"Aich, ay! ta laird, ta laird! Aich, ay! Got pless us!" replied the vassal, bursting again into tears, which he endeavoured in vain to hide by burying his head in the folds of his tattered plaid; while Stuart half reclined on Alice's shoulder, and turned aside, deeply touched with the old man's sorrow,—for grief, like joy, is infectious. "Ay; I wad speak o' the laird, puir man! an' prood he wad hae peen to see his only son coming home frae the wars an' devildoms a stoot an' handsome chield, wi' a proon face, and a hand hardened wi' the hilt o' the proad-sword. But, ochone-aree! he's low aneuch the day, an' mony a pretty man tat followed him far awa' ower the wide and trackless seas to the stranger's cauld an' meeserable country!"
"Poor, dear old man!" said Alice, while she pressed Ronald's hand to compose him, as the piper was speaking.
"I have sad news to tell you, too, Iverach," said he. "Poor Evan Bean,—Evan with the fair hair, is no more! I find this is to be a sorrowful meeting, Donald; for I have lost my father, and you your only son."
The old man smote himself on the forehead, and reeled back giddily as if struck, by a blow; but he almost immediately recovered. He stared wildly at the speaker for a moment, and then said, with strange calmness,
"I never again expeckit to pehauld him, for auld Shanet tauld me his weird; and Shanet never spoke in vain, nor tauld an untrue tale. Her father was a taischatr. She said he wad return nae mair,—that he was doomed! The words were hard to pelieve; put I mourned for him then as one that was deid and awa'. Oich! I thought the pang was ower. Put—put, O Maister Ronald! my puir Evan,—and whar was he killed?"
"At Toulouse, Donald—at Toulouse, where we gained a signal victory over France. He died bravely, like his comrades, for all were brave alike: I laid him with my own hands in the church-yard of Muret. But for pity's sake, Donald, tell me of my father, and the fate of the Lochisla people, and then I will tell you more of your son, who, as a token of remembrance, has sent you the clasp which fastened the green feather of his bonnet. Miss Lisle will give it when you are more composed. Come; take courage, Donald, and tell us your story. There are none here but old friends, who have often danced to the sound of your pipes, and shall yet again,—ay, next month, and in the old hall of Lochisla too!"
Alice blushed, and her companions smiled. The old man's eyes flashed a red light through their tears. He looked from one fair face to another, and, as he read nothing but innocence and happiness in them all, he smiled, and appeared to become happy too. After being comforted with a few mouthfuls of mountain-dew, filled from a decanter into an ancient quaigh that he carried, and from which he drank every thing, he became quite composed, and commenced his story.
After leaving the Clyde, the vessel containing the emigrants encountered a continuance of adverse winds, and was driven from her course far to the northward of the Canadas, upon the coast of Newfoundland,—the most barbarous and desolate of all the British colonies. Having lost their rudder, and had their compass washed overboard in a gale, the vessel was, while surrounded by a dense fog, carried into Baboul Bay, or, as it is commonly called, the Bay of Bulls, by the strong current which there runs in shore. Finding that the brig was drifting among the breakers, and that she was quite unmanageable, the master ordered out the boats to tow her off, but the order was given too late. The boats were swamped among the surf, and a few moments afterwards the vessel grounded on a reef, where the boiling sea made clean breaches over her every instant. She heeled over on her beam-ends, and the fore-mast went away by the board, carrying with it the maintop-mast and all the rigging above the top. The vessel thus became a total wreck in five minutes.
"At the time the ship struck," continued the piper, "the laird was lying sick in the cabin, unco unwell in mind and body, for he had lang been pining awa' wi' dule and sorrow for leaving you, and the heathery hills o' Albyn, and to find himsel so far awa' frae his tower and glen, and the graves o' his kindred and forbears. When I found that a' was ower, I determined to save him or to dee wi' him. Drawing our dirks, and vowing we would slay to the death ony man that opposed us, Alpin Oig and mysel rushed into the cabin, and bore him therefrae in our arms upon the deck, and frae there into a boat, the last ane that was left. The sailors tried to crowd in, but our bare blades keepit them off. Nae man, woman, or bairn frae Lochisla, though death was staring them in the face, wad hae thocht their ain lives worth savin' if the laird's was lost; and sae a' helpit us into the boat, where we solemnly swore, on the blades of our dirks, to return and take as many frae the wreck as we could, and a line was thrown us to make fast to the shore. The laird lay as if he was dead at the bottom o' the boat, wi' naething on but his dressing-gown, and the saut sea pouring like rain ower him. Ochone! it was an awsome time for me! Puir gentleman! he was helpless as a wean in our hands."
Owing to the denseness of the fog there was no shore to be seen but the beach; or what they supposed to be the beach could be discerned through the unnatural mid-day gloom by the white foam of the breakers, towards which the two brave and determined Celts, who had never been on rougher water than the loch of the Isla, urged their frail bark with all the strength of bending oars and muscular arms. They soon lost sight of the water-logged wreck, which the fog enveloped like a shroud; but the shrieks and prayers of those on board were heard ringing above the roar of the wrathful breakers, which hurl their crested heads with such tremendous fury on the desert beach of Baboul Bay.