, or when a district in France is
inundated, she can put her hand into her pocket deeply enough; but how
can we expect so proud a mother to think twice about her children who
perished in fighting for her? Happily the dead are independent of
forgetfulness.

Duncan the Fair-haired--Donacha Ban, they called him, far and wide among
the hills--lies buried in a jungle on the African coast. He was only
twenty-three when he was killed: but he knew he had got the Victoria
Cross. As he lay dying, he asked whether the people in England would
send it to his mother, showing that his last fancies were still about
Castle Dare.

And Hector? As you cross the river at Sadowa, and pass through a bit of
forest, some cornfields begin to appear, and these stretch away up to
the heights of Chlum. Along the ridge there, by the side of the wood,
are many mounds of earth. Over the grave of Hector Macleod is no proud
and pathetic inscription such as marks the last resting-place of a young
lieutenant who perished at Gravelotte--_Er ruht saft in wiedererkampfter
deutscher Erde_--but the young Highland officer was well beloved by his
comrades, and when the dead were being pitched into the great holes dug
for them, and when rude hands were preparing the simple record, painted
on a wooden cross---"_Hier liegen--tapfere Krieger_"--a separate memento
was placed over the grave of Under-lieutenant Hector Macleod of the
----th Imperial and Royal Cavalry Regiment. He was one of the two sons
who had not inherited the title. Was it not a proud boast for this
white-haired lady in Mull that she had been the mother of four baronets?
What other mother in all the land could say as much? And yet it was that
that had dimmed and saddened the beautiful eyes.

And now her youngest--her Benjamin, her best-beloved--he was going away
from her too. It was not enough that the big deer forest, the last of
the possessions of the Macleods of Dare, had been kept intact for him,
when the letting of it to a rich Englishman would greatly have helped
the failing fortunes of the family; it was not enough that the poor
people about, knowing Lady Macleod's wishes, had no thought of keeping a
salmon spear hidden in the thatch of their cottages. Salmon and stag
could no longer bind him to the place. The young blood stirred. And when
he asked her what good things came of being a stay-at-home, what could
she say?

Suddenly old Hamish threw wide the oaken doors at the end of the hall,