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And then came the wedding before anybody was really ready, as weddings always do, with all the MacGillivrays from Port Stewart and all the McDonald relations from Glenoro.
And so the autumn passed very merrily for the minister of Glenoro, disturbed only by occasional doubts as to his course, until, with the opening of winter, came the Christmas holidays and Donald Neil. Duncan Polite's heart grew happy again under his boy's sunny presence. Donald's deep regret at the disappointment he was causing his best friend made him assiduous in his attentions to Duncan.
Egerton," said his host heartily, "an' mind, as long's ye're in Glenoro, ye canna come too often! The lassies cut up a bit dust in the room yonder, but there's always a quiet corner here, an' me an' Mr. Watson here, tuts, tuts, Ah was forgettin' this is Maister Watson, our schoolmaster, aye, aye!"
His earliest visits, he felt, should be paid to the homes of his elders, so, a few days after the lively evening spent at the Hamiltons', he took his slim cane and went up over the northern wall of Glenoro to pay his respects to old Andrew Johnstone. A somewhat difficult task he knew it would be, for he had already been warned by Mrs. McNabb that Splinterin' Andra was a dour old man.
If Donald could have guessed that someone in Glenoro was watching and waiting for him in alternate hope and fear, he might not have been in such haste to get away. But he remained only one day at home, and then, without even visiting the village, set off to join Sandy at the camp. He found the men ensconced in a rough shanty in the woods north of Lake Oro.
Even the Oa went for him solidly; a Gaelic preacher seemed an impossible luxury in these degenerate times, anyway, and, as Peter Farquhar said, "Mr. McAlpine's grandson without the Gaelic was better than any other man with it." There had not been such a congregation in the Glenoro church since the days of the first John McAlpine as there was the Sabbath after the young man's induction.
When he climbed the northern hill of Glenoro and came out upon the broad, sun-flooded highlands, he found that the country sloped gently upwards, rising in great sweeping terraces of green pastureland and fields of early grain, until it reached its highest altitude on the shores of Lake Oro.
And all the time Duncan Polite's whole soul was waiting for his guest to speak of the one great subject, the subject that would make it possible for him to tell this young disciple of his Master that all his hope for Glenoro and Donald lay in him.
No serious trouble might have arisen, however, had not the two who were always a source of dissension in the village, put their wicked heads together. To be quite fair, for once in their lives, Trooper Tom and Marmaduke were without guile when they decided to invite old Piper Lauchie McDonald from Glenoro to come and play at the concert.
On the evening after the encounter, Duncan Polite sat expectantly on his door-step. He knew that Andrew would be sure to come down to tell him of the affair, and he was waiting in some trepidation, hoping that his fiery old friend had not said something which would wreck forever the peace of Glenoro church.
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