Years have flown since that day on the hills, and much has befallen; but the prologue is the kernel of my play, and the curtain which rose after that hour revealed things less worthy of chronicle.  Why should I tell of how my trade prospered mightily, and of the great house we built at Middle Plantation; of my quarrels with Nicholson, which were many; of how we carved a fair estate out of Elspeth’s inheritance, and led the tide of settlement to the edge of the hills?  These things would seem a pedestrian end to a high beginning.  Nor would I weary the reader with my doings in the Assembly, how I bearded more Governors than one, and disputed stoutly with His Majesty’s Privy Council in London.  The historian of Virginia—­now by God’s grace a notable land—­may, perhaps, take note of these things, but it is well for me to keep silent.  It is of youth alone that I am concerned to write, for it is a comfort to my soul to know that once in my decorous progress through life I could kick my heels and forget to count the cost; and as youth cries farewell, so I end my story and turn to my accounts.

Elspeth and I have twice voyaged to Scotland.  The first time my uncle and mother were still in the land of the living, but they died in the same year, and on our second journey I had much ado in settling their estates.  My riches being now considerable, I turned my attention to the little house of Auchencairn, which I enlarged and beautified, so that if we have the wish we may take up our dwelling there.  We have found in the West a goodly heritage, but there is that in a man’s birth place which keeps tight fingers on his soul, and I think that we desire to draw our last breath and lay our bones in our own grey country-side.  So, if God grants us length of days, we may haply return to Douglasdale in the even, and instead of our noble forests and rich meadows, look upon the bleak mosses and the rainy uplands which were our childhood’s memory.

That is the fancy at the back of both our heads.  But I am very sure that our sons will be Virginians.

THE END.