The Marquis and his clansman touched hands, lingered together a little, and the rider passed on his way with the piper’s invitation the last sound in his ears. He rode past Kilmalieu of the tombs, with his bonnet off for all the dead that are so numerous there, so patient, waiting for the final trump. He rode past Boshang Gate, portal to my native glen of chanting birds and melodious waters and merry people. He rode past Gearron hamlet, where the folk waved farewells; then over the river before him was the bend that is ever the beginning of home-sickness for all that go abroad for fortune. I turned to the girl beside me, and “Sweetheart,” said I softly, “there’s an elder brother lost. It is man’s greed, I know; but rich though I am in this new heart of yours, I must be grudging the comrade gone.” “Gone!” said she, with scarcely a glance after the departing figure. “Better gone than here a perpetual sinner, deaf to the cry of justice and of nature.” “Good God!” I cried, “are you still in that delusion?” and I hinted at the truth. She saw the story at a flash; she paled to the very lips, and turned and strained her vision after that figure slowly passing round the woody point; she relinquished no moment of her gaze till the path bent and hid John Splendid from her eager view. THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Splendid, by Neil Munro