hoarded for purposes so honourable, were now a disposable capital. Much depended on its prudent application, and many consultations were held. A condition similar to that which habit had rendered dear, and almost necessary, appeared most desirable. Many little colonies of highlanders were scattered over the continent of America. One of these little knots of clansmen was now settled on the banks of the Mohawk river. It consisted of people who had been driven out from Kenanowen and Dunulladale, the south side of Glenalbyn, many years before this period. In that desolate tract, now turned into plantations and sheep-walks, fifty smokes had been put out in one morning. The affections of the Highlanders naturally pointed to the spot inhabited by their kinsmen and former friends; and as some rich though uncultivated land was still on sale, Allan was sent out to America as the agent of the emigrants. These arrangements were all conducted by the Lady. Lady Augusta detested war, its spirit, its institutions, and not unfrequently its object. The days of clanship were gone; and she saw what was termed martial spirit, and enthusiasm of glory, as powerfully excited and as bravely exerted, in the basest as in the most just and honourable cause. The army appeared to her a poor resource for a Highlander; a poor exchange for the glen of his fathers, domestic joys, and kindred charities-the freedom of the citizen, and perhaps the virtues of the man. But, admitting war to be ever so fine, and ever so glorious-the spirit-stirring drum and the martial pipe, and fame and victory, ever so animating, neither old men, nor women or children, can be soldiers. Now, the greater part of the inhabitants of Dunalbyn consisted of these helpless and beloved beings, dependent in a great measure on those who were welcomed to glory, and tacitly told that, though driven from their paternal fields, another field was opened, where they might toil, and fight, and bleed, in defence of the lives, properties, and freedom of those who had torn them from all they loved. Lady Augusta wished to see her countrymen remain in their own land, to live and prosper in its prosperity, or, if necessary, to die in its defence. But this was not permitted, and she conceived it of more importance that men should live in freedom and in comfort than in this or that degree of latitude. The dark lanes of a manufacturing town appeared even worse than the army. The present generation of Highlanders could never be made manufacturers, and her generous heart revolted at the idea of her high-spirited countrymen sinking into the abject condition of hewers of wood and drawers of water to a people they had hitherto shunned and despised. America opened her arms to the exiles of Scotland! Much of hardship was to be encountered, many cherished feelings were to be sacrificed; but Lady Augusta indulged a well-founded and cheering hope that the honest pride of property, the advantage of a rich soil, and above all, a free government, would, in that land of the exile, abundantly compensate her expatriated clansmen for all they were forced to abandon. The emigrants vainly solicited the Lady to accompany them across the Atlantic to continue their lawgiver and their judge. Eleenalin had never been estranged from her family; the graves of her an D cestors were still her property, and that little island the world which bounded her wishes. Moome and the piper devoted themselves to the fortunes of their ancient mistress; and the inhabitants of Dunalbyn erected for each a separate hut, which, with the central cottage of the lady, formed three sides of a square in the little retiring bay of Lochuan. Norman, the adopted son of Lady Augusta, was another member of this solitary establishment. Hitherto he had believed himself the son of a distant relative of Lady Augusta, and her entire silence had confirmed his delusion. She had long, in defiance of her judgment, preserved the painful secret of his birth, still fostering a latent hope that something might transpire to soften the calamity of the youth feeling himself at once an orphan and a dependant on those to whose blood he was a stranger. But concealment was no longer justifiable; yet fearfully and reluctantly did the Lady introduce this sorrowful theme. She spoke of her extreme age, of her deserted condition, and the solitude to which the emigration must consign the remaining period of her life. She hoped that Norman would remain in Eleenalin as her stay and comfort, the support of her downward years. She could not leave the ashes of her fathers: in Eleenalin she awaited that immortality to which her mind had long been directed, on which all her hopes were placed. Alarmed and uneasy, Norman often attempted to interrupt the Lady. He felt that she ought not to have doubted of his willingness to devote himself to her, and that she should have known that nothing on earth could tempt the child of her bounty to abandon her old age to the desertion and solitude she painted. But the swelling of his heart prevented utterance; he could only bathe the hand he held in tears of gratitude and affection. Lady Augusta perceived all the generous emotions of his heart. "Noble and generous was he whose name you bear," said she; "Norman, twin-brother of my soul! the heaven which early claimed thee as its own has bestowed on me this precious child. From the hand of Mercy have I received thee, last cherished blessing of a desolate heart. No! thou wilt never leave me the presentiment of my heart was true. Thou, my second son, the child of my love, of my prayers, and of my cares, wast sent to pillow my aged head, to soothe my aged sorrow, to make glad the childless and the widow. Yes, Norman, thou art all to me now-the staff of my age. When the name of Augusta shall long have been forgotten among the sons of her people, they will still remember, with blessings, the friend of thy orphan childhood." The Lady then cautiously informed him of the sad circumstances attending his birth, and of the fate of his mother. Norman stood, the mute inbreathed image of hopeless sorrow, with his glaring eyes fixed upon her. Had new worlds arisen at his bidding, Norman could not have articulated one word; till the lady, alarmed by his wild appearance, hastily gave him the picture found in the possession of his mother. He gazed on it with deep and sorrowful attention. "I will seek him through the world!" he at last exclaimed. "Oh, the luxury of one embrace from a father! But I have no father! Among the myriads that people the globe, no heart claims affinity with Norman.' Norman, my son, does your heart then disown me? Never, oh! never was child more tenderly loved." "Forgive me, Lady;-my mother, my friend, my all-forgive me, pity me, for my heart is bursting." He hid his face on the shoulder of his venerable friend, he shed his sorrows on her bosom; and she led him forth to the grave of his mother. It was that spot which had so often excited his infantine curiosity, the scene of many a childish frolic. "How often," cried Norman, "have I frolicked around this spot, while she to whom I owe my existence mouldered beneath, cold, cold, and forgotten. Oh! Lady, that I too lay here, for I feel that I shall never again be happy!" and he threw himself on the grave. 66 ino Norman, my child, you shall long be happy; you are but enterthe threshold of life." My tears have fallen on its threshold, Lady; it is darkened by a mother's misery.' The Lady, who believed that afflictions are sent for good, and that there is a smiling face hid behind the darkest providence, endeavoured to point out their uses to her young friend, and to lead his mind to the source of all consolation. Yet she said little; he listened in silence, and she left him to deepen, in sorrowful reflection, the impression she had made on his young mind. A lesson of piety so given was not soon to be forgotten; yet the mind of Norman, young, impetuous, strong for suffering, clung to the cause of its grief, and was jealous of suffering too tamely, or too briefly. Night brought new horrors to his fancy. He started from distracting visions, which represented his mother pale and haggard, supported in the arms of Ronald, or leaning her unsheltered head on the ivycliff, a homeless, wretched being. The howling of the blast rose on his ear, mingled with her dying groans. He started up; big drops of perspiration stood on his forehead; he paced the chamber in frenzied agitation, and blest the first beam of the day which closed this night of horrors. But the young and buoyant mind of Norman gradually became tranquil. He had much to love, though he was robbed of much; time imperceptibly stole the first vivid glow from the harsh colouring of sorrow, and, mellowing into those soft hues which mark pensive dejection, it sweetly harmonized with all the gentler sensibilities of his nature. Often would he gaze for hours on the resemblance of him he ventured to call father; gaze, till imagination, rebelling against the evidence of sense, gave life and motion to the inanimate features. A short, soft sigh dispelled the illusion; and the picture was laid aside till another opportunity occurred for the indulgence of this solitary enjoyment. In the meanwhile, every preparation was making for the purposed emigration; and spring advanced, decorating Glenalbyn with new charms, as if to render the pang of separation more poignant. CHAPTER XI. Alas, what sorrows gloomed that parting day, Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last; THE Highlanders go up to the summer shealings in the remote glens, about the first of May, and do not return till Lammas. These pilgrimages are always begun very early in the morning, that the cattle may not be annoyed by the heats of noon. The children, who depend on milk for the most of their nourishment, always follow the cattle to the shealings, and contribute not a little to enliven and endear these joyous processions. To see, in the clearobscure dawn of a May morning, herds of domestic animals, slowly winding up a Highland glen, to view the wild flight and return of happy childhood,-to hear the young women singing their pastoral strains, as they carry their rude dairy utensils, and the young men chiming in the chorus, as they guide the cattle, and lead forward their little picturesque horses, laden with rustic goods,-to behold all these, and many other pleasing circumstances, appropriate to such a scene of peacefulness, is delightful indeed to a feeling mind. Often had Lady Augusta viewed this pastoral spectacle, and recalled the age of love and innocence,—the plains of Mamre, and the herds of Laban. It was now the first of May. The morning was still, warm, and dewy. Norman saw the last blue smoke that would ever rise from the hamlet of Dunalbyn, slowly ascending in the liquid and balmy air of that lovely morning,-for the dreaded day had arrived! Å soft shower had fallen in the night, and lucid drops twinkled on every bud, and bathed every blossom; the birds flitted from bough to bough, quivering their wings with excess of life, and bursting into songs of joy; the wild swan was sporting on the lake, and the wild duck leading out her young family; the first note of the cuckoo came floating down the glen. Over the head of that glen the sun was rising beautifully, throwing his slant beams athwart the green slope on which hung the hamlet, and slowly drawing up the thin curtain of mist which floated around the mountains. That spirit of joy, and freshness, and inspiration, peculiar to the hour of sunrise, and the animating season of spring, was diffused through the air; nature wore her first bright bloom, and the invigorated soul of man was awakened to all the bliss of existence. Again and again was heard "the voice of spring among the trees," the cheering note of the cuckoo. Moome heard that note, but superstition drew no augur; there was little more to fear, there was nothing more to hope; the emigrants had surrendered themselves to decided misery. And now the sun had dispersed the light wreaths of mist which hung on the cliffs, and unfolded all the beauties of Glenalbyn. Beautiful was this pastoral valley, even to the eye of the dullest stranger; but, oh! how inexpressibly dear and lovely to that people, to whom every cliff, and cavern, and copse, and stream, told a tale so wild and remote, or tender and overcoming, or inspiring and glorious! Clan-albyn alone could feel and appropriate all the charms of their storied glen. To them, at every advancing step, on this side and on that, started up the records of former triumphs, and the monuments of departed glory! What, to the cold and tearless eye of a stranger, the castle of the chief, the rock of the gathering, the hill of the beal-fire, the grey stone of the humble dead, and the gathered heap of the fallen hero! But these were the relics from which they were to tear themselves, this the glen, whose every echo was now ringing, We return, we return, we return no more! * The exiles were already assembled; they had taken their last meal, they had beheld the extinguishment of the domestic fire,the demolition of the altars of their household gods. They had *This is a wild desponding strain, sung or played by the Highlanders on leaving their country. Verses expressive of local regret are adapted to this melody by the inhabitants of different districts. This very popular national lament, wailing and devious, may to some appear of small value as a piece of music, yet it possesses a soul-harrowing, indescribable influence over the feelings of Highlanders. It is indeed the appropriate Lament of men That languish for their native glen. It is the "Flowers of the Forest" of the Low Country, and the "Rans des Vaches" of the Swiss mountaineers; but it is still more. With it Highlanders of every rank and clan have the most interesting associations. The great bulk of the Highlanders, at least in these degenerate days, appear to have little sensibility to the exquisite beauty of their national melodies, considered merely as pieces of music. To them their charm arises solely from powerful associations: yet music, both instrumental and vocal, is universally loved and cultivated. The national music of the Highlander melts his heart, or gives glee to his motions, but does not tingle his ears. A person whose musical taste is in any degree cultivated, must be shocked at the rapid, strange, and ungraceful manner in which the Highland girls sing the most pathetic of their airs, when singing singly; and they, on the other hand, are disgusted with what they think the drawling expression of those who sing them in a better style. Yet the rowing-songs, the songs at the waulkings, at the quern, or round a kelp-kiln, and, in short, all that cheer social labour, and heighten social enjoyment, have a picturesque and highly pleasing effect. There is a higher species of lyric known in the Highlands, the power of which no one can understand who has not felt the rush of clannish blood. These hymns to departed greatness are designated by a particular name. The only one of them (so far as I know) that has found its way into English is in the notes to "The Lady of the Lake." It is the hymn, if I may so call it, of the Chief of Clan-gillian. No company of the name of Maclean could sing that dirge without such transports of enthusiastic grief, as would appear quite inexplicable to a cold-blooded Saxon, I have often fancied something inexpressibly sweet and soothing even in the wild voluntaries with which Highland women lull their children to sleep; and even these baby-songs and lullabies are |