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 K.
 
 MACALPINE; 
 
 ON SCOTTISH GROUND.
 
 'RINTED liY BAI.l-ANTYNE AND COMIANY 
 
 edinuur<;h and London
 
 MACALPINE; 
 
 ON SCOTTISH GROUND 
 
 i. i0kl, 
 
 "Who aspires 
 To genuine greatness 
 Temper with the sternness of the brain 
 Thoughts motherly and meek as womanhood. 
 Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk 
 Man holds with week-day man : 
 
 These are the degrees 
 By which true sway doth mount." 
 
 —Wordsworth. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE, 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 
 1872.
 
 g^3 
 
 MACALPINE; 
 
 OE, 
 
 ON SCOTTISH GKOUND. 
 
 4 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 '^The estate of Morven, in the Grampians, com- 
 
 P mences on the west with the village of that 
 
 :^ name, lying at the foot of a conically-shaped 
 
 hill, thickly grown with the fir-tree. Through 
 
 the village northwards, in a semicircle, making 
 
 for high ground at the west side of the hill, 
 
 c=^runs the turnpike road, which overlooks the 
 
 ^ rapid river — refreshing to eye and ear as it 
 
 gruns its pebbly course amid the stately firs and 
 
 pines that clothe the high and steep banks, and 
 
 stretch their shaded and dense magnificence 
 
 Vupon the brows of the mountains. Immedi- 
 
 : - ately at the back of this hill stands another of 
 
 i VOL. I. A
 
 2 MACALPINE. 
 
 similar shape and size. Twin hills, they present 
 to each other rocky and almost perpendicular 
 sides. At the foot a roadway had been con- 
 structed, but, narrow and liable to be blocked 
 up by pieces of fallen rock, it fell into disuse by 
 travellers, who had at one time attempted to 
 make of it a short cut off the turnpike road. 
 The sight of a deserted road often arouses the 
 fancy no less than a decayed and deserted 
 mansion, and in each case some legend has 
 frequently to account for the ruin. Although 
 physical imperfections sufficiently accounted for 
 the desertion of the " pass " roadway, super- 
 stition had handed dowm, about its immediate 
 region, more than one tale of mysterious 
 appearances of denizens of other spheres than 
 the plain and homely earth, and of mysterious 
 disappearances of mortals who had held 
 communion with them. The estate of Morven 
 belonged to the Chief of the Macalpines, — the 
 oldest in descent, and at one time the greatest 
 and proudest of the lairds of the county.
 
 MACALPINE. 3 
 
 The common belief was, that some hag or witch 
 had cast a blight upon the road and upon those 
 who made it, for having by its cutting dispos- 
 sessed her of a hut at the mouth of the pass, 
 in which she had delighted to spend her 
 splenetic life. The fortunes of the laird, to 
 continue the idle report, had visibly declined 
 since the day the hag had prophesied their 
 fall ; and although upon the road ceasing to be 
 used, the hag was specially privileged to veer 
 down upon her old site, and thereupon ven- 
 tured upon revealing some after-luck for the 
 fallen lairds of Morven, still the Ijlight was on 
 the family as well as on the road ; and the men 
 and women who congregated in the village and 
 the cottages and by the hill-sides, thought of 
 the hag of Morven Pass when they heard of 
 each new blow to the tottering house of j\Iac- 
 alpine. 
 
 Towards the east of this passage or pass it 
 gradually widens, ending a few yards from a 
 stream which runs beyond the entrance in a
 
 4 MACALPINE. 
 
 dell, where are, or were, trees of several 
 varieties, dense and luxuriant in spring and 
 summer from the nurture of the flowing water. 
 Over this hollow, at the time of the opening of 
 the tale, was a long narrow wooden bridge, 
 scarcely, perhaps, entitled to the dignity of 
 that name, since it consisted of but three 
 planks upheld by stakes driven into the banks 
 of the stream, with some rude iron fastenings 
 at the middle. It admitted only of one 
 pedestrian crossing at a time, and was suffi- 
 ciently dangerous to excite apprehension for 
 the safety of any irate contenders for preced- 
 ence who might quarrel towards its centre, as 
 two rival chiefs at enmity were said once on a 
 time to have done. But the spot was far 
 from calculated to engender thoughts of strife 
 or rivalry. The bosky dell was one of sweet 
 and romantic loveliness, such as the imagina- 
 tion, fatigued by the sublimity of the high 
 regions without, might take refuge in, and the 
 fancy tickle itself with —
 
 MACALPIXE. 5 
 
 " Such sights as youthful poets dream, 
 On summer's eve by haunted stream."' 
 
 The stream had met in one respect the same 
 fate as the road — it was haunted. The super- 
 stitious, the young and the playful, dwelling 
 in the regions of Morven, oft lingered at the 
 Falloch Bridge in the hope that some inhabi- 
 tant of the dark water beneath would rise and 
 reveal their fortune, or that of some departed 
 friend. 
 
 Here, ere the decline of a summer night, Alan 
 Macalpine found himself after a long day's 
 excursion. He lay down for a few minutes 
 before he passed upon the bridge, his gaze 
 resting on the smooth-flowing stream. The 
 soothing influcDce of the placid water close upon 
 the nightfall, when all nature indicates com- 
 ing repose, as the general stillness is broken by 
 the ripple of the wave upon some jutting bank, 
 was felt by the traveller, and enjoyed after the 
 active pleasures of the day. Now, as often 
 before, he dwelt in fanciful regions, peopling
 
 6 MACALPINE. 
 
 the river-bed with strange creations, and with 
 dreamy longing throwing himself into hope 
 that his fanciful visions might realise them- 
 selves in actual appearances, to tell him of the 
 world beyond. It was the fancy of the poet, 
 not the material lono-ino; of the worldlino;. 
 Alan had no future of anxious fortune before 
 him ; he was content enough. And he rose as 
 usual, and went his way after his musing, 
 knowing that imagination made the world. 
 
 Where he had lain, the bridge was partly 
 concealed by the branches of an overhanging 
 tree, and Alan was already partly across ere 
 his longing fancy seemed to have met with a 
 response. Half-way across the bridge a fairy- 
 like form was looking into the water gliding 
 beneath, as unawares as the stream itself of his 
 approach. Alan's first impulse was not to dis- 
 turb what his fancy was inclined to accept as 
 the spirit of the stream. To that neighbour- 
 hood, in the time of this history, though 'tis 
 not full forty years since, fashion never trans-
 
 MACALPINE. 7 
 
 ported itself. The peasant girls' attire seldom 
 went further than the plain coarseness which 
 supplied simple natural requirements. Here, 
 stood, however, to his active fancy what seemed 
 the airy form of a nymph, lulled by the voices 
 in the watery bed on which she gazed. 
 
 " And she was fair ! oh, fairer floated never 
 The foam-born goddess fresh from ocean's stream. 
 Hers was perchance the mystic form that ever 
 Had haunted with delight my boyhood's dream." 
 
 Courage was not wanting in Alan. He pos- 
 sessed in large share the manliness of a simple 
 heart ; yet, modest in the extreme, it was only 
 the unreality present to his imagination which 
 gave him the spur to an adventure. Just as 
 the fair vision slightly stirred, indicating her 
 humanity by the movement of the frail mate- 
 rial on which she stood, he whispered an 
 address to her, dictated by the thought with 
 which she had seemed to him to be rapt : 
 
 " Oh, the running of the river, 
 And the silence of the stars."
 
 8 MACALPINE. 
 
 She started, and confusedly ran forward ' 
 rather than back, as if to make her way past 
 on the narrow bridge. 
 
 *' Now you clearly show," said Alan, "you are 
 no fairy, or you would not require the bridge. 
 Both of us being mortals, either you or I must 
 get back ;" so saying, he drew quickly back, and 
 the lady tripped, too confused to answer, for- 
 ward upon the bank. There, however, recalling 
 her thoughts from their wanderings " in fairy- 
 land forlorn," she regarded Alan with an ani- 
 mated expression, from which all sense of the 
 awkwardness of the encounter had vanished. 
 She had obtained a full sense of security in the 
 open and gentlemanly bearing of her com- 
 panion, and the combination of strength and 
 manly honest openness which his appear- 
 ance bore. He was about six feet in height, 
 rather slender than massive, dark in com- 
 plexion, pale rather than ruddy ; the melan- 
 choly which might be seen in his features was 
 not sadness, but sensibility and thought, yet
 
 MACALPINE. 9 
 
 not even that was too pronounced to call at- 
 tention from the frankness and ease of his 
 bearing. 
 
 " I am sorry to be so little of the fairy, that 
 I must put you to the risk of again using the 
 bridge," the lady said. There was no tone of 
 archness in her voice, but it struck Alan that 
 the speaker, perhaps unconsciously, possessed 
 the quality. If it were so, tenderness spoke in 
 her countenance. The fair luxuriance of com- 
 plexion, the lithe ease of the graceful figure, 
 were forgot in the charm of the face, expressive 
 of delicate and true love. 
 
 " My love of the marvellous can be satisfied 
 with less cost than your disappearance in the 
 stream. I am content to find contemplating 
 the legendary water one whom I might ima- 
 gine its presiding spirit," he answered. 
 
 "The illusion is dispelled,'^ she said, Avithout 
 a blush. The tone of the speaker had con- 
 tained no accent either of flattery or mock ; and 
 the lady felt only the romantic fervour of her
 
 10 MACALPINE. 
 
 companion, while she herself had been inclined 
 to smile. 
 
 " I am so often displeased with realities," 
 said the other, now himself smiling, " that I 
 do not care to part with happy illusions 
 readily." 
 
 " I fear that my neighbourhood would not 
 supply the illusion you relish," she observed 
 with half-suppressed gaiety ; and she turned 
 as if to bid Alan a " good-night." He was in 
 no mood to be parted with so readily. He 
 expressed the surprise he had received in the 
 encounter. A lady and a stranger alone at 
 such a place and at such an hour ! — Had she 
 lost her way, or been separated from a party of 
 travellers ? It was not so. She was near her 
 own home. Alan expressed his surprise to hear 
 it. *'My fathers before me," said he, "have 
 for centuries called a circuit of many miles 
 round this neighbourhood their own ; and I 
 have for years known every man and w^oman 
 in it." Alan spoke in a tone of sadness which
 
 MACALPINE. 11 
 
 he could not conceal. The lady was struck by 
 his altered tone, and looked again, instinctively, 
 as if searching for an explanation in the face 
 of the speaker of the subdued melancholy 
 in his voice. 
 
 "You are then" hesitating with the 
 
 name of the laird. 
 
 " A Macalpine," he said. " Once upon a time 
 no one could have been in Morven for an hour 
 without knowing that name ; now our lands 
 go to a stranger — and we become forgotten." 
 He spoke with a bitterness rare to him. His 
 companion felt the misfortune of her remark. 
 But she really had heard of the Macalpines 
 that very day ; and she at once, with an eager 
 happiness which pleased the young Highlander, 
 corrected the mistake. 
 
 " It seems like a maudlin grief to speak in 
 this way ; but for many days I have scarcely 
 spoken to a human being except my father ; 
 and now that fate has given me the ear of one 
 w^hom my fancy might have thought an in-
 
 1 2 MACALPINE. 
 
 habitant of another world, I would seem to 
 wish to pour out my selfish woes without 
 ceasing." 
 
 " Proceed with your story ; it cannot be all 
 melancholy. Remember I have none," said 
 his companion, moved. 
 
 " Then you are truly evolved from the 
 water," cried Alan, returning to pleasantry. 
 
 She was returning to Finzean, the farm of 
 Oliver Arnot, her uncle, a tenant on the pro- 
 perty which had belonged to the Macalpines, 
 and a friend of Alan himself. 
 
 Fair woman had been hitherto in Alan Mac- 
 alpine's life only a distant dream. The dream 
 to-night he in his jubilance thought w^as realis- 
 ing itself. He felt transported by the charms of 
 female loveliness into a new region. The past 
 with him had been hard and dry, irrespective 
 of his indulgence of his fancy, and the practice 
 of an active kindly spirit towards his fellows. 
 He had been happy : amid all the melancholy 
 of his situation and of his earnest spirit, his
 
 MACALPINE. 13 
 
 days, if not days of mirth and pleasure, gave 
 him happiness ; nature and his daily work had 
 many charms for him. Yet there was a void. 
 No heart of woman — nor of man — had in his 
 career united its deeper emotions with his own. 
 He was solitary. Xow he felt lured away by 
 the spontaneity of his whole being ; a new 
 experience of a glory and a freshness of the 
 dream : — 
 
 " A dreamer strayed, 
 And there I saw her ! a sweet welcome wonder 
 Through all my sense her floating image sent, 
 From those fair brows of hers and sweet eyes under ; 
 And something in me drew me where she went." 
 
 Alan and Ellen Lee emerged from the wood, 
 which terminated at the opening into the pass, 
 and walked over the purple- clad ground which 
 stretched beyond. It was as if the barrier of 
 previous ignorance of each other had not 
 existed. In the presence of a calm which is 
 eternal, though there be storms which come 
 and go upon the surface — in the living summer, 
 treading upon the flowery vigorous wild of
 
 14 MACALPTNE. 
 
 nature, they forgot that they had met for the 
 first time. The Highlander felt, in viewing 
 the grandeur and beauty of the place, a new 
 wonder — that the feeling was shared by a com- 
 panion at once susceptible and tenacious like 
 himself of impressions of the beautiful. A 
 new enthusiasm had arisen in the heart of 
 each, which neither cared to check, so natural 
 and delicious was it. To approach the place of 
 parting was to both a positive pain. They had 
 already rendered to each other, impersonal as 
 was most of their speech, a devotion silent but 
 unrestrained. 
 
 The fragrance of the flower may not be 
 wasted in the desert air, though the traveller 
 see it not ; nor may be lost the sweetness of 
 woman, though she pass away beyond where is 
 felt the secret of her powder.
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 Adversity often gives a pungency to existence, 
 to make it more relished than had an even 
 prosperity bound it. Alan Macalpine had 
 never known else than the scant treasury 
 which had been the lot of the later genera- 
 tions of his family, who had been ruined 
 by their litigious and also carelessly gener- 
 ous spirits. The last strokes of evil fortune 
 had come in Alan's own day. He found 
 even such smiles as brightened his earlier 
 years, later on turned into darkness. As 
 his father, Eoderick, fell into hopeless bank- 
 ruptcy, society avoided him ; and Alan, an 
 only child, strayed after his own way, to find 
 in the pleasures of a country life, and in com- 
 munion with the nature around and with self.
 
 16 MACALPINE. 
 
 more tlian recompense for the life which pro- 
 sperity would have brought him. But the son 
 of Eoderick Macalpine, now in his twenty- 
 fourth year, had grown in the knowledge that 
 there are other wants to be satisfied than those 
 procurable through rod or gun, or the mys- 
 terious beauties of earth and air. Never had he 
 surrendered his faith in the future, though the 
 demon of utter decay often seemed about to 
 crush his house. The powerful frame of 
 Eoderick Macalpine had swung to and fro 
 with hasty stride, and his dark eyes had sat 
 fiercely in his head, as if in defiance of the 
 powers of fate which had so long belaboured 
 him, as he passed through the village of Morven 
 on that day when he bade" a final adieu to 
 Morven Castle, to take up his abode in a small 
 lodge near by ; and his first moments in his 
 new and humble residence had been used in 
 writing to his solicitor pages of abuse of 
 judges, laws, and lawyers, with instructions 
 for a new appeal to the courts of law. The
 
 MACALPINE. 1 7 
 
 son, bracing himself to a reconciliation with 
 fate, more than retained his former faith. 
 
 Alan did not follow a profession, nor had he 
 intended to follow one. He had attended 
 college in Edinburgh, and taken a degree ; 
 that satisfied him that he had capacity for 
 mental labour ; and now, in the first moments 
 of his fallen fortunes, he prepared himself to 
 embrace the study of the law. His father 
 deemed service in a writer's office the first 
 step ; but the result of this design was a harsh 
 experience, which embittered Alan's sensitive 
 heart. The solitary youth came of a race 
 which had heaped its gold in the lap of the 
 law ; but now its dispensers had nothing more 
 to seek of the impoverished Macalpines. Alan 
 found himself of no account as the son of a 
 ruined laird among the legal scribes of the 
 Scottish metropolis, and there were none who 
 had for him else than the glib civility of the 
 heartless man of the world. He retired with 
 disgust, determined, in the ardour of his young 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 18 MACALPINE. 
 
 heart, that subsistence and something more 
 should be found where his heart was fixed — on 
 the congenial soil of his native county. He 
 set to work with right good -will at learning 
 the ordinary branches of agricultural business ; 
 and his limited previous knowledge, casually 
 acquired, in course of a few years developed 
 into rare skill and aptitude in the breeding and 
 treatment of cattle. Thus it was that at 
 twenty-four he was a stock-farmer, and an 
 occasional instructor of villagers and young 
 men and women of the mountain-side. Young 
 Macalpine required for himself an extremely 
 moderate share of the world's gear. He was 
 poor and content : it is the rich who are 
 devoured with the passion to become richer, 
 falsely imagining that the poor are ever in 
 envy of their fortune. Alan kept away from 
 the side of Mammon, which he mio;ht have 
 courted with a wild fury, for the demon 
 passions of his fathers were in him, yet sub- 
 dued. Occasionally in the lone nights, when
 
 MACALPINE. 19 
 
 the fancy rouses strong at some touch of the 
 external world, there rushed up into his 
 throat and upon his brain the red-hot blood 
 of ambition to reconquer the old land by the 
 might of the new world's enterprise. But he 
 was not passion's slave ; preferring, not out of 
 indolence but reason, freedom of soul and the 
 unembarrassed sweets of a simple existence ; 
 and he nourished no vain desires after his re- 
 storation to Morven, much as his fancy had 
 at times loved to dream of the possibility.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Ellen Lee was the niece of au extensive 
 stockowner of the county, who was married, 
 but had no family of his own. In a more than 
 pliant hour, the jovial Oliver Arnot, her ma- 
 ternal uncle, found himself the lord of what- 
 ever charms the irrepressible Jess Secular 
 could boast. This widow had enjoyed the 
 delicious gratification of power over one victim 
 of her conjugal tie only long enough to desire 
 its continuance over another. Her restless spirit 
 had no sooner reasserted itself, after a short 
 period of mourning, than it w^as engaged in at- 
 tacking the easy defences which rounded the core 
 of Oliver Arnot of Finzean. Her son and only 
 child, the long-legged and "ill-faured" Tam, 
 went with her to Finzean, w^here he lived — years 
 developing the ungainly strength of the youth
 
 MACALPINE. 21 
 
 — until he became troublesome to his stepfather, 
 and was sent to another farm in the county, 
 where the energy of his blood hardly found a 
 tamino; Id the drivino- of the wildest cattle, and 
 exercises after the flocks upon the steepest hills. 
 Had Finzean been cleared also of its mistress, 
 the peace of its master would have been com- 
 plete, though his purse was unquestionably the 
 weightier by her management. The softer side 
 of the stockowner had need of some nourish- 
 ment, and that it had not received. His 
 marriage was a grief to him, of which, however, 
 there were no outward signs. Were a favourite 
 bull ill, Jess Arnot was the woman to bring it 
 round. In her powerful wild -looking eye there 
 dwelt some fascination for the lower animals. 
 On them she appeared to cast a species of 
 affection too rough for frail humanity ; and 
 the cow seemed bound to rejoice with a new 
 vio;our under the caressino; ministrations of 
 the woman. She had no music in her soul, and 
 her husband was fond of song ; nay, played
 
 22 MACALPTNE. 
 
 jigs and reels himself upon the fiddle, to which 
 Jess was known to dance at the Auld Yules 
 with Wat McTavish, the schoolmaster and re- 
 puted poacher ; — dancing with a fling, swing, 
 and kick, even without the influence of the 
 strong waters of the Highlands, which would 
 have staggered the modern war-dancers, and 
 given a permanent shock to the nervous sys- 
 tems of the languid walkers of the fashionable 
 ball-room. The void in the heart of the good- 
 humoured farmer, which Mrs Arnot did not 
 supply, was at last filled by a sister of his own, 
 a widow, dying and leaving to his charge her 
 only child, Ellen. 
 
 Arnot's sister and he had been estranged 
 ever after she had left her father's house, in 
 consequence of some passages in her life which 
 seem to have shocked the rigid society in 
 which she lived. Possibly, through this 
 estrangement, deeply regretted by the farmer, 
 her daughter may have been all the more 
 welcome. Upon her life, which had already
 
 MACALPINE. 23 
 
 known twenty-two summers when slie came 
 to Finzean, shadows had been cast without 
 impairing the vitality of her happy temper. 
 The new scene to which she came awakened 
 suddenly a sense as of delicious roving in a 
 new world ; it was the partial realisation of 
 many a dream in a life in which a yearning 
 for romance and a distant sense of its dangers 
 were strangely mixed.
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 The house of Finzean lay not far off from the 
 Falloch Bridge, though Alan Macalpine and 
 his companion made the distance an hour's 
 walk. It was a structure of some pretension, 
 and had once been the dwelling of a laird 
 whose property had been taken in at consider- 
 able cost by the grandfather of Roderick Mac- 
 alpine. A low whitewashed building, upon 
 which architecture had expended no ingenuity, 
 its consideration lay in a great range of breadth, 
 and a size of window not common in old 
 country mansions. Oliver Arnot was by his 
 dwelling, as much as by his large possession of 
 cattle and sheep, a man looked up to by his 
 kith and kin of the country round. His wife 
 was proud of her lord's position in this respect, 
 and demanded its recognition on every avail-
 
 MACALPINE. 25 
 
 able opportunity. The quiet worthy farmer 
 himself was shamed by many of the demon- 
 strations of his spouse ; so much so, that it often 
 became a wonder to himself, as to others, how 
 or by what means he became the husband of, 
 in many respects, so ill-assorted a partner as 
 Jess Scoular. Mrs Arnot had a particular 
 fancy for her once great neighbour, Eoderick 
 Macalpine. Hers was one of those natures, 
 like his own, in which deliberate reflection plays 
 little part. To fine instincts they were acces- 
 sible, as to the worst, but there was no guar- 
 antee whatever that they would be in the right. 
 Abstractions, either of justice or truth, were un- 
 known to them, and had they been so, would have 
 been scorned by their quick and swelling tempers. 
 While she bespattered the name of Roderick 
 Macalpine with her admiration, she sometimes 
 shook her head at that of his son. The life 
 she admired was grand and glowing. 
 
 "The laird's een," she would say, "could 
 dazzle an eade's, and his voice be heard here,
 
 26 MACALPINE. 
 
 cry in on Ben Lomond. As for the learnin', gin 
 ye can show me what the son 's made o't, I '11 be- 
 lieve then, gude master. Na, na, speak na ill o' 
 the laird ; he 's a braw man. The schoolhoiise 11 
 no bring siller to buy back the auld lands.'' 
 
 The niece of Mrs Arnot had no sooner 
 entered the gateway at Finzean than she was 
 accosted by that lady with an inquiry into the 
 cause of her prolonged absence. 
 
 "Odd, Ellen, lass, I thocht ye were awa 
 wi' the kelpies. Far hae ye been wanderin' 
 at this time o' nicht ? — and ye hae a man 
 too ! " — as Alan came behind. " Mercy, lass ! 
 ye 'r an unco gipsy. Oh, it s you. Mister 
 Alan ! I hadna thocht ye kent my niece. But 
 ye 'r welcome — the son o' the Laird o* Morven 
 is ever welcome here, and to a' its belongings. 
 Thae were sad days for Morven when the laird 
 gaed doun the dyke and ower the water. 
 But ye '11 get to the Indies yet, an' win back 
 the lands." As her tongue thus ran on, with- 
 out opportunity given for reply, Ellen and Alan
 
 MACALPINE. 27 
 
 were ushered into her dwelling, whose interior 
 revealed more comfort and refinement than 
 would have been believed, judging from the 
 rough address of its mistress. Moving forward 
 with enero-etic rather than hastv strides, her 
 progress was impeded first by several dogs, 
 ever desirous to procure the notice of their 
 mistress ; and ao-ain, as she entered the sittinor- 
 room, by her son Tam, who, lazily skulking in 
 the doorway, allowed his mother, in the dark, 
 to come unawares upon his ungainly form, and 
 fall heavily over him. " Tam, ye deil," she 
 cried out, as she picked herself up, " ye '11 
 ne'er gae far ye r wanted, but are aye i' the 
 road like an ill hack-log." 
 
 Upon hearing something was wrong, the dogs 
 barked, the women servants raa about, and 
 the house was at once in a scene of great com- 
 motion when it became known that harm had 
 come to the female in the collision. 
 
 " Odds, Mrs Arnot," said the master, '*' it 's 
 not like you to be sae soft."
 
 28 MACALPINE. 
 
 " Ay, there it is, gudeman ; ye '11 send me 
 murder-haste after a puir cow, but gin I 'm 
 hurt, I can bide sae." 
 
 " Na, na, wife ; we '11 ha' ye bandaged ; 
 and here is my good friend Mr Alan, something 
 of a doctor I ken, will do the work," said the 
 farmer, his face reddening with suppressed 
 laughter — his sense of the ridiculous in the 
 encounter getting the better of his concern for 
 his spouse. To her harsh features a blackish 
 eye was now to be added, but this sturdy mem- 
 ber of her sex refused to be comforted ^^itli 
 poultice or bandage, and sat blinking at guests 
 and household. 
 
 In this way, amid a strange mingling of 
 romance and humour, did Alan Macalpine 
 make the acquaintance of Ellen Lee. In com- 
 munion with the lively spirit of Ellen, Alan's 
 thoughts were borne clear off the rough days 
 through which he had recently passed. Ellen 
 too learned to forget for a time past cares, and 
 the harsh character of her female companion ;
 
 MACALPINE. 29 
 
 in the growth of her love the shadows of her 
 early years became as the dark morning clouds 
 floating away before the brightness of the com- 
 ing noon. It seemed to her the realisation of a 
 hope. 
 
 That there was any disparity in their relative 
 circumstances to justify them in holding aloof 
 from each other, ere they stepped into that 
 magic circle from which there is no WTenching 
 except to the danger of both or one, neither 
 saw. There was an affinity from the first, and 
 other considerations there were none, except 
 that Alan's prudence recognised that his 
 material provision for the future required to 
 be looked in the face. The proud spirit of his 
 father had always rebelled against Alan's buy- 
 ing and selling cattle, and instructing peasants 
 in the rudiments of knowledge, but his re- 
 bellion was suppressed before the calm reason- 
 ing intellect of the son. Had he known, how- 
 ever, that that son had further compromised the 
 dignity of the Macalpines by consorting with
 
 30 MACALPINE. 
 
 the niece of one of his former tenants, curses 
 loud and deep would have fallen. But he was too 
 self-engrossed to perceive the evil knot, to him, 
 that was being tied. There was one person, how- 
 ever, whose keen eyesight would have detected 
 the nature of the intimacy between the pair, 
 though it had been made a secret, which it was 
 not in any respect. This was Mrs Arnot. She 
 tried to believe that it was only idle humour on 
 the part of both, which must end in separation, 
 until months passed away and there was no 
 cessation of companionship. The mother of 
 Mr Thomas Scoular had desired, with every 
 fibre of her rough heart, to see her son united 
 to the niece of her husband ' and heiress of his 
 wealth. What could she do to stop the pro- 
 cess of this scheme-marrino; affection 1 She 
 possessed no elixir to drive away love from the 
 human breast, as she did the diseases of the 
 cow and horse. She had no power of lock and 
 key, or she might have tried physical force, of 
 which she was more a mistress than of the
 
 MACALPINE. 81 
 
 soft persuasions of life. The loud language 
 with which now and then she indicated her 
 disapprobation of her niece's conduct, was 
 received as the fresh-spirited youth, stepping 
 into the sunny lawn, hears the howl of the 
 kennelled cur which barks at the step, as it is 
 its nature to do. Alan and Ellen continued 
 the conjunction of their spirits. A week and 
 more would pass, during which he was off in dis- 
 tant parts of the country, and a few days would 
 pass when he was at home without seeing Ellen, 
 still they contrived never to be long absent 
 from each other. At Finzean she was busy 
 in learning the details of the female branches 
 of farm-work, her instruction being occasionally 
 assisted also there by Alan himself, who broke 
 in upon the learned demonstrations of her uncle 
 or his wife. He ^^^ould laugh over the awkward- 
 ness of her first efforts to milk a cow or make 
 butter. Some might have expected to find from 
 her appearance a fine-ladyism which would set 
 her above engaging in such occupations ; but her
 
 32 MACALPINE. 
 
 activity refused no occupation which conduced 
 to her usefulness or health of body or of mind. 
 Alan taught her to ride, to climb hills, and to 
 row on the loch. A favourite occupation was 
 in attendino* to the flowers in her uncle's gar- 
 den, partly perhaps because it reminded her of 
 the home which was gone for ever from her. 
 To the sublime mountains her tender gaze had 
 at the first turned only with awe ; they were 
 new to her, and beyond the springs of her old 
 delight. It was only in the company of Alan 
 that she learned to blend their high aspect in 
 her imarination with all that was heroic and 
 grand. The soft features of her being were 
 still present, though the pictures conjured up 
 to her of brave men who had fallen there, and 
 whose restless spirits were supposed to hover 
 in the storms with which their own bold 
 natures had held communion, stirred the 
 depths of her blood. She was a new woman 
 in these few months ; bolder, more spirited in 
 her mental purposes as in her bodily action ;
 
 MAC ALPINE. 33 
 
 while slie was still the tender lover of all callinfr 
 
 for attachment. 
 
 In her conversations with Alan self formed 
 
 generally small part, in contradiction to the 
 
 common case of those so situated. Ellen, at 
 
 times, thought she would have preferred to 
 
 rest more upon their own histories, doings, and 
 
 hopes. The abstractions of life, embodied 
 
 even in the deepest poetry of humanity, are 
 
 not so attractive to the feminine as to the 
 
 male heart : Alan was much o;iven to musinof 
 
 and dilating on these. Occasionally Ellen 
 
 would ask herself whether this were not a 
 
 dream, in which Alan played the part of an 
 
 insubstantial spirit of the mountain, rather 
 
 than of a real flesh and blood lover. Did this 
 
 arise, she asked herself, from the difference in 
 
 their rank 1 It was not from want of display 
 
 of his affection for her ; perhaps it was because 
 
 he had not spoken of marriage. With men 
 
 accustomed to find pleasure in the exercise of 
 
 intellect and heart, woman is not the consum- 
 VOL. I. . c
 
 34 MACALPINE. 
 
 mation of all things, even when that one 
 woman approaches who is to journey on with 
 them through their days : woman's hand in 
 such a case reaches already to the hour upon 
 the dial which is to mark their absorption in 
 another life.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 One morning in autumn it was observed, by 
 the whole household in Finzean, that the 
 usually healthy appetite of Mr Oliver Arnot 
 was not in strength. The porridge dish was 
 only half empty. Two eggs more than usual 
 remained for the domestics : the coffee was 
 indeed all drunk, but the toast-rack contained 
 two or three slices which were not usually found 
 there at the conclusion of the morning repast. 
 It was known in the kitchen that the defaulter 
 was the master ; for the mistress, though 
 possessing a keen appetite for many things, was 
 not inordinately disposed to quantities of 
 viands. Oliver Arnot's appetite this morning 
 was mastered by the qualms of anxiety. He 
 felt ill and depressed, and disposed positively 
 to be out of temper. He drew up his portly
 
 36 MACALPINE. 
 
 form before the mirror, lie walked in his gar- 
 den and cut twigs off a tree, all to convince 
 himself that he ouoht to be calm. Now, the 
 occasion of all this was, that he was struck to 
 the quick with the thought that the niece 
 who was left to his honest care was in dansfer. 
 He had long shut his conscience to the urgings 
 of his wife, as he did his ears to most of her 
 grievances. But time had brought conviction, 
 and the feeling had also grown upon him that 
 something should be done. With a man of his 
 temperament anything out of the way was 
 unpleasant. He grew feverish and disposed to 
 go in for any work, however disagreeable, in 
 the hope that it would divert his thoughts. 
 As he sat at breakfiist this morning, his manner 
 to his niece was short and constrained, and 
 Ellen felt that a scene was impending in 
 which she was to form an actor. 
 
 That it concerned her intimacy with Alan 
 Macalpine, she had no doubt. He could not 
 conceal his thoughts when Ellen came into
 
 MACALPINE. 37 
 
 tlie room : his eyes rested upon a small por- 
 trait of young Macalpine that hung upon the 
 Avail, and he started like a guilty thing as she 
 came quietly in while he was so occupied. 
 Was it then a dream after all, from which 
 impended a rude awaking — this period during 
 which the days had coursed on in uninter- 
 rupted joy, a green spot on which she stood 
 but for a moment, on her journey to a blank 
 unknown region of desert land 1 She felt 
 bitterly the curse w^hich the conventionalities 
 of the world frames for itself, to destroy the 
 peace of its people. " Ellen, you 're Avanted by 
 your uncle," Mrs Arnot had said, in calm 
 measured tone, which was meant for a kindly 
 contrast with the severity of the encounter 
 thereby indicated as to be undergone else- 
 where ; but which did not conceal from Ellen 
 the delight in her pain. 
 
 Oliver Arnot was seated in the best room of 
 the house, used but once a year when the 
 Auld Yule feast was on. The furniture was
 
 38 MACALPINE. 
 
 antiquated and undusted ; the air was old and 
 depressing. He occupied its highest chair, 
 chokeful rather of uneasiness than dignity, 
 though feeling the necessity of appeasing the 
 requirements of his position by a formality 
 which it was his nature to detest. 
 
 "Take a seat, Ellen,'' were his words when 
 she entered, wearing on her countenance that 
 easy weight of martyrdom naturally assumed 
 by a pretty woman when called to account for 
 the venial ^offence of permitting her attractions 
 to ussert their unwary power. 
 
 She sat with a coolness which somewhat 
 disarmed her uncle. She knew she was poor 
 and without a home, and felt what, by her 
 uncle's displeasure, she might forfeit. Beyond 
 all, she thought how his displeasure would cut 
 her off from an intercourse which had been 
 rich to her in joy. Yet, as fate determined, 
 she would be prepared. 
 
 "Ellen, this will not do ; " and Arnot turned 
 himself in his chair and stopped — a speech
 
 MACALPINE. 39 
 
 which the. intended moralist had prepared 
 having vanished from his memory. 
 
 Ellen waited with patience that her moni- 
 tor should unfold himself ; but he failed to get 
 under weigh, and she felt sorry for his confu- 
 sion, thouo;h she could not well come to the 
 rescue. 
 
 She now imagined that her days at Fin- 
 zean had ended. In one moment she knew 
 her course. She must go forth upon the open 
 world and earn her bread, struggling with the 
 dense and eager crowds. 
 
 For this emergency a moment's resolution 
 prepared her ; a moment of pain which was not 
 anguish, because she felt equal to the demands 
 that were to be cast upon her. 
 
 After various movements, the farmer re- 
 membered something of the first considerations 
 of the case ; his pointed argument was gone. 
 
 " I '11 tell you, Ellen, things are changed ; 
 it 's not as in my young days when a young- 
 man 'd take to a young woman, and they had
 
 40 MACALPINE. 
 
 no heed o' father or mither sae lang as a bow o' 
 meal was to be got for little, and broth wi' a 
 bit mutton sooming i' tap i' pot, like a moose, 
 served a family for a week. I m no thinking 
 they're better noo than they were. There's 
 AVat McTavish, the schoolmaster, married to 
 the huzzie Barbara Inglis, frae the south, wi' 
 her fine notions o' gentility, and her father only 
 a puir horse-doctor, — I 'm thinking puir Wat's 
 poaching comes at times o' her taste for finery. 
 ' Na, na/ said her father, when Wat was after 
 her ; but AVat the chield sent Inglis some 
 braces o' grouse and muirfowl and hares, and I 
 hae it that Wat passed for a sma laird amang 
 them, whiles he was but a spankin dominie ; 
 and he brings hame the lassie wi a tocher o' a 
 hunder pounds, and a bit extravagant notions 
 which set Wat's brains aboot, and into the 
 claws o' the law, I 'm thinking, — puir Wat ; 
 and a' for love o' a handsome cummer wi' a 
 weel-clad back and bonnie flowers on her head, 
 come o' her gentility what likes ; things are no
 
 MACALPINE. 41 
 
 what they were, dinna ye see that ? we mann 
 mind the new roads." He came to a pause, 
 feeling that his argument, as he saw it, was ex- 
 hausted "by the illustration of Wat McTavish's 
 case. 
 
 Ellen felt for the time a mastery over the 
 good-natured man. " I am not old enough to 
 have observed the old state of thino-s so as 
 to compare with the present, but my mother 
 has often told me it was more natural the life 
 in former days." 
 
 "Ay, ay, that's it, natural it was, and it's 
 not so now," he cried, breathlessly, thinking 
 that he might be assisted good naturedly to 
 the climax which he desired so much to reach 
 by a round and safe path. "There's a vast 
 difference in the feelings o' men, Ellen ; there's 
 nae such thing i' this time as love. I '11 no 
 accuse others, and spare mysel'. No. Dae ye 
 think Mistress Seoul ar married your uncle for 
 love 1 no that I would say that to her, and 
 ye'r discreet, anil no repeat this, for truth's
 
 42 MACALPINE. 
 
 often ugly and needs the breeks. Na, na, 
 Mistress Scoular, thouoh she'll be mistress 
 here sae lang as God spares her, worthy and 
 valuable woman — though her spirits be high at 
 a time — married me not for love ; " and here, 
 drawn into a confession more painful than he 
 had believed it would have been, he drew his 
 hand over his face and hid a grief which stood 
 in his eye. Perhaps it was that the ghost of 
 an old love had risen within him, when he had 
 believed as did the young heart before him 
 which he desired to chill. " Ellen, Ellen ! " 
 he resumed, " ye '11 be deceived if ye think 
 there 's only love to count upon between man 
 and woman." 
 
 " Affection has not died out of the world," 
 she said, with a low voice, not knowing exactly 
 how to meet these distant sallies, but affected 
 at her uncle's emotion. 
 
 " It 's the heart that 's noo ta'en up wi' the 
 world's gear — it 's chocked up and poisoned 
 like a dead well and only foulness pours in it.
 
 MACALPINE. 43 
 
 There 's nae sense in 't a bit ; but it 's the 
 fashion, and we maun conform. It 's the 
 core that 's wrang — nae doot o' that ; it 's never 
 been livin' i' the new times, a' rotten wi' vani- 
 ties. In my young days youth was youth, 
 and nae blythe maid but had her sweethearts 
 wha'd break their necks, forbye their hearts, 
 after her ; and as for lovin' anything else, 
 they 'd hae blown their brains out first. A' 
 for love, was the motto o' that time. Doun in 
 my father s barn I hae seen a dozen couples 
 tripping it without a guinea-piece i' the pouch 
 o^ ane of them, and yet they made the world 
 the richer and the happier by the next Auld 
 Yule ; and there were them wi' twa thousand 
 sheep and twenty heed o' black cattle would be 
 after ane o' the lasses, and been left standing 
 for a lad wi' neither pedigree nor bawbees, but 
 just his lithe step and his bright een and his 
 merry fancy. See na ye that noo'? Besides, 
 lass," he continued, after a pause which Ellen 
 did not break ; " I 'm thinkin' it 's no in accord-
 
 44 MACALPINE. 
 
 ance wi' your duty to be gaein' on as ye do wi' 
 Mr Alan Macalpine." 
 
 ''My duty to whom, uncle 1 " asked Ellen, 
 now somewhat hurt. 
 
 "To everybody concerned, lassie/' said he, 
 in his heart puzzled to answer definitely. 
 
 " I can see no sin,'' she said, boldly, " in doing 
 wdiat the whole world has ever done from 
 the day that God gave Eve to Adam as a com- 
 panion and helpmate." 
 
 ^'That's it just ; did Providence intend you 
 for this young man '? " Finding himself, he 
 knew not where in the argument, Oliver Arnot 
 preferred casting its burthen upon Ellen. 
 
 "I know not, for revelations are not made 
 now as of old times. In the absence of this 
 revelation therefore, uncle, we may be content 
 to believe in what is not wrong in itself ; if Mr 
 Macalpine chooses my company and I give it, 
 we need look for no other approval — than 
 yours, uncle, which I thought I had." 
 
 There was a confidence in her tone which
 
 MACALPINE. 45 
 
 nettled while it surprised Arnot. Was this his 
 tender, laughing niece ! Stronger natures, or 
 conventionally higher, calling " these delicate 
 creatures ours," fancy such always yielding 
 like a dying strain. But let these ruder be- 
 ware. The delicate ones are struck to no un- 
 certain sound. 
 
 *' My sister's only child will no do wrang in 
 the eyes o' the world without knowing o "t. 
 You're young, lassie, to speak so proudly. 
 Where got ye that tongue ? You 're ower fast. 
 If it be not your duty to some, what say you to 
 me alone % Am I not your nearest bluid, and 
 would be your true friend to the end o' the 
 chapter, ay and after ; and hae I no right to 
 say my mind upon ye if things gae wrang. It 's 
 no doin your duty to me, Ellen Lee, that the 
 haill country side sees ye dancing aboot wi' the 
 son o' the auld laird ; a' speak o 't, and your 
 weel thrashed wi' their clashing tongues, no 
 that I mind that muckle ; it 's wrang whether 
 the country side sees it or no'; though ye were
 
 46 MACALPINE. 
 
 together in the dark only, that 's no what 
 should be. Ellen Lee can never be, should 
 never be, the wife of Alan Macalpine, even if 
 that be what the young man means/' 
 
 Ellen started to her feet, aroused with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 It choked her with anguish that her mother's 
 brother seemed to tread upon his sister's dark 
 mysterious chapter in life, which her child 
 had intended to put away for ever in the 
 lowest chamber of her mind, and never expose 
 to mortal handling. How cruelly she felt 
 wounded as she stood with the poisoned arrow 
 in her breast, shot by the only living creature 
 in the world to whom she might look for con- 
 solation in a family sorrow. Was she to have 
 imputations of frailty cast upon her because of 
 the whisper of a parent's wrong 1 
 
 " Uncle," she cried, her voice choking, " you 
 do not mean this ; it is not you who have 
 thought tliis cruelty, ay, this insult for me ! 
 Who do you take me for 1 have I then been
 
 MACALPINE. 47 
 
 deceived in your kindness 1 I cannot remain 
 with yon longer when you suspect me of 
 wrong." 
 
 The innate tenderness of her heart rushed 
 upon her, and she leant for an instant to 
 conceal her great sorrow ; but quickly gather- 
 ing her strength, she walked towards the door, 
 intending to bid adieu to the place. 
 
 Oliver Arnot meanwhile, surprised at the 
 power of his attack, recovered his true self and 
 seized her hand. He cursed the imperfections 
 of his language, and resolved to be silent ever 
 on themes like these ; he had tried the round- 
 about mode of attack, in which he had not 
 succeeded, and now, flying to bluntness, he 
 had mangled the object he desired to carry oflf 
 in safety. 
 
 " Ellen, Ellen ! dinna be sae angry, I 
 meant no insult, don't take it sae hotly ; sit ye 
 doun ; you 're no to leave this room till we 
 be better friends than ever ; just sit doun, 
 and I promise ye amends/^
 
 48 MACALPTNE. 
 
 Her face, as he led lier back to a seat, wore 
 an expression of severe pain. 
 
 " Ellen," said her uncle, moved to kindness ; 
 " I wish only it had been another, who 's 
 dead and gone, had been still living to care for 
 ye. I'm no equal to it. Dr Lee was well- 
 spoken and educated, but the best are ta'en 
 first. Dinna be angry wi' me ; it 's the way o' 
 doino- thino;s that makes the master. Jist ye 
 say ye want nae mair o' this, and God help 
 me, but 1 11 be dumb. Damn these clashing 
 deevils," burst out the enraged farmer, casting 
 upon the public the blame of his own unfor- 
 tunate outbreak. 
 
 " I do not blame you, uncle, for w^arning 
 me of what people say, nor for giving me your 
 own best advice. They interfere with what 
 does not concern them, and I know not how I 
 have done wrong in your eyes." 
 
 " You've done nae wilful wrong, but just as 
 a pretty lass canna help ; though there 's 
 maybe danger and wrong to others. Says
 
 MACALPINE. 49 
 
 auld Macalpine mony a year and day to me, 
 — his son would work till he made siller to buy 
 back the castle-lands, and get a richer lady for 
 his wife than he had done, or the auld curse o' 
 the family, pride and poverty, should level 
 them to the peasant's cot ; he would be the 
 first to curse the son from the grave itsel', if 
 he were like the forbears. Ellen, if you ve no 
 gaen sae far as ye canna return, leave the son, 
 and brave not the anger of the mad laird, for 
 murder he would in his great moods. I hae 
 been to blame, lettin ye gae on ; why didna I 
 stop ye at once 1 I take blame ; dinna say 
 marriages are happy wi' difference o' condition. 
 Let the laird marry a lady, and the farmer a 
 farmer s daughter. There 's John Macpherson 
 o' the Mains, and an honest sonsy man, wi' 
 plenty bawbees, yoked wi' ane o' ten o' the puir 
 laird o' Girvan, and his life 's no worth living ; 
 deil a thing but show ; puir John himseF noo 
 a mere bauble o' a creetur, wi' his money 
 aboot gane." 
 
 VOL. 1. D
 
 50 MACALPINE. 
 
 " You think, tlien," replied Ellen, " that I 
 will be a curse to this family if I remain longer 
 here. Better I had never been born than I 
 should come between any one and their happi- 
 ness. In my simplicity I believed we had only 
 ourselves to heed. I have been mistaken ; let 
 me go and forget that I ever set my eyes on 
 Morven.'' 
 
 If a sacrifice was demanded of her, she 
 would silently set herself to the task. Her 
 belief and hope that Alan would deride the 
 notions of her uncle were strong. But would 
 the obstacle to their union not still be a true 
 one '? Were Alan's interests to be sacrificed 
 for her '? No ; she must go. 
 
 " Na, na ; no that ; you mustn't leave me, 
 Ellen ; my life has been happier wi' you in this 
 house than it has been for mony a year and 
 day. Ay, I 'm selfish enough to wish to keep 
 you ; but it '11 be for your ain gude i' the end. 
 Don't be low i' the spirits ; there 's twenty 
 men in the county '11 be after Ellen Lee, and
 
 MACALPINE. 51 
 
 the niece of Oliver Arnot. Na, you mnstna 
 go." 
 
 " I want them not, uncle," broke in Ellen. 
 '' I will try and forget it all. I am sure you 
 injure him terribly when you think he could 
 be so base as to seek any woman's heart under 
 the mask of love with the spirit of Mammon. 
 Alan Macalpine is not such a one, I tell you," 
 she repeated, her eyes flashing as she spoke. 
 " Yet I must leave him. His world must not 
 be mine. He will rise ; I would keep him 
 down. The curse of his father neither he nor 
 I must have." 
 
 But she was still under the tormenting spell 
 of the sore which her uncle had goaded into the 
 raw. At another time, she might have asked 
 him boldly whether his words sprang from 
 memory of her mother's conduct. She walked 
 quickly out of the room, and Oliver Arnot was 
 left to meditate upon the ill results of his 
 diplomacy. He was exhausted with his morn- 
 ing's work. He went to his garden, and tried
 
 52 MACALPINE. 
 
 to dream himself into the belief that it was all 
 right ; that Alan would come as before ; that 
 his niece would be still merry in his hall, and 
 that things would wag calmly into a ripe day, 
 when his own shadow was no less than it was. 
 But he rose to the chill air of the real prospect 
 before him. His niece was not attending to 
 the autumn flowers, as was her wont at this 
 time, when he took his pipe ; he sauntered 
 slowly into the house, half-expecting that her 
 clear voice would greet his ear. There was 
 no sound there but the distant grating voices 
 of the kitchen, among which stood out the 
 commanding tones of his hard- voiced spouse. 
 
 Mrs Arnot, too, was herself excited all the 
 morning. She recalled to her memory how 
 she had known of women whose supposed 
 affections had been severed from one object, 
 greedily devour the next bait that presented 
 itself. If her husband's niece saw herself torn 
 from the side of Alan Macalpine, on account of 
 family pride, might not she, in the rage and
 
 MACALPINE. 53 
 
 pet (which she, Mrs Arnot, thought she would 
 feel), fall into the arms of her Tarn. 
 
 Now, although Mr Thomas Scoular was not 
 a good man, — indeed, he was a bad man, for 
 he often indulged in the worst malignancy ; — 
 and although he was a dull stupid fellow at 
 Finzean, while elsewhere he laughed and 
 coarsely joked, and his brain was roused, and 
 his heart moved, he was quite capable of 
 appreciating the common types of beauty, and 
 of contrastino; with them his own coarse indi- 
 viduality. Since his mother had put into his 
 ill-directed cranium thoughts of marriage with 
 Ellen Lee, he had improved in his personal 
 appearance ; and when he was in the presence 
 of Ellen, a softness, such as he never wore else- 
 where, radiated his sandy face. Although 
 animal throughout, he felt that in her there 
 was a prize which it would be well to have. 
 Neither did he see in her alone the heiress to 
 his stepfather's wealth. There were humane 
 sides of Thomas's advances to Ellen. The
 
 54 MACALPTNE. 
 
 rest was blank and something worse. He felt 
 abashed in the presence of modesty and virtue, 
 and his speech to Ellen had been blundering 
 and short; and now this morning he felt his 
 hand tremble as he hung about the balustrades 
 of the stair, expecting Ellen's approach after 
 her interview with her uncle. 
 
 " Ellen, you 're no lookin' weel," were the 
 terms of Tom's accost, as she came down to 
 where he stood. " Come in here and tell me 
 what 's wrang." 
 
 She looked up^ surprised a little at such 
 tones from this quarter. 
 
 "Not now, Tom ; thank you, I 'm not ill." 
 
 "But you are," said Scbular, obstinately. 
 "Will you not do me a favour, Ellen. Tom 
 Scoular has ever been your surest freend. 
 Dinna be saucy noo." 
 
 Ellen looked at him, it almost seemed with 
 a shudder, which she was able to conceal 
 from him. She divined his intention, and, 
 though not naturally timid, in her then situa-
 
 MACALPINE. 55 
 
 tion of depression, slie was for an instant afraid. 
 She wished it to appear that no breach of 
 good feeling had taken place, and cruel as the 
 task was, she entered into the parlour, the door 
 of which Scoular had ready open for her. 
 
 Scoular came to the point without beating 
 about as Oliver Arnot had done. 
 
 " Ellen, I love you. Dinna think that though 
 ye are your uncle's next o' kin I come to ye. 
 Ye '11 mak' me a happy man as my wife ; 
 that 's why I ask ye to be 't. Maybe unlike 
 ithers I could name, I 'm no a hand at fine 
 speeches, yet there's nane o' the hill sides hae 
 stronger hands to keep and protect ye than 
 me. A 'm joost what a'm an' nae mair ; an'," 
 — here he faltered, looking upon the unmoved 
 countenance of the woman he addressed. It 
 was cold, and her tongue speechless ; very un- 
 like this, the warm coarseness of the specimens 
 of the sex whose compan}'- he had best known. 
 " An' you 'se be weel cared for, without doot. 
 What ails ye, Ellen ? If I were you, hang me.
 
 56 MACALPINE. 
 
 but I 'd come ower thae Macalpines. Joost 
 say the word, and I '11 mittle Alan Macalpine 
 that no anither wummnn i' a' Scotland or 
 England 'ither '11 look at the Hieland cock." 
 
 Ellen shuddered. Was this the man intended 
 for her ? Was it that she might fall to his lot, 
 that those cruel demands had just been made 
 upon her by her uncle ? The interview seemed 
 providential to drive her the quicker from the 
 house. 
 
 "Tom, you have deceived yourself; you 
 have not been encouraged to this by me. I 
 
 might have been your friend, but now 
 
 Come to your better heart, and learn shame of 
 what you have now spoken." 
 
 Scoular stopped her progress as she advanced 
 towards the door, desirous to close the inter- 
 view. He was almost speechless with savage- 
 ness, though not daring yet to lay hold 
 of her. 
 
 " Had thae been ither days, I 'd made ye my 
 wife in spite o' ye."
 
 MACALPINE. 57 
 
 *'I thank God then/' she answered, "who 
 has made me in better days." 
 
 "You think me, I suppose, a puir man be- 
 side Macalpine, and kick me aside ; but no, 
 lassie, I warn ye o' this wi' your airs o' gentry 
 and spurn o' as gude bluid as runs in your 
 veins. Come, noo,'say ye were wrang to speak 
 as yeVe done." 
 
 " I will not say it ; let me pass ! " 
 
 " It 's for Macalpine that maun ruin ye that 
 ye refuse me." 
 
 "Let me pass," Ellen cried, pushing past 
 him to the door handle. 
 
 " Ye '11 no out here till ye say Tam Scoular 's 
 a better man than Alan Macalpine ; " was the 
 reply, laying hold of her arm. 
 
 " Never ; coward, would you strike me 1 " 
 
 "Ay; murder ye, perhaps," in a half- 
 humorous, half-diabolical growl. 
 
 " Let me go, or I '11 alarm the house. I pity 
 you, and will not speak of this," said the girl. 
 
 " Aff then, but damn your pride and his that
 
 58 MACALPINE. 
 
 fells ye ; keep this to yersel', or the worse it '11 
 be for ye and him." So growling he went out 
 first ; Ellen flying to her room to be alone — 
 alone, but not comfortless. 
 
 Tarn Scoular stood in the passage with a face 
 on which anger was depicted to an unusual 
 degree even for him. His stepfather noticed 
 it, but said nothing, being in no mood for 
 speech with any one. It would be a quarrel 
 about money with his mother, thought Arnot, 
 knowing that these were of common occurrence. 
 Tarn was seizing a large, broad, low-crowned 
 felt hat — which became well his harsh disao-ree- 
 able features — as the other came into the pas- 
 sage, and with half-averted look stood for an in- 
 stant as if hesitating whether he would speak 
 to Arnot. He, however, went quickly past him, 
 muttering in threatening tones, in which the 
 
 other could catch only, "Your niece 'sa" 
 
 "So then," thought the farmer to himself, "here 
 is insult to injury with a vengeance." He 
 groaned in spirit. He could have taken his
 
 MACALPINE. 59 
 
 greatly loved niece to his arms and held her 
 back ; he dared not now. He went aloout 
 that day distracted. 
 
 " Gone ! and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow 
 here ; 
 Gone ! flitted away ! 
 
 Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day. 
 Gone ! and a cloud in my heart and a storm in the air ; 
 Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where."
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 Olivee Arnot wished to be only mysterious 
 when Alan asked the circumstances which had 
 taken Ellen away in his absence. 
 
 " 0' nae doot ; I ken she 's weel ; she '11 turn 
 up some fine day/' was all the farmer would 
 say, and Alan was obliged to rest content. He 
 soon saW;, however, that Ellen fled against her 
 uncle's will, and when no explicit explanation 
 came from Ellen herself, or any other, of the 
 cause of her disappearance, Alan was deeply 
 vexed by the thought that she had fled from 
 himself. Oliver Arnot vaguely hinted that at 
 all events his niece did not wish Alan to know 
 her movements. " Why is this *? " asked Alan, 
 his voice shaking with indignation and pain. 
 Oliver Arnot did not answer. 
 
 Months passed away, and all his eflbrts to
 
 MACALPINE. 61 
 
 find out where Ellen had gone proved futile. 
 Her uncle hinted still that Ellen must pay 
 Finzean a visit Id the summer, and that he 
 would then learn, from her own lips, what she 
 chose to tell ; and Alan was compelled to rest 
 content. 
 
 Meantime, the worthy farmer himself was 
 sore distressed at Ellen's absence, and with 
 himself, as the immediate cause of it. He 
 grew restless, and had again to seek refuge 
 outwith his own house, for occupation for his 
 idle hours. He had long ceased any regular 
 attendance at the village inn, for perusal of 
 the news, or a gossip with mine host, and 
 jabber with the frequenters of the tap-room ; 
 these habits he again felt necessary to kill 
 time, though the cellars of the Morven Arms 
 needed little more replenishing for the farmer's 
 visits. 
 
 Here, on an afternoon towards the close 
 of autumn, after a gloomy morning, when 
 the farmer had not before left his stead-
 
 62 MACALPINE. 
 
 ing, and mine liost was unusually slack for 
 want of the traveller who should still find his 
 way from the stage nearer town for his jour- 
 ney onwards through the strath, the reception 
 of Arnot was unusually cheerful. 
 
 " Ye re late the nicht, Maister Arnot, and 
 here 's the hoose fou ! Just as I was at the 
 door twa hour syne, lookin' oot for the neejDS 
 that should be here i' the mornin', — for thae 
 starvin' brutes o' horses that Captain Sykes has 
 put up, — up comes doucely, and speaks to me, 
 as if he had been nae mair than a tourist chap, 
 that taks to the road on the score o' health, 
 while his pouch's only i' the death-thraw. 
 'Plenty o' rooms vacant i' your house, land- 
 lord 1' says he. *Ay,' says I, 'mair than 
 there should be, considerin'.' * Well, we shall 
 see,' he said, wi' the voice of General Farquhar, 
 and I saw a great gentleman he was — nae a 
 halflin chap wi' claes he pretends, an' finer 
 than their wearer ; so in he gaes, looks at ^ve 
 rooms, and taks them for a week. An, puir
 
 MACALPINE. 63 
 
 man, he 's taen na mair denner than serves a 
 flea ; a bit steak, a bit bread, an a thimlefu o' 
 best cognac. But the rascals o' men — twa he has 
 — cam an hour after wi' luggage ; that a ay 
 care ta see, come o' the handsomeness o' the 
 owner what likes. Oh, but he 's auld and 
 tired-lookin, but a real ane. But here'st, 
 Maister Arnot — the bell rino;s, and here he 's 
 lyin' on twa chairs, wi' his een glarin' like a 
 tiger's oot o' a jungle. * Can you tell me of a 
 farmer hereabouts who knows the land ? ' he 
 asks. What 's up noo, thinks I ; maybe ye 'r 
 a government man, though I said naething o' 
 this ; maybe a painter we read o', that gets 
 hunders for bits o' picters ; or an author ; but 
 na, nane o' that, I '11 reckon, wi' five rooms, 
 and twa idle dogs worryin i' the kitchen. 
 Ye 're after Morven estate ; though I said 
 naething o 't, but just this, that Maister Oliver 
 Arnot kent best aboot the land i' the haill 
 coonty. There it is, the lang an' the short o 't. 
 I said, * Sir, Maister Arnot 's been on 's farm
 
 64 MACALPINE. 
 
 ever syne Roderick Macalpine focht the duel 
 wi' the young Englishman, and that 's no 
 yestreen, as ye, sir, may learn frae liimsel' ; 
 here he wheezed, and looked hard at me. 
 And noo, sir, as I may be doin' ye a gude turn, 
 just, Maister Arnot, do me anither, — keep 
 them at it — that we may draw mair o' the 
 auld Macalpine claret, that 's ower lang i' the 
 cellar ; and the stories '11 be gude for yoursel, 
 that will sit sae douce thae months back." 
 
 Arnot was now" ushered in upon the stranger. 
 It was already dusk, and a cheerful, blazing 
 fire, which the constitution of the lodger seemed 
 to demand, gave to his thin, bronzed, and 
 somewhat haggard features, an unusual tinge 
 of warmth. His years were probably not sixty. 
 "Whether from the habitual working of strong 
 passions, or from a life spent in an unhealthy 
 climate, or perhaps from both causes, his frame 
 was attenuated, and his expression that of 
 a man of greater age. A keen observer 
 would have detected in his smallest movement
 
 MAGALPINE. 65 
 
 indications of a mind indifferent to the common 
 pleasures of the world. A certain elevation of 
 mind still could pierce through the stillness of 
 the face. Yet all was not well in that heart ; 
 success appeared upon the brow, but the dim, 
 troubled eye, and the drawn-up cheek, por- 
 trayed that that success had brought not peace ; 
 it had come whence he cared not to think over 
 to himself. The manners of the strano;er were 
 quiet and gentlemanly. He gave no trouble ; 
 everything was done as he wished it ; the force he 
 possessed being the actual outcome of a naturally 
 determined and fearless character. Arnot was 
 soon taken with the agreeable intercourse. The 
 quick, hurried, and often boisterously important 
 guests of the inn, whether they were of the low 
 or high rank of the traveller of pleasure or neces- 
 sity, were not much to the taste of the worthy 
 farmer. Here was a gentleman who, at once and 
 without any effort, placed himself on thelevel with 
 his visitor. Yet he appeared deep, quiet, and his- 
 torical, such as the true man of the world is. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 MACALPINE. 
 
 " Sir Andrew Cameron informs me that a 
 large property is for sale here — the estate of 
 Morven — Macalpine's lands ; and I wish a 
 practical man to advise me of the capacity of 
 the farms," said the stranger. 
 
 '' Sir Andrew himself Avill be a better judge o' 
 that than I am," answered the farmer. "He kens 
 the value o' every knoAve i' the county. An' then 
 ye see, I 'm a tenant o' Morven, and maybe if ye 
 were laird ye might tak' me at my ain estimate, 
 which is low enough aboot Finzean — my ain 
 place — for the laird's needfulness gat me to gie 
 a hioii rent, an' wi' that an' the drouth o' the 
 past twa years I've lost siller," — grumbling 
 half-hum orously to his prospective landlord, 
 with the certain instincts of a tenant-farmer. 
 " But for a that I '11 no say that I dinna ken 
 the land, ditch an' hill- tap, pasture an' bog, 
 an' the sheep and cattle that they '11 keep. So 
 be't ye tak' me wi' a' fauts, I 'm happily at your 
 service." 
 
 Next day, by appointment, Arnot waited
 
 MACALPIXE. 67 
 
 upon the sojourner at Morven Inn, who then 
 introduced himself as Colonel Mar, and both 
 proceeded to Morven Castle, with the view of 
 commencing there some inspection of the 
 property. It was a dull day of autumn ; one 
 of those days which seem to be forecast with 
 the shadow of the coming winter. The darken- 
 ing melancholy of the clouds, spread in inert 
 masses over the whole sky ; the fitful winds, 
 raising the sough of the boughs of the forest 
 trees ; the murmurs and twitterings of the leaves 
 of the beech and birch ; the fall of the heavy leaf 
 of the oak and plane, in the intervals of stillness; 
 the yellow melancholy sitting upon all nature, 
 — were not without their influence upon the 
 mind of Colonel Mar. The precincts of the 
 Castle all bore the mark of a poor proprietor- 
 ship, decayed from a position which had often 
 indulged habits of expense and a taste for 
 splendour. Dear as had been the pride of 
 their lands to all of them, the Macalpines had 
 had no practical value for them. Nature had
 
 68 MACALPINE. 
 
 been bountiful witli the beauty indestructible ; 
 art had been exercised to heighten effects, and 
 comfort had not been forgotten ; but increase 
 of value there was none commensurate with 
 the outlay. The pillared and arched gateway 
 bore upon each pinnacle, in excellently chiselled 
 stone-work, the crest of the Macalpines, while 
 neglect marked every feature of the parks 
 around. The walks of the avenue were, as 
 was to be expected, overgrown with weeds 
 where the dense coverings of leaves, blown by 
 the Avinds, left here and there a bare spot of the 
 ground ; bushes hung over upon the roadway, 
 and nestled their heads deep in the body of 
 decaying matter. Towards tlie castle the trees 
 grew high and broad, forming a contrast to 
 the drooping life around them. A massive 
 tower, which shot up from amidst a series of 
 more modern-looking erections, was the distin- 
 guishing feature of the castle from a distance, 
 and gave it an imposing appearance, beauti- 
 fully situated as it was, upon an eminence of
 
 MAC ALPINE. 69 
 
 considerable dimensions, which looked down 
 upon the pebbly stream of Morveu, and far 
 over the strath to the distant mountain-tops. 
 The companion of Oliver Arnot paused as he 
 came within sight of the castle, but the farmer 
 was too intent upon his own thoughts of the 
 ruin of the Macalpines, to notice the effect upon 
 the other of the silent story of decay. A 
 flushed face, a brightness in the troubled eye, 
 and a quickness in the step, changed for an 
 instant the w^orn man into a youth, — as if he 
 recalled ambitious fire into his veins as it 
 burned when hope lives in the realms of an 
 imagined existence, — as Colonel Mar stepped 
 through a path which diverged from the main 
 avenue, and brought them to an arbour scene, 
 from which autumnal splendour had not yet 
 altogether fled. Through a maze or thicket 
 w^as an enclosure formed of trees of many 
 varieties, whose leaves blended all the richness 
 of an Oriental colouring : in the space grew 
 the most luxuriant flowers of autumn, upon
 
 70 MACALPINE. 
 
 which seemed to travel for a moment, through 
 the rising masses of the glowing foliage of the 
 trees, the rays of a gleaming sun. It might 
 have been the deception of the colours as the 
 scene first burst upon the vision, for it ap- 
 peared to Colonel Mar, as he awoke from what 
 was a short reverie, that nature stood in 
 gloom. 
 
 "A bonnie place, but bluid has been spilt 
 there/' said the farmer, who had to wait his 
 companion s exit. 
 
 " How, man, how '? " inquired Colonel Mar, 
 eagerly, belying the former dignified quiet of 
 his manner. 
 
 " Oh, nae murder ! there 's nae ghosts to 
 frighten yer young folk i' the winter nichts. 
 Just the duel that Dougal maybe told ye o'.'* 
 
 "No doubt some legend, scarcely founded 
 on fact." 
 
 " Fact it is, Colonel Mar ; that in this place 
 Eoderick Macalpine took some bluid oot o' a 
 young Englishman wha challenged him for
 
 MACALPIXE. 71 
 
 rurining off with Ins sweetheart, then laird 
 ]\Iacalpine's wifeo'^ 
 
 " How did she live, then, with this wild 
 Highland chief — this English lady ? " 
 
 " But I haven't told you how it cam' aboot. 
 Eoderick was a dashing fellow in his young 
 days, and broken as he is, has a fine eye wi' 
 the women ; gentle in his way wi' them, 
 though a cursed temper wi' maist men. Tak' 
 care, Colonel, hae as little business as ye can 
 wi' him ; I that shouldiia' say't that am weel 
 and hearty wi' him. Weel, Macalpine the 
 laird, as he was just then, was at Bath, on his 
 way home from London, and he fancied a 
 gentle English lass that he met there, that 
 was a but bein' married to a young English 
 officer, as they said ; no that she was 'trothed 
 to him in form, but it was aye said it was an 
 understood thing between them, and amang 
 kith and kin ; ah I but the laird was the finest 
 man o' the ball-room, — danced with the lord- 
 liest fling aboon a' the nobility o' the land
 
 72 MACALPINE. 
 
 congregated at the ball, an' lie spoke to the 
 leddies o' the romance o' his native land, and 
 rhymed a ballad or twa ; and, Lord help them, 
 but their fancies were quite wild wi' him, — 
 and the supposed heiress, false or no " • 
 
 " False, certainly, if actually betrothed by 
 word or implication," broke in the other, with 
 some sternness. 
 
 " Weel, 1 11 no say false ; for as fine, gentle, 
 and kind a leddy never was kent. The laird 
 filled her heart fou, and ofi" she cam wi' him to 
 Morven, taking the blacksmith to marry them 
 on the road. Off starts the lieutenant and 
 misses them, — he was here before them ; and 
 Tam Cameron tells yet o' the loud knock o' 
 the infuriate Southerner, begging your pardon. 
 Colonel, as he got to the castle gate. Then 
 comes the pair to Morven, — the laird, restless 
 and willsome, as he is in all his ways, walked 
 alone in advance up to the castle ; and here, 
 just as we come oot, springs the Englishman 
 upon him, and strikes him wi' his sword. The
 
 MACALPIXE. 73 
 
 Macalpines were aye ready to return, and 
 gettin' to the arbour, wliere be was provided 
 wf a weapon, tbey foucbt. Tbe men beard 
 tbe cLasbing o' swords as tbey cam' up, a 
 quarter o' an bour after ; an' my leddy, catcb- 
 ing tbat sometbin was wrang, flew in upon 
 tbem an fainted, but no until tbe Engbsbman 
 bad a deep wound wbicb lasts bim yet, if 
 be 's i' tbe world ; be fell tbere in a pool o' bis 
 ain makin ; tbe warld, nae doot, played bim 
 ill. Glide be wi' bim if be was wranged, and 
 gi'e bim better luck witb tbe next woman, — 
 tbougb beaven be praised, my passions ne'er 
 took me gaen daft after ane wben tbere are 
 sae mony o' tbem on tbe braid eartb." 
 
 " Wbat became, tben, of tbis Englisb lover?" 
 "He Avas as wild as tbe laird in bis ain 
 fasbion. Had tbe laird been so used, be would 
 bae pulled do an tbe castle aboot bis enemy's 
 lugs. Tbis young callant just muttered, as be 
 was borne ofi*, tbat Macalpine's bluid would 
 yet join bis ain in feedin' tbe lands o' ]\Iorven
 
 74 MACALPIXE. 
 
 when they were no more his ; thinkin' o' the 
 rhyme he had read maybe that morniii' : — 
 
 " 'Macalpine's bluicl will freeze like wine, 
 When Morven Castle he shall tyne.' 
 
 '• But it goes on — 
 
 " ' Macalpine's heir will get his ain, 
 Ere that lost bluid can run again.' 
 
 " There were them that saw him at the inn, 
 while he rested, that said Macalpine might look 
 out for a reckonin'. They said he looked as if 
 they hadna seen the last o' him, like auld 
 Dundee, when he damned the lords of Con- 
 vention he couldna control." 
 
 " And the lady, how did she fare with the 
 hare-brained Highlander 1 " 
 
 " No hare-brained, Colonel ; just wild and 
 high tempered. Eoderick Macalpine has had 
 a fine head, though it 's no just aye sound, nae 
 mair than half the world's is." 
 
 " But I need not ask,'' broke in Colonel Mar, 
 interrupting the speaker, not having listened 
 to his last remark ; " what could the gentle
 
 MAC ALPINE. 75 
 
 spirit of this lady, bred in the happy peace of 
 a true English home, have in common with 
 such a man. Had she been a common speci- 
 men of woman-kind she would not have been 
 the victim of this fellow. Once her senses fell 
 to the level of the life around her I doubt not 
 she was awakened to a feeling; of remorse, and 
 saw in its real colour the vain love of Macal- 
 pine. The bloom of the English rose upon her 
 cheek must in little time have deg-enerated 
 to the thin pallor of your starved wild one. 
 To transplant the gayest flower of our garden 
 to your storm-beaten hill, is no less attended 
 with certain destruction, than the transplant- 
 ing to its men the daughters of the sunny 
 south. Proudly it seems to wed the towering 
 Loch-na-gar, but its embrace is the embrace of 
 death ; and the tender dauo;hter of Enoland 
 seeks her doom in alliance with the cateran 
 descendant of the hills," said Colonel Mar, 
 bitterly. 
 
 "Fm thinkin' the comparison's no fair,'' re-
 
 76 MACALPINE. 
 
 plied the farmer. "If the ane's too strong, 
 the ither 's too gentle at that rate ; the vine 'II 
 no grow here, but ye '11 admit, Colonel, the 
 mountain dew 's no ill substitute, though a drap 
 o' water doesna droon the miller. I 'm no for 
 mixtures, but it strikes me a Highland laird 's 
 no ill match for ony English lass, let her be 
 wha likes, an' if the country be ower cauld for 
 her — why, let her stay at hame." 
 
 " But if she be seduced." 
 
 " I never knew ane seduced. If the lass 
 prefers a strappin' Hieland chief to a tame 
 creepin' English boddie, wha is there to say 
 she 's wrang, though her husband's temper ance 
 o' the week mounts as high as Ben-Nevis." 
 
 "Well, my good friend/' answered Colonel 
 Mar, " we are not to quarrel in our argument. 
 I was wrong to include your whole Highlands 
 in my anathema ; but touching this Roderick 
 Macalpine, whom heaven make as good a man 
 as nature allows him to become, — did he cherish 
 the woman he bore off from the south 1 You
 
 MACALPINE. 77 
 
 interest me deeply in the fortunes of the beings 
 that dwelt here." 
 
 " Truth to tell, many a time hae I seen her 
 staun' and sigh here, on this very spot. Macal- 
 pine was no ill to her, for he ever was the 
 gentleman, every inch ; but he neglected her, 
 if it be cherishing ye ask after. Her boy wasna 
 born till a good six years after the marriage ; 
 that was a misfortune. The laird was everv 
 day fou' o' schemes for which his wife cared no 
 a bodle. One day he had discovered a compost 
 to bring double craps oot o' the land, and he 
 would have me to try 't, which I did wi' half 
 a dozen acres o' the best arable, but deevil a 
 thing would grow, weeds as aits were burned 
 oot o' the earth ; then water was to be drawn 
 frae the clouds i^ the dry weather ; sugar was 
 to be made frae sawdust, an' a' the trees were 
 cut and manufactories put up, but after a' ex- 
 pense I 've ne'er seen a pickle sugar, sae muckle 
 as sweeten a cup o' tea ; an' then when things 
 were a' wrang, he quarrels wi' the next laird
 
 78 MACALPINE. 
 
 aboot the marches, Avi' bondholders aboot their 
 interest, wi' an uncle about an auld family 
 provision ; though Macalpine himsel' aye throve 
 upon a his wark sae far as the body went, his 
 good lady pined upon the hard fare, and lived 
 no mony years. She was sadly forfouchten wi' 
 the laird, I '11 no deny." 
 
 " Her soul rests in peace, which it had not 
 done here," exclaimed the other, who listened 
 dreamily to the voluble farmer. 
 
 The two now were admitted to the castle 
 by an old crone who had sole charge of the 
 place. The old family furniture, the gather- 
 ings of generations, w^as also for disposal ; the 
 whole property, heritable and movable, real 
 and personal, wheresoever situated, according 
 to the phraseology of Scotch law, being in the 
 market. The estate was unentailed, and the 
 last proprietor had completed the havoc of 
 reckless ownership, all that really remained for 
 his sustenance being some small means which 
 had belonged to his wife.
 
 MACALPINE. 79 
 
 " Saw ye ever the like, Maister Arnot ! '' 
 burst out the abigail, as the party was ad- 
 mitted into the hall, almost dying to hear her 
 voice, which, of recent weeks, had evidently 
 languished for its accustomed exercise. " Here 
 liae been the laird an' Maister Eab Munro, 
 fechtin' the haill mornin'. Mercy, gentlemen, 
 I 'm no the laird's wumman or I 'd stand the 
 colly shangy, but I 'm lonely here, an' anither 
 maun be got to keep the place warm ; ye may 
 see % gentlemen, the day, but gin I 'm livin' 
 the morn I canna be here; there's ghaistly 
 soonds enou a' the eirie nicht, let alane the 
 mornin', when folk should be happy an pleased 
 like. But the laird comes in, — he that I wasna 
 to let in without the writer, — an' then he 
 stood an' he jumped, an' he stamped wi' his 
 feet, an' damned to hell-fire the haill regiment 
 o' lawyers, an' then he strides up the ha' an' I 
 says, ' D' ye ken, laird, my orders werena to let 
 ye in syne the place was taen frae ye, beggin' 
 yer lairdship's pardon for bein' sae bold — I,
 
 80 MACALPINE. 
 
 that was a puir wumman, an' had her week's 
 wages ; an' then he luckies me, an' scowls at 
 me, an' staps a shillin' i' my han', an' swore 
 he kent ma faither, an' saw me half-an-hoor 
 efter I was born ; I that am — weel, maybe a 
 year or twa — aukler than himsel'; but in 
 comes Maister Rab Munro, an' they steekit 
 an' they foucht for near an hoor afore they 
 moved oot i' halL Heerd ye, gentlemen, ever 
 o' papers they ca' Seasons, Wadsets, Backbanes, 
 Dispensations, an Chatters o' Nicodemus ? for 
 the clatter they got up about sic like things 
 wad deave a mad-hoose ; beggin' yer pardon, 
 gentlemen, for keepin' ye stannin', but gin ye 
 fin' me deaf -like, jist put it doun to the din I 
 heard ; an' gin ye fin' me hoarse an' ill at the 
 speakin'j its nae for tire o' the travellin' o' the 
 tongue, for faith, sirs, I may address the deevil 
 here." 
 
 *' This indicates differences between Mac- 
 alpine and any purchaser of his lands," 
 remarked Colonel Mar to Arnot.
 
 MACALPINE. 81 
 
 "Deed, sir, ye say true," remarked the 
 abigail. " The Laird had an arrafu o' auld 
 musty parchments he got oot o' a tin box that 
 lay i^ the garrets ; an' gin he canna lay aboot 
 the lugs o' the incomer wi' sic a load o' law, 
 he '11 no be the man I tak' him for." 
 
 " Why, Mistress Meg," said the farmer, 
 " ye 're an ill servant o' the bondholders, that 
 begins wi' showin' the black side o' the security 
 lands. Na, na ! 1 11 warrant a' richt, or the 
 laird 'd been here this day. Gin there be a 
 letter oot o' the richt place in the parchments, 
 he 'd mak the Court o' Session ring wi' the 
 news." 
 
 " I canna vouch for what the laird may dae, 
 or onybody dae," said Meg. 
 
 " I fear, Meg," said the farmer, jocosely, as 
 the crone tripped beside his portly person, 
 " ye canna get ower the laird's flattery, pretty 
 fellow as he is." 
 
 " Did ye ever hear the like 1 " cried the 
 pock-marked Meg, her complexion and eyes 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 brightened to an age twenty years younger, 
 and leaping off to the Colonel like a coquette 
 of nineteen summers. " Weel, an' I waur as I 
 was ance on a day, deil hae 't, but Laird 
 Macalpine micht hae burned the hoose aboot 
 my lugs, and I wudna run for a wat blanket." 
 The interior of the mansion bore the same 
 evidences as without of the decayed circum- 
 stances of its owner. The numerous rooms 
 were in disorder, that no Meg Eamage might be 
 expected to repair. Fine oaken cabinets, chairs 
 and couches, antique-looking as the Urquhart 
 family itself, were piled and choked with boxes 
 and heaps of print and manuscript, and the 
 floors themselves of several of the rooms were 
 scarcely accessible beyond the doors, except by 
 wading and fording through this labyrinth of 
 trash and disorder. These collections were 
 the monuments of Macalpine's former cherished 
 designs, and ill-fated pleas-in-law. Portraits 
 of the family of Macalpine for many genera- 
 tions were there, seemingly to be disposed of
 
 MACALPINE. 83 
 
 as cheaply as Charles Surface knocked down 
 those of his ancestors to his uncle Sir Oliver. 
 Among these stood conspicuous the portraits 
 of Roderick Macalpine and his wife. 
 
 "These, too, are seized," exclaimed Colonel 
 Mar. The haughty form and features of 
 Macalpine looked disdain from his picture 
 upon the attenuated man who now gazed upon 
 it ; who returned with a double scorn — of 
 which the slight animation in his face was no 
 index — the haughtiness of the portrait, as he 
 turned to the other, representing a lady of 
 rather more than the middle height, dressed in 
 the fanciful garb with which the sitters for a 
 portrait used to be adorned. The effect upon 
 Colonel Mar was at once to charm away the 
 ill effect of his gaze upon the other. The 
 portrait was evidently one at which the artist 
 had worked in his best humour : he had oiven 
 to the canvas the distino^uishins; animation of 
 expression which is one of the most difficult 
 attainments of the brush. The feminine softness
 
 84 MACALPINE. 
 
 of the mouth, and the tender intelligence of the 
 eyes, — arched by such brows as might have in- 
 spired the sonnets to that feature which poets 
 are supposed to delight in, — wxre, with a 
 shapely and fresh cheek, characteristics of a 
 portrait which represented a lady possessing a 
 lively fascination. Not yet had the eye 
 dimmed, or the mouth compressed, or the 
 cheek paled; not yet did she feel bereft of 
 the love she lived on ; not yet had she 
 found neglect, and recognised that there was 
 no returning from the course she had chosen 
 in her gay dalliance, and that only must she 
 seek, in the care of her child and the sympathy 
 of the not unfeeling hearts of the tenantry, a 
 solace for her wounded love. 
 
 Leaving the castle of the Macalpines, 
 Colonel Mar and his companion drove over 
 portions of the estate. Places of interest, con- 
 nected with history or local legend, or afford- 
 ing views of grand scenery, were in turn 
 visited, and though Colonel Mar made many
 
 MACALPINE. 85 
 
 inquiries and examinations as to the quality of 
 ttie soil and pasturage and the extent of the 
 game, it was evident he regarded these matters 
 as of secondary importance. It seemed, at all 
 events, that after his visit at the castle, he had 
 made up his mind to become a bidder for the 
 property, and its owner. 
 
 The day had become duller and more cheer- 
 less. The single smile of sunlight that had irra- 
 diated the scene for an instant seemed to bear, 
 to Colonel Mar, as it never returned, some pro- 
 phecy of the opening career of his intended new 
 life as a landlord of a noble property. This was 
 not the buoyant birth anticipated of years, but 
 a sickly abortion.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 The interest manifested about Morven conse- 
 quent upon a change in the proprietorship of 
 the estate was intensified, to the gossips and 
 the politicians of the village, by the frequently 
 repeated question of, " How '11 Macalpine take 
 it '? '^ There were parties and lively divisions 
 in the tap-room of the Morven Arms the night 
 before Colonel Mar's arrival as the proprietor 
 of the estate. One headed by Macnab the 
 tailor, who had visions in the new household 
 of wardrobes, of which the old had for long 
 had a limited supply, talked of common sense, 
 and bespoke good-will for the new-comers 
 who had injured no one, and would do the 
 place " mair gude than a ranting laird." " It 
 was notorious," so said the tradesman, " that 
 auld Macalpine was not a man of the age, but
 
 MACALPINE. 87 
 
 a Highlander of the last century, who could 
 take but could never give except fight." 
 
 Cameron, the game-dealer, led the party who 
 sided with "the owner who had gone down.'' 
 He stigmatised the tailor and his lot, — ^yet so 
 good-humouredly as not to hazard their con- 
 tinued patronage as purchasers of poached 
 hares, — as turncoats and worshippers of the 
 risino; sun. 
 
 *' The auld laird was as gude," argued the 
 old poacher, " as he was forty years syne, 
 when the haill village was at his back, and he 
 should never want a hare or a muirfowl sae 
 lang as his feet could crush stubble or his legs 
 carry ower the heather. And what 's mair," 
 continued the generous man, becoming prophet, 
 *' we 11 see the laird back in his ain ; the Mac- 
 alpines were aye sib wi' Providence at their 
 last gasp. An' here's tae Roderick, lord of 
 Morven, for a' that." 
 
 The toast was drunk with applause ; though 
 most shook their heads, some yet with the
 
 88 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 shake of half belief ; and it came to be accepted 
 among the credulous that auld Macalpine had 
 a scheme which would prove sufficient to re- 
 store him, though the estate had gone from 
 him by lawful purchase. 
 
 It is in the soul of women to demand attrac- 
 tion. The masculine spirit of Portia was 
 feminine in this, that she was determined to 
 be loved. So under apparent indifference in 
 Lucretia Mar's force of character, dwelt this 
 passion of her sex. The best sleeping apart- 
 ment of Morven had been set apart for her, 
 and lying there on the morning after her 
 arrival in luxurious restlessness, her thoughts 
 wandered from the grandeur of the scene w^hich 
 the uncurtained window revealed, to imagina- 
 tions of its native heroes, whose devotion, all 
 strange and romantic, might be hers, and open 
 to her the realities of love, the richest fruit of 
 the garden of the world, of which she had never 
 tasted.
 
 MACALPINE. 89 
 
 " Madge," she said to tlie maid who disturbed 
 her reverie, " I grow a believer in your High- 
 lands ; I am romantic, and have been dreaming 
 of a castle and its hero devoted to me like a 
 slave. I must go in search of adventure. You 
 have got bottomless lochs and endless caverns, 
 haunted castles and warlock glens, — surely- 
 some hero will assert himself; have you no 
 grand specimens like your mountains, or are 
 your men mere commonplace pigmies 1 " 
 
 Madge was a lowland Scotchwoman of shrewd 
 and intelligent character, who had passed her 
 youth at Morven, and was quickly a favoured 
 domestic attached to its new mistress, whose 
 familiarity she had courted without abusing 
 it. 
 
 " 'Deed, my lady, they 're not pigmies, big 
 handsome fellows that can hurl stones as big 
 as I am." 
 
 The lady laughed, and lay back on her pil- 
 low, listening, however, to the continued chat 
 of her maid, as she related some local histories
 
 90 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 bearing on tlie glories of the late lords of Mor- 
 ven, and with great tact contriving to intro- 
 duce something more than the name of its last 
 heir. Now and again the occupant of the couch 
 stretched forth, with a sort of weary energy, 
 a hand of delicate colour, but of more than 
 woman's fibre, and her dark eye gave a sign 
 of interest as anything singular in the gossip 
 struck her mind. As her maid put the last 
 finish to the adornment of the folds of her 
 black luxuriant hair, she turned to Madge with 
 a moment's curiosity, and asked — 
 
 " How old is this chief, the heir of Macalpine, 
 of whom you have been babbling t '^ 
 
 " I '11 warrant him as young as he 's hand- 
 some, with a heart as frank as a mountain 
 daisy that has ne'er known the wiles of the 
 south wind," answered Madge. 
 
 " That is to say," rejoined the lady, " though 
 he is a hero, his cold, chaste heart must suc- 
 cumb to the warmth of southern beauty." 
 
 " Just so, Lady Lucretia, though it 's not
 
 MACALPINE. 91 
 
 many gentle folks either that'll please the 
 proud Macalpine." 
 
 " Indeed ! he is a noble, then. In what 
 castle does the family now support its dig- 
 nity'?" asked Miss Mar. 
 
 " Alas ! in no castle ; Morven was their last ; 
 their worldly gear is low at this hour, but faith, 
 my lady, Alan Macalpine is a braw man for 
 learning, and he 11 make the world stir yet 
 with sword or pen or the eloquence of the 
 Parliament." 
 
 "You remind me of Caleb Balderston, 
 Madge, and your chief something of Eavens- 
 wood, but I fear there will be no Lucy Ash- 
 ton. Ladies do not fall in love now with 
 ruined men, outlaws from society, and I fear 
 this Macalpine has only his pride and a few 
 family portraits to support him. Is there no 
 member of the Peerage whose estates lie by, 
 with one or more sons, such as we saw on 
 landing at our last stage by the coach — these 
 were noblemen and men of estates."
 
 92 MACALPINE. 
 
 " Heiglio ! my lady, they are all that to 
 look at; but if ye had spoken to them you 
 would have heard nothino; else than about 
 horses and cock-fights. My lady, excuse my 
 heat ; ye got me to come from Lady Barn- 
 tons to your ladyship, and I ne'er was 
 gladder ; nothing but fighting, eating, and 
 drinking, frae morn to night. The Mars are a 
 great folk, and will ken the Macalpines when 
 they see them — far awa frae the cock-fighting 
 and horse-racing gentry."
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 The sale of Morven by tlie creditors had been 
 hastened by the instrumentality of Alan Mac- 
 alpine, whose shrewd common sense had hailed 
 the opportunity of extricating his father from 
 his difficulties, by the disposal of it to Colonel 
 Mar at a sum which many in the county re- 
 garded as something fabulous. The elder Mac- 
 alpine felt the alienation keenly, especially at the 
 moment that the stranger entered his familiar 
 gate and took possession of the old family domain. 
 " This is the most damning day of all my 
 life," he cried ; " my property — my god of this 
 earth — taken from me for ever, kills me. Alan, 
 do you think there can be no flaw about all 
 this 1 Why were you not a lawyer 1 We 
 might have checkmated them yet. If we 
 could see but a flaw somewhere, there might
 
 94 MACALPINE. 
 
 be a hope." The tear stood in the eyes of the 
 fallen stalwart chief, as he looked forth upon the 
 trees which bordered the way to his old man- 
 sion, and protected it from the winds. They 
 were alive again, freshening in their bright 
 green, in the growing spring, to deck the 
 environs of their new owner. 
 
 Alan waited a calmer moment for his op- 
 portunity to refer to their new situation, con- 
 sequent upon the arrival of the new proprietor 
 of Morven. Preferring rather to discuss a 
 painful subject in the quiet starry night, than 
 by the dull candle light of a small room, which 
 contrasted strongly with Morven, he met his 
 father at the door, returning from an evening 
 walk. *' I Ve got news for you — new^s that I 
 haven't known the marrow of for many a 
 day," was the father's greeting, as he stood at 
 his door. Alan thought little of this, except 
 that he was pleased with the old man's 
 pleasure. The el at ions of his father were fre- 
 quent, and therefore often about marvellously
 
 MACALPINE. 95 
 
 small things. Roderick Macalpine stood in 
 considerable awe of the calm, judicious, 
 reasonable temper of his son ; and Alan 
 appreciated, with liveliness, the better side of 
 his father's character ; though he had learned 
 much to guide himself by the sad wreck which 
 his father had made of his life and property. 
 He loved the unworldliness of the high- 
 tempered and heroic Highlander. The adven- 
 turous spirit of the laird in his younger days 
 was still the subject of talk in the district, to 
 which he had in his boyhood listened with 
 pleasure. He saw that failure in life had 
 arisen from playing with it — playing, certainly 
 often, with ugly-looking weapons, rather than 
 seizing it with the bull-dog obstinacy and 
 aggression, by which the determined man wins 
 his way to success, and yet, often fails utterly 
 in reaching happiness. 
 
 While the father's activity was loud and 
 showy, the habits of his son, as we have partly 
 seen, were inclined to the contemplative.
 
 96 MACALPINE. 
 
 Nature had bestowed upon him a keen sensi- 
 bility, which his situation, and a shrewdness 
 common to an inheritance of blood both Saxon 
 and Scotch, had ripened into some fruit. In 
 early youth the cotter, the labourer, the shep- 
 herd, the ploughman, " who homew^ard wend 
 their weary way," formed much of his society ; 
 passing nights beside their rude, but seldom 
 cheerless or boorish hearths. Years and edu- 
 cation had developed early attachment into a 
 sterner sympathy, and he had done them some 
 service, wdiile he was eager to effect a great 
 rise in the condition of the peasantry. With an 
 intensity, increased by a study of the French 
 philosophers of the Revolution, the influence of 
 which was great upon the fervid mind of a 
 youth already acquainted with misfortunes, and 
 accustomed to solitude in the bracing regions 
 of the Grampians, he deplored the inequali- 
 ties he saw around him, and though the 
 springs of his heart would have led him to 
 rest upon the past, he began to believe only
 
 MACALPINE. 97 
 
 in tlie future. He burned keenly with the 
 hope that the meagrely-provided sons of toil 
 should rise a noble race of educated men, while 
 retaining all the simpleness of life which he 
 believed to be the best suited to all men^s 
 happiness. One of the consequences of this 
 feeling was, that the family pride of Macalpine 
 became to him a myth ; it and his own 
 sorrows were nought in the presence of the 
 poverty and the depression he saw at his side, 
 and of his ardent hopes of changing the want 
 or the misery to a solid happiness. So strong 
 had been the tenderness of his spirit of jus- 
 tice, that his common enjoyments were often 
 damped by the reflection of the inability of 
 others to procure the like. 
 
 But while Alan was no sentimental or wild 
 enthusiast — rather a practical Scottish gentle- 
 man, whose romance only appeared in the 
 business of life to promote its just movement — 
 the direction of his thoughts was gall and 
 wormwood to his father, who, while he recognised 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 98 MACALPINE. 
 
 in these something at which, in his secret heart 
 and at its best moments, he felt a tinge of 
 pride, saw in them the ruin of his decaying 
 hopes. Instead of a son devoted with passion 
 to all the memories of the past, and eagerly 
 bent on pursuing the road to wealth and dis- 
 tinction, hoping to restore his house, it might 
 be, with double honours; here was a youth 
 who seemed to despise such feelings, while 
 he bent his energies towards redeeming the 
 situation of men whom he, Eoderick, had 
 always looked upon, though he treated them 
 kindly, as the mere slaves of his will. 
 
 Not till to-day had the reality of his position, 
 and the connection with it of his own sins, 
 struck Eoderick with that dull thud, comparable 
 only to the stroke of the wave Avhich tells the 
 doom of the stranded and ill -guided vessel. He 
 had gone forth and found forgetfulness, as was 
 his custom, in the conviviality of simple volu- 
 bility of speech ; on this occasion, as it hap- 
 pened, with Wat McTavish, who had introduced
 
 MACALPINE. 99 
 
 the subject of tlie new arrival at Morven, and, 
 finding the laird attentive, had told all the 
 gossip concerning Colonel Mar and his daughter. 
 The laird, when it was possible, was quick with 
 any scheme which he might suppose to be ad- 
 vantageous to his own fortunes. He bore ofi" in 
 excitement a plan of marrying his only son to 
 the daughter of the new proprietor, and thus 
 securing the estate to the old family. She was 
 represented by McTavish to be a young, hand- 
 some, and dashing woman, desiring to increase 
 her knowledge and love of the Highlands, which 
 were new and strange to her, and disposed to 
 look upon the chiefs of the clans as heroes of 
 romance. But the remembrance of the son's 
 unimpulsive character chilled the ardour of the 
 father, as he plodded on over the rugged road- 
 way, and reduced his walk to a trudge from 
 the high step with which he had set out on 
 his return ; and now as he reached the house 
 and told of the plan, Alan was struck with the 
 faltering way he threw out the words which
 
 100 MACALPINE. 
 
 had, as Alan thought, but a few minutes before 
 been coined in his heart's core. 
 
 "Father," lie said, as the old Highlander 
 paused, hesitating while unfolding his latest 
 project of aggrandisement, " let us go away 
 from Morven to-morrow ; it will be better for 
 you that w^e leave it/' 
 
 "Never, Alan ! never will I desert the home 
 of my fathers. It is no longer mine, but the 
 old hills are there, and the river ; they cannot 
 take the sight of these from me. Oh ! the old 
 bones Avould rattle T the kirkyard, and plague 
 me with dreams, that I should sleep no more, 
 like the regal murderer, if I ran away from the 
 old lands." 
 
 " I love them as you do," said the son, " and 
 their people too, but you are tearing your heart 
 with the touch of them. Do not say I am 
 an Englishman in my feelings, and that I wish 
 to settle in the country of my mother, though 
 it would not be unnatural if I did, could you 
 but bring your mind to come with me. I am a
 
 MACALPINE. 101 
 
 Scotchman to the backbone as yoii are, and here 
 I will remain with you and the country side 
 if my duty lies so. Yet we are living in the 
 shadow only of our former selves, forcing our- 
 selves to it out of love and pride. For your 
 own health's sake, leave Morven ; sacrifice our 
 love for our uro-ent need. 
 
 "Do you think I am afraid to meet the 
 rabble crowd that will look down upon me 
 now, or that I '11 creep aside on the highway 
 when the new lord of Morven honours it with 
 his equipage. Damn them, Alan ! a Macalpine 
 may lose his lands, but never the stout heart 
 that was born of its soil." 
 
 The son applauded the last sentiment. The 
 mere sentiment of the father was always real. 
 
 " I am getting older, but I am young enough 
 to look after myself. You are free, my boy, to 
 choose your own career. Mine lasts its time 
 beside the heather. You must seek your for- 
 tune now, after we are wound up, in the land 
 of gold, if you do not get a wife with a fortune.
 
 102 MACALPINE. 
 
 and the old lands of Morven will come back 
 again — 
 
 " * When Morven Castle he shall tyne, 
 Macalpine'ti heir will get his ain,' 
 
 before my hairs are too white to trust them to 
 the winter winds/' 
 
 The father paused, thinking that now he 
 might excite his son to resolve to pursue this 
 night the course of fortune-seeking he had laid 
 before him often enough in some guise or other. 
 
 " If you remain, I remain ! '' was all the son 
 said. 
 
 " You are too unambitious," said Koderick, 
 with a little anger. 
 
 " I have no ambition to grow by the foul 
 beds of injustice and oppression. You forget 
 the villany of Indian adventure ; the strong 
 crush the life's blood out of the weak, that they 
 may come home and gratify their selfish pride. 
 But I won't think that our neighbour has had 
 service with the devil." 
 
 " For the sake of his daughter," ejaculated
 
 MACALPINE. 103 
 
 the laird ; " I would myself be interested in this 
 happy heiress of Morven, were not my limbs 
 bent/' he continued solemnly ; breaking away 
 into his humorous sallies, sadly forced as these 
 were to begin with. 
 
 "Think you not," answered the son, "she 
 would ask where your other estates lay, and 
 discovering none, would resent the presump- 
 tion -? " 
 
 The laird now got into a state of humour, 
 droll in its torrent, which set all rational dis- 
 cussion at defiance. 
 
 " Presumption ! do you think me such a fool 
 that I should put it in the power of a woman 
 to sully my honour, and that woman the 
 daughter of a nabob. By heaven, sir, you 
 wrong your father to conceive the possibility 
 of such a thing. I should deserve to be carted 
 to the gallows after being horsewhipped till 
 half-dead — I should be deprived of the name of 
 man, if I begged of a woman like this, to be 
 whistled down the wind. My name and my
 
 104 MACALPINE. 
 
 clan are enough — sufficient to outweigh every 
 ounce of Indian gold. I should march to her 
 a conquering hero ; she could not refuse me, 
 nor could she you." 
 
 Eoderick had forgotten, till his breath was 
 out, all about his intended scheme of marrying 
 his son to the daughter of the nabob. The 
 indulgence of his humour came in the way. 
 
 But for all he had said to furnish his son with 
 a retort, he might readily have turned round, 
 had not the opportunity been brought to an 
 end by the approach of a man whom they dis- 
 tinguished as Wat McTavish himself. 
 
 Wat was a farmer for a few years, and failed 
 to retain his lands on account of failure to pay 
 his rent, a misfortune he never ceased wholly 
 to attribute to the destruction of his crops by 
 game, and to an attempt at law to obtain redress, 
 a process which languished on his side by the 
 formidable opposition of Sir Andrew Cameron, 
 his landlord. Having received a fair education, 
 he became a schoolmaster, retaining more than
 
 MACALPINE. 105 
 
 his former fondness for destroying ground 
 game, if not also sporting on the moors. He 
 was a smart, dapper little fellow, with red 
 cheeks, very unlike the traditional dominie. 
 
 " You 're not going to leave Morven, Mr 
 Alan ; I 'm right glad o' that," said Wat to 
 Alan as he came up. 
 
 " Ah ! my lad, you '11 have a harder man to 
 deal with than Eoderick Macalpine," said the 
 laird. 
 
 " Weel, laird, I '11 say this, that though you 
 have been hard on your neighbour lairds, you Ve 
 never been but kind to the puir."^ 
 
 " Puir I the last time I was i' the schule-hoose 
 twa hares, half a dozen rabbits, and a brace of 
 muir-fowl were hanging for the pot." 
 
 " Wheesht, laird, ye mind weel ye lunched 
 next day aff the soup. The hare was nane the 
 waur though it had tasted the Morven tubers." 
 
 "Deevil tak' ye, if he hasna ye already. 
 Mind I 'm a justice o' the peace yet ; I '11 hae 
 ye up. I 'm keeping in with Andrew Cameron,
 
 106 MACALPINE. 
 
 and he 'd part wi' his right hand to get ye i' 
 the lock-up." 
 
 " He '11 no part wi' his siller, and the auld 
 process cost him ower much. They say, laird, 
 that ye '11 be sune back, so we 11 no hae lang 
 to w^ait for a free shot on Morven." 
 
 " I '11 never be back, Wat, except Alan there 
 gets the lands ; but he w^on't leave his 
 father," said Eoderick, restored to reasonable 
 humour. 
 
 "To win fame and fortune," interrupted 
 Wat. 
 
 I " I have no desire for fame or fortune," 
 Alan observed slowly, gazing into the night, 
 scarcely knowing whether to be angry or pleased 
 at the moment with the varying humours of 
 the laird ; " I am happy without either. It 's 
 a depraved passion, the common seeking after 
 wealth, much more in my estimation than that 
 for destroying muirfowl, and I fear I should 
 be only like my neighbours if I sought it. Do 
 you believe, Wat, that after a terrible struggle
 
 MACALPINE. 107 
 
 for wealth, I would allow you, and such as you, 
 to trespass on it. I know the flesh too well." 
 Alan spoke with little fervour; his thought 
 was intenser. 
 
 " Good heavens, Alan ! '' cried his father, 
 " you are an epicure, after a fashion. But wait 
 till you are my age for the verdict on life with- 
 out money-bags." 
 
 '' I m right glad o' this," cried Wat. " It 
 takes no muckle lomc to convince me that Mr 
 Alan Macalpine should stay in Morven, e'en 
 though I bag fewer hares by the stay, and 
 though maybe ye keep doun my pouch a 
 wee bit by taking in the lads to the school- 
 house I the winter. But it 's the cotter- women 
 that cry out they 'd miss ye," continued he, 
 slily, determined to have some little retalia- 
 tion upon young Macalpine, who had spoken 
 with severity of his poaching exploits. 
 
 The old laird of Morven got cheery again in 
 the company of the schoolmaster and poacher, 
 and Wat had a bowl of the " barley bree" in the
 
 108 MACALPINE. 
 
 Lodge of the Macalpines, where he discoursed 
 withal " science popularly explained." 
 
 Alan was of course sincere to his heart's 
 core, in believing that his perfect duty was 
 being accomplished ; and who will say that it 
 was not ? 
 
 The poet has a land, even in the most 
 circumscribed space, which is not of the world 
 — far, hazy, retreating — the blue mountain 
 peak, and the shadowy valley draped by the 
 evening cloud, where imagination travels — a 
 land scarcely reached, and never penetrated.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Much of tlie work of improvement at Morven 
 Castle began upon the arrival of the new pro- 
 prietor. Before his coming with his daughter, 
 Colonel Mar had, indeed, set at work numerous 
 hands to make the old castle comfortable, and 
 the surrounding grounds trim ; and he would 
 have sat down content with what had been 
 accomplished. Not so his daughter. Her 
 bustling active temper was never to be satis- 
 fied without great ongoings, and her apprecia- 
 tion of what had been done by no means 
 corresponded with that of her father. She was 
 determined that a contrast should as quickly 
 as possible manifest itself to all between the 
 ruin of the late owner, and the substance and 
 luxury of the present one. It was a pleasure 
 to her to make old things new, to resuscitate,
 
 110 MACALPINE. 
 
 and out of her energy and wealth bring the 
 ancient out with a new sheen. 
 
 Her father was a man of the past. The 
 rooks that *'caw, cawed" the livelong day in 
 their spring happiness in the tall trees that 
 stretched from east to west behind the old 
 castle, the solemn strike of the old clock, the 
 surly, sullen bell of the tower, the tangled 
 garden, in which creeping plants, fruit-bushes, 
 and blossoms, mingled in a delicious density, 
 out of which arose the old and weather-worn 
 sun-dial, and the cracked fountain, — all the 
 numerous objects of the place, which spoke 
 the undisturbed, the lazy years, were pleasing 
 and daily welcome to the sombered spirit of 
 the new laird. He was not, therefore, for 
 doing more, and his submission to have a band 
 of workmen engaged still further in the work 
 of embellishment, was extorted only for the 
 sake of peace. " Do as you please, then, about 
 these things ; you must leave me my crows 
 and the old clock"
 
 MACALPINE. Ill 
 
 It was evident amid all this activity, by 
 which many neighbouring sons of toil were set 
 in motion on good pay, that Miss Mar intended 
 herself to be a popular person. The peasantry 
 are everywhere influenced for the better, with 
 even the appearances of stir and life by which 
 they are no immediate gainers. A particular 
 intelligence is often due to their intercourse 
 with the laird and his friends, and undoubtedly 
 Morven had for generations owed much in this 
 respect to the familiarity of the Macalpines. 
 But for some time they owed little to them in 
 material interests. The grass-grown avenues, 
 and the closed windows of the decayed castle, or 
 mansion, of the local lord, marking his poverty 
 or his neglect, depress the humble people who 
 daily look upon the scene, sometimes settling in 
 their minds a feeling of aversion. Instinctively 
 they feel that the fairest scenes of their native 
 land in the possession of him who retains them, 
 only evidences of his own selfish extravagances 
 or indifierence, outrages one of the hidiest
 
 112 MACALPINE. 
 
 social laws ; he is false to the duties of neigh- 
 bourship as well as to the community. 
 
 Now that another reign was establishing 
 itself, the eyes of many in that district were 
 brightening up at the work and plenty which 
 it brought. Miss Mar allowed no breathing 
 time for the passage of her predecessors ; 
 instantly setting to work to undo their 
 memory, by presenting the contrasts of her 
 own wealth and comfort in no uncertain 
 appearances. The life and animation of the 
 place of the Macalpines had gone out with the 
 stroke which told, them that lavishness was no 
 longer possible. Once upon a time Macalpine 
 might even have exclaimed with Shenstone, — 
 
 " Of river, valley, mountains, woods and plains, 
 How gladsome once lie ranged your native turf ; 
 Your simple scenes how raptured ! ere expense 
 Had lavished thousand ornaments, and taught 
 Convenience to perplex him, art to pall, 
 Pomp to deject, and beauty to displease." 
 
 In Miss Mar's estimation, a ruined family's 
 exit should be an obliteration, and she disliked
 
 MACALPINE. 113 
 
 to meet, in lier survey of the castle or 
 grounds, a chamber, a wainscot, a tree, a shrub, 
 an efB.gj, or a stone cutting, which should 
 remind her that a woman had been there 
 before her, who, had she been yet alive, 
 would have fallen to the lot of obscurity and 
 poverty ; and she made no secret of her feel- 
 ings. 
 
 Alan forgave the peasantry their seeking 
 greedily after the new comers. If it pained 
 him to hear of the obliterations of his family's 
 mark upon the place, and he resented in his 
 own mind the indelicate conduct of its new 
 mistress, he was satisfied that his family's time 
 had come for renunciation of it, — maintained 
 too, as it was, to the xdisadvantage of the 
 estate itself, and of the people who might bene- 
 fit from the full operation of its capabilities. 
 The old laird cursed bitterly all concerned in 
 these works whenever he could meet with a 
 listener. 
 
 Meantime the county lairds were busily 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 MACALPINE. 
 
 excited witli gossip upon the new addition to 
 their ranks. It appeared, at the first meeting 
 which drew most of these gentlemen together, 
 immediately upon the Colonel's arrival, that 
 Sir Andrew Cameron was the only one who 
 knew anything about him. Only Sir Andrew 
 was disposed to assume the airs of a man 
 intimate with the inhabitants of the world, 
 until he was unmasked. At a subsequent 
 assembly of Commissioners of Supply, one of 
 them uttered sundry ejaculations, potential 
 gruntS; which were received as proofs that he 
 knew more of the new-comer than any other. 
 This was Mr Eobert Monro, aforesaid, law 
 ao;ent of the Colonel. But Kab was too mucli 
 the lawyer to divulge a tithe even of the mere 
 physiognomy of his client. Eab was told, as 
 the weeks went on, that his reticent client, who 
 had never yet appeared among his neighbours, 
 was a conscience-stricken man, returned to 
 this country laden with ill-gotten spoils of the 
 natives of India, many of whom had sweated.
 
 MACALPINE. 115 
 
 if not bled to death, to supply his coffers. 
 But Kab only gave indignant grunts, and 
 would reveal nothino;. 
 
 "^ Sir Andrew Cameron thought himself the 
 first entitled to wait upon the new proprietor, 
 and wish him the congratulations of the occa- 
 sion. It Avould be seen whether he was to be 
 visited, or whether he was to remain closed 
 up with his seared conscience or his diseased 
 liver. Sir Andrew, too, was nothing loth 
 to be put forward as a kind of inquisitor. 
 Wealth was his god, and it was a new plea- 
 sure to him to have a near neighbour with 
 a reputation for riches like Colonel Mar's. 
 Such was his exquisite sense of the sub- 
 lime powers of gold, that he never thought 
 of the alloy. 
 
 Sir Andrew had been so far born to the 
 position he now occupied. He was the nephew 
 of a greedy laird, representative of a once 
 powerful clan, and of considerable possessions, 
 who had clutched every penny of his rents
 
 116 MACALPINE. 
 
 wherewith to increase his property, and had 
 driven Andrew from the door, more in angry 
 ill-will at the poor youth, whose keeping was 
 solely at the uncle's cost, than in consequence 
 of the nephew's habit of disobeying the morn- 
 ing call to manual work. The youth, while 
 showing no quickness of mind in such a situa- 
 tion, and knowing nothing of the purity of a true 
 Scottish home, was possessed of a dogged energy, 
 of a kind which never swerved to the right or to 
 the left from the course set before him ; he 
 felt bitterly the evils of poverty, and deter- 
 mined on the instant to become rich. Those 
 who had formerly caressed the heir of the 
 miserly laird now turned their backs upon him. 
 The misfortune of beings in his situation is, 
 that they are sought after only by the mean 
 and toadyish specimens of their kind, with 
 whom, upon the removal of the thing they 
 worshipped, all attention to the individual 
 vanishes. One alone, in all that country-side, 
 comforted the friendless youth. Woman,
 
 MACALPINE. 117 
 
 whose highest mission is her appearance in 
 the front to the succour of the needy, extended 
 a teroporary asylum. That IdndDess he re- 
 quited, he thoaght, in after years. 
 
 The struo-D-le of his life was undeviatins: in 
 the desio-n to amass wealth. Haviiio; drank 
 deeply, in all its sour horrors, the cup of de- 
 pendence nigh to beggary, he knew no remedy 
 save to live in the object, the want of which 
 he considered had been the cause of his suffer- 
 ing. He was abroad for maoy years, and re- 
 turning wuth a considerable capital to the 
 metropolis of the west of Scotland, he attained 
 the highest position as a merchant. Once in 
 the possession of a power, he wielded it with 
 all the surety of a man who has spent more 
 than a quarter of a century in learning to 
 attain it ; he rapidly increased his stores, at- 
 tained magisterial distinction, and received the 
 honour of knighthood. 
 
 Sir Andrew was now, as an elderly man, as 
 hard as the road he climbed ; he despised the
 
 118 MACALPINE. 
 
 poor, and was disgusted with the aspect of all 
 siiffering ; no tender emotion ever suffused his 
 heart ; with the pure springs of nature dry and 
 dead, it could not be said truly that he lived for 
 himself, as he did not for others ; but he had 
 inherited an excellent digestion, which he had 
 preserved by a moderate life in eating and 
 drinking, and a very moderate conscience in 
 life's troubles. Eeport at one time said that 
 he had been married in his day ; where wife 
 and children were — if they ever existed — was 
 not known. If the subject was hinted at in 
 his presence, it was seen to be painful to him, 
 more so than would have been expected in the 
 case of a man who sneered at the follies, and 
 heart, and other breaks, of his neighbours, as if 
 all human cares were to be set aside. 
 
 He was not a shrivelled creature ; he talked 
 with a rough energy, which required breadth 
 and lung, putting down every one who stood 
 against him without possessing the force of 
 the physical. He sat now in the drawing-room
 
 MACALPINE. 119 
 
 of Morven Castle, in an immense yellow vest, 
 which had often enough seen service ; his shirt- 
 collar stood erect at one side, and seemed desir- 
 ous to fall down on the other ; but no one would 
 have looked at Sir Andrew twice, to discover 
 from his person, and the material about him, 
 that he was a prosperous man. 
 
 Sir Andrew was disappointed with what 
 he saw. He would have liked to have seen the 
 room stuffed with the costly gems and fabrics 
 of the East, whereas he looked upon substantial 
 yet ordinary material. 
 
 TVhen the door opened, and in solemn 
 stateliness a lady entered, she banished, so far 
 as she w^ent, the rising feeling of disappoint- 
 ment. If the room was not grand in its way, 
 the cause may have been the artistic design of 
 the lady of the castle, that no splendour should 
 rival that which decked her own person. 
 
 Ordinary men saw in Lucretia Mar a very 
 handsome woman, without the tender graces 
 which are expected to accompany the forms of
 
 120 MACALPINE. 
 
 female beauty. She was not considered fascin- 
 ating in London society, where she had 
 recently come out in completeness. Her 
 manners were stately, almost to heaviness, 
 and no lustre seemed there to penetrate a 
 naturally dull complexion, even by the aid of 
 the dark eye, which certainly looked capable 
 of fire. She made no response to several at- 
 tempts at marriage on the part of the men of 
 the hour who dangle upon the skirts of the 
 heiress. They bored her, a fact she scarcely 
 concealed, and she was set down as of sullen 
 temper. The world has now no time to dis- 
 cover for itself the presence of its heroines, 
 and it failed to understand her. 
 
 Lucretia Mar did not depend upon the 
 weakly gabblings of male mouths in order to 
 please her hours. " She was to be stirred by 
 a man of power," in what direction she did 
 not exactly know : of course he would be rich, 
 but beyond that she asked for "assurance of 
 a man." This had not been given her.
 
 MACALPINE. 121 
 
 The richest Indian silk enfolded her tall finely 
 chiselled person, and the folds of her dark hair 
 were set with costliest gems ; bracelets and 
 rings she wore too, of curious beauty, without 
 altogether attracting the eye from the splendour 
 of the figure, which moved with strong step. 
 Her features were regular enough, forcible, not 
 placid, yet not too pronounced to present 
 harshness. Her face was not remarkable by 
 itself ; it did no harm to her. It was full and 
 firm. 
 
 A sensitive and refined examiner of her 
 physiognomy might have admired the woman, 
 even upon the discovery of the vulgar element 
 in her character. She was the opposite of 
 insipid, and she was not thought va^in. Yet 
 tlie vulgarity that lay in her came of love of 
 show as well as incapacity for appreciation 
 when not concerned with a will equal or super- 
 rior to her own. Delicacy, tenderness^ and 
 loving sympathy were practically unknown 
 to her. Yet she had sentiment, acquired from
 
 122 MACALPIKE. 
 
 an early and long perusal of the pages of 
 romance. Her pride was not, certainly, the 
 consciousness of elevated desires, but her 
 strength of will, and her conscious power of 
 using it ; reading fortunately preserved some 
 form of human love, and slie knew how to be 
 soft and winning. 
 
 She knew nothing of Sir Andrew, and, as 
 she looked upon the old magistrate, a shade 
 of scorn passed over her face. He saw it not, 
 but determined to carry away glowing accounts 
 of her attractions to his nephew. 
 
 Sir Andrew introduced himself. It was 
 not, then, Roderick Macalpine, who, she was 
 told, might, if the whim seized him, introduce 
 himself into the castle any day. 
 
 " We have been led daily to expect a visit 
 from the former proprietor," said Miss Mar. 
 
 " Very thankful, Miss Mar, you may be if 
 disappointed," answered the knight. 
 
 " He has been unfortunate." 
 
 '' He is a pest, and a dangerous pest. He
 
 xMACALPTNE. 123 
 
 threatened ' my nephew and heir- presumptive, 
 Captain Hamilton of the Tenth Dragoons, be- 
 cause he presumed, forsooth, to ask of him the 
 price his creditors were asking for the estate. 
 Tiie Captain wished much to call with me now, 
 Miss Mar, but the Earl of Barnton, who is 
 with him, could not be put aside to-day. 
 What a delightful place you are making of 
 the old castle and grounds ! We had all need 
 of you, very much need."^ 
 
 " The delight with which these poor wretches 
 of labourers appreciate our work is amusing," 
 she said stiffly. 
 
 " You spoil them, Miss Mar. If I might pre- 
 sume to offer you advice, I would counsel you 
 not to spoil tbem by kindness ; they become 
 G-ood-for-nothiuD; rascals." 
 
 The wealthy knight looked pompous. In 
 his later years of prosperity, he spoke of the 
 labourer as of a lower creation to himself. 
 Miss Mar took no pleasure in his advice ; she 
 disliked the knight already.
 
 124 MACALPINE. 
 
 The times were threatening. The introduc- 
 tion of machinery, a poor harvest, and the 
 disturbance of the financial system, had, at 
 this time, thrown large sections of the hand-to- 
 mouth workers destitute. Fires of homesteads 
 had recently marked the ill-will of the more 
 ignorant peasantry in some parts of England, 
 and Sir Andrew, who knew well the grudge 
 borne against him, dreaded mishap to his own 
 substance. 
 
 " ^Ye are born in new times. Sir Andrew," 
 the lady said, however. " Once our servants 
 were our men-at-arms, our followers, our pro- 
 tectors, but in these days they are for them- 
 selves alone, or become our enemies." 
 
 Miss Mar spoke already as if she were de- 
 scended, at least, from a Norman baron. But 
 the truth was, she was really talking the con- 
 ventional language to which she had been 
 accustomed. 
 
 " It all comes of these d d wild French- 
 men, who, under pretence of leading the world
 
 MACALPIXE. 125 
 
 to rights, send it back to anarchy. Their 
 revolutions are the terrors of all rio-ht-thinkino; 
 men, and are particularly injurious to their 
 near neio;hbours like ourselves. I ^'ish we 
 could transport our island back to the good 
 old times^ which would ever have remained to 
 us had it not been for these froo'-eaters." The 
 knight laughed loudly. 
 
 Men and women foro;et themselves in the 
 prosperous gales, and speak the starved instincts 
 of their situation. Sir Andrew, of course, never 
 doubted that he would be set down, at any 
 period of his country's history, with a large 
 slice of the soil. 
 
 The speakers were now joined hastily by 
 Colonel Mar. He bore about him, more than 
 on the occasion of his visit to the estate with 
 the farmer of Finzean, the mark of his Indian 
 life ; he wore a loose coat of silk, and a scarf of 
 the same material, and the weather being warm, 
 his trousers were of bleached linen stuff, con- 
 trasting with the dark complexion of his face.
 
 126 MACALPINE. 
 
 Both Miss Mar and Sir Andrew were in turn 
 surprised when they observed he was evidently 
 caught Ly them unexpectedly. In the one hand 
 he held a pistol of formidable appearance, and 
 in the other a letter, which he appeared at first 
 to desire to conceal, but on second thoughts 
 held out, as if with the intention of referring 
 to it. His commonly placid eye was excited 
 looking, though his face had something of that 
 over-determined and fixed look it often wore 
 when the weakened frame Avas conscious of 
 a struggle to meet the call upon it by the 
 stronger spirit. 
 
 Colonel Mar apologised for his warlike im- 
 plement. He had been practising at pistol- 
 shooting, he said, an occupation he was some- 
 times driven to in the East when banished for 
 long periods from society and literature. 
 
 " See, Lucretia," he said, " here is a letter I 
 received in the course of my amusement. It 
 does not concern Sir Andrew, but he may be 
 able to relieve my mind as to the writer of it."
 
 MAC ALPINE. 127 
 
 Miss Mar read the letter aloud : — 
 
 " MoRVEN Lodge, Monday at noon. 
 
 " Sir, — As I am informed, you liave paid a 
 price to certain person or persons for the estate 
 of Morven (where you have taken up your 
 abode), and have, in consideration thereof, re- 
 ceived a disposition thereto^ with all the usual 
 legal jingle of meiths, marches, &c., I hereby 
 give you notice that said pretended sale is null 
 and void, and of no force and effect whatsoever. 
 I therefore, I, Eoderic Macalpine of Morveu, 
 hereby desire and require you to remove from 
 the castle and lands, your family, servants, and 
 other cattle. For what damage I have sus- 
 tained, by your pretended settlement with my 
 pretended creditors, your overturning of the 
 amenity of my policies, your destruction of my 
 works, by which were being perfected some of 
 the most useful inventions of any age, and all 
 in malafide^ or at least with reckless haste, and 
 without my knowledge, far less consent, you 
 are held liable to the extent at least of the sum
 
 128 MACALPINE. 
 
 of £100,000, for which an action at law will 
 be immediately instituted against you. — I am, 
 sir, 
 
 RODERliCK Mac ALPINE of MORVEN." 
 
 Sir Andrew laughed, his portly person heav- 
 ing between enjoyment of the audacity of the 
 old laird, and delight at the food for gossip 
 with which the incident furnished him. 
 
 " This is surely the letter of a madman," said 
 Miss Mar, not much given to laugh at anything. 
 
 *' It contains no challenge," said Colonel Mar, 
 angry at the noisy knight ; " had it done so, I 
 would have regarded my exercise when I re- 
 ceived it as rather ominous." 
 
 " Colonel," said the daughter, " do not speak 
 that way ; to fight with this man, even with 
 paper or speech, must be madness. Send it to 
 your lawyer, if you please ; but it is only sound 
 and fury." 
 
 " As a magistrate, I must place my veto upon 
 Colonel Mar recognising this production as a 
 cause for personal quarrel," said Sir Andrew,
 
 MACALPINE. 129 
 
 bowing to the seriousness he saw demanded of 
 him. 
 
 " If this Macalpine is mad, he ought not to 
 be at large, and as a magistrate, Sir Andrew, it 
 is your duty to see to this," answered the Colonel 
 somewhat sternly. 
 
 " Faith, Colonel, with that I cannot meddle ; 
 there is a method in his madness ; he is too 
 old a bird to be caught by the fangs of the 
 law. There is some waggery in this fellow's 
 bursts. I know him of old ; he would like to 
 frighten his neighbours who come in his way, 
 but I never knew him succeed in oustino; them. 
 It is the law he reckons on, but it 's been a 
 broken reed to him all his days, and will not 
 prop him up now." 
 
 " Do you think the public opinion of him, as 
 a half-mad person, is such, that the ordinary 
 rule of recognition from one gentleman to an- 
 other cannot exist in his case 1 " 
 
 Sir Andrew failed to satisfy his host upon 
 the case put to him. 
 
 VOL. 1. T
 
 130 MACALPINE. 
 
 "I hope you are strictly to preserve your 
 game, Colonel Mar," remarked Sir Andrew, who 
 disliked abstractions, to which the Indian was 
 inclined. "Macalpine ruined us all with his 
 carelessness, and you must see you have to make 
 up." 
 
 " I have thought nothing of it," answered the 
 Colonel, with some gaiety. " I am not to vex 
 myself to death if I see a rascally son of freedom 
 bagging a hare.'' 
 
 Sir Andrew was puzzled. The Indian was 
 mad. 
 
 " My lands are not equal to Morven, and I 
 have five keepers ; the neighbourhood was in- 
 fested with the thieves when I came to it, it 's 
 better now ; yet such is the state of the people's 
 minds, with these inflammatory talks, that 
 even the schoolmaster, Wat McTavish, is a 
 poacher who escapes the prison with their 
 aid." 
 
 " Is not that the name of the man my keeper 
 reports to have seen shoot very early one of
 
 MACALPINE. 131 
 
 the pheasants I brought with me \ '' inquired 
 Colonel Mar, of his daughter. 
 
 It was so. 
 
 " The fellow is caught at last, is he % The 
 slippery eel is on the hook. He will tremble 
 in his shoes when he remembers 9 Georo-e lY. 
 chap. Ixix., section 13 ; the prison and hard 
 labour for three months will take the sono; out 
 of him. Then, Colonel, have you got him in 
 your cellar % " 
 
 '' In my hall ; — no ! I have done nothing 
 yet," was the answer. 
 
 " Oh, oh ! but leave it to me. I '11 manao;e 
 him ; you do not care for the tedious law, and 
 prefer the easy process of the sword. I '11 have 
 him at oakum in a twinkle." 
 
 Both Colonel Mar and his daughter were 
 glad to be relieved of the presence of their 
 neighbour. He was far too fussy and 
 boisterous for the delicate fibres of the 
 retired soldier, and his daughter detested the 
 knight.
 
 132 MACALPINE. 
 
 To find lie had to tranquillise a wounded 
 spirit in the company of Sir Andrew Cameron, 
 was a consummation the Colonel could not 
 face. His daughter found neither the knight, 
 nor the imagination of his nephew and heir- 
 presumptive, relief to her situation.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 On the day following the events narrated in 
 the previous chapter, some incidents, trifling in 
 themselves, befell Alan Macalpine, which had 
 an important influence for him. In the morn- 
 ing he met Oliver Arnot, and that respectable 
 farmer had again refused to give him the ad- 
 dress of his niece ; moreover, intimating that 
 Ellen herself had distinctly required him to 
 refuse it. We are not always under the influ- 
 ence of our best nature^ and Alan went away 
 angry with his old friend, and more particularly 
 with Ellen. 
 
 Storms surround the hitches in the progress 
 of love. The self-possessed JuHet exclaimed 
 once of him to whom she was devoted, even 
 unto death —
 
 134 MACALPINE. 
 
 " Oh that deceit should dwell 
 In such a gorgeous palace ! " 
 
 And the liero of this tale of Morven nigh 
 to-day cast off his care for the fair Ellen of 
 Finzean. 
 
 Love is not certainly eternal between two 
 beings who have met each other and meandered 
 sweetly on the sunny paths. An eternal bond 
 unites two spirits buffeting bravely the threaten- 
 ing waves around a joint destiny. 
 
 A lady in turning a sharp corner on the 
 Morven road at a rapid rate, rode into a drove 
 of cattle. The horse was a high-mettled animal, 
 scarcely for use in these quarters : the rider 
 was herself a tall imposing woman, and, per- 
 haps, required such an animal to make her seat 
 agreeable. It seemed in the act of proceeding, 
 by a wild heave, to throw its rider, when, pro- 
 bably by some accident diverting its attention, 
 luckily it came down upon its four legs, and 
 the services of the gentleman behind the drove 
 were not called on.
 
 MACALPIXE. 135 
 
 The lady was Lucretia Mar and the other 
 Alan Macalpine. She now held her double 
 reins with an assured firmness, in which the 
 two onlookers, Macalpine and his man, saw a 
 more than common strength on the part of 
 the fair rider, while she looked offended at the 
 obstruction on the roadway. 
 
 Alan lifted his bonnet, and expressed regret 
 at the danger slie had incurred. But she had 
 scarcely deigned to observe him. He was dressed 
 in a light-grey suit, with a broad Highland 
 bonnet on liis head, and would have been taken 
 at a glance for a well-to-do farmer. Further 
 observation, however, would at once have de- 
 tected an ease of bearing, and a refinement and 
 light in his high dark features, which intellectual 
 breeding, combined with strong moral and 
 manly qualities, induce, carrying their posses- 
 sor out of the narrow mould of any occupation. 
 
 Miss Mar's horse still stood, the rider not 
 yet assured ; and she was compelled to return 
 his acknowledgment.
 
 136 
 
 MACALPINE. 
 
 It was no part of her character to he merely 
 ill-tempered, and she asked with sufficient 
 politeness, if there were more cattle following. 
 
 Thinking she saw some admiration on the 
 part of a good-looking farmer, she stayed to 
 say a few words more. 
 
 "Bucephalus is not accustomed to those 
 shaggy animals," she remarked. 
 
 "They are rough-coated and free, like all 
 mountaineers," Alan observed. " Had I known 
 of meeting with this spirited charger, I would 
 have driven them to a side," he continued, 
 still apologetically. 
 
 " I doubt if he will ever feel at home here, 
 with these rude roads and passengers," she 
 said. 
 
 Loftily she sat and spoke ; and Macalpine 
 had experienced a slight sense of resentment, 
 which his sensibility was apt to excite, when 
 her supercilious bearing relaxed, as she looked 
 full in the face of the handsome Highlander 
 who stood erect and proudly at her side.
 
 MACALPINE. 137 
 
 Miss Mar had ridden out from her castle 
 with the laughiDg fancy that she could take 
 part in some romantic adventure. She might 
 meet a chief whose only property consisted of 
 blood and claymore, and she would not be 
 sorry to see such a one throw himself at her 
 feet, a loving slave, though she intended never 
 to wed such a man. It was only a trifling 
 beoinnino; to her taste for encounter — this 
 contact with the bright-eyed mountaineer. 
 But she was pleased with it. No woman can 
 look in the face a hero of fancy, however 
 humble in rank, without love, though it live 
 but for a moment. 
 
 Alan observed the o;leam which stood in the 
 dark complexion of the lady ; with easy cour- 
 tesy, rather than the conventional dignity she 
 would have worn had she gone ofi" at first, she 
 inclined her head and galloped away. 
 
 Before Alan rejoined his man, he already 
 believed that the horscAvoman was no other 
 than the dauo-hter of Colonel Mar.
 
 138 MACALPINE. 
 
 " She cannot have known me," said he to 
 himself. " Yet what matters it ; she is not a 
 neighbour with whom circumstances permit 
 any intimacy between us/' A sensation of 
 pain, which was not weakness, but delicacy, 
 passed through his heart, ujion contact with 
 her who had supplanted his own heirship. 
 
 " She 's a high ane, that ! " ejaculated the old 
 drover Donald, as he hit one of his animals 
 idly with the tiny switch which is the badge 
 of the employment of cattle dealing. 
 
 "Higher than she should be," remarked 
 Alan, thinking in his dreamy walk only of the 
 beast. 
 
 " I was thinking," said Donald, slily, just 
 out of the corner of his mouth, " ye were nae 
 believer in the michty dames." 
 
 " Why, you know I prefer the short neck to 
 the long, and the legs not over jointed." 
 
 Donald chuckled, and hit away at an animal 
 to hide his delight, but could not help laughing 
 full out.
 
 MACALPINE. 139 
 
 " She 's rin awa wi' yer thoclits, short or 
 lang r the neck, Maister Alan ; an' what for 
 no — a fine gay lass wi' as gude a tocher 's i' 
 the haill land." 
 
 Alan saw his mistake and laughed with 
 Donald. 
 
 ^' Your mind, Donald, seems to run for ever 
 on the fair sex ; but you 've let the time go 
 without getting your hand tied." 
 
 " It 's the pat, sir, the pat. I '"11 be aye 
 thinkin' o' the puir deevils o' Irish fillin half 
 an acre wi' a dizzen bairns, born to starvation 
 and misery ; Lord; Lord, it 's a terrible thing 
 to see livin beings wi' sae little thocht, but it's 
 waur to see them deein' on twa potatoes." 
 
 " Eicht there," said Alan, who had a keen 
 appreciation of the Scotch humour peculiar to 
 the humbler classes, whose jocularity has gene- 
 rally, at the heart, some moral aphorism. " Yet 
 it 's the like of you, Donald, with such opinions, 
 that has deserved the blessings of married 
 life.'^
 
 140 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 " An' deserves them yet/' cried the sturdy 
 drover, the only servant of the Macalpines 
 whom it was possible to retain. " I 'm as 
 veegorous as I was the year yer father was 
 married, and gin. ye haste wi' the new lady o' 
 Morven, odd but I '11 may be hae my lass, Peg 
 Cameron, the same day. I believe i the 
 Macalpine's auld luck ; they were aye cat chin 
 the young mare when the auld horse fell, and 
 ye '\l just hae yours, like your forbears." 
 
 " I am sorry for Peg Cameron," said Alan, 
 " if her happiness depends upon my return to 
 Morven." 
 
 The resolution which Alan had made to 
 have no contact with his father's successors at 
 Morven, so far as it could be avoided, he 
 scarcely expected so soon to be called upon 
 to forego. He had not proceeded a mile 
 farther along the road, when Donald espied 
 Mrs McTavish waving a handkerchief as if for 
 them to stop. She was running down the side 
 of a field, which lay between the road where
 
 MACALPINE. 141 
 
 the cattle were beins; driven and tlie school- 
 house, and made down upon Alan, out of 
 breath with runnino; and excitement. 
 
 Word had been secretly conveyed to Wat 
 that the officers of the law were to be upon 
 him for poaching on Colonel Mar's lands, and 
 he was at present in hiding till he saw what 
 could be done. Alan was the only man Wat 
 and his wife thought of applying to for aid, 
 although remembering he had severely con- 
 demned the poacher. 
 
 " We Ve nobody to look to but you. Mister 
 Alan," said the sore-troubled woman. " It 's 
 as true as death that Wat was only after 
 specimens'' — Wat being also the well known 
 ornithologist of the district — " and this bein' 
 a bit pheasant with a fine colour, he couldna 
 stay his hand. Lord have mercy upon's a' 
 if he 's taen up and 'prisoned. I warned him 
 day and night ; but he 's no guilty of night 
 poaching; would ye but speak to them for 
 my sake and the bairns' sake. There's the
 
 142 MACALPINE. 
 
 new lady of Morven, she '11 no refuse tlie like 
 o' you, and bein' but new come cannot be 
 hard. 0' it 's ruin if Wat is taen, he 11 lose 
 the school and beo;£i;ar himself and all/' 
 
 Alan was annoyed by what he heard. He 
 was angry with the schoolmaster, as he had 
 always been. 
 
 " Ah ! you see Wat is all for liberty, as ye 
 are yourself, Mister Alan, in your own way. 
 When the farmer comes in grumbling at the 
 hardship he thinks he must just bear, Wat 
 takes down a book and a gun and justifies 
 himself. He's an impulsive creature, Wat, 
 and dances into things." 
 
 Alan had not intended to refuse his assist- 
 ance, in so far as he could be of aid, and the 
 result of Mrs McTavish's entreaties was, that 
 he was to lay the state of the case before the 
 proprietor of Morven, and ask him to withdraw 
 the prosecution, on the understanding that 
 Wat's gun was to remain in time to come 
 upon the wall. He disliked the undertaking,
 
 MACALPINE. 1 43 
 
 but he saw Wat himself and believed his story 
 to be true ; he often attributed the reckless- 
 ness of the class about Morven who poached, 
 to the licence which his father had even 
 encouraged, partly, no doubt, because it out- 
 raged the law which had done so little for 
 him. 
 
 He hastened early to Morven Castle, eager 
 to get the visit over, by a distaste for the 
 subject of his advocacy, and for the call at his 
 old home in the possession of strangers. 
 
 As he walked up the already well-trimmed 
 avenue, the first time since he had left it, in 
 the evening of this summer day, he asked him- 
 self why his step should possess a little dread 
 and his heart beat less free than it did an 
 hour before ; his emotion was natural, and 
 he was content to believe that the misfortunes 
 of his house had not tamed his spirit or excited 
 it into fury. 
 
 But his fancy somehow rested upon Lucretia 
 Mar. He could not tell how. Yet it seemed
 
 144 MACALPINE. 
 
 as if some angiiry had been to point to a link 
 between him and the new mistress of his 
 paternal lands. Morbid, indeed, the fancy, 
 which the rustling of a leaf dispels for ever, 
 he reflected, as he entered the familiar portal. 
 
 The ready access to the Master of Morven 
 was not accorded, as of yore ; and Alan waited 
 long in the ante-chamber, and then, when 
 admitted to the presence, it was to that of the 
 mistress. 
 
 It appeared to Alan, when he was ushered 
 to the room in whicli Lucretia Mar reposed 
 after the fatigues of the day, that he was being 
 taken to the presence of some imagined prin- 
 cess. Indian servants preceded him, and a 
 beautiful young female of half colour smiled 
 upon him as he entered, while another sat at 
 the feet of the lady as she reclined upon a 
 couch. The couch was drawn opposite the 
 open window at the head of the room, through 
 which entered, with delicious odour, the air of 
 the summer night, not more than cool, as the
 
 MAC ALPINE. 145 
 
 sun was only yet declining beneath the hills 
 which stretched their blue and lofty peaks far 
 away to the west. 
 
 So far as could be seen — owing to the exten- 
 sive drapery which enveloped the lady, as a 
 protection apparently from the possibility of 
 chill from the air which came off the moun- 
 tains — she was in the English attire, and from 
 the upper portion of her dress, it was evidently 
 of the richest and gayest material, and one in 
 which the wearer was pleased to contemplate 
 herself; for upon Lucretia Mar's countenance 
 there often rested the self-complacency which 
 comes of woman's vanity of mere adornment. 
 
 Alan Macalpine was not ill-natured, and 
 was not one to cry aloud because a woman 
 showed she was pleased with herself to almost 
 an utter forgetfulness of his presence ; but 
 when Lucretia Mar lay still as he reached the 
 head of the room, and scarcely turned her head 
 his way, he was annoyed. He was a philoso- 
 pher, no doubt ; notwithstanding he intended, 
 
 VOL. 1. K
 
 146 MACALPINE. 
 
 when another injured him, that other was not 
 to get off scot-free if it were to put down 
 deliberate wrong. There was no more certain 
 feature in the character of the Highlander 
 than that. 
 
 What did this woman think ? that he was 
 a vulgar and designing intruder, who presumed 
 upon three words spoken in the morning to 
 rush in upon her in the evening 1 Notwith- 
 standino; what she had heard, she now chose 
 to consider that he, who was a farmer and 
 dealer in cattle, must be a very insignificant 
 person, although he appeared to possess some 
 bulk in the eyes of a local gossip like Madge ; 
 nay, one to whom the cold shoulder of an 
 affront was necessary, for had not his father 
 written to Colonel Mar a letter the most offen- 
 sive. 
 
 Alan apologised for what he chose to call 
 an intrusion, but he had been ushered in. 
 
 Colonel Mar would not be disturbed just at 
 this time ; but as she attended as much to
 
 MACALPINE. 147 
 
 affairs as himself, any message might be en- 
 trusted to her. 
 
 Alan preferred to see Colonel Mar when 
 convenient ; he would wait or return again. 
 
 Not so, he would better give his message 
 now, or not at all. She felt in Alan's few 
 sentences a cold determination which braced 
 her for a contact ; it was not without a cer- 
 tain pleasure to her to treat such a man as 
 she did. 
 
 Alan Macalpine had inherited the blood of a 
 race of untamed chieftains of the Scottish 
 w^ilds; and had never been broken-in to tame 
 subjection. He v/as boiling with internal 
 rage, which was shown upon his face, first in 
 its intense cold. The snow concealed a volcano. 
 What w^ould have to others been only a dis- 
 aOTeeable encounter, was to him a burnino; at 
 the stake. It was the rankling iron he felt 
 of the Avorld's persecution of prostration. 
 
 Slightly, but as apparently happened from 
 the necessity of avoiding the air which blew
 
 148 MAOALPINE. 
 
 ■Qpon the curtain, Miss Mar glanced by Alan, 
 who had retired a little. She was just able to 
 recognise the hero of her morning adventure. 
 The disdain which she had summoned to her 
 reception of the son of Macalpine prevented 
 any amends. Alan's external, to which almost 
 alone in the first place woman pays her homage, 
 was seen to better advantage than in the fore- 
 noon. His erect form was set off by a suit 
 which became the hour and the visit, and his 
 handsome and romantic cast of countenance 
 told an indignation, which, by the time she 
 saw it, had lit it up with a dignity beyond 
 the brightness and intelligence of its better 
 wear. 
 
 Lucretia Mar would not have acted thus 
 had she possessed the refined sensibility of 
 natural woman. Even allowing her vulgar 
 alloy, she must have acted differently had she 
 not been in a capricious humour. She already 
 relented considerably. 
 
 " Colonel Mar, sir, is still suffering from his
 
 MACALPINE. 149 
 
 long continued residence in a warm climate, 
 and I hope you will not tax him overmuch," 
 said his daughter, who now fully revealed the 
 strength of her frame. Alan had seen at once 
 that she could not be laid do\^n by illness 
 since morning. 
 
 " I was not aware," answered Alan, " that 
 Colonel Mar was an invalid, otherwise I would 
 have addressed him by letter. As it is, it is 
 not too late to repair my mistake, and I can 
 take that mode of addressino; him." 
 
 He turned. Miss Mar did not speak. He 
 was not yet done. 
 
 " Miss Mar probably understands that for 
 the son of Eoderick Macalpine, the present 
 visit cannot be one of his own seeking. I 
 come as an intercessor for an erring but 
 injured man and a helpless wife, who has 
 pleaded with me to represent facts to Colonel 
 Mar. I had hoped that Miss Mar was capable 
 of imagining the unselfishness of my visit — at 
 all events of setting aside for a moment the
 
 150 MACALPINE. 
 
 assertion that she was the daughter of the new- 
 owner of Morven." 
 
 Alan was not one to fly in the fear of his 
 answer, and he paused for an instant. The 
 gaily decked occupant of the couch was struck 
 by an attitude in a gentleman which she had 
 never before experienced. The scorn of the 
 language, rather than the manner of its delivery, 
 excited her resentment — not altogether painful. 
 
 " Yon m^ay interpret, sir, as you please ; I 
 was not prepared to be concerned with any 
 considerations other than my own ; unless it 
 be to give my decision upon the case you may 
 submit to me. I have nothing more to add," 
 haughtily raising herself upon her seat. 
 
 " I cannot be expected to rest satisfied with 
 a judge who has admitted such unconcern,'^ 
 replied Alan as haughtily. 
 
 " So be it," said Miss Mar, pointing to her 
 servant to ring ; " you will find, on your way, 
 if Colonel Mar can now be seen." 
 
 Yet for all this, Macalpine had overcome
 
 MACALPINE. 151 
 
 Lucretia Mar's distaste to the son of the ruined 
 laird of Morven. 
 
 If her character was material loving, it was 
 relieved by her attraction to objects out of the 
 levels. She possessed one of those tempers 
 not too common with her sex, capable of 
 respecting an enemy, and even of being piqued 
 into alliance with one who might gratify her 
 vanity by reciprocating the feeling of an aroused 
 respect. She loved " the unalterable mien" of 
 pride in a man. 
 
 " To what do I owe the honour of this 
 visit 1" was the Colonel's short query, before 
 Alan had got beyond the door of the library, 
 in which the Indian was alone with his books. 
 He was standing with one hand leaning on 
 the table at the end nearest the door, while 
 the other was thrust into a scarf which tied 
 the waist of a dressing gown he wore ; he 
 was in that attitude which a gentleman will 
 assume when he is interrupted by an unwel- 
 come visitor.
 
 1 52 MACALPIXE. 
 
 The Colonel spoke with a startled look, and 
 Lis frame trembled. He motioned to Alan to 
 sit down, which he himself did. Alan stood, 
 but easily. 
 
 " Colonel Mar wHll understand that I come 
 here simply as a gentleman," said Alan ; fol- 
 lowing his preface quietly with a statement of 
 the case he had taken in hand. 
 
 "Do you then disavow the family of Mac- 
 alpine i " inquired the Colonel sharply as he 
 stared upon Alan ; having been able to pay 
 small heed to the tale he told. 
 
 "God forbid," was the answer, "that I can 
 ever give offence to my race.'' 
 
 " But you are not proud of them \ " 
 
 *' Proud, as I am entitled to be ; proud as 
 most men of ancestry." 
 
 *' You are descended from Kenneth, the con- 
 queror of the Picts, I understand. That is 
 something." 
 
 "The accidents of birth and fortune can 
 give us no title to consideration. I desire to
 
 MACALPINE. 153 
 
 derive all mine from endeavours to do what is 
 right." 
 
 "You make no claim upon me as a Mac- 
 alpine 1 " 
 
 "None! Mj father's name seems in this 
 house an incitement to anger, and therefore it 
 was necessary to say at once that my visit has 
 no connection Avith self." 
 
 "It is a name I would wish to forget," 
 Colonel Mar mumbled, and then he sharply 
 asked if Macalpine had already spoken to his 
 daughter, making no further inquiry on that 
 head. He divined, seemingly, something of 
 what had taken place, wearing for an instant 
 an expression of anger. 
 
 Alan spoke further of his mission, and 
 pleaded that its success would have a beneficial 
 effect upon others as well as McTavish. 
 
 "You will pardon me some freedom of 
 speech, perhaps, when I tell you that I was a 
 friend of your mother." The speaker paused, 
 w^hile Alan waited as if it were a mystery
 
 154 MACALPINE. 
 
 being revealed. He never before spoke to one 
 of the other's rank who particularly claimed that 
 relation to his dead parent. " That, however, I 
 rely upon your honour to repeat to no one. I 
 see in you much of her likeness, and something 
 of that enthusiasm which is the destruction of 
 our fitness to pursue the course of prudence ; 
 nay, hear me ;. instead, of following a pursuit 
 that leads to the dignity of wealth or fame, I 
 find you the advocate of poachers and the 
 preacher up of clowns ; how painful that the 
 son of my friend could have fallen to this ! " 
 
 " Eisen, perhaps, sir ; I am not the man you 
 picture ; neither the advocate of poachers nor 
 the preacher up of clowns ; but the would-be 
 alleviator of their misfortunes. I pretend to 
 no enthusiasm beyond the hopes of the future 
 for the wretched and depressed.'' 
 
 "You have cauo;ht the contao;ion of the 
 times," said the Colonel, stolidly. 
 
 " No, sir, I have not," cried Alan, with fire ; 
 expressing the emotions of his heart and the
 
 MACALPINE. 155 
 
 thouglits of his brain regarding the inhuman 
 and unchristian character of much of modern 
 life. " I advocate now," he continued, " the 
 cause of a man whose acts I condemn, but 
 whose wrong is the return for greater wrong 
 done by those who sit in places above him. 
 He was himself taught, — he has bettered the 
 instruction, — out of rarik* injustice a thousand, 
 evils live." 
 
 "And if I do free this man, what will his 
 advocate obtain by continuing the redresser of 
 grievances'?" inquired Colonel Mar. 
 
 "I will find a reconciliation of this man 
 with his better nature. I am no advocate of 
 general clemency, but I will answer in this 
 case for your kindness yielding the fruit of 
 reform." 
 
 "Eecollect my belief, that the fame of a 
 local demagogue must be dear to you as to 
 other men," said the owner of Morven, influ- 
 enced. 
 
 "You do not know me," answered the High-
 
 156 MACALPINE. 
 
 lander, with pride, his eyes glistening without 
 painful resentment. 
 
 " And you are no more one of us," continued 
 the other. 
 
 "Poverty and injustice have taught me to 
 feel the unjust lot of others, without the mor- 
 bid reflection of what I might have felt, had 
 I been a lord in the Highlands of Scothand," 
 was the iinswer. 
 
 "Well, sir, you speak boldly," replied the 
 other ; "but you do not convince me that duty 
 does not call you elsewhere." 
 
 " That you may be rid of neighbours whose 
 name you wish to forget," said Alan, with a 
 smile of some humour. 
 
 "I am sorry to see you here, where your 
 talent and education cannot be rewarded," re- 
 marked Colonel Mar. 
 
 " I could have wished,'' Alan said, " to leave 
 Morven, but my father will not, and I cannot 
 leave him yet. I am making no sacrifice. I 
 acknowledge I am selfish enough to keep my
 
 MACALPINE. 157 
 
 better part to myself. I have no desire to liave 
 my heart seared in the market places, nor my 
 soul lost in chasing the illusive honours of 
 fame. I intend to stay where Providence has 
 assigned me the means of a plain and simple, 
 and, I believe withal, a happy life, and an 
 opportunity for doing some fair service." 
 
 " You are frank, sir, so am I ; I admit I do 
 not desire the residence of Koderick Macalpine 
 so near me, but if I can assist you while I 
 obtain my object with him, I will be doubly 
 pleased. I will place a considerable sum at 
 your service if he and you leave Britain and 
 do not return — at least your father — till I 
 may be no more." 
 
 Alan had opened out to the man before him 
 to an extent he little expected. There was a 
 charm about the officer which drew forth a 
 revelation of the enthusiastic portion of himself. 
 
 " You do not appreciate the independence I 
 have expressed," Alan answered with stern- 
 ness, — with scorn it had been altogether, had
 
 158 MACALPI^^E. 
 
 he not known the better part of the man he 
 addressed, and he tokl Colonel Mar so. 
 
 He drew back into himself, sorry in his heart 
 that he was not altogether understood by a 
 man with whom he felt some kindred soul 
 existed. But he took his departure successful 
 in his mission. When he had gone he asked 
 himself if the offer he had received must indi- 
 cate a defect in the title of the new proprietor 
 of Morven. 
 
 Not long after Macalpine left the Castle, 
 Colonel Mar joined his daughter in the draw- 
 ing-room. With all her excessive influence 
 over him, that never went beyond what he 
 regarded as the lesser things of his life ; in 
 what lay beyond that he was perfect master, 
 so much so, that a species of constraint existed 
 between them, not common to the ordinary 
 relations of father and* daughter. She had 
 inherited some caprice from her father, and 
 his caprice could be worked into slow resolve, 
 unyielding as the hills. She sometimes really
 
 MACALPIXE. 159 
 
 believed lier position was not positively assured, 
 and she trembled. These were on a few 
 occasions when she dared not have said a 
 contrary word to his wish ; she knew that 
 under the soft manner of these moments he 
 was uttering dire command. 
 
 He came into the drawing-room this night, 
 and asked very gently as to what had taken 
 place between Alan Macalpine and her, pre- 
 vious to his call at the library. He sat with 
 her talking pleasantly away for half-an-hour. 
 
 In an hour after he left her, Alan Macalpine 
 received and read a letter from her as follows : 
 — " Sir, — I regret that upon your visit here 
 this evening, my preparation to act in an 
 expected disagreeable encounter, to which I 
 was impelled — by evidences not given by 
 yourself, however — led me to carry out my 
 part with injustice. The object of your visit 
 was quite different from that which I was led 
 to expect it to be. I hasten deeply to apolo- 
 gise, and to ask you to excuse what you no
 
 160 MACALPINE. 
 
 doubt considered unpardonable rudeness, and 
 to express a hope that what has occurred will 
 not prevent the growth of those friendly rela- 
 tions in which near neio;hbours should dwell. 
 In the sincerity of my regret I place my hope 
 of your forgiveness for an offence, the excuse 
 for which you do not likely altogether know. 
 —Yours truly, Lucretia Mar.".
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 When at this time, about midsummer, the first 
 Reform Bill was to become law, after the 
 stormy struggle of the various bodies of the 
 State, the joy was common to the newly 
 enfranchised, and to those who were too poor 
 for the right yet to reach them. The artisan 
 and the peasant, the shopkeeper and the farmer, 
 with one rejoicing welcomed the supposed 
 advent of the reign of plenty. All ranks were 
 penetrated with a sense of power, infusing ani- 
 mation and hope, too commonly exaggerated, 
 but, nevertheless, to bear in time fruit in the 
 enlarged share of '' the lower middle class " in 
 the wealth of the country. The proceedings 
 in Parliament had been watched with keen 
 interest by the politicians of Morven. Alan 
 Macalpine had occasionally taken part in the 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 162 MACALPINE. 
 
 discussions, actively interested in every move- 
 ment which bore upon the fortunes of his 
 country and his fellows. Wat McTavish eagerly 
 supported Macalpine's views, that much would 
 ]ieeds be done by the individuals themselves, 
 composing the new constituencies, to procure 
 a real advantage from the reform. Alan's few 
 words were listened to with a real interest ; 
 and Wat, anxious to gratify his champion, got 
 up a requisition on the part of the newly en- 
 franchised and the non-electors, for Alan to 
 state his views on the subject of the '' Franchise 
 and the People." 
 
 There were those, as a matter of course, who 
 shook their heads at this interference with the 
 supposed prerogative of the county member, 
 but the smaller tenants and the cotters signed 
 to a man ; and Alan saw no escape from con- 
 senting to deliver a lecture in the church, on a 
 Saturday evening, on the wide subject proposed 
 to him. 
 
 The hour fixed for the lecture was eight in
 
 MACALPIXE. 163 
 
 the evening. At an earlier hour, the same 
 afternoon, there were arrivals at Morven Castle 
 to partake of a feast which had been provided 
 by Colonel Mar. His daughter had yearned 
 ever since her coming to make a display to 
 such of the people of the county as she could 
 well invite. The Tory faction, composed of 
 nearly all the landowners of the county, was 
 too strong to put itself to the trouble of doing 
 particular suavity to the new proprietor of 
 Morven. Those of them who affected the 
 highest society of the Capitals, doubted Colonel 
 Mar and his daughter ; and there had been 
 refusals to attend this dinner party. Yet, 
 the announcement w-as no sooner made by Sir 
 Andrew Cameron, that the new laird was of 
 the right colour, than several members of the 
 party w^ere ready to partake of his hospitality ; 
 and there w^ere not w^anting sons in the county 
 families quite equal to appreciating a marital 
 interest in the rents of the barony of Morven. 
 Sir Andrew Cameron's nephew, Captain Hamil-
 
 164 MACALPINE. 
 
 ton, was one of these — a young officer of some 
 twenty-six summers — whose most intense feel- 
 ins was diso'iist that his uncle had been 
 connected with trade, although he was himself 
 the son of a man who had been found incapable 
 of earning his bread by trade, and had become 
 a small official of the excise. The son had 
 inherited some of the doggedness of the 
 Camerons ; and Sir Andrew thought he was 
 not, altogether, without credit in his choice of 
 an heir. The laird of Glenballoch, his wife, 
 and eldest son, regarded themselves as the 
 chief guests of the feast ; they looked and 
 acted the '* oldest family " in the county. The 
 family had never increased its possessions ; 
 and without admitting the fact to each other, 
 or to themselves, one and all had half-grown 
 convictions, that in these times it was desirable 
 the estates should be enlarged. 
 
 Grant of Ballatruim — invariably referred 
 and spoken to as Ballatruim — was not behind 
 with his sense of his personal or family im-
 
 MACALPIXE. 165 
 
 portance ; his paternal miles exceeded those 
 of Glenballoch, and his ambition was to be 
 the leading man of the county. In this he 
 was certain to fail ; he possessed neither the 
 forces of ability nor the supports of pride ; 
 vanity inflated him. 
 
 Ogilvie of Stronach was of another stamp 
 — gay, volatile, and dissipated, but highly 
 educated, and reasonably facetious in political 
 feeling, when not under excitement. If he 
 Avere unscrupulous, it was not out of calculation 
 based on hard selfishness : he was reoardless 
 of consequences, because his humour happened, 
 for the time, to have been crossed, and he was 
 not, therefore, particular as to the character of 
 the pursuit, provided it admitted of diversion. 
 
 Besides Kobert ]\Iunro, the writer, from Mor- 
 ven, there was the clergyman of the parish, 
 a pastor who had married, upon one hundred 
 and fifty pounds a year, a woman with scanty 
 ideas, but with activity, in all respects, to- 
 wards the full provision of food and clothing ;
 
 166 MACALPINE. 
 
 and the Rev. Malcolm Alexander soon became 
 too interested in pork-curing and beer- brewing, 
 to admit of any real abstracted existence upon 
 the life within. The sheriff and two officers 
 from the county town, and an extensive 
 brewer and his wife from Edinburoh, tenants 
 on the estate, wdio happened to be then in the 
 neighbourhood, completed the list of guests at 
 Morven Castle. 
 
 It was the old story for Lucretia Mar. Her 
 guests had scarcely met, when she desired them 
 gone. Sh-e felt the presence of a weary assem- 
 bly ; while she chid herself for permitting the 
 feeling, w^itli a consciousness that she was too 
 indolent to animate the party. 
 
 Colonel Mar discussed with the Glenballoch 
 family, the weather, and the difference between 
 the climate of Britain and that of India. Sir 
 Andrew Cameron reckoned with the brewer 
 the extent of the fortunes now being realised 
 here and there in commerce, while his nephew, 
 the captain, . at the other end of the table.
 
 MACALPINE. 167 
 
 stigmatised trade as the ruin of the native 
 glory of Britain, and in reality, by its engross.- 
 ing power, the forerunner of her degeneracy 
 in the race of nations. Ballatruim sympa- 
 thised with the kino; in his recent dilemma as 
 respects reform. The officers discussed sport- 
 ing prospects, though there was not mucii 
 prospect for any of them doing destruction in 
 the forthcoming season on the moors. In 
 short, the company thrashed the straw which 
 alone formed the provender of the conversa- 
 tion. Ogilvie, in the presence of the ladies, 
 hazarded sallies of his humour without making 
 any impression upon the dull mass of life that 
 had assembled for enjoyment. The hostess 
 alone seemed willing to applaud the attempt, 
 and, if really feeling mirthful, might have 
 awakened those of the assembly in whom the 
 sense of nature's early sweets was not alto- 
 gether extinguished. But after Glenballoch 
 had in a few pompous phrases toasted Colonel 
 Mar, the ladies rose. Ogilvie determined that
 
 168 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 there should, if possible, be some variety in the 
 talk, if it were only to amuse himself. 
 
 " Why, you know, gentlemen, I 'm as staunch 
 a Tory as lives in the county, but I think w^e 
 have deserved this beating on the reform ques- 
 tion,'^ he said, with an air of frankness. 
 
 " Deserved, sir ! how deserved 1 " inquired 
 Glenballoch, angrily. 
 
 " We have waited," answered Ogilvie, " till 
 the broom has been set in motion to sweep all 
 away, whereas, had we ourselves done a mode- 
 rate brush at the cobwebs, and burnished the 
 old fixtures, nothing more would have been 
 required." 
 
 " Ah ! '' answered Glenballoch, aroused by 
 the seeming imputation on the worth of his 
 class, " let sleeping dogs lie, they '11 bite the 
 more if they find they are awakened to be 
 deceived with a dry bone." 
 
 " Now,'' said Ballatruim ; he generally began 
 with an emphatic "now," as indicating that 
 the judgment of the case was reached in what
 
 MACALPIXE. 169 
 
 he had to say ; " I regard the present times 
 as lost to any true sense of loyalty and honour. 
 I have studied the history of nations from the 
 days of Homer, and see to the bottom of the 
 mind of every thinker on political science 
 worthy of the name, and my opinion is, that 
 nations who lose their one common heart of 
 devotion to their monarch become impoverished 
 and fall into decay. I am descended from a 
 Jacobite race, and I am prouder of that, sir, 
 than I am of my miles, for we cannot say acres 
 here, Colonel, as you perceive." 
 
 " Come, Ballatruim," broke in Ogilvie, " your 
 father was a favourite with the villao'ers, Whios 
 to a man, and might have solicited their suf- 
 frages had he lived." 
 
 " No, sir," answered the other, indignant at 
 what he saw was meant neither altogether in 
 jest nor in earnest; "my father was above 
 attraction for the rabble." 
 
 " Yet," said Ogilvie, " it is generally reported 
 that you — yourself, quite lately, were seen in
 
 170 MACALPINE. 
 
 the most friendly conversation with young 
 Macalpine." 
 
 " He who is talking sedition, or something 
 worse in the parish church V ejaculated the 
 brewer. 
 
 " HoAv comes this ? '' asked Glenballoch, 
 angrily. 
 
 Colonel Mar came to the rescue. 
 
 " I agree with Ballatruim," he said, " that 
 the king has been shamefully used by the mob. 
 T am for an absolute monarch, if he is a true 
 man, who will preserve the nation from 
 anarchy. Our king must please all, and he 
 pleases none ; he must sympathise with all, 
 and yet have no positive mind of his own, and 
 so becomes a powerless puppet.'' 
 
 Toasts now became general, and the Colonel 
 who had several months led a half solitary 
 life, wakened up and became excited. He 
 told tales of Indian life ; now laughed, and 
 then became sad. He was rich with memories 
 pleasing to most present; there were those
 
 MACALPINE. 171 
 
 yet untold under which he writhed, did he 
 approach the thought of thinking of them. 
 
 " I have served my country, and I have 
 served myself," said the host, whom wine 
 made very open and communicative. " You 
 talk of political principles as if they were reli- 
 gion : no man can deny that he thinks as he 
 believes he will serve himself best. Yes, in 
 religion the very faith we profess is sugared to 
 our swallowing by holding out the return of a 
 saved soul.'' 
 
 This was treading upon ground none present 
 had ever cared to enter upon. There was a 
 mockery in the speaker s heart, — mockery of 
 his own life, of the guests sitting at his table. 
 
 The Colonel proceeded — 
 
 " Once upon a tim.e I was all loyalty. I did 
 not consider myself in the first instance, — the 
 king — my friend — woman — that frail thing 
 who brought sin into the world, were the 
 objects of my unselfish loyalty. But I awoke 
 to the falsity of my devotion ; all the incense
 
 1 72 MACALPINE. 
 
 I had oiFerecl uj) was unappreciated as the 
 gusts on the housetops. I was passed over in 
 the service I had chosen, where merit was my 
 only passport to favour ; my friend passed me 
 by in time as one incapable of rising in the 
 world, and therefore of serving him ; and the 
 woman I loved with intense and disinterested 
 passion, threw it aside to embrace — a villain. 
 Can you be surprised then, gentlemen, that 
 my course of life changed. I sought wealth, 
 and I have found it. That, at all events, is 
 real. India has been my salvation from the 
 world's contumely, and I have been revenged. 
 But one thing requires to be done, one terrible 
 bond to be redeemed — one man to be shot," 
 here the speaker s eyes, which had spoken with 
 a brilliancy enthralling to his guests, suddenly 
 became glassy, as if the working of an over- 
 charged braiu had been too much for the 
 delicate frame of the speaker. 
 
 In an instant^ and by violent effort, which 
 showed the self-command, over even his weak
 
 MAC ALPINE. 173 
 
 frame, he was capable of exercising, Colonel 
 Mar recovered himself. The warm climate, he 
 said, had affected his brain and nerves, and he 
 was apt to wander in his speech upon any 
 excitement, but the illness was only moment- 
 ary : a glass of cold water relieved him. 
 
 The evening went on with Colonel Mar as 
 before ; as to his guests, all believed their host 
 to be a conscience-stricken man, who had 
 involuntarily revealed the crime of his Indian 
 life. Glenballoch especially inwardly cursed 
 his coming to the dwelling of such a man, and 
 except in the cases of the lawyer, Ogilvie, Sir 
 Andrew Cameron, and Captain Hamilton, the 
 wine which the party drank and highly praised 
 soured within them, by the horrible imagina- 
 tion that it had been set upon the table be- 
 fore them purchased by the blood of man. 
 All the tales of Eastern cruelty and murder 
 with which the popular mind connected the 
 splendour of the rich nabob entered into their 
 minds.
 
 174 MACALPINE. 
 
 '* I wonder," inquired the youngest military 
 man present, desirous to turn the conversation, 
 *' whether discussion is allowed at the church 
 to-night V It simply occurred to the in- 
 genuous youth that he might gain favour by a 
 proposal which might break up the party 
 quickly, and he suggested that an attempt 
 should be made to challenge any democratic 
 opinions. 
 
 " That 's a subject I was about to introduce," 
 said Ogilvie. " We do not support our prin- 
 ciples by public advocacy, as if we believed in 
 them, while the radicals heart is in his mouth. 
 Here is young Macalpine carrying all before 
 him." 
 
 Colonel Mar at once placed his pew at the 
 service of whomever cared to go. 
 
 It was now Ballatruim's turn to exhibit the 
 effect upon a weak brain of wine, and of the 
 joint stimulus of passion. He had been 
 wounded and badgered by the one suggestion 
 of desertion from the family principles, just as
 
 MACALPIXE. 1 75 
 
 such a person can be by a free and careless 
 fellow like Ogilvie, with enough good nature 
 in his character to prevent the rage falling 
 upon himself. Ballatruim was angry"with him- 
 self, with his landlord, and with the rest of 
 the p-uests. He was enrao;ed ao-ainst Alan 
 Macalpine, whose slight connection with him 
 was giving cause to casting stains upon his 
 honour. 
 
 " I care not for any man's aspersions," said 
 Ballatruim, " so long as my own conscience is 
 clear. But I can show you how active are my 
 principles." So saying he walked out of the 
 room, flushed with wine and rage. He looked 
 hard upon the ground, endeavouring without 
 success to clear his brain of the fumes which 
 obscured their not ordinarily too great bright- 
 ness. Meanwhile the others desired to escape 
 from that feeling of oppression which Colonel 
 Mar's words of blood had caused. Carriaores 
 were called, and the ladies joined their hus- 
 bands in hurrying away, learning very soon
 
 1 76 MACALPINE. 
 
 that there was somethinor wrono;. Oo;ilvie was 
 all activity to secure a party for the meeting 
 at the church, which consisted by his exertions, 
 besides Ballatruim, of Captain Hamilton, three 
 of the officers, and Miss Mar, who appeared 
 not averse to any adventure such as the visit 
 seemed to promise.
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 As the minute hand of the old vilIaQ;e clock 
 turned the half hour after seven o'clock on the 
 Saturday evening aforesaid, there was some- 
 thino; more than common in the movements of 
 the Morven people. The usual knots of Satur- 
 day evening loiterers were in greater numbers, 
 and spoke louder ; the keepers of the few shops 
 were at their doors instead of at the counters, 
 where the " change" usually was brisk at this 
 time of that day ; the carts of the small farmers 
 still stood in the village square unyoked, to the 
 delight of the urchins, while their owners 
 refreshed fuller than usual at the tap-room of 
 the inn. There never had been an assembly 
 such as this in Morven, and the inhabi- 
 tants of the place were fully sensible of its 
 importance. 
 
 VOL. I. - M
 
 1 78 MACALPINE. 
 
 Many walked towards tlie churcli with an 
 elasticity tliey had not before known, born of 
 an idea that somehow there was a new vital 
 hope arisen for them ; though in some the as- 
 piration was somewhat obscured because they 
 did not see at once its practical realisation. 
 Conspicuous was a band of the chief or managing 
 servants, ploughmen, and shepherds of the 
 farms on the Morven estate, and one or two 
 others of the eastern district. 
 
 The Morven people had, since the coming of 
 Alan's mother, been housed, fed, clothed, and 
 even educated better than was commonly the 
 case in the county ; these were in truth as ex- 
 cellent specimens as might be seen anywhere 
 of the hardy and independent Scot. Morven 
 is not in the remote Highlands, but stretches 
 to the Lowland line, where it is remarked the 
 broadest and purest Scotch is spoken. The 
 Morveners were not generally Highlanders pure 
 and simple ; looking rather the descendants of 
 that national race which had secured by their
 
 MACALPINE. 179 
 
 often solitary support of Wallace and Bruce 
 the freedom of their native land, than the sons 
 of the mountain, bound to local tradition, their 
 own fastnesses, and the chiefs that led them. 
 Their well knit frames, and fair and prominent 
 features, upon which was the hue of perfect 
 health, spoke the generous vigour of their in- 
 dividual lives, and of their national history. 
 
 These, however, formed rather the cream 
 than the bulk. A fearful degeneracy was 
 visible in many w-ho came from the higher 
 parts above Morven, where, it would be found, 
 they had met with harshness or neglect. Of the 
 better class of whom w^e have spioken Alan 
 Macalpine was proud. Eude only in the sense 
 of being natural, beneath lay a deep acquaint- 
 ance with the Bible and a literature of poetry and 
 history, whose influence upon their emotions 
 and conduct was w^orth more than the study of 
 half the classic pages or learned tomes of the 
 world. Their music is as stirring and plaintive 
 as their song — direct to the heart these go.
 
 180 MACALPINE. 
 
 While Jamie's soul warmed at his energetic de- 
 livery of " Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled," or 
 the Jacobite Colin saddened with "Bonnie Char- 
 lie 's noo awaV' Jean, as she parted wdth her 
 "Brandy" and "Blackie" cows for the night, 
 heard her charms acknowledged as the bonnie 
 lassie of " The Kye comes hame'^ by some more 
 domesticated swain ; she being able herself 
 slily to return the compliment, through her 
 long acquaintance with the well thumbed 
 " Burns." Among these, by natural solidity of 
 mind, and gentleness of humour, were the 
 equals of man whom wealth and rank had 
 greatly influenced to the forgetfulness of nature. 
 " The great body of the agriculturists in the 
 service of others are foully lodged, fed, taught, 
 and recreated/' Alan reflected, intending that 
 his lecture should be much for their benefit. 
 "A sense of justice on the part of the owners 
 of the soil, and an expenditure by no means 
 large, might give the tillers of the ground, and 
 the tenders of sheep and oxen, a chance to
 
 MACALPINE. 181 
 
 reach their due place in the national life. 
 They may become a power in influencing 
 society and strengthening the nation ; they are 
 at present dead as the unheeded rush-roots of 
 the winter stream — often dead to themselves, 
 generally dead to others. Society should be 
 elevated and recreated by the infusion of life 
 from below and from above. The ranks are 
 repellent by the misery and ignorance of the 
 one, and the exclusiveness and ignorance of the 
 other. Not kindness but sympathy has been 
 said to be needful to bind the bursting bonds 
 which ought to unite the classes of the land. 
 This must grow to fellowship ; without that 
 there will be no real sympathy. Men must 
 meet as equals all round irrespective of their 
 rank or wealth ; all must conspire to the 
 general elevation. Meantime the cultured 
 must seek to find food for fellowship. The 
 Lord of men, who thought it no robbery to 
 be equal with God, drew Himself to the com- 
 pany of publicans and siuners. He could
 
 182 MACALPINE. 
 
 penetrate the masks of life, and find interest 
 there as well as a noble purpose. Has Chris- 
 tianity followed Him after this free, human, 
 way of elevating others ? " 
 
 Alan Avent into the precentor's desk amid 
 the awkward applause of a country audience 
 quite unaccustomed to such manifestations. 
 The schoolmaster was briskly about, seeming to 
 be everywhere present at the same time. The 
 beaming countenance of Oliver Arnot frowned 
 a little as Wat came upon him, but he was 
 unable to withstand the frank address of the 
 now reformed poacher. Arnot was late, and 
 Alan could not conceal a smile as he observed 
 the scene beino; enacted between the two. He 
 knew that so decided a Tory came there from 
 the promptings of a hearty spirit towards him- 
 self. 
 
 After the lecturer had been seated, one of 
 the audience was seen to rise, evidently in- 
 tending to speak. There were no cries of " Sit 
 down," and "Put him out,'' as would have
 
 MAC ALPINE. 183 
 
 rushed from the throats of a town assembly, 
 and the man stared about him with a face 
 expressive of bewilderment, fear, and wretched- 
 ness. McTavish rose, but Alan motioned him 
 to let the man alone. He still stood as if the 
 words he had intended to utter had vanished 
 from his tongue, or his heart was too full of 
 suffering to j^ermit his physical powers their 
 free use. He sat anion 2; the crofters of Sir 
 Andrew Cameron's estate, who were together 
 apart, having resolved to come at the last 
 hour. Poor souls^ they were hanging between 
 the life and death of their whole world here, 
 and grasped the invitation of the young poli- 
 tician as weary drowning men seize the straw 
 blown by the wind. Most had the look of 
 men who were depressed and worn out with 
 poverty and care : many were thin, bent, and 
 rheumatic ; the blood stood in the corners of 
 their little flesh, though their anxious yet 
 dimmed eyes indicated that suffering still pro- 
 vided them with forces of reflection.
 
 184 MACALPINE. 
 
 Alan inquired gently of tlie old man if he 
 desired to speak. The slowness, he knew, 
 came of decay, and he was content to wait 
 as the crofter wiped with his tattered rag 
 the sweat which had gathered on his fore- 
 head. 
 
 " It 's Elshie," cried a dozen voices near by 
 him. 
 
 " I have that to say that maim be said," 
 said the old man with a great effort, " and that 
 before ye begin, sir. I have lived on the 
 Cameron estate, laddie and man, above half a 
 century, and now I maun quit it wi' the rest 
 o' them. Man, woman, and bairn have been 
 warned to quit if they come here this nicht — 
 and we're here." The man's voice went from 
 him as he thought of their separation from 
 their old home and the terrors of such a 
 change. He sat down ; he could say no more ; 
 his feelino;s had overmastered him. He mut- 
 tered, in the silence of the sympathy which 
 was felt for him, " We glory in being here ;
 
 MACALPINE. 185 
 
 and Andrew Cameron will have the deil on 
 his neck some day/' 
 
 The careworn face assumed a look of pride 
 as he spoke his emotion in these few words. 
 Alan looked into the dimmed eyes of the 
 stricken man, and read a soul which had risen 
 in these few moments far beyond comparison 
 with the man's who had done him the wrong. 
 It was his first and his last thrust at a 
 mean world which had robbed him of his 
 happiness. 
 
 Whispers of commiseration went through 
 the church, and all turned to the lecturer to 
 observe how he would treat this interference 
 with liberty. Alan's heart was deej^ly afiected, 
 and his spirit burned with indignation. It 
 was his first practical lesson in the vicious 
 courses of some politicians. He said he had 
 not believed that such tyranny now existed ; 
 the tale made him shudder as he had done on 
 reading the black pages of history. He would 
 have advised the crofters not to come, had he
 
 186 MACALPINE. 
 
 known of the threat. Meantime he would 
 proceed with the lecture, and they would 
 consider at the close what should be 
 done. 
 
 The lecturer began by an explanation of 
 how he came to address them, and then 
 sprung with enthusiastic leap into his subject, 
 which rather appertained to social progress 
 than politics proper. The practical solution 
 of the difficulty in elevating the masses to 
 their due life, he left to another occasion. 
 The abolition of the Entail Law, of the law of 
 Primogeniture, and various other questions, he 
 left alone. His object, then, was to show that 
 the wellbeing of all was the wellbeing of each, 
 and that the progress of the people and the 
 national strength would be chiefly promoted 
 by true appreciation of their moral and intel- 
 lectual being. He relished political discussion 
 only as it tended to the promotion of indi- 
 vidual happiness and the national strength ; and 
 he uttered his views not only for the hearing
 
 MACALPINE. 187 
 
 of those present, but for those elsewhere in- 
 terested. 
 
 Too high expectations had been formed in 
 the minds of the people as to what the posses- 
 sion of the franchise by itself could do for 
 them. It was an engine of power, but would 
 confer no benefit upon them without exer- 
 cising all those qualities of mind and body 
 necessary to the due use and guidance of the 
 machinery. He demanded thought, and a seek- 
 ing after greater knowledge of moral and physical 
 science, which even the most simply educated 
 could largely command by his own exertion. 
 Eank, wealth, and the culture the people 
 did not possess, would hold the sovereignty in 
 the nation, until the mass reached a higher 
 standard in knowledge and right aspiration. 
 Wealth and rank distributed immense influ- 
 ence of all kinds upon the mass, which gave 
 none in return except its call for more power ; 
 while his ambition was to see a communitv 
 entirely great, and having a vast influence.
 
 188 MACALPIXE. 
 
 without any consideration whatever of such 
 elements as these. The mass had now rather 
 to seek the advantages by which the power 
 they already possessed could he made effec- 
 tual — knowledge, and equal privileges in the 
 application of it. To that end all their efforts 
 must be directed, not for the purpose of find- 
 ing greater power as an end and for selfish 
 gratification, but as a means of raising the 
 mass of happiness through moral worth, se- 
 curity, independence, and national strength. 
 The frantic acts of blood-heated men would 
 never better the condition of themselves or 
 their country ; they must act, but with the 
 lever power of well-grounded beliefs and as- 
 pirations. An intense sense of personal in- 
 justice, however unlearned, might command 
 redress ; but limited in its appreciation, it sank 
 with the effort. There must be a sensitive 
 understanding seeking after the national wel- 
 fare, before the design of any individual in 
 political movement could be true. Upon rank
 
 MACALPINE. 189 
 
 and accumulated material wealth men had 
 been accustomed to look with occupied eyes, 
 so that they came to regard these as the en- 
 during elements of strength, creating an inca- 
 pacity for the truer riches of man's own being : 
 the husks were fast coming to take the place 
 which should be occupied by the kernel, so 
 powerful were the externals of the world upon 
 men's minds. This material sense must largely 
 fade with all men before a real progress could 
 be made, when nature, in the simplicity and 
 grandeur of its power, will have a true 
 operation. To the common brotherhood we 
 hastened only when a sense of this truth leapt 
 in the veins. A vast revolution was required 
 to a great extent in men's minds. With this 
 vein of belief in nature, as opposed to the show 
 of the world, arises a sense of livino; not alone 
 for ourselves but also for others. " Seek not 
 thine own, but each another's wealth," says St 
 Paul ; and Christianity, which founds its com- 
 mon life upon the simplicity of nature, is alto-
 
 190 MACALPINE. 
 
 gether despised when not attended to in this 
 living spirit of brotherhood. By the glowing 
 thoughts of heaven, or the terrors of hell, man 
 must be aroused to this as the first need of his 
 daily action. As it grew, fully but moderately 
 always, and with no senseless lavishness, men 
 would reap the harvest by a toil which would 
 not necessitate the one extreme of a debasing 
 or destroying scramble for bare existence, or 
 permit the other of an inglorious and prodigal 
 ease. With this spirit would exist industry, 
 but no ambition to amass, — temperance and 
 no repletion, — each individual living with 
 the proud possession of a noble law which he 
 fulfilled in the commonest concerns. " The 
 starving wretch who steals a piece of bread," 
 said the lecturer, '' is execrated by a society 
 which sees nothing to blush at in prodigalities; 
 yet the latter are most criminal, which debase 
 not only the offender himself, but defraud 
 many others through the law which enables 
 him to deal with what he holds without any
 
 MACALPINE. 191 
 
 account." Each who would not perish, but 
 live, had an equal liberty to the bringing of 
 an era of a higher and more active sense of 
 duty. How glorious a crown — unknown as it 
 might be to the world — gained in such a cause, 
 compared with the baubles which fall to the 
 votary of mere common personal ambition ! 
 But how was it in the world ? Life was still 
 the banquet of the philosopher, from which Ave 
 must prepare to quit to give place to others. 
 But was the presence of the Master of the 
 Feast acknowledged or ignored ? '' Would to 
 God,'^ cried the lecturer, " He were not o-ene- 
 rally ignored. The Creator has provided 
 unlimited sources of happiness for our just 
 appetites, and we cut each other's throats, tear 
 out each other's eyes, and scramble for the 
 provision at the table with the ravenous and 
 malicious mouths of wolves ; we wranole and 
 push the others from their stools, and look 
 upon men who are brothers as antagonists, 
 to be destroyed or subjected to isolation and
 
 192 MACALPINE. 
 
 fall." To those whose lives were much a 
 struggle to keep existence together, the appeal 
 to seek other considerations was altoo-ether 
 vain. 
 
 " Chill penury repressed their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of their soul." 
 
 Bitter grief and rage rested for ever in his 
 heart that such a condition of things existed 
 in a Christian land of plenty. In his own 
 experience the sight was but little owing to 
 the sufferers themselves. The utter selfish- 
 ness of men was largely the cause of it. " Let 
 each man here," said the lecturer, " resolve to 
 do what in him lies to remedy so cruel a sin. 
 By his sympathy and labour for the fallen he 
 will conciliate the hand of heaven, which pre- 
 pares its avenging bolts for the perpetrators 
 and indifferent seers of iniquity." 
 
 The lecturer then proceeded with some 
 history of divisions in the life of nations, and 
 usurpation of sections, by which came their 
 downfall Greece, Eome, modern Poland, and
 
 MACALPINE. 193 
 
 France, illustrated this subject : that where 
 life beat only in a part of the body it must 
 die. The history of Poland gave a painful 
 example of brave and heroic gentlemen endea- 
 vouring to sustain a nation, at the bottom of 
 which lay repressed masses. France was a 
 body continually rife with matter for the 
 political analyst. France would have been 
 saved the horrors of her fevers if the peasantry 
 had not been, previous to the great Eevolution, 
 trodden under foot of the landed magnates ; 
 and while the towns were permitted to breed 
 in squalid dens hordes of men and women 
 who were so far left to their misery as to find 
 passion's sway in the frenzies of revolution, the 
 nation became a victim to its own crime, and 
 the cause of humanity was wounded to the 
 quick. He disliked large towns as a man and 
 as a politician — they eugendered disease of 
 body and mind ; yet there was nothing done 
 to retain men in the country ; the whole 
 movement of the times was rather to drive 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 MACALPINE. 
 
 them from it. Short-sighted as well as cruel 
 policy ! Prussia had taken warning from 
 France ; aroused out of her sleep in the mis- 
 fortunes which befell her in the wars of 
 Napoleon, she had hastened to call into life 
 the streno-th of the nation. The kinoj at his 
 own hand abolished the seigneurial preroga- 
 tives of the feudal gentry ; he granted consti- 
 tutions to the towns and burghs, and decreed 
 the essentially democratic institutions of com- 
 pulsory education and the landwehr, a system 
 of military service in which there was an 
 absence of privilege and a disregard of rank 
 and wealth. Prussia will reap the harvest she 
 has sown. She will boast of having among 
 her children neither mere idlers of fashion nor 
 miserable rascals ; neither those who gather to 
 labour only as elements of dispeace, nor useless 
 consumers of others' labours. Her people 
 increase in moral and intellectual vigour. The 
 nation becomes invincible on its own soil. 
 Macalpine now particularly addressed him-
 
 MACALPINE. 195 
 
 self to those present. It was natural for him, 
 he said, to bestow the greatest share of his 
 affectionate regard upon the rural people or 
 peasantry. " The peasantry of our land,'' he 
 said, " have been in ancient times strons; as 
 free. They have degenerated in importance. 
 It was they who, being deserted by the nobles 
 in the times when Scotland was threatened 
 with national extinction, rallied around the 
 standard of the hero, and fought out her inde- 
 pendence with their blood. To them we owe 
 greatly the freedom and spirit of our native 
 land ; and that should be for ever remembered, 
 that the peasantry may be restored to a just 
 strength commensurate with the growth of 
 the nation ; promoting thus, too, an increase 
 of the national strength and glory. Woe be 
 to those and their time who commit aught by 
 which the brave sons of the soil degenerate and 
 fall away from their better selves, rather than 
 increase in numbers and vigour. Upon them 
 I will lay much of any misfortune — let us hope
 
 196 MACALPINE. 
 
 only peril —which befalls our native land. 
 Wealth and talent, and an intelligent town- 
 bred population, we have got ; but without the 
 proud sons of the mountain and the strath, 
 still glowing with the fire of their fathers, and 
 love of their fathers' and their own homes, the 
 land may become an assortment of moving 
 mummies, readily falling a prey to its 
 enemies." 
 
 Farmers were called upon to bestir them- 
 selves, to aid in the improvement of the soil, 
 by which larger supplies of food would be 
 obtained ; labourers were bound to call for a 
 thorough advance in the comforts and recrea- 
 tions of life. He came, then, to speak of those 
 who suffered degeneracy, keeping no pace with 
 the material progress of the age, and falling 
 far behind their dne place in the corporate 
 society — the body of peasants or small farmers, 
 or crofters and general labourers on the soil. 
 Why should they at that time be often huddled 
 in hovels rather than in sweet and convenient
 
 MACALPINE. 197 
 
 cottages ? why should they trudge on in daily 
 unremitting labour without fair hopes of 
 advance in things needful to promote and 
 keep up the charm of existence 1 Eeligion 
 and morals stood paramount, but man could 
 not live by these ; his imagination dulled, he 
 could but dimly perceive that greatness 
 attained by living in them. The envy of the 
 jaded man of pleasure, or of him with sordid 
 and vain passions, could never be aroused at 
 the sicrht of dull or meag;re content. He 
 wished the strong, free, and joyous peasant 
 to fuljfil a picture of true happiness to the 
 world. That picture was not often there, 
 surrounded as its material was by the sublime 
 and the beautiful in nature ; human life in its 
 midst was neither sufficiently attended to in 
 material needs and in education — and there- 
 fore most often desecrated — to permit of the 
 charm being continued to it. Sad story ! And 
 it was frequently cast out in consequence. It 
 was the duty of every patriot to hasten the
 
 198 MACALPINE. 
 
 time when this would be no longer so. The 
 happiness of the whole people, the national 
 strength, was concerned in the work of restor- 
 ing to the soil, men in a condition vigorous on 
 all sides. He said that the colonial policy, 
 stigmatised by Brougham as "allotthig the 
 sweat and dust to the African, and securiDg 
 to the European the fruit and the shade/^ was 
 really the policy of some Britons towards their 
 own countrymen, who were retained in a vir- 
 tual subjection, or driven off the face of the 
 land. The land of the crofter had largely 
 become, and was becoming still, the desolate 
 sheep range and the deer forest. The land 
 that God designed for the nurture of the 
 hardiest race of men, was given over to the 
 beast and the occasional tread of the man of 
 purse. What were even some so-called im- 
 provements to those who had associated with 
 the scenes the completeness of their days ? 
 There were other rights as just as the rights 
 of property. Property must be treated so as
 
 MACALPINE. 199 
 
 to give access to its fullest benefits for the 
 general \Yeal. The nation was entitled to see 
 that property was justly used for the com- 
 munal benefit. It must be managed w^ith a 
 due regard to the welfare of the immediate 
 community and the nation at large. 
 
 Too learned and aspiring for their daily lives 
 the audience generally considered the lecture 
 to be, though they were none the less pleased ; 
 the enthusiastic manner of the speaker fully 
 showing his own belief in the justice and 
 realisation of his picture. There was loud 
 applause by the stamping of heavy feet and 
 cries of " bravo," and " hurrah,'' as Alan uttered 
 the closino; word. 
 
 The party from Morven Castle entered the 
 church and took possession of the Culonel's 
 pew, just as Alan was entering upon his 
 sympathetic description of the Polish nation- 
 ality. Their appearance occasioned much sur- 
 prise, and also some interruption. 
 
 Ballatruim's entrance had caused particular
 
 200 MACALPINE. 
 
 wonder ; but it was whispered he was the 
 worse of his wine. He sat with his hands 
 joined before him supporting his irresolute 
 lookino; mouth. He stared hard at the 
 lecturer, and two or three times gave a 
 querulous grunt which drew all eyes upon 
 him, and latterly the cold, determined look of 
 Macalpine. He was abashed only as an 
 inflamed man is who postpones evil inten- 
 tions. Captain Hamilton and others who 
 were cool enough fully to comprehend what 
 they heard were boiling with rage, while too 
 much alive to some recent events to hazard 
 decided interruption. 
 
 There was one occupant of the pew who 
 listened with very different feelings from the 
 others. This was Lucretia Mar. She was not 
 a Tory ; the party had no attraction for her 
 restless spirit. She hated the past as she 
 knew it, and as she believed the Tory rejoiced 
 altogether in it, she disliked Toryism. Stag- 
 nation she detested ; and it seemed to her that
 
 MACALPINE. 201 
 
 her life had grown up in a state little better. 
 Always had been dinned into her ears the old 
 worn platitudes of party, until " political 
 principles " became to her one dull unmusical 
 monotone, reserved for old men to harp at 
 for want of energy to enunciate a deep har- 
 mony out of the broad, many-keyed instru- 
 ment, humanity. It seemed to her that if 
 Macalpine were a specimen of the Eadical, 
 these men were not what they had always 
 been represented. She had learned to think 
 of them as political murderers, who plotted 
 the death of the State. She was now carried 
 away by the enthusiastic heart which sent 
 forth flashes in the enunciated and yet calm 
 tones of his well modulated voice ; the, to her, 
 singularly ideal and aspiring fervour of his 
 sentiment charmed her. There was a power 
 in the speaker she had not heretofore wit- 
 nessed, and she was captivated by it, not as 
 an inflammable girl, but as a woman of the 
 world, with a temper to some extent above
 
 202 MACALPINE. 
 
 woman's commoner vanities, embraces the 
 realisation of some vision of man loftier and 
 stronger than those she is accustomed with at 
 her side. 
 
 That night she had been struck to the quick 
 at the cold leave-taking, particularly of the 
 ladies of her party. She was quick at reading 
 others, and she felt they intimated a desire not 
 to see her again. She cared not, nor was hurt ; 
 she despised, and to-night she was drawn towards 
 the denouncer of, stiff " people of privilege." 
 
 *' Now," said Alan, '' that I have laid down 
 my paper, I would return to the subject we were 
 called on to attend to before I began." It was 
 evident he was now done with atiy ideality 
 with which he may have excited his mind in 
 the closet. He was in the presence of the 
 actual. The antagonistic growls of Ballatruim 
 and some of the other occupants of the Morven 
 pew, had irritated the spirit of indignation 
 excited within him by the tyrannic conduct 
 of Sir Andrew Cameron.
 
 MAC ALPINE. 203 
 
 "No," cried Ballatruim, rising instantly upon 
 his legs, flushed and unsteady ; " you are a rebel, 
 and have spread sedition in this church, for 
 which you must answer." 
 
 " That may be your opinion, sir/' was Mac- 
 alpine's calm but firm reply. " This meeting 
 was not called for discussion, though," he 
 added ; *' should you desire to defend your 
 opinions, I doubt not my audience will listen 
 to you." 
 
 Alan sat down as if to hear the laird fur- 
 ther. 
 
 "I am not here to bandy w^ords with such 
 people," said Ballatruim, furious at the other s 
 coolness. "I am a magistrate, and I forbid 
 this meeting proceeding further." 
 
 This speech caused a titter even among the 
 company in the Morven pew. It was de- 
 livered with all Ballatruim's dignity, but was 
 late by nearly half a century. 
 
 "Since discussion then is not to be at- 
 tempted," Alan went on with calm dignity.
 
 204 MACALPINE. 
 
 "I ask that this meeting pass a resolution 
 reo'ardino; the crofters who have been threat- 
 ened with removal for attending. I charac- 
 terize the threat as tyrannical, and view it with 
 indignation and shame ; and move that it be 
 so set down in writing, and the minute for- 
 warded to every landlord in the county/' 
 
 ,"I will burn it unopened, and thrash the 
 beggarly hound who brings it," cried Balla- 
 truim. 
 
 " This is no case for beo-o-ino;. The authors 
 of such cowardly practices must be over- 
 whelmed with public opprobrium," answered 
 the lecturer, still calm. 
 
 " Do you mean me 1 I demand to know if I 
 am included," cried Ballatruim. 
 
 Alan was determined not to allow his 
 temper to give way at this repeated provoca- 
 tion, yet it was an abuse of Ballatruim's 
 authority which wounded his pride. He rose 
 again, and, addressing Ballatruim, said, " I 
 demand that you sit down, and cease to inter-
 
 MACALPINE. 205 
 
 rupt, otherwise it will be necessary to expel 
 you from the church." 
 
 Some of the agriculturists, unused to see 
 the laird's authority questioned in the least 
 degree, quivered at the language of their cham- 
 pion. 
 
 Ballatruim, with the demon of reveno-e in 
 his heart, silently prepared himself to inflict a 
 blow which should startle his enemy with its 
 completeness and suddenness. Gropiug with 
 one of his long arms, he took hold of a small 
 footstool which he found opportunely at the 
 feet of Lucretia Mar, who sat on his right 
 hand. Gently he drew it up) on his knee. 
 
 Meanwhile, Oliver Arnot seconded the mo- 
 tion which had just been made. He said he 
 was a Tory of the old school, who would never 
 see a good neighbour starve so long as he had 
 a loaf and a can of milk to share wath him. 
 He w^as no man for changes, but he was horri- 
 fied to hear the story of Elshie, and he 
 seconded the motion of Mr Alan Macalpine.
 
 206 MACALPINE. 
 
 " And now for a vote of thanks," were the 
 words of McTavish, jauntily, ere he had yet 
 time to rise from his seat. 
 
 "There!" howled a voice which resounded 
 in the small church. All eyes were turned 
 towards Ballatruim, and there, overhead, he 
 grasped with the full grip of his right hand 
 the edixe of the stool, while one of the leo:s was 
 in the left hand of Miss Mar, who held it so 
 tight that her arm was strained in the effort. 
 Caught, as he was, by the watchful and quick 
 energy of a woman, the force of the iniquity 
 he purposed struck him with shame, and he 
 sank upon the seat like a helpless drunkard. 
 The incident was the signal for great commo- 
 tion. The door of the church had been for 
 some time partially ajar, through which, now 
 and ao-ain, little crowds of farm servants and 
 the less intelligent of the villagers, endeavoured 
 to listen, without incurring the dangers to 
 place and employment they believed conse- 
 quent upon their full countenance of the meet-
 
 MAC ALPINE. 207 
 
 ing. Among these were conspicuous several 
 servants of Ballatruim and of Sir Andrew 
 Cameron. These, observino; somethino; of what 
 was going on, opened the door full wide, just 
 as some labourers and others in the pews be- 
 side the Morven one rose as if to hold the 
 savao;e Ballatruim. Imamnino; this was the 
 signal for attack upon the laird, a crj arose 
 from without that he was being murdered, 
 which in the agitation of the times spread far 
 and fast. Armed with sticks, these burst in 
 in a seething mass, and the audience near the 
 door were driven forward into the body of the 
 church. The frail wood-work of the pews 
 beside the Morven one gave way, and the 
 men in possession of Ballatruim were, with the 
 loud and coarse curse of an infuriated band, 
 struck heavily by their assailants. 
 
 In the general commotion, the endeavours 
 of Alan and others to command attention 
 were unheard. No man seemed to compre- 
 hend whence this sudden fury had arisen, and
 
 208 MACALPINE. 
 
 the deepening darkness lent a mystery to it, as 
 it seemed expended in no rational endeavour, 
 but only to strike down those nearest to hand, 
 whether friend or foe. 
 
 The western door was now thrown open, 
 and many made their way towards it, includ- 
 ing the occupants of the Morven pew, with the 
 exception of Ballatruim, who was in the hold 
 of half-a-dozen men. Alan had not left his 
 seat, prominent though it was for any missile, 
 and the pulpit and steps were occupied by a 
 band of his supporters who, in their loud cries 
 for order, added to the confusion. Miss Mar, 
 yet unhurt, stood fearful of the crush in front 
 of the desk. The danger was at her side, for 
 the insensate crowd was pressing onward, and 
 she might be trampled down or smothered. 
 By a clever leap, Alan reached and seized 
 hold of her, and with some pain to himself, 
 half lifted her into the desk — she was 
 safe. 
 
 "I have scarcely deserved this," she whis-
 
 MACALPINE. 209 
 
 pered to Alan, faintly, when she had recovered 
 a little ; havino; seen the danger he incurred. 
 
 " Yon have saved 7ne," was the answer. 
 
 The commotion had now about spent itself ; 
 some wounds and bruises had been inflicted 
 without any serious injuries. Ballatruim had 
 fared badly enough, as he deserved. He was 
 carried, sensible, though greatly bruised, to his 
 carriage. Alan conducted Miss Mar to her 
 party, who had waited for her at the door. 
 
 " I am of no political party," she said to 
 Alan, at parting. "Perhaps a lady should not 
 be ; therefore I am able to appreciate truth and 
 oreat actions on whichever side I find them." 
 There was still a tone of condescension here, 
 of which the speaker herself was conscious ! 
 Had her admiration not conquered that '? 
 
 Alan spoke low a few words in answer. 
 
 "You may make the daughter of an old 
 Tory a decided believing Eadical," she added, 
 more gaily. 
 
 "It is action, not cold belief, Miss Mar, 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 210 MACALPINE. 
 
 that is required. There are more believers — 
 passive believers — at heart than you know of," 
 answered Alan, as they approached her party. 
 Her evident efforts to secure his esteem — bold 
 as these were, after what had occurred between 
 them at the Castle — mollified him while in her 
 presence, and there grew a softness in his ac- 
 cents towards her. 
 
 Throwing all the meaning permissible into 
 her response, she said, as she bade Alan good- 
 night, " I will not forget that there has been a 
 pleasant episode in to-night's adventure. For 
 the rest I trust to time." Alan turned to 
 greet Oliver Arnot, whose voice he heard be- 
 hind him, but he had caught the full smile of 
 Miss Mar upon himself. He knew its mean- 
 ing, and he again lifted his hat as the party 
 drove off.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 On the afternoon of an early day following 
 the events narrated in the previous chapter, 
 Alan was preparing to set out to continue an 
 investigation into the cause of the riot at the 
 church, when a messenger arrived from Mor- 
 ven Castle, with a letter addressed to him by 
 Colonel Mar. The Colonel wished to see Alan, 
 the first time he passed, anent the education of 
 the female children of the parish. 
 
 The aflfair at the church had been the talk of 
 the county on the Sunday and following days, 
 and rumour, which had at the same time 
 Colonel Mar's character in its care, had associ- 
 ated the commotion with some sinister desip^n 
 of the old Indian and his daughter. These 
 rumours had already borne fruit, to the chagrin 
 of Miss Mar, in the absence of the expected
 
 212 MACALPINE. 
 
 civilities consequent upon her party and upon 
 her danger in the church, and in positive rude- 
 ness from some quarters. 
 
 *' Where bound for, Alan 1 " asked old Mac- 
 alpine, when he saw his son on horseback. 
 The old man had been jauntier since the lec- 
 ture in the church. Fond of applause and 
 notoriety, that which his son received was 
 nourishment to him. 
 
 " To Morven Castle," was the answer. 
 
 "Gratifying their selfish pride," said the 
 father, placing emphasis on the last two words, 
 Avhich he remembered were Alan's own in 
 speaking of Colonel Mar on a former occasion. 
 " But you are right — quite right ; live by the 
 rising sun — not by the expiring candle ; you 
 Avill be in the cold and the dark if you do 
 not." Tlie laird's humour set adrift his mar- 
 riage scheme. 
 
 Alan had had experience of taunts on the 
 part of his father. He knew that his father 
 was incapable of appreciating his character,
 
 MAC ALPINE. 213 
 
 whicli was probably his deepest sorrow. Con- 
 tinual misconstruction by tbat one who in 
 nature should know us truly, has a corroding 
 influence, even upon the best of characters. 
 
 "Perhaps I am gratifying my own, rather," 
 was his answer. 
 
 Boderick Macalpine was puzzled. As Alan 
 w^ent off", the laird shook his head. " There was 
 something more than natural going on,'' which 
 his philosophy could not find out. 
 
 It was Lucretia Mar whom Alan again saw 
 alone on being admitted to the drawing-room 
 of Morven Castle, and he at once thought that 
 the communication he had received must have 
 been inspired by her. She was again arrayed 
 in that superb richness which a handsome 
 person alone permits the wearer to adopt with- 
 out being liable to a charge of ostentation. 
 She did not permit her visitor on this occasion 
 to walk alone the length of the long room, — 
 meeting him nearly at the door, while she 
 walked with him towards that window where
 
 214 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 recently she had turned her eyes from him. 
 Now she looked out with him upon the river, 
 the oak-clad hill, and the blue mountain-peak 
 resting in calm majesty in the peace of a 
 summer night. 
 
 " I must apologise, Miss Mar, for not calling 
 personally on Sunday, rather than sending to 
 inquire for you," said Alan; *'but you seemed 
 so little the worse, that I expected you would 
 be as it proved." 
 
 " I wished to see you," she said, with a look 
 of perfect frankness, " before you meet Colonel 
 Mar. I told you I belonged to no political 
 party : I have become a convert to yours. 
 Toryism is antiquated and tiresome." 
 
 " And what," asked Alan, somewhat amused, 
 '^ does Miss Mar expect by becoming a Eadical, 
 as she doubtless names me. The first result 
 will be her father's displeasure, if not more." 
 
 "No," she replied; "I speak to you frankly: 
 my days have been spent among people whose 
 minds were covered with the cobwebs of age,
 
 MACALPIXE. 215 
 
 wliicli they were too lazy to take the trouble 
 to remove. They regarded the world as they 
 saw it from their own door-steps, beyond which 
 they were not privileged to gaze. My father I 
 have only known within the last two years ; 
 and he is silent, and broods upon the past, 
 which is his all in all. Society I have found 
 concerning itself only with the petty details 
 of its little life, its gaiety at the best assumed. 
 When Colonel Mar proposed purchasing this 
 estate in the Highlands, where I had never 
 been excej)t in the romantic pages of Sir 
 Walter Scott, I was delighted beyond bounds, 
 and imagined such free existence everywhere 
 as you yourself pictured on Saturday. Judge, 
 then, my surprise and disappointment when I 
 find all the dreadful mediocrity of manner and 
 tameness of existence more fully displayed 
 than in London. The everlasting tittle-tattle 
 of the picture, or the new opera, w^ere prefer- 
 able to a discussion of the movements of your 
 next door neighbour, or the height of his new
 
 216 MACALPINE. 
 
 pony, or even the condition of the political 
 roll of the county. Now I expect that, by 
 becoming a Eadical, I join a cause in which 
 there is movement — colours to be won ; it will 
 relieve me from the embarrassment of ennui, 
 and the presence of fools." 
 
 Here was a situation, — a star of the first 
 magnitude found in Alan the cynosure of her 
 eyes. But Alan was wary. 
 
 " I sympathise with you. Miss Mar," he re- 
 plied, " while I must say you are unacquainted 
 with the world if you think to leap out of your 
 situation in a moment. If you proclaim your- 
 self to-morrow a Eadical, I repeat, how will 
 Colonel Mar regard the singularity "? " 
 
 " He will approve my exercise of my own 
 judgment.'^ 
 
 " And those about you, upon w^hom you are 
 dependent for society ? " 
 
 "Let them receive it as they may. I am 
 already sick of their commonplace airs, which, 
 if they are those inherited of the Conqueror,
 
 MACALPINE. 217 
 
 or Fingal liimself, very mucli dwarf tlie 
 romance of history. No, sir; tell me at once 
 liow I may become a Kadical." 
 
 " You are in tlie wrong quarter," said Mac- 
 alpine, smiling, " applying to me for the decla- 
 ration of party. I belong to none. I care 
 little for party principles or cries. My ambi- 
 tion is to see the barriers destroyed wdiicli 
 impede the progress of the people. I make no 
 battle to acquire power for myself." 
 
 *' You do not mean to say that you do not 
 desire a seat in Parliament, wdth the rank and 
 influence it brings. Permit me to say you 
 would be likely to command more success 
 there than the samples of members I have 
 recently known.'' 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but I have no such desire. 
 Even if it were natural to entertain such a wdsh, 
 I know that the happiness of myself and others 
 would be best promoted by keeping out of it." 
 
 " Ah, you w^ill change," said Miss Mar, as 
 she swept round with the folds of her dazzling
 
 218 MACALPTNE. 
 
 dress, while with a laugh of pleasing intimacy 
 she looked into Macalpine's face. " I know you 
 possess sufficient of the common and common- 
 sense material of men to be able to come down 
 from the height on which you now stand." 
 
 Lucretia Mar was evidently playing a game. 
 She cared nothing for either political, phil- 
 anthropic, patriotic, or any other principles 
 whatever, even while she pretended to discuss 
 them. She cared for power over something 
 superior to the trifling objects upon which 
 she found women everywhere prattling away 
 their days. She had neither seen at her feet, 
 nor yet heard of, the Highland lord of noble 
 mien, chief of the mountains, master of the 
 baronial halls, and disposer of lives of vassals. 
 
 But before her was one not incapable, by 
 the advantages of nature and education, of 
 realisino; her ideal hero. She saw in him 
 more than the son of a ruined laird, though 
 still deprived of all the vulgar yet necessary 
 accessories to the idealization.
 
 MACALPTNE. 219 
 
 It was rather an incentive than a vexation 
 to Lucretia Mar to find that, despite all this, 
 she had a battle to fidit ere the son of Eode- 
 rick Macalpine ^YOllld surrender to her charms. 
 She saw plainly enough that his heart might 
 have been in Kamtschatka for all the real 
 influence over it she had yet exercised. His 
 coldness but determined her upon double exer- 
 tion. Here was work for her hitherto tame 
 hours — to acquire the heart as well as the 
 hand of the only man she had yet found 
 worthy such exertion. It was not with any 
 intention to be immolated that she decided 
 upon winning him : her elevation to a throne 
 of social eminence as the wife of a man of 
 genius had large part in her passion. She 
 imaD;ined herself the centre of crowds distin- 
 guished in political and social life — in the 
 ascendant against that array of tottering ex- 
 clusiveness which she had uneasily looked 
 upon, and was too proud to follow after. 
 
 " Before you see Colonel Mar I have a boon
 
 220 MACALPINE. 
 
 to ask of you," said Miss Mar, in her very- 
 softest tones. " I have received a present 
 of this album, and my petition is that 
 you open it with a specimen of your own 
 powers." 
 
 Alan opened the album mechanically. At 
 the first page there he read what ap^^eared to 
 give him pain. His face coloured ; and xnth 
 his eyes riveted upon the lines before him, 
 he told Miss Mar that the book was already 
 provided with an opening inscription. She 
 answered she was not aware of it. 
 
 " Then you do not dissemble to surprise me, 
 Miss Mar," Alan said. *' Here are transcribed 
 some doggerel lines, said to be of old date, and 
 to refer to my family. They were painful to 
 my mother — so much so as to cause her un- 
 comfortable nervous apprehensions when they 
 came into her head. I had buried their re- 
 collection. It is most strange to find them 
 here!" 
 
 " I never saw them before, and never heard
 
 MACALPINE. 221 
 
 of the rhyme. How odd!'' and she repeated 
 one of the verses : — 
 
 " Macalpine's bluid will mix like wine, 
 When Morven Castle lie shall tyne ; 
 Macalpine's heir will have his ain, 
 Ere that lost bluid can run again." 
 
 " There is some mystery even in the hand- 
 writing," she continued. She added, thought- 
 fully, " Do you not take consolation from the 
 last two lines, which give back to the heir of 
 Macalpine the lands of Morven '? If there is 
 pain intended, it is for me, who am apparently 
 to be dispossessed — if the sting is not to be taken 
 out of the rhyme by keeping the word of promise 
 to sense and ear by some happy conformity." 
 This was said with so much good-humour that 
 Alan could not doubt her sincerity. 
 
 " Why do you not tear the doggerel out of 
 the book, Miss Mar*?'' Alan inquired. 
 
 " I will burn the book itself if you desire it, 
 though it seems to me you have most reason 
 to keep the prophecy in remembrance," was 
 the answer.
 
 222 MACALPINE. 
 
 " I see you do not believe in the prophecy," 
 remarked Alan, with a seriousness which im- 
 posed upon his companion. 
 
 "Do you 1" she inquired quickly, and with 
 some eagerness. 
 
 "There are strange decrees in fate," he re- 
 joined, dreamily ; "and in the family of Mac- 
 alpine there are records of what we term 
 miraculous interpositions. They have been 
 always falling, yet never have actually fallen ; 
 it has just been when they seemed incapable 
 of ever again rising to the surface that they 
 reach the haven." 
 
 Lucre tia Mar's countenance fell and rose. 
 " Then I have to contemplate all the horrors of 
 ruin, — my father reduced to meanness, and I 
 the schoolmistress of the parish, cleaning the 
 dirty paws of peasant urchins, and torturing 
 my imagination with the alphabet.'' 
 
 " If I were a believer in augury and your 
 humility, I might consider such a picture 
 justifiable by this mysterious presentation.''
 
 MAC ALPINE. 223 
 
 " I regard the intrusion of this rhyme as 
 too serious an aflfair to treat lightly, and will 
 be at the bottom of it/' cried Miss Mar, 
 scarcely knoAving how to treat the seriously 
 spoken banter of Alan. " Meantime, do me 
 the favour to turn over the leaf and forget it. 
 I cannot tear it out now. It may be true, and 
 I not dispossessed,^' she continued, in gay 
 familiarity. 
 
 " I am in no poet's mood, Miss Mar," re- 
 marked Alan. " I am unequal to the scribble." 
 
 " Then give me your last essay 1 " she 
 asked. 
 
 "I amuse myself with the sonnet," Alan 
 said, with a little flush ; " but my last verses 
 on a mountain daisy and a meadow rose might 
 be displeasing to one I should compare rather 
 with the latter than the humbler flower." 
 
 " Nay, nay," she answered, recovering still 
 further to a sprightly humour. " I am all 
 eagerness while you WTite ; let me learn my 
 character in allegory."
 
 224 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 So Alan wrote; Miss Mar busying herself 
 around, her fine form, in well-proportioned 
 magnificence, seen in most graceful attitudes. 
 
 Two flowers there were gave incense to the mom. 
 
 First in the mountain-pass a daisy grew, 
 Beside the tangled broom and homely thorn, 
 
 That took my eyes from off all other hue ; 
 Methought it opened to my quest of view. 
 
 Thus off more keenly cast the dew of night. 
 And spread its beauty to the breeze that blew, 
 
 Pleasing itself and me with every might ; 
 Tricked in the sunbeam, it laughed full out, 
 
 And ducked as if the storm might come when will ; 
 No sucker of its sweets can put to rout 
 
 The golden riches in its bosom still ; 
 Ne'er truer flower upon the mountain grows 
 Than that sweet blossom which my summer knows. 
 
 In splendour decked, a rose in meadow lay. 
 
 Not all the foliage of the land might vie 
 The colour rich, the leaves that scent the day, 
 
 The pride that spoke to every floweret by ; 
 Beneath the sun how boldly stood the bloom, 
 
 And to its luscious life each passer fain — 
 Its fondest wish was to evade the gloom. 
 
 Full knowing well how ill it stood the pain 
 Of severance from its well nurtured store. 
 
 Which base intruders might all wreck with greed. 
 Or falling cloud disperse as thing of yore, 
 
 And it despair because of very need ; 
 In this the pamper of a better born — 
 The hardy way-flower of its virtue shorn.
 
 MACALPINE. 225 
 
 After he had written the verses, he handed 
 the album to his companion, who read them 
 aloud. She shut and laid down the book, and 
 turned away with an affectation of indigna- 
 tion. " You were shocked," she said, return- 
 ino; to Alan, and smilino; throuo-h seeminor 
 vexation, " to find written this mysterious 
 prophecy of my weak inheritance, and yet you 
 follow it up with a comparison unfavourable 
 to my strength of character. Is not this 
 cruel ? " 
 
 " I could have no right to depict Miss Mar's 
 character upon so short an acquaintance. The 
 second sonnet is drawn from imagination 
 alone," observed Alan^ without raisins; his 
 eyes, but with marked emphasis. 
 
 She did not inquire whether the first sonnet 
 had been inspired by experience. She looked 
 as if she wished not to know further. 
 
 " I observe," she said, " that you set yourself 
 
 to extol simplicity." 
 
 '' Simple truth, miscalled simplicity," re- 
 VOL. I. p
 
 226 MACALPINE. 
 
 peated Alan, interrupting her, " in the words 
 of the world's truest poet. It is simple truth 
 to extol the sweetness and refinements of 
 nature which are within the reach of all, aLove 
 the coarse and costly exaggerations of the 
 conventional world.'' 
 
 She gave a shrug of good-humoured in- 
 credulity. 
 
 " Ah ! " replied Alan, " * true happiness costs 
 little; if it be dear it is not of good quality,' 
 says Chateaubriand. That is my own experi- 
 ence. You still ask if all this be sincere — if it 
 be not merely the humour of the hour, to give 
 the preference to the natural over that material 
 glitter with which society has invested all its 
 belon^inos. The love of nature is written 
 indelibly in my heart ; when it fades life itself 
 will be feeble, and I will know decay and 
 death have placed their first mark upon me." 
 
 Macalpine paused. Miss Mar was gratified 
 that he so spoke. No woman of ability but will 
 love a man of talent for addressing himself to
 
 MACALPINE. 227 
 
 her intellect. *^ Go on," slie observed, her 
 expression evidencing complete interest. 
 
 He hesitated ; but he thought he read a 
 sincerity. His stern enthusiasm had had its 
 influence. " The world's truest spirits," he 
 continued, " have always sickened on its pomp, 
 though woman probably wearies only at the 
 last." There was a deep romantic melancholy 
 in the shade which passed over the speaker's 
 face. It did not fail to entrance his com- 
 panion. She felt for an instant a reality pre- 
 sent to her greater than the realities she had 
 only hitherto believed in. She had seen the 
 reflection of far off passion, of a heart which 
 had stirred in these solitary wilds at many a 
 sadness, and moved with many an aspiring 
 glow, capable of the deepest love. 
 
 " Since the world began, men have been as 
 fond as women of the pomp of life," urged 
 Miss Mar, as Alan's slowly spoken sentence 
 ceased. "You are not quit with its richer 
 gaieties ; do not tell me so."
 
 228 MACALPINE. 
 
 " Why '? " he asked. 
 
 *' You are a poet, are you not 1 The mere 
 inarch and array — ^ the pomp, pride, and cir- 
 cumstance ' — have as much ckxim on poetic 
 imaofinations as the cause of battle." 
 
 " Not in my case ; my aspirations are too 
 serious. I am ever painfully alive to the end 
 of things ; and if I permit myself to indulge in 
 illusions, I hope it is never when a worthy 
 cause is in progress. Besides, I do not follow 
 after the poetry of our day. Do you know 
 why I prefer Homer and Shakespeare ? Not 
 for the gorgeousness of their diction : for the 
 simplicity of their thoughts. What modern 
 rhymer has strength and light enough to make 
 his hero siofh for the sidit of the smoke of his 
 own chimney, or seek the hatchet and the plough 
 while he is retained in the sublime '? You re- 
 member Ulysses yearned to escape from the 
 arms even of a goddess, that he might retire to 
 his wife and child, and watch the smoke of his 
 own Ithaca. He was a wood-cutter, and the
 
 MACALPINE. 229 
 
 maker of his bed, and clialleDges the skill of 
 the suitor to sow a meadow and drive the 
 straight furrow down the field. These simple 
 habits and loves are not now sung, the prac- 
 tice of them being obloquy, if not contempt. 
 The man who casts off showy ambition and 
 success, and works in the fields, is either eccen- 
 tric or incapacitated/' 
 
 Lucretia Mar was puzzled; the whole matter 
 was new to her as a new world. While cer- 
 tainly not convinced, the fervid manner of 
 Macalpine held possession of her mind for the 
 time. Utopian she believed his aspirations 
 to be. As with many eternal truths to which 
 the world listens and is supposed to believe in, 
 the voice was just so much sound. Yet she, 
 strangely, accepted his expression of his mind 
 as simply a feeler on his side, ere he sought 
 what must delig-ht him to win. 
 
 After a pause, in which she appeared to re- 
 flect, and Alan inclined as if to leave her, she 
 said, brightly, — " You cannot leave me only
 
 230 MACALPINE. 
 
 half your way of thinking, as a sportsman 
 leaves the woimdecl bird, finding it not worth 
 more shot, or the trouble of carriage. Colonel 
 Mar will be waiting for you ; but tell me 
 when we may resume discussion — at present I 
 am hors de combat!' 
 
 The haughty w^oman bent down with a 
 little feelino; of submission which could not be 
 assumed; so naturally plaintive, if insinuating, 
 became the grace of her speech, catching the 
 full animate eyes of the man she addressed, as 
 his heart swelled upon thoughts of the past, and 
 which the sweet spirit of Ellen Lee had not 
 aroused with violence, as apparently the contact 
 Avith this dark strong woman had done. Alan 
 expressed himself as honoured by the pupilage 
 of the lady. Soon thereafter he was gone from 
 her presence. 
 
 Upon Macalpine leaving the room, Miss Mar 
 sat gazing upon the pages of the album, now 
 thinking of the lines before her as somehow 
 bearing upon her own destiny, then abstracted
 
 MACALPINE. 231 
 
 upon liim who had left her. She had been 
 affected in that interview as she had never 
 been with man, observing well the traces of 
 the influence which any woman of no com- 
 mon material can exert, when she tries, over 
 the feelings of a man not unimpressionable to 
 the charms of her sex. What thoug;h he were 
 difficult 1 She believed in the omnipotence of 
 her o'old. Most women would have shrunk at 
 a purchase : not so Lucretia Mar. She had a 
 masculine temper, and as a man buys a pretty 
 woman, so she felt she could call a lord of the 
 creation to her side, by her talisman. 
 
 Nearly an hour passed away, and Miss Mar 
 still sat before her album, when Colonel Mar 
 entered the room. He was as tame lookincr as 
 his dauo;hter was animated — in the old worn 
 dressing-gown which wrapped his shrivelled 
 frame, and with his demure face, he appeared 
 more like a draggled sparrow than a soldier. 
 
 " Lucretia, I have changed my mind," he 
 mumbled.
 
 232 MACALPINE. 
 
 She looked surprised, and rose hastily, bit- 
 ing her lip. 
 
 *' My intention is to shoot the father ; not to 
 ask you to marry the son." 
 
 She was lately more surprisingly accustomed 
 to his strange humours. She decidedly thought 
 that recent excitement had affected his brain. 
 
 " It is too late," she cried, however ;. *' he 
 knows I love him." 
 
 Colonel Mar growled, with a fierce sternness 
 which she understood, " You must forget 
 him." 
 
 She buried her face in her stern pride from 
 the light of the day. Had Alan Macalpine 
 known her then, a deep sympathy would at 
 once have rested in his heart for this woman. 
 
 "Ah, Lucretia," the Colonel said, seeing the 
 open album, " you have already read this old 
 woman's rhyme. It has been cast in my teeth 
 more than once since our comino;, and I have 
 begun to dream nightly of it. I have had a 
 horrid feel iijg in connection with it, and I have
 
 MACALPINE. 233 
 
 adopted the prescription of having it written 
 down, that I may dispel the goblin of ima- 
 gination with familiarity." He spoke with a 
 humour ill at ease. He was haunted by other 
 pain than the goblin rhyme. 
 
 " But no more, Lucfetia, about this/' he 
 said, resuming his old quiet indififerent manner; 
 " we shall be the laughing-stock of the county. 
 You have, as usual, been too ^precipitate. You 
 may make a grand selection with your for- 
 tune. This Highland vanity irritates me to 
 distraction." 
 
 Colonel Mar shuffled away as he had en- 
 tered. His daughter remained, sitting alone, 
 until the few stars of the summer night were 
 visible throuoh the darkness of the room. 
 
 Macalpine learned from Colonel Mar that he 
 was desirous to establish a school for girls, and 
 he asked the assistance of Alan in carrying out 
 the design. The proprietor of Morven had 
 reflected long upon the interview which Alan 
 had had with him, resulting largely in in-
 
 234 MACALPINE. 
 
 creased admiration of the character of the son 
 of his predecessor ; and the report which his 
 dau2:hter brouo;ht to him of the lecture and 
 conduct of Alan in the church, had deter- 
 mined him to seek the aid of so active a spirit 
 in a scheme of doino; o-ood. He believed Alan 
 to be reasonable, and he thought they would^ 
 2:et on so well too-ether that he mio:ht almost 
 
 o o o 
 
 urge certain things for young Macalpine's own 
 benefit. It happened that, although they 
 agreed altogether about the school, in the 
 promotion of which Alan eagerly offered his 
 best services, that when Colonel Mar came to 
 make a suoj-o-estion as to Alan's own aflfairs, 
 he again ruffled the delicate pride of the 
 young Highlander, who drew back with a 
 pain and chagrin he did not altogether con- 
 ceal. They parted as friends, but a breach 
 had been made, not to be healed in a day, so 
 far as the Colonel was concerned, piqued, as 
 he had been so often, at what he deemed the 
 world's ingratitude.
 
 MACALPINE. 235 
 
 The meeting in the church, followed by the 
 interview with Liicretia Mar, startled Alan. 
 What was only at first a fanciful apprehension, 
 suddenly dispelled, had turned mysteriously, 
 as it seemed to him, into a reality. Not pos- 
 sessing a particle of vanity, he was at loss to 
 account for her advances. He knew the nature 
 of this woman too well, nurtured, too, as she 
 was, in the school of mammon, to believe that 
 personal attractions, however high, would out- 
 weigh the sense of his poverty and his fallen 
 state. Yet what fortune could he have pos- 
 sibly awaiting him '? He had been little in 
 the society of a woman like this — superb in 
 person, in adornment, in force and ease of 
 bearing, such as a knowledge of power gives 
 its possessor, most of all in the case of the 
 strono; ones of the fair creation. Marred as 
 her character was, in his exacting estimate of 
 the sweetness and liodit which a true woman 
 should possess, he w^as not insensible to a cer- 
 tain charm, to which his poetic mobility, had
 
 236 MACALPINE. 
 
 it not been under the guidance of a strong will, 
 might liave made him a victim. Before his 
 eyes, for many minutes following his exit from 
 the Castle, arose that splendid form ; in his 
 ears spoke the rich commanding voice ; around 
 him lay the nohle old lands ; and the venerable 
 Castle was at his back ; and he reeled more 
 than once, with a wild sensation that all these 
 might be his. But he was still able to penetrate 
 beneath the dazzling surface. 
 
 He took his way to Finzean House ; and 
 ere he was within its walls, his serene and 
 loftier mind settled. He had gone purposely 
 off his proposed course to think and talk of 
 her in whose absence he had idealised something 
 more than was perhaps well. The poet may for 
 a time be better content with inditing sonnets 
 to his mistress's eyebrows than in seeing her 
 bustling among his household gods ; but his 
 mistress has no gain in his satisfaction. Alan 
 had wished to consider the mutual silence as 
 an acknowledged penance for their too eager
 
 MACALPINE. 237 
 
 devotion to eacli other ; and lie filled his 
 
 unoccupied hours dreaming; often with pen 
 
 in hand, of the fair Ellen of Finzean. This 
 
 must now end : he must at once, and, by every 
 
 effort in his power, bring to a conclusion 
 
 that 
 
 " Suit, 
 Full of poise and difficulty, 
 And fearful to be granted," 
 
 which a brave man's imagination wdll call upon 
 him to undertake. That Ellen was yet con- 
 stant to him he never doubted. He was the 
 son of a ruined proprietor, and had, according 
 to usage, to work his way in the world ; and 
 he thought Ellen had fled from him in a belief 
 that she stood in the way of his progress. 
 Whispers had reached his ears that her people 
 thought he had been too lavish and free in his 
 conduct. There were not wanting those who, 
 still looking upon a Macalpine as a mio-hty 
 man in the land, said it was not for an ''un- 
 kent lass," be she Oliver Arnot's niece as was 
 said, to keep company with, young Macalpine ;
 
 238 MACALPINE. 
 
 and that it would turn out ill for both. Alan 
 was indignant, as he might be ; and he was 
 angry with Ellen, when he heard these whispers, 
 for making her sudden disappearance, which 
 he could not but partly connect with them. 
 Alan believed that he would have difficulty in 
 persuading Ellen Lee to become his wife, were 
 he successful in discovering her. There may 
 be a hundred poor difficulties, or none at all, 
 in the way of commonplace lovers ; with the 
 subtile, romantic spirit there may be one diffi- 
 culty which is noble in the creation, and which 
 no mere persuasion will ever remove. 
 
 As he waited for the farmer in his upper 
 room his anxiety increased, the more that he 
 had now an opportunity of making a substan- 
 tial offer to Ellen. He had been asked by 
 Colonel Mar to look out for a superintendent 
 for the new school ; and with delight he al- 
 ready saw her working independently a while 
 beside himself in this fine field of usefulness.
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 What were Ellen Lee's feelings as she was 
 free of Finzean, and found herself settled for 
 the time in a humble lodoino; in Edinburg-h 1 
 
 Before her was the vista of a commonplace 
 street, and beyond the prospect of some scantily 
 remunerated labour. But as the well-doing 
 are almost never without some worthy being 
 honestly attached to their welfare, and capable 
 of that warmth of confidence which woman 
 especially craves for, so she was not alone in 
 the large city while she possessed the friend- 
 ship of the mistress of the humble house where 
 she lodged. Mrs Martha Macbean had periodi- 
 cally visited Ellen's mother ever since Ellen 
 could remember, and they were on the most 
 familiar terms. She was an old acquaintance, 
 though of humbler stock than the Arnots, and
 
 240 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 had occasionally rendered Mrs Lee assistance in 
 times of unusual occupation or distress. Ellen 
 was the most beloved of the good woman's 
 heart ; and when she left Finzean she thought 
 at once of a residence with Mrs Macbean, till 
 she might procure some situation to maintain 
 herself. Martha received her in gladness of 
 spirit, with which she could not have welcomed 
 any other living creature. 
 
 There is always a certain amount of pain in 
 any change ; but that which, looked fully at, 
 beckons a great sorrow, is by the wise kept 
 much away by other observation. So Ellen 
 was even consoled in observing the new world 
 that passed her by. 
 
 After much deferred hope, she procured a 
 situation as governess in the family of a 
 wealthy shopkeeper. The wages were barely 
 sufficient for her maintenance, but she was 
 glad of the employment, having already begun 
 to feel the dulling influence of idleness ; and 
 her necessities being moderate, while heu ward-
 
 MACALPINE. 241 
 
 robe was ample, she considered she would be 
 able to " make both ends meet." She preferred 
 teaching to the work of the sempstress, as she 
 would herself receive an impetus to mental 
 improvement, though she was on the point of 
 engaging herself in the latter capacity, and, 
 even with all her dignity and elevation of 
 character, was prepared to accept humbler 
 employment — which society, silly in its esti- 
 mates, would judge as placing her beneath a 
 ban. For this spirit she was indebted to Alan 
 Macalpine, who had often expressed his sym- 
 pathy with the condition of Ellen's sex, doomed 
 to contumely simply because they preferred to 
 eat the bread of industry rather than idleness. 
 
 It was late in the spring ere Ellen procured 
 employment, and the summer passed quickly in 
 activity at her work. She was fond of chil- 
 dren, though, being an only child, she had 
 little experience of their humours, which she 
 now found full of interest and amusement. 
 
 The house was exceedingly dull without the 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 MACALPINE. 
 
 children ; and Ellen believed herself, with all 
 her sense of loneliness, poverty, and present 
 defeat, the happiest person in it. Her em- 
 ployer was a civic dignitary ; and between 
 the eagerness of his talent for business and for 
 municipal honours, he made a sad mess. He 
 was all self — a terrible sample of that kind of 
 it which grows from without, and not from 
 within. In his presence Ellen had felt, with all 
 his heartiness, as if the ideal in her nature suf- 
 fered a sense of depression, even of struggling 
 for bare life. His wife was a soft woman, 
 with a large flabby heart, — the concomitant of 
 a husband feared and admired, — tender, with- 
 out fibre. They lived together no real life. 
 At home, at social gatherings, at church, they 
 were ever the same — without a conviction, 
 without a purpose ; leading the hand-to-mouth 
 life of ready-money people, proud of the fact, 
 and incapable of appreciating any truth beyond 
 it. John Jenkins was a loud and embellished 
 parrot ; Mrs Jenkins was the machine upon
 
 MACALPIXE. 243 
 
 which the effect of his screeches was visible. 
 Their children were rude and noisy, but natu- 
 ral, and even kind, and amenable to instruc- 
 tion. Ellen took a deep interest in the work 
 of training them in a healthy conduct of them- 
 selves — the more that she saw the incapacity 
 of their parents for instructing them. 
 
 In the beginning of August, Ellen had a 
 week's holiday ; and Mrs Macbean, wishing 
 also a few days in the country, desired Ellen 
 to say where they might spend the time to- 
 gether, hinting her own preference for the 
 district, not very far off, where she visited in 
 the days of Mrs Lee. So Ellen and she went 
 there. 
 
 Ellen visited former friends ; but her altered 
 fortune, which she was in her true courao-e at 
 no paius to conceal, cooled their iuterest, even 
 where they did not turn their backs upon her. 
 Ellen had been partly alive to the expectation of 
 this, but her worthy companion felt the affront 
 bitterly. She did not hide her resentment,
 
 244 MACALPTNE. 
 
 muttering about " gentle blood" being better 
 than *' thae bodies wi' a kail-yard an' a yard- 
 stick'' — a combination of small-proprietorship 
 and shopocracy which Mrs Macbean evidently 
 considered most contemptible. In unmis take- 
 able language Ellen learned scandal concerning 
 her dead mother ; yet she left without bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 On the evening of the day preceding their 
 intended leave of the little town, the coach 
 from the west overtook them as they entered 
 the town. Public conveyances were then more 
 than now objects of great interest to every 
 one. All looked with eager eyes, in and out, 
 as the coach passed along, or drew up at the 
 hostelry, in vague longing after some friend 
 who might be travelling. 
 
 Mrs Macbean and Ellen stopped, as the 
 coach drew up at some little distance from 
 them ; and with mingled feelings, beside sur- 
 prise of the moment, did Ellen find herself 
 discovered by Alan Macalpine,
 
 MACALPINE. 245 
 
 Ellen had made Mrs Macbean no confidant 
 of the short passage in her life which con- 
 cerned Alan, because she desired to forget it 
 as she could ; while that worthy lady would 
 fain have kept it alive, being rather a glutton 
 of tales of love and romance. It was better 
 now to break the matter to her at once. 
 
 " Martha," Ellen said, " I have only kept 
 one secret from you, because I wished it to be 
 one even from myself. I know it would die 
 with you if necessary ; for who trusted you 
 like my mother 1 I am to tell you it now : 
 I have been in love." 
 
 " Is that your secret, lassie !" said Mrs Mac- 
 bean, laughing ; " I could know that without 
 the telling, — though, as you have not spoken 
 o't, I have never asked you who is the pretty 
 gentleman." 
 
 " He is leaving the coach yonder now," said 
 Ellen, tremulously. 
 
 " x\nd comes to carry you away a bonnie 
 bride r'
 
 246 MACALPINE. 
 
 " My fears have not carried me that length. 
 I thought to have forgot our acquaintance ; 
 but he may now have come to find me out, 
 and bring me to book for leaving Finzean/' 
 
 " And you have run from him ? and your 
 working and seeking my house comes of this 1 
 Well, well, Ellen, I suspected like it, though 
 I thought little and said nothing at all. God 
 be praised for your sense and happy temper, 
 and give you the man of your heart, laird or 
 lord ; it 's no siller ye ve sought, though may 
 be it 's the man that can point to his fathers 
 before him ; for it 's Macalpine's son I warrant 
 me that 's ta'en your fancy." 
 
 " How could you know that, Martha '? " 
 inquired Ellen, who observed the old lady to 
 pause suddenly. " Some one has told you." 
 
 *' That they hae," cried Mistress Martha ; 
 ' you 're simple, my love, to think I didna ken. 
 You foro-et I was born near his lands. Ah, 
 I remember the auld laird well in his hey-day, 
 as fine a fellow as ever walked the heather;
 
 MACALPIXE. 247 
 
 and his wife, too, as gentle and considerate a 
 lady as the best, for all the story of her elope- 
 ment. If his son be like him, gude be here, 
 but you'll be married the morn ! " 
 
 Ellen assured her companion she need have 
 no fear of that. 
 
 " In love and not marry ! " cried the advo- 
 cate ao'ainst sinoie blessedness; "what's life 
 without that *? I 'm thinking many a cauld 
 man and many a saucy lass have repented 
 their ways before the snows of age befell 
 them. You '11 maybe both of you be needing 
 gear — that may be. But when Colin and I 
 married, we had just two hundred pounds to 
 sit down with — enough ; enough and more it 
 was, for we found both ends meet and had 
 pleasure at the job, and at laying by for the 
 rainy day that came ower soon, for the Lord 
 ended our wedded happiness in this world in 
 the heat of our best summer. The siller 
 always comes to the stout heart, be the brae 
 stey as it likes."
 
 248 MAC ALPINE. 
 
 " Eeflection has told me," said Ellen, after a 
 pause, as they approached the door of their 
 lodging, " that marriage between those of 
 unequal rank is not likely to conduce to the 
 happiness of either." 
 
 " And who says that Macalpine and you are 
 of unequal rank ? " inquired Mrs Macbean, 
 excitedly. 
 
 Ellen would have had her curiosity excited 
 by the peremptory manner of her companion, 
 had all her thoughts not been occupied with the 
 prospect of the forthcoming encounter. But 
 the circumstance did not altogether escape 
 her, and her mind recurred to it afterwards. 
 
 " The daughter of a village surgeon does 
 not match with the chief of a Highland clan, 
 though the latter may be the last to proclaim 
 it," was all she said. 
 
 Mrs Macbean hurried to her own room in a 
 state of extreme excitement. Ellen sat down 
 at the back of their parlour. She was no 
 coward, to fly from him who sought now to
 
 MACALPIXE. 249 
 
 confront her, yet she had to screw her courage 
 to the sticking place. She knew that her 
 firmness would be put to the test. When she 
 heard Alan's clear and deliberate voice in the 
 passage, she had an impulse to run out and 
 welcome him as she had so often done at 
 Finzean. But she controlled herself. 
 
 They shook hands, and Alan sat down scarcely 
 invited ; Ellen having lost speech altogether 
 for a minute. 
 
 He could not pronounce his opinion of the 
 situation in one single word, and he was 
 anxious not to upbraid her. He came in as 
 he would have done at Finzean, and his frank 
 spirit felt chilled by the reception he met with. 
 
 " Ellen, why did you run away 1 you have 
 given me a strange time of it, and a hard race," 
 he observed, quietly. She could not answer 
 so direct a question satisfactorily. " Had I 
 offended you or done you wrong '? " he in- 
 quired, with more warmth. 
 
 " No ! " she answered with spirit, remember-
 
 250 MACALPIXE. 
 
 ing the character and principles of the man 
 beside her. " I fled because I could not de- 
 liberate. I had done wrong; my happiness 
 at Finzean was entirely selfish, and in the end 
 must have proved delusive." 
 
 The revelation restored Alan. He experi- 
 enced a glow of pride in the increased charm 
 of Ellen's voice. 
 
 There was less passivity and not less tender- 
 ness in her countenance ; deeper reflection and 
 more experience of the world had heightened 
 its expression. Her emotions were more real, 
 and her sense and appreciation of life fuller. 
 
 He wished to save her further trial, while 
 the roots of his love, as he sat there, went 
 deeper by his sympathy, and his pain, which 
 was mixing wdth joy. 
 
 " But why not remain at Finzean ? Happi- 
 ness is too often rudely shocked by a blow 
 from others, that we should ourselves fly from 
 it when we possess it,'' Alan said. 
 
 " I could no longer, too, be a burden on my
 
 MACALPINE. 251 
 
 uncle/^ she repeated, wishing to make no other 
 explanation on that head. 
 
 " Ellen, you feared I should pay the bond I 
 owed yoii ; why do you fly then from me '? 
 Eeturn with me." 
 
 " I cannot," she cried, interrupting him. 
 
 " Let us understand each other," he said, 
 alarmed that he had been misunderstood, or 
 her heart somehow poisoned against him. 
 *' You did not think it possible that I was — 
 that we passed the idle hours for our amuse- 
 ment only ; you cannot believe this, you know 
 better; you needed no formal proffer of my love." 
 
 " I am not fitted for you," answered Ellen, 
 constrained to speak. " You owe a duty to 
 your blood, your kin, — to your birth, and to 
 your history, — to your misfortunes, which [ 
 cannot share. Had I rank and wealth to offer, 
 then it might be so ; but as it is, you would 
 cripple, ruin your highest interests, and per- 
 haps also mine." 
 
 "Oh Ellen!"
 
 252 MACALPINE. 
 
 " Your people," she continued, regardless of 
 the interruption, "regard you as the head of 
 the house — that one alone who can restore 
 the family inheritance, or at least lay the 
 foundation-stone of the buildiDo; to be com- 
 pleted in two or more generations. If you 
 cast this obligation aside, to wed the penniless 
 child of a country doctor, you forfeit their 
 affection — nay, their very look, their name, and 
 kinship — for ever ; while I am the fated object 
 of their hate, and must look to be the creature 
 for your father's gibes and curses, if not harder 
 ill-will. You consider solely your own feel- 
 iags : consider your obligations to your posi- 
 tion in your particular world, and to your 
 family — to me. I will learn to forget an error 
 of my simpler days, as I call upon you also to 
 do so." 
 
 " I appreciate your noble motive, Ellen,^' 
 answered Alan ; " but it is founded on illusions 
 rather than realities. It is in vain to remind 
 me of conventional obligations ; my father
 
 MAC ALPINE. 253 
 
 alone I have to consider. That has been done. 
 As for the rest, it is silence— my mother would 
 have approved. I have no ambition whatever 
 to be restored to Morven. Think yon I would 
 be so free and happy with it ? And I do not 
 intend to immolate myself beneath the car of 
 any deity of this world." 
 
 " I am convinced," answered Ellen, " of the 
 justice of your heart ; but I have bowed to 
 other authority, as we all do who would live 
 rightly. I believe you will have to bow to it." 
 She repeated the last sentence with as strono* 
 an emphasis as she could muster. "Your 
 father believes in your restoration to the 
 estates of Morven : ally yourself with me, 
 and he finds in my person that which renders 
 it impossible." 
 
 Lucretia Mar came before Alan's mind. 
 "Was it possible that Ellen had heard and 
 believed the rumours concerning them ? It was 
 evident she knew something. Pettishness in 
 such circumstances would have been, with
 
 254 MACALPINE. 
 
 smaller natures, the cause of mucli that Ellen 
 was saying ; with hers Alan was convinced it 
 was not. Alan was determined to be out with it. 
 
 " Some absurd gossip has surely armed you 
 with this suggestion. Why an alliance with 
 you should render the realisation of my father's 
 dream impossible, I know not. It is true that 
 the new proprietor's presumptive heir is a 
 daughter, and unmarried, which latter I also 
 am; but beyond these two facts there is no 
 circumstance to work out the vision. Gossips 
 may do so who weave their idle webs." 
 
 It almost seemed as if Ellen smiled. " I 
 have heard from my uncle simply that you 
 were on terms of intimacy with Colonel Mar 
 and his daughter," she said. 
 
 " It was by accident — very far from my 
 choice — that the intimacy arose," broke in 
 Alan. His directness told against him ; while 
 it really had soothed Ellen's spirits, it now 
 gave her the cue to a defiant reconciliation 
 with her course.
 
 MACALPINE. 255 
 
 "You do not believe/' Ellen continued, 
 "that I have been otherwise than interested 
 in all that concerns Morven, where it would 
 be false to say I did not pass the happiest 
 months of my life ; and I will continue to feel 
 interested still. Of the fortunes of all in it will 
 I care* to hear, and of none more than of 
 yours." 
 
 She had spoken with a deliberate but painful 
 firmness which was costing her much ; her last 
 expression was the formalism of the mind, 
 hurriedly predominant, where the heart is 
 weeping and seeking for escape. She rose. 
 But it was with a dignity in which her 
 tenderness was gone in the victory of a high 
 spirit, w^hich she had summoned to aid her in 
 this moment of trial, when she feared she 
 might prove no match for the persuasive 
 powers of the man whose love, under other 
 circumstances, she might have filled her exist- 
 ence with. 
 
 There remained really nothing more for
 
 256 MACALPINE. 
 
 Alan to say. He respected the temper of the 
 mistress of his heart too much, and was him- 
 self too proud and sensitive, to hammer out 
 the argument of his suit further. He had vet 
 to tell, however, the immediately practical 
 design of his coming ; and he spoke low and 
 distantly, but kindly. " You will allow me to 
 ask, Ellen, if you are happy where you areV 
 he inquired. 
 
 " Quite," she answered. 
 
 " I knew you preferred the country to the 
 town," he went on, "and a new situation as 
 teacher at Morven having opened up, I had 
 thought you might have accepted it." 
 
 " Thanks, many thanks, for thinking of me, 
 but at present T could not think of changing 
 my employment." 
 
 Alan turned from her, seeing that a pro- 
 longation of the interview was painful. They 
 shook hands together at parting, without a 
 word of "good-bye" or "azt revoir" 
 
 " I will try to forget this meeting," said Alan.
 
 MACALPINE. 257 
 
 *' You must forget me too ; it is what I 
 demand," said Ellen Lee. 
 
 "Never!" cried Alan. 
 
 And he was alone in the dull street of the 
 little town. 
 
 Alan would fain have taken all for that 
 serious play of lovers which is only a drama 
 where all ends well. But he was without any 
 real hope. He knew that Ellen appreciated 
 his character as too serious, earnest, and proud 
 to descend to entreaty ; and how could he ever 
 approach her again with the language of his 
 suit ? Never ! 
 
 Ellen looked into the room where her old 
 friend was as patient as she could be, — the 
 spirit which she had summoned not having yet 
 gone down. The sight of the faithful and only 
 companion of her loneliness brought her back 
 to tenderness. She could not help showing 
 what she had done. 
 
 "How have you done this, Ellen?" said her 
 companion, gently. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 258 MACALPINE. 
 
 " He may wed another who may restore his 
 estate." 
 
 " You have loved him 1" 
 
 *' With my whole heart," cried the meek 
 spirit, feeling content to have been loved and 
 to have renounced for his sake. 
 
 " May God in heaven reward you ! " Mrs 
 Macbean wept tears of sorrow and of regret, 
 Ellen went away. It was an hour and more 
 before her companion joined her in their little 
 parlour. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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