Maclise took the offered hand almost with reverence, and, removing his bonnet from his head, said in a voice, deep and vibrating with emotion,
“Neffer will a man of the Glen count it anything but honour to take thiss hand.”
“Thank you, Maclise,” cried Allan, keeping his grip of the master's hand. “Now you can tell the Glen.”
“You will not be going to leave us now?” said Maclise eagerly.
“Yes, I shall go, Maclise, but,” with a proud lift of his head, “tell them I am coming back again.”
And with that message Maclise went to the Glen. From cot to cot and from lip to lip the message sped, that Mr. Allan was himself again, and that, though on the morrow's morn he was leaving the Glen, he himself had promised that he would return.
That evening, as the gloaming deepened, the people of the Glen gathered, as was their wont, at their cottage doors to listen to old piper Macpherson as he marched up and down the highroad. This night, it was observed, he no longer played that most heart-breaking of all Scottish laments, “Lochaber No More.” He had passed up to the no less heart-thrilling, but less heartbreaking, “Macrimmon's Lament.” In a pause in Macpherson's wailing notes there floated down over the Glen the sound of the pipes up at the big House.
“Bless my soul! whisht, man!” cried Betsy Macpherson to her spouse. “Listen yonder!” For the first time in months they heard the sound of Allan's pipes.
“It is himself,” whispered the women to each other, and waited. Down the long avenue of ragged firs, and down the highroad, came young Mr. Allan, in all the gallant splendour of his piper's garb, and the tune he played was no lament, but the blood-stirring “Gathering of the Gordons.” As he came opposite to Macpherson's cottage he gave the signal for the old piper, and down the highroad stepped the two of them together, till they passed beyond the farthest cottage. Then back again they swung, and this time it was to the “Cock of the North,” that their tartans swayed and their bonnets nodded. Thus, not with woe and lamentation, but with good hope and gallant cheer, young Mr. Allan took his leave of the Glen Cuagh Oir.