Time and railroad trains do not wait, and the two young men with Mr. Lindsay drove rapidly away. Davie and his remaining sons went to their work—one to follow the plough, the other to tend the sheep on the hillside.
In less than two weeks our travellers had landed in New York, purchased tickets for the West, and were speeding towards the setting sun as fast as steam could carry them. Across the Alleghanies, across rivers in comparison with which those of Scotland were mere brooks, across States as large as kingdoms, through flourishing towns and busy cities, over far-reaching, level prairies, they hurried forward day and night, till they reached the Father of Waters, and crossed it. Still westward pursuing their course a day's journey, they reached at last their destination.
If the parting with home and friends was sad, the meeting with their cousin in America was very joyful. Robin, with a fine pair of horses, was at the station awaiting their arrival. Taking them and their trunks into his wagon, he drove away across the level prairie towards his own home. To the new-comers the country seemed a paradise. Far as their sight could reach a vast expanse of living green met their delighted eyes. Fields of waving grain, miles in extent, gave varied tints to the verdant landscape. Herds of sleek-haired cattle grazed on the unfenced fields of luxuriant prairie-grass. All around them flowers of scarlet, purple, gold, pure white, and delicate intermediate tints dotted the green enamel, glowed in the sunlight, nodded a welcome, or bowed their graceful stems in the breeze that undulated the ocean of green. Never had they conceived that earth in her primeval garb was so magnificent. Beyond answering a few simple questions about the friends at home, they could talk and think of nothing but the beauties of nature spread out before them. Many miles they rode across this varying and yet uniform garden; and when at length they reached the homestead a warm Western welcome awaited them.
"It is a braw hame ye hae," said Jamie, "and I am muckle pleased wi' all I see. But how is it that ye dinna speak your ain language? Hae ye grawn ashamed of your mither-tongue? Naebody would ken ye were a Scotchman at a'."
"No, I am not ashamed of it," said Robin, with a smile; "but it wears away after a while, where no one speaks that way. You will lose your Scotch too, Jamie; but it has done me good to hear you talk. It seems like a bit of Scotland, and I like you better for it."
Geordie McKay was not slow to visit and welcome his fellow-countrymen. He, too, thought of his old home across the waves, and his heart warmed towards it as he heard the familiar speech of his boyhood.
The new-comers went to work with a will, and at the end of three years James Murdoch had a farm of his own. He had bought improved land near his cousin Robin's. Robert Lindsay had built or helped to build two mills, and then he had gone to a fine wheat-producing region, where he was building a mill for himself.
When Jamie had the deed of his farm in his hands he went to spend the evening at Robin's. "I have made the last payment to-day," said he. "I own a hundred and sixty acres of land, and I am a happy man."
"That is more than you would ever have called your own in the old country," said Robin.
"You are right in that. I have succeeded even beyond my expectation; nevertheless I long for a sight of the faces I left in the far-away cottage."