MacLean tied the shoestrings with elaborate care; then rose from his
knees, and stood looking down from his great height upon the Quaker
maiden. His face was softened, and when he spoke it was with a gentle
voice. "No," he said, "I am not unhappy as at first I was. My king is an
exile, and my chief is forfeited. I suppose that my father is dead. Ewin
Mackinnon, my foe upon whom I swore revenge, lived untroubled by me, and
died at another's hands. My country is closed against me; I shall never
see it more. I am named a rebel, and chained to this soil, this dull and
sluggish land, where from year's end to year's end the key keeps the
house and the furze bush keeps the cow. The best years of my
manhood--years in which I should have acquired honor--have gone from me
here. There was a man of my name amongst those gentlemen, old officers of
Dundee, who in France did not disdain to serve as private sentinels, that
their maintenance might not burden a king as unfortunate as themselves.
That MacLean fell in the taking of an island in the Rhine which to this
day is called the Island of the Scots, so bravely did these gentlemen bear
themselves. They made their lowly station honorable; marshals and princes
applauded their deeds. The man of my name was unfortunate, but not
degraded; his life was not amiss, and his death was glorious. But I, Angus
MacLean, son and brother of chieftains, I serve as a slave; giving
obedience where in nature it is not due, laboring in an alien land for
that which profiteth not, looking to die peacefully in my bed! I should be
no less than most unhappy."

He sat down upon the bench beside Truelove, and taking the hem of her
apron began to plait it between his fingers. "But to-day," he said,--"but
to-day the sky seems blue, the sunshine bright. Why is that, Truelove?"

Truelove, with her eyes cast down and a deeper wild rose in her cheeks,