After his return he visited Lochisla, and then traversed the west country for some time, till a recruiting sergeant of the Gordon Highlanders informed him that the regiment had returned to Scotland; upon which he set out on his way to meet them, and having that morning entered Edinburgh, he had screwed up his pipes in Charlotte Square to play for a breakfast, for he had tasted nothing that day.
As he concluded his narrative, he unstrapped a leather dorlach, which he carried on his back, and taking from it the iron casket, the signet ring and the jewelled poniard, placed them in Ronald's hand, glad to be rid of them, after having brought them so far and preserved them as sacred relics, even when compelled by poverty to seek shelter in the haunts of infamy and crime, where he had preserved them untouched, though nearly perishing of want.
He had often been totally without food for four or five days, while at the same time he carried about him jewels worth four hundred pounds.
"But they werna my ain," said he; "and what could I do, though hunger is hard to thole? But a's past noo, and oich! I'll be happy yet, even in my auld and childless days; and I will end them beneath the roof-tree o' the auld tower whan the time comes, and come it must, some day sune,—oich! oich!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.
"We dinna ken what was intended,—
We may be for this o't were born;
And now, folk, my song maun be ended,
For I'm to be married the morn."
Edward Polin.
Ronald's grief at the intelligence so suddenly brought him by Iverach was of long continuance. It was the more poignant, because his father had found his tomb in a desert place and in a strange country; for it is ever the wish of a Highlander to be buried among the ashes of his ancestors. When he looked upon the blade of the poniard Donald had brought home, and saw with the thistle—the badge of his family and clan—the motto Omne solum forti patria, it recalled the memory of his father's pride and wrath when his boyish passion for Alice Lisle was first revealed to him, and of that moment of anger when he ordered him to quit his presence, and for ever.
The sight of the family jewels which Iverach, like a pilgrim of old, had so sacredly preserved in all his wanderings, awakened many deep regrets and dear associations. There were lockets which contained the hair of his father and mother interwoven, cut from their brows in youth, when their ringlets were glossy and brown; and there were brooches which had clasped the plaids of brothers, and rings and bracelets which had once adorned the white hands of sisters, all of whom were now gone, and above whose graves the grass had grown and withered for years.
Despite the romance-like appearance the procedure will bestow upon the story, we may not bid adieu to the hero in the midst of his grief, but must leave him what is styled, in common phraseology, "the happiest of men." After a lapse of time his sorrow passed away, and the preparations for his marriage were renewed.