CHAPTER XXVI.
A LAST INTERVIEW.
To-morrow evening, the steamer from Loch Linnhe for Oban and Glasgow, would touch at Loch Ora, and with it, Callum and I were to leave our native district for ever. The bitter, crushing, and painful sinking of the heart that accompanied this conviction was increased by the knowledge that never again would I see the face or hear the voice of Laura. Grinding poverty on one hand, and wealth on the other, had reared a solid rampart between us; yet I still loved Laura, despite the hopelessness of that love, which made me feel more bitterly than ever that a poor gentleman is the most miserable of all God's creatures.
Callum, my fosterer, though to me, ever gentle as a woman and faithful as a dog, was alternately morose or silent, and appalled by our approaching departure; and as he lay that night on some freshly-pulled heather, in a corner of poor Father Raoul's humble hut, I heard him sobbing under the tattered plaid which enveloped his head and shoulders; for his gallant heart and strong resolution were failing him at last.
My whole thoughts were of Laura now, for my hopeless separation from her, conflicted with my regret on leaving my desolated home. The craving desire to see her once again became uncontrollable, and desiring Callum to wait for me, by a near and familiar path—never again to be trod by me—I hastened up the glen, which led directly to the new manor-house of Glen Ora.
It was a narrow road which led of old to the stronghold of our tribe, and there had been a time when none could have thought that a Mac Innon would ever ascend it in such bitterness of soul as I then endured. The tower—the home of a race whose source even tradition failed to trace—was demolished now, and the huge square modern villa of the baronet crowned its site; but all unchanged with its shade of silver birch was the bramble-covered path by which for ages
'The hunter of deer and the warrior trod
To his hills that encircle the sea.'
Everything spoke to me of home and farewell. The murmur of the dark pines that shaded the hills; the hiss of a little cascade, falling in foam down the old grey rocks, like the end of a silvery scarf; the sun lingering like a globe of fire above the dark shoulder of Ben Ora. The little cascade seemed to have its source in the clouds, and, like a silver shower, the light wind flung its spray abroad upon the turf and flowers.
A moment I lingered there, and thought it would be a boon to be dead and buried in peace on that green mountain slope, where the heather might wave and the deer bound over me; for the dread of dying in a far distant land is strong in the heart of every mountaineer.
But enough of such thoughts and themes.