, and ride off some morning to fight for that ill-fated dynasty whose love was ever another name for death. There was always a Carnegie ready as soon as the white cockade appeared anywhere in Scotland, and each of the house fought like the men before him, save that he brought fewer at his back and had less in his pocket. Little was left to the General and our Kate, and then came the great catastrophe that lost them the Lodge, and so the race has now neither name nor house in Scotland, save in the vault in Drumtochty Kirk. It is a question whether one is wise to revisit any place where he has often been in happier times and see it desolate. For me, at least, it was a mistake, and the melancholy is still upon me. The deserted house falling at last to pieces, the over-grown garden, the crumbling paths, the gaping bridges over the little burns, and the loneliness, chilled one's soul. There was no money to spare in the General's time, but it is wonderful what one gardener, who has no hours, and works for love's sake, can do, even in a place that needed half a dozen. Then he was assisted unofficially by Donald, who declared that working in the woods was "fery healthy and good for one or two small cuts I happened to get in India," and Kate gave herself to the garden. The path by the river was kept in repair, and one never knew when Kate might appear round the corner. Once I had come down from the cottage on a fine February day to see the snowdrops in the sheltered nooks, for there were little dells white as snow at that season in Tochty woods, and Kate, hearing that I had passed, came of her kindness to take me back to luncheon. She had on a jacket of sealskin that we greatly admired, and a felt hat with three grouse feathers on the side, and round her throat a red satin scarf. The sun was shining on the bend of the path, and she came into the light singing "Jack o' Hazeldean," walking, as Kate ever did in song, with a swinging step like soldiers on a march. It seemed to me that day that she was born to be the wife either of a noble or a soldier, and I still wish at times within my heart she were Countess of Kilspindie, for then the Lodge had been a fair sight to-day, and her father had died in his own room. And other times I have imagined myself Kilspindie, who was then Lord Hay, and questioned whether I should have ordered Tochty to be dismantled and left a waste as it is this day, and would have gone away to the wars, or would not have loved to keep it in order for her sake, and visited it in the springtime when the primroses are out, and the autumn when the leaves are blood-red. Then I declare that Hay, being of a brave stock, and having acted as a man of honour—for that is known to all now—ought to have put a good face on his disappointment; but all the time I know one man who would have followed Lord Hay's suit, and who regrets that he ever again saw Tochty Lodge.
