It would be something joyous they were playing there to speed him on his way; and the ’drink at the door’—the _Deoch an Dhoruis_—would be going the round; and many would be the hand-shaking and farewell. And then, by and by, as she sate there all alone and listening, she heard a faint sound of cheering—and that was repeated, in a straggling sort of fashion; and thereafter there was silence. The mail-cart had driven away for the south. Nor even now did she go back to the cottage. She wandered away through the wild moorland wastes—hour after hour, and aimlessly; and when, by chance, a shepherd or crofter came along the road, she left the highway and went aside among the heather, pretending to seek for wild-flowers or the like: for sometimes, if not always, there was that in the beautiful, tender Highland eyes which she would have no stranger see. *CHAPTER IX.* *SOUTHWARDS.* As for him, it was a sufficiently joyous departure; for some of the lads about were bent on accompanying him on the mail-car as far as Lairg; and they took with them John Macalpine and his weather-worn pipes to cheer them by the way; and at Crask they each and all of them had a glass of whisky; and on the platform at Lairg railway-station the clamour of farewell was great. And even when he had got quit of that noisy crew, and was in the third-class compartment, and thundering away to the south, his thoughts and fancies were eager and ardent and glad enough; and his brain was busy with pictures; and these were altogether of a joyful and hopeful kind. Already he saw himself on that wide estate—somewhere or other in the Highlands he fondly trusted; draining and planting and enclosing here; there pruning and thinning and felling; manufacturing charcoal and tar; planning temporary roads and bridges; stacking bark and faggots; or discussing with the head-keeper as to the desirability or non-desirability of reintroducing capercailzie. And if the young American lady and her father should chance to come that way, would he not have pleasure and pride in showing them over the place?—nay, his thoughts went farther afield, and he saw before him Chicago, with its masts and its mighty lake, and himself not without a friendly grip of welcome on getting there. As for Meenie, where would she be in those coming and golden and as yet distant days? Far away from him, no doubt; and what else could he expect?—for now he saw her among the fine folk assembled at the shooting-lodge in Glengask—and charming all of them with her sweet and serious beauty and her gentle ways—and again he pictured her seated on the white deck of Sir Alexander’s yacht, a soft south wind filling the sails, and the happy gray-blue Highland eyes looking forward contentedly enough to the yellow line of the Orosay shore. That was to be her future—fair and shining; for always he had associated Meenie with beautiful things—roses, the