"That'll do, Mac—that'll do. You would make a speech if you could, but it's not necessary. I know all you would say. But, Flora," he continued, now in a bantering humour—"Mac tells me that he had rescued you before he knew who you was; thus plainly intimating that it was no partiality towards you in particular that induced him to do what he did. What do you think of that?"
"Why, papa, I think the more of him for it," said Flora, blushing as she spoke. "His gallantry was the more generous, the more disinterested. It was a deed of true knight-errantry—the rescuing of a distressed damsel, without regard to who or what she was. She was in jeopardy, and that was enough for him."
"Excellent, Flora—very ingenious defence!" exclaimed her father, laughing, and rubbing his hands with glee. "Commend me to a woman for ready apology, for prompt excuse, for defending what is indefensible."
We need not prolong the scene. In a fortnight afterwards, Miss Flora M'Donald was married to Duncan M'Arthur, Esq. of Rose Vale; and the latter became an equal partner in the concerns of his father-in-law, by which, in the course of a few years, he realised a handsome fortune, which was further increased on the death of his patron, who left him, for behoof of his wife and children, the whole of his immense wealth. Such is the story—and a true tale it is—of the little barelegged and bareheaded Highland boy whom we saw running wild on the banks of Loch Awe.
It is almost unnecessary to add—yet our story would be incomplete perhaps without it—that the parents of Mr M'Arthur participated in his prosperity, and that in precise proportion with its advancement. Indeed, to minister to the comforts of the authors of his being was one of his first cares, and one of the very first purposes to which he applied the means which his good fortune put in his power—a circumstance indicative of so amiable and beautiful a trait of character, as would alone lessen our wonder at the singular degree of prosperity that attended its possessor—leaving us, is it does, impressed with a conviction that no one who owned such an excellent disposition could be otherwise than successful in the world.
END OF VOL. VIII
[1] This was a common expression of Leyden's, and, perhaps, was in some degree expressive of his headlong and determined character.
[2] He was also proprietor of Eccles, in Berwickshire, and, according to history, was seized in the town of Berwick; but tradition saith otherwise.
[3] There is, perhaps, no superstition more widely diffused than the belief in the fascination of an evil eye, or a malignant glance; and, I am sorry to say, the absurdity has still its believers.