He was not married yet, however, for Marjory Falconer was still disconsolately, and in vain, looking out for some one who would do her the especial favor of marrying Ralph.
Mrs. Ross was becoming reconciled to the inevitable marriage of Lewis. It was to take place some time about the new year—the special period depending upon the looked for arrival of Norman. Little Alice, with her girlish kindness of heart, had put a decided negative upon Lewis’s proposal, that his mother should leave Merkland. Surely they could all dwell together in unity. Alice had considerable confidence in her own powers of charming. To a little bride of eighteen, whom all the stronger natures round her instinctively conspired to guard and defend from evil, the confidence was natural and becoming enough.
In the meantime, Alice had been plotting somewhat ineffectually to direct the especial attention of that grave brother James of hers to Anne, and Anne’s to him. It by no means succeeded.—They were the best friends in the world, but clearly, even to the solicitous eye of Alice, as comfortably indifferent to each other as it was possible for very good friends to be.
Mr. Ferguson’s work went on prosperously in the bleak lands of Loelyin and Lochend. The sides of the glen of Oranmore were covered with the flocks of the Southland farmer. In the glen itself, those roofless walls stood still desolate and silent, the end of many a stern pilgrimage made by the ejected Macalpines, who from their cottages in the low-country, and from fishing-boats on the wide seashore beyond Portoran, looked forward constantly with silent prayers, and stern onwaiting for the return of their chief, and the recovery of their homes.
He, this hapless chief of theirs, had heard ere now of their calamity, and in an agony of bitter earnestness had plunged again into his labor, his hope swelling within him, in a burst of force which made it almost painful—for them—also like himself heirs of the soil—and for their inheritance. It had been some relief to his burning eagerness, could he have cried his war-cry as his ancestors did, and rushed on—
To the rescue! There never was deed of olden arms, or bold knight-errantry more instinct with chivalrous honor and energy than this, though the battle-field was counting-room and market-place, and the wrestler a broken man!
Lord Gillravidge had returned to Strathoran, greatly to the chagrin of his useful friend, Mr. Fitzherbert, who had been, through all the intervening time laboriously endeavoring to convince his Lordship of the insupportable ennui of this out-of-the-world place of his. His Lordship was more than half convinced; nevertheless there was excellent shooting, and Lord Gillravidge filled his house with sportsmen, to the defiance of ennui, which reigning supreme in presence of one bore, seems to be expected to dissipate itself in the society of twenty.
One evening late in the year, Mr. Fitzherbert chanced inconsiderately to pass through the little hamlet at the Brig of Oran, after the darkening. It was a beautiful, clear, frosty night.—Hardy, strong, red and blue children, were sliding on the frozen Oran; young men and douce fathers, had been tempted to join them. Cottage doors were open on all sides, revealing homely interiors, partially lighted by the kindly firelight; grandmothers seated by the firesides; mothers stirring with care and pains-taking the mighty pot of wholesome “parritch” for their evening meal; elder sisters, eager to be out upon the slide, rapidly, and with much noise, putting upon the table bowls and plates to receive the same; while some who had finished the process stood at the door calling impatiently to boys and men, to “come in afore the parritch cules.” Through this peaceful place, Mr. Fitzherbert inconsiderately passed alone. He had scarcely entered it, when he was recognised by a band of children on the ice. The youngsters of the Brig of Oran were just in such a state of exhilaration, as made them ready for mischief in all its possible varieties. “Eh!” cried out a stout lad of fourteen, at the top of his considerable voice, “younder’s the man that Angus Macalpine shore like a sheep at the stepping stanes!”
“Great cry and little woo!” shouted another, adding also the latter line of the proverb, in all its ludicrous expressiveness.
“Eh man!” continued a third, “I wadna hae lain still, and gotten my head cuttit when I wasna wanting it.”