Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

Poor Duncan! he was offered a kindly home at the mansion of Alva.

“It is mindful of you, sir,” old Duncan replied, “but out o’ sight of the sea, out o’ hearin’ o’ the waves, Duncan wouldna live a week. I’ll lay my bones beside her soon.”

Chapter Twenty Four

In the “Fa’ o’ the Year.”

“’Mid pleasures and palaces where’er we may roam,Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”Old Song.“Fareweel, fareweel, my native hame,Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains;Fareweel thy fields o’ storied fame,Thy leafy shaws and sparklin’ fountains.”A. Hume.

Scene: Glen Alva. Down in the clachan and lowlands, and around the mansion house, the autumnal tints are on the trees; the chestnuts, the lime and the maples have turned a rich yellow, and soon the leaves will fall; but the elm and oak retain their sturdy green. So do the waving pines. High on the hillsides the heather still blooms. There is silence almost everywhere to-day. Silence on mountain and silence in forest. Only the sweet plaintive twitter of the robin is heard in garden and copse. He sings the dirge of the departed summer. It is indeed the “fa’ o’ the year.”

Time: Five years have elapsed since the date of the events described in last chapter.

In my humble opinion – and I daresay many coincide with me – the great poet never spoke truer words than these: —

“There’s a Divinity that shapes our lives, Rough-hew them as we will.”

Who could have thought that Harvey McGregor, with his fearless nature, his tameless spirit, and roaming disposition, would ever have settled down in quiet Glen Alva, or that Kenneth McAlpine would have developed into a farmer in the Far West.

But so, indeed, it was.

Ambition – well guided – is a noble thing. All my three heroes were ambitious. Harvey’s ambition, perhaps, was tinctured with some degree of pride. He fought long and manfully for fortune, and when he fell, he had the grace to own it. Kenneth’s and Archie’s ambition was more to be admired, and I love the man or boy who has a feeling of independence in his breast, and who, if he should fail in one line of life, turns cheerfully to another, with a determination to do his duty, and never give up. Dost remember the lines of the good poet Tupper? They are better than many a hymn, and may help to cheer you in hours when life seems dark and hopeless.

“Never give up! It is wiser and better    Always to hope, than once to despair;Fling off the load of Doubt’s heavy fetter,    And break the dark spell of tyrannical Care.Never give up! or the burden may sink you,    Providence kindly has mingled the cup;And in all trials and troubles, bethink you,    The watchword of life must be, Never give up!Never give up, there are chances and changes,    Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one,And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges    Ever success, – if you’ll only hope on.Never give up! for the wisest is boldest,    Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,And of all maxims the best, as the oldest,    Is the true watchword of Never give up.”

Yes, ambition is a noble thing; yet it should not be a selfish ambition. Blessed is he who works and toils and struggles for the happiness of the masses, as well as for his own. Has not He Who spoke as never man spake left us a glorious example to follow – follow, if only afar off?

But now let us take a peep into the tartan parlour of Alva House, a peep at the fireside life of young Laird McGregor, on this quiet autumnal afternoon.

When we were introduced into this same parlour, we found it the scene of a revel, over which it is as well to draw the curtain of oblivion.

But now, here are seated Harvey McGregor and his young wife. Yes, he is married, and a babe has come to bless him, too.

Near the fire, in a high-backed chair, is Harvey’s mother. She looks very contented, and there are smiles chasing each other all round her lips and eyes.

But where, think you, is baby? On his mother’s lap, you say? Nay, but positively on his father’s knee – his father, the quondam rover of the sea and the prairies.

It is somewhat absurd, I grant you, but there is no getting over facts. Sometimes brave soldiers or sailors make the best of fireside folks, when they do settle down.

And Harvey McGregor is not only nursing his young heir, but he is actually nodding at him and talking sweet nonsense to him, while baby crows, and Harvey’s wife looks on delightedly.

So busily are all engaged that they do not hear the hall door bell ring, nor know anything at all about its being rung either, until suddenly a Highland servant enters with two cards on a tray.

Harvey hands baby to his mother in some confusion – I’m not at all sure he did not blush a little; but no sooner has he taken the cards and read them, than he jumps up from his chair as if a hornet had stung him.

“Hurrah!” he cries.

“Dear me, Harvey! what is it?” his wife exclaims.

“Nothing, my dear,” says Harvey; “that is – it is everything, I mean. It is joy in the house of McGregor. Hurrah!”

And away he rushes, leaving his wife and mother to wonder.

They were in the library, the pair of them. They had not even sat down, because they knew Harvey would soon come.

And they were not mistaken.

“Why, Kenneth! Archie!” he cried, extending a hand to each, “my dear old shipmates, ‘pals,’ and partners, how are you?”

“Took you by surprise, eh?” replied Kenneth, laughing.

“Why, the biggest and the best surprise I’ve had for many a day. But how are you? and where have you come from last? and how goes the farm out in the West?”

Harvey put a dozen other questions, but he gave his friends no time to answer one.

I leave my readers to guess whether or not they spent a pleasant, happy evening together. Ay, and not one, but many. For Harvey was not going to let them go for a long time, you may be sure. So they stayed on and on for weeks. There was plenty of sport and fun to be got all day, but, nevertheless, the evenings were always most pleasant. There was so much to talk about, and so much to tell each other, that time fled on swallows’ wings, and it was always pretty near the —

“Wee short ’oor ayout the twal,”

before they parted for the night.

Need I say that one of the first places visited by Kenneth and Archie – and they stole away all alone – was Kooran’s grave, and the fairy knoll? They were delighted to find the former carefully kept, and quite surprised to find the latter completely furnished. The inside was a cave no longer, except in shape. It was a library, a boudoir, call it what you may.

“How mindful of dear Harvey!” said Kenneth.

“Yes, indeed,” replied Archie; “and think, too, of his goodness to my dear father, of the comfortable house he dwells in, and the smiling little croft around it.”

“Harvey,” said Kenneth with enthusiasm, “is one of Nature’s noblemen.

“‘Away with false fashion, so calm and so chill,Where pleasure itself cannot please;Away with cold breeding, that faithlessly stillAffects to be quite at its ease.For the deepest in feeling is highest in rank,The freest is first of the band:And Nature’s own nobleman, friendly and frank,Is the man with his heart in his hand.’”

“Come, I say, Kennie, my learned old man, when you are talking poetry, and such ringing verses, too, as these, I dare say you imagine I must sing small; but bide a wee, lad, there is two of us can play at the same game. What say you if I match Burns against your Tupper? Hear then.”

And, with figure and head erect, with arms extended and open palm, Archie spoke, —

“Is there for honest poverty,That hangs his head and a’ that?The coward-slave, we pass him by,And dare be poor for a’ that.What though on homely fare we dine,Wear hodden-grey (coarse, woollen, undyed cloth) and a’ that,Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine,A man’s a man for a’ that.“A prince can make a belted knight,A marquis, duke and a’ that;But an honest man’s above his might,Guid faith he mauna fa’ that. (Try.)Then let us pray that come it may,As come it will for a’ that,That sense and worth o’er a’ the earth,May bear the gree for a’ that.”

(Bear the gree, i. e., be triumphant.)

“Bravo! Archie, lad. Glad to see that you haven’t forgotten your Scotch, though we’ve talked little but English for many a long day.

“Ah! well,” he continued, after a pause, “I was just thinking, Archie, how kind Providence has been to us.”

“But mind you, Kenneth, we’ve worked hard.”

“I’m not saying we haven’t, Archie, I’m not saying we haven’t. We have worked; and I say shame on the sheep who huddles down in a corner and nurses himself, and thinks that Heaven will give him every blessing for the asking. We must work as well as pray.”

“Do you know, Archie, that one terrible night at sea, while we were rounding the Horn with a whole gale of wind blowing and a smothering sea on, when it was so dark you couldn’t have seen a sheet of white paper held at arm’s length, and when we all of a sudden knew from the frightful cold we were surrounded by ice, when at last the ship was struck and began to leak, and no one had a hope of seeing the morn break – that down below I stole just one half minute to open my Book? And my eyes fell upon the ninety-first Psalm, and I took comfort and heart at once; I knew we would be saved, and next day the captain complimented me on having been so daring, so fearless, and cheerful. Ah! lad, little did he know that the bravery in my breast was no bravery of mine; it had been put there by Him. Call this faith of mine folly if you like, I don’t care; it suits me, and it has saved me more than once, and comforted me a thousand times.

“Do you mind the time,” Kenneth went on, changing the subject, “when you and I used to herd the sheep here with dear old Kooran and Shot?”

“Can I e’er forget it, Kenneth?”

Sitting on the top of the fairy knoll there, the two young men had quite a long talk about bygone times. I have said “young men;” and they were so, though they might not have appeared to be in the eyes of boys and girls, but as they talked they seemed to grow younger still. Kenneth could almost imagine he saw the smoke curling up from his mother’s cot in the glen, and Kooran feathering away through the heather to fetch his dinner. (See Book One, chapter one.)

A day or two after this the three friends went together over the hills to pay a visit to the fisherman’s cot by the beach.

Duncan Reed was so glad to see them. He was not so very much altered in appearance. They found him seated in the sunlight, with a very large Bible on his lap, and an immense pair of hornrimmed spectacles on his nose.

Duncan drops out of the story here. He is gone years ago. Suffice it to say he had his wish – he sleeps beside the sea.

On their return journey they visited the ruins of old Nancy Dobbell’s cottage. Harvey McGregor made one remark which explains much.

“That old woman,” he said, “alone knew my secret.”

Passing onwards towards the forest, Kenneth ventured to ask for the first time about Jessie Grant.

“Heigho!” replied Harvey; “I cared not to mention it in my letter, but that family were in reduced circumstances even before the father and mother died; now poor Jessie lives at Helensburgh in a humble cottage with her aunt.”

“And she is not – ”

“No, not married.”

A thrill of joy went through Kenneth’s heart. It was not unaccompanied by a kind of satisfied feeling of pride. He could not quite forget the time when proud Mr Redmond offered him the position of ghillie on his premises.

Need I say that Kenneth soon found Jessie out? She was more beautiful than ever in his eyes.

Archie and Kenneth took rooms at Helensburgh – for sake of the fishing. At least Kenneth said it was for sake of the fishing; but he did not look Archie quite straight in the face when he made the remark.

When, after a few weeks, Kenneth proposed marriage to Jessie, his offer was – refused.

Why? Truth to tell, Jessie loved him, but she said to herself, “Now he is rich and I am poor, it cannot be.”

I do not know whether this was a pardonable pride in Jessie or not. Perhaps it was.

Then came an evening when Kenneth, Archie, and Jessie were strolling together on the banks of the loch. It was to be the last night in Scotland of the two American farmers, as they called themselves, and she could not refuse to go with them to see the sun set behind the mountains.

Kenneth felt very sad, and spoke but little, Jessie hardly at all; in fact, she felt that it would not take much to make her cry.

Archie was still a student of natural history, and a new species of fern caught his eye. He must climb the fence, must commit a trespass even to find it, and his companions strolled on.

It was hardly an evening calculated to inspire hope or joy. A breeze roughened the lake, and went moaning through the almost leafless trees; the fields were bare or ploughed, the hedgerows looked sickly, and the brackens – so lovely in summer – were brown or broken down or bent. Still, the robin sang in the woods. That was something.

Kenneth and Jessie leant against a stile to wait for Archie; but that fern required a deal of examination.

“Archie seems in no hurry,” said Jessie, looking back.

“He has found a flower of some kind, I suppose,” replied Kenneth.

“There are few flowers in November,” she said, quickly.

“Here are two. Do you remember them, Miss Redmond?” As he spoke he produced old Nancy’s Bible, and opened it.

The flowers were there, but sadly withered.

This is precisely the remark that Jessie made.

“I do,” she said, with a blush and a sigh; “but they are sadly withered.”

“Like my hopes,” replied Kenneth. “I leave my country a broken-hearted man – ”

How handy for an author is a line of those little stars called “asterisks!” How neatly I dropped the curtain by means of it on that conversation between Kenneth and Jessie!

But did Kenneth leave his country a broken-hearted man? No; how could he with Jessie by his side?

They were married at Alva House by old Mr Grant. It was a quiet wedding indoors, but out of doors – well, Harvey McGregor determined his tenantry should all go mad together if they chose. There were balls and bonfires, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers galore, and such rejoicing and such general jollity as will never be forgotten while the heather blooms on Alva hills, and the dark pines wave in its valleys.

The honeymoon was spent in the New Forest; and Kenneth did not forget to visit his old friend Major Walton, whom he found happy and hearty.

Beautiful are the farms that Kenneth and Archie occupy in far-off British Columbia. There is a thriving village near them now, and churches and schools; but their farms lie well in the outskirts. What though in winter wild winds wail around the dwellings, and shake the pine trees on the mountain sides? there are warmth and light and brightness indoors; and some laughing and fun, too, for there are children, one, two, three; and Uncle Archie, as the latter call him, drops in nearly every evening to spend an hour or two, so no one thinks the time long.

Then in summer, oh! to roam in those beautiful woods, and cull the fruit and the wild flowers. And at this sweet time of the year, the gardens and lawns and terraces, and the verandahs of Kenneth’s many-gabled dwelling, are bathed in floral beauty. It is quite a sight to see, and to dream about ever afterwards.

And no one, I think, would begrudge Kenneth his happiness. He worked for it.

Good-bye, reader.

The End.