“Here they come, and we shall learn how they have settled the matter,” observed the admiral; “but as duty has ever been my friend Murray’s guiding star, I am very sure that he will not allow his inclination to prevent him from acting as he thinks right, and, unless I am mistaken as to his wife’s character, she will not utter a word to prevent him.”
No one would have supposed from the countenances of Alick and Stella how much their hearts were agitated. “I am sorry, admiral, we must give up our projected cruise for to-morrow, and cut yours and Adair’s visit short, as we shall have much to do in preparing to leave Bercaldine, though I must beg you to stay as long as we remain,” said Alick, quite calmly. “We must treat you without ceremony; and I know, Adair, that you and Desmond will lend a hand in setting things in order for our departure.”
“Then you have made your mind up to accept the command of the Opal,” said the admiral. “I said it would be so; I was sure of it. I must compliment Mrs Murray, for there are some wives, who don’t love their husbands a jot the better, who would have turned the scale the other way. Duty, my lads, duty should carry everything before it,” continued the admiral, turning to the midshipmen. “Learn a lesson from your superiors, and never let anything induce you to swerve from duty!”
Murray, of course, had an immense amount of work to get through. It was at once settled that Stella should accompany him to Portsmouth, and should take up her residence in the neighbourhood during his absence. Bercaldine was to be let, and a tenant had to be found, arrangements made with the factor and grieve, and other retainers; various articles to be stored up, and others to be carried with them; the Stella to be laid up, and the horses to be sold.
A couple of days thus passed rapidly away, and, all working with a will, the party were ready to start. The rays of the sun, just rising above the lofty summits of the hills, glanced down the loch as they assembled on the landing-place with their dependents, and every cotter on the estate from far and near, who had come to bid them farewell. Many a tear was shed by the females of the family, as Mrs Murray, the baby and Polly, with the gentlemen of the party, embarked on board the Stella, which was to convey them to Oban. The men waved their bonnets, and uttered a prayer in Gaelic that the laird and his good wife and the “bairn” might be brought back to them in safety.
Sail was made, and the little craft glided away from her moorings with a fair breeze down the loch. Mrs Murray looked with fond regret at the lovely home she was leaving, though no longer the home it had been to her without her husband. The admiral, of course, did his best to keep up her spirits, and whatever Alick might have felt, he was as cheerful as if they were merely making a day’s excursion. The scenery around the home he loved so well looked even more attractive than ever. On the port hand Ben Cruachan rose proudly amid the assemblage of craggy heights which extended to the eastward along the shores of the loch. The ruins of Ardchattan Priory, covered with luxuriant ivy, and o’er-canopied by lofty trees, soon came in sight on the starboard side.
“The monks of old, wise in their generation, chose pleasant places for their residences,” observed the admiral, pointing to the ruins.
“They must have been of great benefit to the surrounding population in those turbulent times,” said Mrs Murray. “I have sometimes thought that it would be well if they still existed in districts where no landed proprietors live to look after the people.”
“Very well in theory, my dear madam,” said the admiral; “but we must take into consideration what human nature really is. Monks in many instances proved themselves to be arrant knaves, and among every assemblage of mortals such will ever be found in time to leaven the whole mass. These and friaries and convents were not abolished a day too soon; and, advanced as the present generation esteems itself, I am very sure that if we were to shut up a dozen men together, picked from among the most learned and enlightened students at our universities, or the same number of the most charming women to be found, and insist on their living as celibates to the end of their days, and devoting themselves to a certain routine of strict forms and ceremonies, they would very soon come to loggerheads, and do more harm to themselves and others than they could possibly do good. The wisest men in all the nations of Europe have seen the necessity of abolishing the conventual system, and I cannot suppose that English men and women are more likely to be holy and immaculate than the people of other countries. The whole thing is an illusion; and I am very sure that the system, if, as according to the wishes of some, it should again prevail in England, would only tend to the corruption of those who are beguiled by it, and to the dishonour of true religion.”
“You are right, admiral, and certainly my wife does not advocate the re-establishment of monasteries in this country,” remarked Alick.