Had a thunderbolt fallen from heaven, or a spirit risen from the dead, the audience would not have been more astonished than by this dénouement. All eagerly crowded around the intruder, gazing on his face, as the Jews of old looked on the risen Lazarus. Doubt, wonder, conviction, enthusiasm followed each other in quick succession through the minds of the spectators. But the long absent lover, pushing aside the friends who thronged around him, strode up to Jeanie’s side, and, clasping her in his arms, asked, in a voice no longer firm, but husky with emotion,
“Oh! Jeanie, Jeanie, hae ye too forgotten me?”
The bride had fainted on his bosom; but a score of eager tongues answered for her, and in hurried words told him the truth.
What have we more to say? Nothing—except that the returned lover took the place of the bridegroom, who was fain to resign his claim, and that the minister united the now re-animated Jeanie and her long-remembered lover, while the congregation looked on with tears of joy.
The returned Shepherd—for we shall still call him so—at length found time to tell his tale. He had been shipwrecked as rumoured, but, instead of being drowned, had escaped and reached India. There he entered the service and was sent into the interior, where he rose rapidly in rank, but was unavoidably detained beyond the appointed two years, while the communications with Calcutta being difficult and uncertain, the letters written home apprizing Jeanie of these facts had miscarried. At length, he had succeeded in resigning his commission, full of honors and wealth. He hastened to Scotland. He reached Jeanie’s home, learned that she was even then becoming the bride of another, hurried wildly to the church, and—our readers know the rest.
SONNET.[[1]]
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BY THOMAS NOON TALFOURD.
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