Mr. Lumsden had his failings—we do not deny it. He had no especial shrinking from a skirmish in the Presbytery. He walked to the bar of that reverend court with so very little awe, that the Moderator was well-nigh shocked out of his propriety. He had even been heard irreverently to suggest to the newly-placed Minister of Middlebury, a young brother, who seemed rather inclined to abet him in his rebelion, that it would be better for him to take his place permanently at the bar, than to be called to it at every meeting. He had been reprimanded by the Presbytery, till the Presbytery were tired of reprimanding. Mr. Bairnsfather had carried the case to the Synod, by appeal. The Synod had denounced his irregularities in its voice of thunder. Mr. Lumsden only smiled his peculiar smile of gleeful simplicity, and went on with his labor.
He was going now to Oranmore. The glen of Oranmore lay among the lower heights of the Grampians, a solitary, secluded valley. A small colony of Highlanders, attached to the Strathoran branch of the house of Sutherland, in feudal times, and bearing the ancient name of Macalpine, had settled there, nearly a century before. The patriarchs of the little community still spoke their original Gaelic; but the younger generations, parents and children, approached much more closely to their Lowland neighbors, whose idiom they had adopted. The glen was entirely in their hands, and its fields, reclaimed by their pains-taking husbandry, produced their entire subsistence. Some flocks of sheep grazed on the hillside. There was good pasture land for their cattle, and the various patches of oats and barley, turnips and potatoes, were enough to keep these sturdy cottar families in independent poverty. Whether in other circumstances they might have displayed the inherent indolence which belongs, as men say, to that much belied Celtic race, we cannot tell. But having only ordinary obstacles to strive against—an indulgent landlord, and a kindly factor—the Macalpines had maintained themselves as sturdily as any Saxon tribe of their numbers could possibly have done; and had, what Saxon hamlets in the richer South are not wont to have, a couple of lads from their little clachan at college—one preparing himself for the work of the ministry, and another aspiring to the dignity of an M. D.
In summer time, these peaceful cot-houses, lying on either side of the infant Oran, within the shadow of the hills, with the fair low country visible from the end of the glen, and the stern Grampians rising to the sky above, were very fair to look upon; and the miniature clan at its husbandry, working in humble brotherhood—the link of kindred that joined its dozen families, all inheriting one name and one blood—the purer atmosphere of morality and faith among them—made the small commonwealth of Oranmore a pleasant thing for the mind to rest upon, no less than for the eye.
Mr. Ferguson had never dealt hardly with these honest Macalpines, in regard to the rent of their small holdings. He knew they would pay it when they could, and, in just confidence, he gave them latitude. Unhappily for the Macalpines, one whole half-year’s rent remained unpaid, when the new landlord took the management out of Mr. Ferguson’s kindly hands. The year was a backward year: their crops had been indifferent, and the Macalpines were not ready with their rent at Martinmas.
The consequence was, that these fearful notices to quit were served upon them. Big Duncan Macalpine, a man of very decided character and deep piety—one of that class, who, further north, are called “the men,”—perceived the alien Laird’s intention of removing them at once. The remainder of the humble people, looked upon the notices only as threats, and set to with all industry to make up the rents, and prevent the dread alternative of leaving their homes. They had come there in the time of Laird Fergus, the great-grandfather of Archibald Sutherland. Their ninety-nine year’s lease had expired in the previous year, and had not (for it was Archibald’s dark hour) been renewed, so that now they were the merest tenants at will. Mr. Foreman warned Big Duncan that they might be ejected at any time.
The small community became alarmed. The big wheel was busy in every cottage. Sheep and poultry were being sold; every family was ready to make sacrifices for the one great object of keeping their lands and homes. The sharp, keen, unscrupulous writer whom Lord Gillravidge had employed in Edinburgh, where his over-acuteness had lost him caste and character, had been seen in the glen for three successive days. The Macalpines were smitten with dread. Rumors floated up into their hilly solitude of a great sheep-farmer from the south, who was in treaty for these hill-lands of Strathoran. A shadow fell upon the humble households. The calamity that approached began to shape itself before them. To leave their homes—the glen to which they clung with all the characteristic tenacity of their race—the country for which the imaginative Celtic spirit burned with deep and patriotic love—the national faith, still dearer, and more precious—for a cold, unknown, and strange land, far from their northern birth-place, and their preached Gospel!
Mr. Lumsden’s strong, gray pony was used to all manner of rough roads, and so could climb along the craggy way that led to Oranmore. The minister rode briskly into the glen. His keen and anxious look became suddenly changed as he entered it into one of grief and indignation. He quickened his pace, leaped from the saddle, fastened his pony to a withered thorn, and hastened forward.
The crisis had come. Mr. Whittret the lawyer, and Mr. Fitzherbert, stood in the middle of a knot of Macalpines; a party of sheriff’s-officers hung in the rear, and the youthful Giles Sympelton stood apart, looking on. The high head of Duncan Macalpine towered over the rest. In his moral chieftainship he was the spokesman of his neighbors. He was speaking when Mr. Lumsden approached.
“Your rent is ready, Sir—the maist of us are ready with your rent; but oh! if there is a heart of flesh within ye, spare us our hames! Gentlemen, we have a’ been born here. Yon auld man,” and Duncan pointed to the venerable white head of a trembling old man, wrapped in a plaid, who leaned against the lintel of the nearest cottage—”and he’s past a century—is the only ane amang us that was a living soul at the flitting. For pity’s sake, Sir, think o’t! Gie us time to make up the siller. We’ll pay the next half-year in advance, if better mayna be; but do not bid us leave the glen.”
“That’s all very well,” said Fitzherbert, “very pretty. A set of Scotch cheats, who only want to deceive Lord Gillravidge.”