He would end the
few and miserable days of his pilgrimage amid the rushing of the
old torrents, and the calling of the old winds about the crags and
precipices that had hung over his darksome yet blessed childhood.
These were still his friends. But he had not gone many days'
journey before a farmer found him on the road insensible, and took
him home. As he recovered, his longing after his boy Malcolm grew,
until it rose to agony, but he fought with his heart, and believed
he had overcome it. The boy was a good boy, he said to himself;
the boy had been to him as the son of his own heart; there was no
fault to find with him or in him; he was as brave as he was kind,
as sincere as he was clever, as strong as he was gentle; he could
play on the bagpipes, and very nearly talk Gaelic, but his mother
was a Campbell, and for that there was no help. To be on loving terms
with one in whose veins ran a single drop of the black pollution
was a thing no MacDhonuill must dream of. He had lived a man of
honour, and he would die a man of honour, hating the Campbells to
their last generation. How should the bard of his clan ever talk to
his own soul if he knew himself false to the name of his fathers!
Hard fate for him! As if it were not enough that he had been doomed
to save and rear a child of the brood abominable, he was yet further
doomed, worst fate of all, to love the evil thing! he could not
tear the lovely youth from his heart.
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