Far Horizons Read Online Free PDF

you respect her, it's the only way. You know it is.”
    Allan took a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought long and hard before asking her, Father. It wasn’t a whim, I promise you. And Harriet knows what it means.”
    “Does she? Perhaps more than you do, lad. You’ve no idea of the sacrifice you’re asking her to make.”
    “And I’m making one as well?” Allan demanded. Desperation edged his voice. Sandy shrugged.
    “Allan, you’re a man. Harriet must be nearing five and twenty already. By the time you come back--if you come back--”
    “She’s twenty-three years old,” Allan interjected flatly.
    “Still, most women have a bairn on their hip and one in their belly by this time,” Sandy stated baldly. “If you’d married already...”
    “And flown in the face of her father?”
    “No, of course not. I feel for you, son, I do, for it’s a hard thing to bear, but many have born the same and lived to tell the tale. And it could be all for naught, and in a few years all your hopes shall come to pass.” He sighed heavily, and in that sound Allan heard the death knell of his own dreams. “The only way is ahead, Allan.” Sandy smiled, although the gesture seemed more one of resigned sorrow than any happiness or joy. “We’ll create a holding together that no man, least of all Campbell, can sneer at. When you return, it will be with pride and honour. Don’t sacrifice one for the other.”
    Allan looked away. He remembered the feel of Harriet’s cheek against his own, the love and truth shining in her eyes when she gave her promise. Yet he also saw, with a sobering heaviness, that he’d bound her to a half-life of waiting and wondering, with, as his father had reminded him, no certainties in it.
    He let out a sound halfway to a cry and turned away from his father, unwilling to let any man see him in such a state.
    “Perhaps she'll wait,” Sandy said quietly. “The way it's between you, I can't imagine her marrying another. But to bind her to you...” 
    “Would be dishonorable,” Allan finished for him. His vision blurred and he blinked hard.
    “In a few years, I'll have one of the best farms in the New World,” Sandy reminded him. “And enough money to send you back to Mull on a first class ticket!”
    Allan managed a smile, but something in his father's tone made him think of Archie’s words. I’ll have one of the best farms, he’d said. It made Allan feel like a lackey. Now, however, was not the time to grasp that particular nettle.
    “Yes, Father,” he said at last, the words drawn from him with both resignation and regret. “I see the way of it.”
    “Good lad.” Sandy clapped him on the shoulder, making Allan feel like a child who'd earned a pat on the head rather than the grown man he was, deciding his future and breaking his own heart.
    “I'll write her a letter,” he said. “Margaret can give it to Harriet tomorrow.”
    Sandy nodded and they both turned back to the inn. In their own rooms the rest of the family had gone to bed, and Allan listened to their sleepy sighs and snores as he gazed unseeingly into the dancing shadows created by a single candle. He thought of the conversation he’d had three months ago with David Campbell, when his hopes for a swift marriage to Harriet had been dashed.
    He remembered the contemptuous curl of the older man’s lip, his insistence that his daughter would not marry a man without land or prospects of his own.
    “We’ll have a farm in the New Scotland,” Allan had insisted. He’d wanted to add, ‘And bigger than yours by a sight!’
    David, however, only shook his head. “That’s dreams, for now. Show me the deed, the harvest, and then I’ll think it over.”
    “Harriet wants to marry me,” Allan said, a bit desperately, and David lifted his chin.
    “She’s needed here, and she knows it.”
    That was the crux of the matter, he realized now. His thoughts now edged with despair, he wondered if Campbell would entertain his suit even