Long hours passed ere sleep closed the tear-dimmed eyes of young Flora. Her love, her duty to her father on one side; her deep, pure, and virgin love for young Donald on the other: hard fate to have to choose between. But the conflict was over; her decision was made. She had been truthful as the sun from childhood; and without thinking of it perhaps, her father had asked her to swear a lie at the altar of God, in pronouncing the marriage vows to a man whom she did not even respect, when her heart, her life, her love, were given to young Donald. It could not be.
'What am I to say to Errick of the Bracken Braes, Flora?' said her father, in his most winning way, the following morning.
'Tell him, I hae nae heart to gie him, and that my heart and my hand gang thegither,' was the reply.
The Highlander swore an oath, and muttering he would have his own way, left the sheeling.
Next day was Sunday, and Donald and Flora met at the little chapel in the glen. He observed that his lassie looked sad, and was even more reserved than usual. 'Meet me at the Eagles' Cairn to-morrow, Donald, when I gang to milk the goats; ye ken the hour;' and with a smile she passed on.
At the Eagles' Cairn young Flora told her lover the stern decree her father had made. 'So ye mustna be coming again, Donald,' she said, struggling in vain to hide her emotion.
At the Eagles' Cairn there was a tableau: the distant mountains, the murmuring burn, the goats grouped around, and the collie dogs reposing amongst the heather; in the centre a youth and a maiden, his arm round her waist, her head resting on his breast. The first kiss of love had been given; their troth was plighted, and the fire-god shone on the scene.
The standard of the Stuarts had been raised, and the clans were marshalling to strike the most chivalrous blow that was ever struck on behalf of a fallen dynasty. Every sheeling was sending forth its men capable of bearing arms; and with heavy hearts, yet with all the pride of their race, the Highland wives, mothers, and sweethearts were placing the white cockade in the bonnets of their darlings. Sad was the heart of young Flora when Donald told her the news; she made his white cockade in secret, and gave it to him with a parting kiss at the Eagles' Cairn the night before that sad morning that saw all that was dear to her in this world, her father and lover, march down the glen.
Donald has asked Flora to take care of his mother, now that she would be left alone; and she had gone to live with the poor old widow, whose heart was nearly broken; but she shed not a tear as her handsome boy, arrayed in his tartan, marched away to fight for bonnie Prince Charlie.
Donald's Highland pride had felt bitterly the conduct of Flora's father, but for the sake of his heart's idol, he could not hate him. They fought side by side in the first battle at which the Highland army encountered the English forces. At a critical period of the fight, Donald beheld the stalwart form of Flora's father engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with an English soldier; he had little doubt of the result of the contest, and the smoke that enveloped the scene hid them from his sight; as it for a moment cleared away, he saw the brave Highlander hard pressed by three of the enemy, and he rushed to his assistance. Ere he reached the scene of conflict, two of the English soldiers were lying on the ground; but in giving the blow that felled the second, the brave Highlander had lost his footing; and before he could recover himself, the third closed with him and had him down. With a wild Highland yell, Donald sprang forward like a tiger, and buried his dirk between the shoulders of the English soldier, as he was in the act of using the prostrate Highlander's dirk, while he firmly grasped his throat with the right hand. It was the work of a moment to hurl the dead soldier off the Highlander; and Flora's father sprang to his feet, to recognise in the boy he had so harshly treated, the saviour of his life. 'Donald!' he exclaimed; but the brave boy had not waited for thanks, but hurried on to join his clan, in pursuit of the now routed and disorganised English army.