We are back again in bonnie Scotland, and it was Conal himself who exclaimed, when bonnie Glenvoie, for the first time since coming home, and as he was nearing it, spread itself out before him:
"O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and s.h.a.ggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e"er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!"
They had driven a great part of the way to Glenvoie, but had been seen while still a long way off coming down the glen, and not only the stalwart chief himself, but Frank"s father, with about half a dozen dogs, came out to meet them.
Many of the dogs were old hill-mates of Viking"s, so that was all right, and a glorious gambol they had.
But just as the princ.i.p.al actors and most of the company crowd the stage before the curtain falls, so they do at the end of a story.
If I tell you that the reunion was a happy one, I can do but little more.
Poor to some considerable extent both Colonel Trelawney and the laird were, but I speak the honest truth when I say that had their brave boys returned penniless and hatless, they would have been sure of a hearty Highland welcome under the old roof-tree.
Yes, Flora had grown very much too, but she had also grown more beautiful--I do not like the word "pretty"--and as she bade her brothers and her cousin welcome home, the tears were quivering on her eyelids and a flush of joy suffused her face.
And soon our young fellows settled down, and all the old wild life of wandering on the hills and of sport began again. For indeed the boys needed a rest.
Little Johnnie Shingles and that droll Old Pen took up their abode in the servants" hall, but were often invited into the drawing-room of an evening, when, to the music of Frank"s fiddle, the boy and Mother Pen brought down the house, so to speak, by their inimitable waltzing. This was fun to everybody else, and even to Johnnie himself. But while whirling around in the mazy dance, with his head leant lovingly on the n.i.g.g.e.r-boy"s shoulder, Pen never looked more serious in his life.
A great ball was given shortly after the return of our heroes, and Glenvoie House looked very gay indeed.
While dancing that night with Flora, Frank took occasion to say to his partner, in language that was certainly more outspoken than romantic:
"Mind, Flo, you and I are going to get hitched when we"re a bit older."
"Hitched, Frank?"
"Well, spliced then. You know what I mean."
"She looked down to blush, she looked up to sigh, "With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye."
I throw in these two lines of poetry just because they look pretty, and I sha"n"t charge my publisher a penny for them either. But, to tell the truth--a thing I always do except when--but never mind--Flora neither blushed nor sighed.
"That means getting married, doesn"t it?" she said. "Well, we"ll see; but do keep step, Frank!"
And this was all the wooing.
But years have fled away since then. Five, six, nearly seven of them.
The company was started. The parchment the boys had found in the old fort gave the clue to the situation. The "debbil pits" were opened, and are, even as I write, being worked with success.
The boys are men!
Boys will be men, you know!
They are fairly wealthy, and happy also. Not that wealth makes people happy, only it helps.
Frank is spliced.
And where do you think Flora and he spent their long, long honeymoon?
Yes, you are right. In Floriana, in the country of gold and diamonds.
The land of the great Goo-goo.