"It's hame I fain wad be,
Hame, hame, hame! 
In my ain Countree."

 (Old Song).

          On the 31st of December 1861, Lieut. Colonel Macdonell  retired from the service with the brevet rank of full Colonel, having served a little over thirty-five years.   During that time he had no leave in India beyond the annual amount authorised by regulations, and only once (1853-4) did he have leave out of India.

          And now, with thirty-five years of Indian life behind him, (and as it turned out, thirty-five years more ahead), he was returning hale and hearty to his native land.

          His mother-in-law, who had remained in her old home near Elgin after her husband's death, and was naturally enough reluctant to leave it, having lived there since her bridal days, had written and persuaded the Colonel to take on the farm when her lease of it should expire, which would occur in May 1862.   So in January of that year he left India for good with his wife and two little children,(Ranaldson and Jessie) and travelling by what was called the Overland Route, i.e. via Suez, Cairo, and Alexandria, reached Southampton on the 2nd of March.   Thence after a short stay in London, they went up to Morayshire, and took up their abode in the long rambling, picturesque dwelling  (Calcots) on the banks of the Lossie, which had been the home of Mrs. Macdonell's childhood, (as Eleanor Barclay) and as her husband was fond of saying, was a "pretty locale for the Burra Mem".

          And as to himself, he would say with a smile, "I have beaten my sword into a ploughshare, my spear into a pruning hook, and study war no more!   Truth to tell however, having done so much towards adopting a farmer's life, he did no more!   And to his wife it fell, understanding the country folk, their talk and ways so much better than he did, to superintend the management of the farm and gardens, as well as to attend to her social and domestic duties.   It was a life full of work and interest, and well suited to her energetic nature.

          The Colonel, although his talents did not tend to farming, did not eat the bread of idleness, but his energies inclined to sport rather than to agriculture, - shooting, fishing, and hunting, each in its turn as the year went round.   He had always been fond of sport in India, although he does not appear to have cared much for big game shooting, and he never had an opportunity of pig sticking, which is said to be the finest sport of all.   But he was an excellent shot, and a bold and fearless rider.   As his children became old enough to sit a pony, he took the greatest pleasure in teaching them all to ride, and the boys in addition, to fish, swim and shoot.

          And so the years quietly passed by, busily and happily, until the Colonel's sight began to fail, which after repeated operations, it at last utterly did.   By that time the family had given up the old home and taken up their abode at 3, Priestfield Road, Edinburgh.

          His fortitude under the great trial of blindness never failed, nor did his singularly kindly, cheerful, and courteous bearing.   Blindness debarred him from much enjoyment, but happily both memory and hearing remained good to the end, likewise his love of music, and taste for smoking, so that many were the pleasant hours he passed talking to friends, listening to the reading or music of one or other of his familuy, relating tales of old times in India, (the happiest days of his life as he often said,) or quietly smoking "the pipe of peace".

          And so time went on, and seventeen years had passed since he first became blind, when, after an illness of three months' duration, "the grand old Colonel" gently breathed his last on 19th June 1897, being then eighty-eight years of age.

          Thus ended the life of one beloved as husband, father, friend;  a brave man, a good soldier, a true gentleman.

          His widow still lives in Edinburgh (1907) and although an octogenarian, is in full possession of all her faculties;  she reads much, does beautiful silken embroideries, writes most clever and entertaining letters, and beyond all that, is one of the sweetest women in the world;  "whom may God long preserve!"

 FOOTNOTE:   In February 1911, Eleanor Macdonell died, aged eighty-six.