Having found Duncan's father, Mr M'Donald explained to him his views regarding his son. These were readily acceded to by both the boy's parents, who, though they sorely grudged to part with their little Duncan, yet saw that it might be for his advantage, and therefore felt themselves called on to sacrifice their own feelings in a case which seemed to involve his future welfare. At this interview it was settled, in short, that he should enter the service of Mr M'Donald, and of course leave the country with him when he went. Three days after this, Duncan bade farewell to his parents and the home of his childhood. His patron was about to set out for Greenock, and there to embark for Jamaica. The parting was a bitter one. His father clasped him in his arms; and, while those tears, which no danger to himself, and no sufferings merely his own, could ever have drawn from him, streamed down his rugged cheeks, he fervently and solemnly prayed, in Gaelic--in his own impressive language--for a blessing on his child. "When I have had such a parting as this, Duncan," he said, afterwards--"and many of them I've had with my brethren, and with more remote but still dear friends--it was the honour of our country and our name that caused the separation. They had girded on the sword, and went to seek distinction in the ranks of war, and on the field of battle. They went to be soldiers, Duncan; and I could wish that you had been now following their footsteps. But it may be better as it is. Your days may be more, though your reputation should be less. A different destiny seems meted out for you." But it was in the case of his mother that the parting of little Duncan was most affecting. She held the boy to her bosom, as if she meant that he should never again leave it, and loaded him with all the tender epithets which her memory could supply, and with which the Gaelic language so much abounds. On exhausting these, she proceeded to deplore the approaching separation from her child, in that affecting strain, at once metaphorical and poetical, peculiar to her country on such and similar occasions. "This day, my Duncan," she said, "the light of the sun is obscured to your mother's eyes, and he shines not as he did before. The green woods have lost their verdure, and the once sparkling waters of the fountain their brightness. A dark cloud is on the face of the sun, that will long, long remain, though none but your mother's eye will see it; a blight, that she alone can perceive, is on the lovely woods of Ardmoran; and, pure though the waters of the fountain may appear to others, to her, Duncan, they will henceforth seem soiled and discoloured." Such was the figurative language in which Duncan's mother went on to describe her feelings as they were, and as she anticipated they would be; and such was the strain in which she deplored the impending separation from her child.