Introduction

I—­“Wae’s me for Prince Chairlie”

II—­“Oh!  Canada! mon pays, terre adoree,
     Sol si cher a mes amours.”

III—­“Il y a longtemps que je t’aime,
      Jamais je ne t’oublierai.”

IV—­“Red o’er the forest peers the setting sun,
     The line of yellow light dies fast away.”

V—­“A parish priest was of the pilgrim train;
    An awful, reverend and religious man. 
    His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
    And charity itself was in his face. 
    Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor
    (As God hath clothed his own ambassador),
    For such, on earth, his bless’d Redeemer bore.”

VI—­“The love of money is the root of all evil.”

VII—­“Oh! world! thy slippery turns!  Friends now fast sworn in love inseparable shall within this hour break out to bitterest enmity.”

VIII—­ten years after. 
  “Oh! wouldst thou set thy rank before thyself? 
   Wouldst thou be honored for thyself or that? 
   Rank that excels the wearer doth degrade,
   Riches impoverish that divide respect.”

IX—­“Alas!  Our memories may retrace
     Each circumstance of time and place;
     Season and scene come back again,
     And outward things unchanged remain: 
     The rest we cannot reinstate: 
     Ourselves we cannot re-create,
     Nor get our souls to the same key
     Of the remember’d harmony.”

X—­“O! primavera gioventu dell’ anno! 
    O! gioventu primavera della vitae!!!”

XI—­“Because thou hast believed the wheels of life
     Stand never idle, but go always round;
     Hast labor’d, but with purpose; hast become
     Laborious, persevering, serious, firm—­
     For this thy track across the fretful foam
     Of vehement actions without scope or term,
     Call’d history, keeps a splendor, due to wit,
     Which saw one clue to life and followed it.”

XII—­“I know, dear heart! that in our lot
     May mingle tears and sorrow;
     But love’s rich rainbow’s built from tears
     To-day, with smiles to-morrow,
     The sunshine from our sky may die,
     The greenness from life’s tree,
     But ever ’mid the warring storm
     Thy nest shall shelter’d be. 
     The world may never know, dear heart! 
     What I have found in thee;
     But, though nought to the world, dear heart! 
     Thou’rt all the world to me.”

Epilogue. 
     “Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
     The fatal shadows that walk by us still.”

MARIE GOURDON.

CHAPTER I.

  “Wae’s me for Prince Chairlie.”

  Old Scotch Song.

It was a dark gloomy night in the year 1745.  Huge clouds hung in heavy masses over the sky, ready to discharge their heavy burden at any moment.  The thunder echoed and re-echoed with deafening crashes, as if the whole artillery of heaven were arrayed in mighty warfare, and shook even the giant crag on which the castle of Dunmorton was situated.