But Park was not to be debarred from his enterprise by any thought of the difficulties in the way. To all that Scott could urge he had his answer. The idea of solving the question of the Niger’s termination was one which possessed him to the exclusion of all thoughts of self. As well have asked him to renounce his belief in the existence of God as expect him to give up his cherished scheme.
At last the glen of the Yarrow lay before them. At the bottom could be hazily defined the “birchen bower,” from which the stately tower of Newark and the humble cottage of Foulshiels alike looked forth on the beautiful murmurous stream.
Here they must say good-bye. A ditch divided the road from the moor, and in crossing it Park’s horse stumbled and nearly fell. “I am afraid, Mungo,” said Scott, “that is a bad omen.” “Freits” (_i.e._, omens) “follow those who look to them,” was the prompt reply; and without another word Park rode away and disappeared in the mist.
It now only remained to Park to take farewell of his wife. Brave as he was, the ordeal was more than he dared face. Not that she had raised any objections to his going, or put any barriers in the way. Seeing how much her husband’s heart was in it, and not perhaps without some natural womanly pride in being the wife of a hero rather than of a nobody, she seems to have accepted as a matter of course his determination to avail himself of the chance of further distinction presented by the proposed expedition. Still, the moment of actual parting, with the prospect of at best a long period of separation, would be agony. Even better than his wife Park knew how many chances there were that the separation might be final--that wife and children, of whom there were now three, might never see him again. Sanguine as he was of success, there were moments when he could not but admit that the coming enterprise looked very like a forlorn hope--moments, too, when it became difficult for him to discern whether his duty to humanity or to his family had the stronger claim upon him.
It was under the influence of some such feeling of despondency that he finally resolved to spare both himself and his wife the anguish of a parting scene, and betaking himself to Edinburgh on the plea of business, thence wrote to her his last farewell.