“Where did he come from?” said the stranger, who evidently applied the question to a fish in his basket, and not to himself, “originally from the lake, Peter, where it was spawned, and whither it annually returns. You ought to understand that, Mac, for you have a head on your shoulders, and that is more than half the poor wretches that float ashore here from the deep have. It’s a hard life, my friend, going to sea, and hard shores sailors knock against sometimes, and still harder hearts they often find there. A stone in the end of a stocking is a sling for a giant, and soon puts an end to their sufferings; a punishment for wearing gold watches, a penalty for pride. Jolly tars eh? oh yes, very jolly! it’s a jolly sight, ain’t it, to see two hundred half-naked, mangled, and disfigured bodies on the beach, as I did the other day?” and he gave a shudder at the thought that seemed to shake the very chair he sat on. “It’s lucky their friends don’t see them, and know their sad fate. They were lost at sea! that is enough for mothers and wives to hear. The cry for help, when there is none to save, the shriek of despair, when no hope is left, the half-uttered prayer, the last groan, and the last struggle of death, are all hushed in the storm, and weeping friends know not what they lament.”
After a short pause, he continued:
“That sight has most crazed me. What was it you asked? Oh, I have it! you asked where he came from? From the lake, Peter, where he was spawned, and where he returned you see, to die. You were spawned on the shores of one of the bays of the Highlands of Scotland. Wouldn’t you like to return and lay your bones there, eh? From earth you came, to earth you shall return. Wouldn’t you like to go back and breathe the air of childhood once more before you die? Love of home, Peter, is strong; it is an instinct of nature; but, alas! the world is a Scotchman’s home—anywhere that he can make money. Don’t the mountains with their misty summits appear before you sometimes in your sleep? Don’t you dream of their dark shadows and sunny spots, their heathy slopes and deep deep glens? Do you see the deer grazing there, and hear the bees hum merrily as they return laden with honey, or the grouse rise startled, and whirr away to hide itself in its distant covert? Do the dead ever rise from their graves and inhabit again the little cottage that looks out on the stormy sea? Do you become a child once more, and hear your mother’s voice, as she sings the little simple air that lulls you to sleep, or watch with aching eyes for the returning boat that brings your father, with the shadows of evening, to his humble home? And what is the language of your dreams? not English, French, or Indian, Peter, for they have been learned for trade or for travel, but Gaelic, for that was the language of love. Had you left home early, Mac, and forgotten its words or its sounds, had all trace of it vanished from your memory as if it had never been, still would you have heard it, and known it, and talked it in your dreams. Peter, it is the voice of nature, and that is the voice of God!”
“She’ll tell her what she treams of sometimes,” said McDonald, “she treams of ta mountain dew—ta clear water of life.”
“I will be bound you do,” said the doctor, “and I do if you don’t, so, Peter, my boy, give me a glass; it will cheer my heart, for I have been too much alone lately, and have seen such horrid sights, I feel dull.”
While Peter (who was a good deal affected with this reference to his native land) was proceeding to comply with his request, he relapsed into his former state of abstraction, and when the liquor was presented to him, appeared altogether to have forgotten that he had asked for it.
“Come, Toctor,” said the host, touching him on the shoulder, “come, take a drop of this, it will cheer you up; you seem a peg too low to-day. It’s the genuine thing, it is some the Governor, Sir Colin Campbell, gave me.”
“None the better for that, Peter, none the better for that, for the rich give out of their abundance, the poor from their last cup and their last loaf; one is the gift of station, the other the gift of the heart.”
“Indeed then, she is mistakened, man. It was the gift of as true-hearted a Highlander as ever lived. I went to see him lately, about a grant of land. He was engaged writing at the time, and an officher was standing by him for orders, and sais he to me, ‘My good friend, could you call to-morrow? for I am very busy to-day, as you see.’ Well, I answered him in Gaelic that the wind was fair, and I was anxious to go home, but if he would be at leisure next week I would return again. Oh, I wish you had seen him, Doctor, when he heard his native tongue. He threw down his pen, jumped up like a boy, and took me by the hand, and shook it with all his might. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I haven’t heard that for years; the sound of it does my heart good. You must come again and see me after the steamer has left for England. What can I do for you? So I told him in a few words I wanted a grant of two hundred acres of land adjoining this place. And he took a minute of my name, and of Skip Harbour, and the number of my lot, and wrote underneath an order for the grant. ‘Take that to the Surveyor-General,’ said he, ‘and the next time you come to Halifax the grant will be ready for you.’ Then he rang the bell, and when the servant came, he ordered him to fill a hamper of whiskey and take it down to my vessel.’
“Did you get the grant?” said the stranger.