When our countryside is changed, when the forest of Creag Dubh, where roam the deer, is levelled with the turf, and the foot of the passenger wears round the castle of Argile, I hope, I pray, that grotto on the brae will still lift up its face among the fern and ivy. Nowadays when the mood comes on me, and I must be the old man chafing against the decay of youth’s spirit, and the recollection overpowers of other times and other faces than those so kent and tolerant about me, I put my plaid on my shoulders and walk to Bealloch-an-uarain well. My children’s children must be with me elsewhere on my saunters; here I must walk alone. I am young again when looking on that magic fountain, still the same as when its murmur sounded in my lover’s ears. Here are yet the stalwart trees, the tall companions, that nodded on our shy confessions; the ivy hangs in sheeny spray upon the wall. Time, that ranges, has here no freedom, but stands, shackled by links of love and memory to the rocks we sat on. I sit now there and muse, and beside me is a shadow that never ages, with a pale face averted, looking through leafless boughs at the glimpse of star and moon. I see the bosom heave; I see the eyes flash full, then soften half-shut on some inward vision. For I am never there at Bealloch-an-uarain, summer or spring, but the season, in my thought, is that of my wife’s first kiss, and it is always a pleasant evening and the birds are calling in the dusk. I plucked my lady’s ivy with a cruel wrench, as one would pluck a sweet delusion from his heart, and her fingers were so warm and soft as I gave her the leaves! Then I turned to go. “It is time we were home,” I said, anxious now to be alone with my vexation. “In a moment,” she said, plucking more ivy for herself; and then she said, “Let us sit a little; I am wearied.” My courage came anew. “Fool!” I called myself. “You may never have the chance again.” I sat down by her side, and talked no love but told a story. It is a story we have in the sheilings among the hills, the tale of “The Sea Fairy of French Foreland”; but I changed it as I went on, and made the lover a soldier. I made him wander, and wandering think of home and a girl beside the sea. I made him confront wild enemies and battle with storms, I set him tossing upon oceans and standing in the streets of leaguered towns, or at grey heartless mornings upon lonely plains with solitude around, and yet, in all, his heart was with the girl beside the sea. She listened and flushed. My hero’s dangers lit her eyes like lanthorns, my passions seemed to find an echo in her sighs. Then I pitied my hero, the wandering soldier, so much alone, so eager, and unforgetting, till I felt the tears in my eyes as I imaged his hopeless longing. She checked her sighs, she said my name in the softest whisper, laid her head upon my shoulder and wept. And then at last I met her quivering lips. CHAPTER XXXV.--FAREWELL.