"Adieu!" echoed Ronald. The other gave his horse the spur, let his reins drop, and was round the corner of the Plaza, out of sight in an instant.
Feeling all that trembling eagerness and indescribable delight which the arrival of a first letter from home, after a long absence, infuses into the heart, Ronald tore it open, but for some minutes was baffled in his attempts to read by an envious mist or film, which seemed to intercept his sight and prevented him from proceeding further than the date, which was upwards of a month back. The letter ran thus, and the ideas and style of the good old gentleman were observable in every line of it:
Lochisla, February 28*th*, 1812.
"MY DEAR BOY,
"I received your letters dated from Lisbon and Portalagre in due course, and cannot find words to express how overjoyed I was to understand by them that you were well, and did not feel the fatigue of long marches. Ronald, my son, may God protect you! You are very dear to me indeed,—dearer even than the little ones that sleep in the old kirk-yard. I can scarce get on further, for the salt and hot tears are filling my eyes, and it is no common emotion which makes a stern old man, like me, weep. We are living much in the old way here at the tower, with the exception that your absence has made a sad blank in the little establishment. My dear boy, I am very lonely now, and it is grievous when a man feels himself so in his old age. Your gentle mother, and her four little boys, are with the angels in heaven; the green grass covers their sunny ringlets, and you alone were spared me, but only to be exposed to the dangers of a soldier's life,—dangers which make my heart shrink within me for your safety.
* * * * *
"How very quiet is all around me at the moment I am writing! The bright evening sun is streaming through the mullions of the old hall window on the hearth, where you used to play when a little child, and your two old companions, Carril and Odin, are stretched upon the rug; they often whine, and look sadly in my face, or at your bonnet and gun in the corner, as if they still missed you. The noble hounds! I believe that although six months have elapsed since you were here, they have not forgotten you. The wind scarcely stirs the thickets about the tower, and all is very calm and still,—all save the beating of my own anxious heart, and its pulsations are audible.
All our friends and dependants here desire to be remembered to you and to Evan Iverach; and I am assured danger will never visit you, if the prayers of brave and honest hearts can avert it; for the people at the clachan, and in all the glen, pray for you nightly and daily, particularly old Donald. He does not pipe about so much as he used to do, but pays more attention than ever he did to the whisky kegs in Janet's pantry. Poor man! I forgive his melancholy; like me, he mourns the absence of an only son.
"Corrie-oich and I have quarrelled again, about a fight which took place at the last fair, between his herdsman and Alpin Oig. I would fain harry the lair of the old fox, and give his turreted house to the flames, as my father did in 1746. I would teach his fellows to beware how they spoke to a servant or follower of mine.
"I am likely to have a row with Inchavon also. He has trespassed more than once on our marches in his shooting excursions, in which he is always accompanied now by the Earl of Hyndford, who, it is said, is to be married to Miss Lisle, an old flame of yours, whom I trust you have forgotten by this time, as she has undoubtedly done you.