Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/408

402 gone, and a new generation had come up since he forsook the glen. Worst of all, the clan spirit was dying out, the family type of government all but extinct, the patriarchal vanishing in a low form of the feudal, itself already in abject decay. The hour of the Celt was gone by, and the long-wandering raven, returning at last, found the ark it had left afloat on the waters dry and deserted and rotting to dust. There was not even a cottage in which he could hide his head. The one he had forsaken when cruelty and crime drove him out had fallen to ruins, and now there was nothing of it left but its foundations. The people of the inn at the mouth of the valley did their best for him, but he learned by accident that they had Campbell connections, and, rising that instant, walked from it forever. He wandered about for a time, playing his pipes, and everywhere hospitably treated, but at length his heart could endure its hunger no more: he must see his boy, or die. He walked, therefore, straight to the cottage of his quarrelsome but true friend, Mistress Partan, to learn that his benefactor, the marquis, was dead, and Malcolm gone. But here alone could he hope ever to see him again, and the same night he sought his cottage in the grounds of Lossie House, never doubting his right to reoccupy it. But the door was locked, and he could find no entrance. He went to the house, and there was referred to the factor. But when he knocked at his door and requested the key of the cottage, Mr. Crathie, who was in the middle of his third tumbler, came raging out of his dining-room, cursed him for an old Highland goat, and heaped insults on him and his grandson indiscriminately. It was well he kept the door between him and the old man, for otherwise he would never have finished the said third tumbler. That door carried in it thenceforth the marks of every weapon that Duncan bore, and indeed the half of his sgian dhu was the next morning found sticking in it, like the sting which the bee is doomed to leave behind her. He returned to Mistress Partan white and trembling, in a mountainous rage with "ta low-pred hount of a factor." Her sympathy was enthusiastic, for they shared a common wrath. And now came the tale of the factor's cruelty to the fishers, his hatred of Malcolm and his general wildness of behavior. The piper vowed to shed the last drop of his blood in defence of his Mistress Partan. But when, to strengthen the force of his asseveration, he drew the dangerous-looking dirk from its sheath, she threw herself upon him, wrenched it from his hand, and testified that "fules sudna hae chappin'-sticks, nor yet teylors guns." It was days before Duncan discovered where she had hidden it. But not the less heartily did she insist on his taking up his abode with her; and the very next day he resumed his old profession of lamp-cleaner to the community.

When Miss Horn heard that he had come, and where he was, old feud with Meg Partan rendering it imprudent to call upon him, she watched for him in the street and welcomed him home, assuring him that if ever he should wish to change his quarters her house was at his service.

"I'm nae Cam'ell, ye ken, Duncan," she concluded, "an' what an auld wuman like mysel' can du to mak ye coamfortable sail no fail, an' that I promise ye."

The old man thanked her with the perfect courtesy of the Celt, confessed that he was not altogether at ease where he was, but said he must not hurt the feelings of Mistress Partan, "for she'll not pe a paad womans," he added, "but her house will pe aalways in ta flames, howefer."

So he remained where he was, and the general heart of the Seaton was not a little revived by the return of one whose presence reminded them of a better time, when no such cloud as now threatened them heaved its ragged sides above their horizon.

The factor was foolish enough to attempt inducing Meg to send her guest away.

"We want no landloupin' knaves, old or young, about Lossie," he said. "If the place is no keepit dacent, we'll never get the young marchioness to come near 's again."

"'Deed, factor," returned Meg, enhancing the force of her utterance by a composure marvelous from its rarity, "the first thing to mak' the place — I'll no say dacent, sae lang there's sae mony claverin' wives in't, but — mair dacent nor it has been for the last ten year, wad be to sen' factors back whaur they cam' frae."

"And whaur may that be? "asked Mr. Crathie.

"That's mair nor I richtly can say," answered Meg Partan, "but auld-farand fouk threepit it was somewhaur 'ithin the swing o' Sawtan's tail."

The reply on the factor's lips as he left the house tended to justify the rude sarcasm.