"This day, my Duncan," she said, "the light of the sun is obscured to your mother's eyes, and he shines not as he did before. The green woods have lost their verdure, and the once sparkling waters of the fountain their brightness. A dark cloud is on the face of the sun, that will long, long remain, though none but your mother's eye will see it; a blight, that she alone can perceive, is on the lovely woods of Ardmoran; and, pure though the waters of the fountain may appear to others, to her, Duncan, they will henceforth seem soiled and discoloured."
Such was the figurative language in which Duncan's mother went on to describe her feelings as they were, and as she anticipated they would be; and such was the strain in which she deplored the impending separation from her child.
But this could be but of short duration. The moment of final separation arrived, and Duncan hastened to rejoin his master, who was about to embark in a small sailing vessel (there being then no steamboats on the Clyde) for Greenock.
On going up the river, the boy was observed by the captain of the vessel leaning over the side, and gazing with the most earnest attention at something on the shore. The man's curiosity was excited by the circumstance, and he asked him what he was looking at so intently.
"Oh, sir," replied Duncan, with great simplicity of manner, "I'm looking at yon beautiful hoose yonder," pointing to a handsome house that stood amidst an embowering wood on the face of a gentle acclivity. "It's the bonniest I ever saw."
"Yes, my man, it's a very fine house," replied the skipper. "Should you like to live in such a house as that?"
The boy looked up in his face and smiled—"That I would, sir; and, if I had plenty of money, I would buy't, for I have never seen such a pretty place."
"Why, man," replied the good-natured seaman, "perhaps you may be able to buy it yet, or at least as good."
Duncan smiled, and shook his head; but, from this moment, the vision of that house took possession of the boy's fancy, by one of those unaccountable and uncontrollable emotions of the mind, which all must have felt in particular instances; and, as long as he lived, he never forgot it. It haunted him in his sleep, and was the frequent resting-point of his memory, when far away in a foreign land. It was, indeed, a boyish fancy; but it was one of those enduring ones that no vicissitudes of after-life have power to efface, but that, on the contrary, grow the brighter, the further they are removed by distance or by time.
Shortly after arriving in Greenock, Duncan's nether man was arrayed, for the first time, in a pair of inexpressibles and the kilt thrown aside.