smoke which rose from the cottage chimney, as if betokening the additional warmth of the blaze within. The shepherd had rounded the last turn of the rocky footpath, which led him by a long sweep from the opposite margin of the lake, and had put his foot upon the nearest of the stepping-stones which were to take him dry-shod over the broad part of the stream, as it flowed over the level ground, when his eye caught the flutter of a plaid, and he looked hastily up the river to discover the owner of it, not doubting that Elspeth's hour of milking had arrived, and that she had wrapt herself up to follow its duties out of doors. The plaid, however, as his quick eye soon perceived, was suspended from a tree, and its folds prevented him from tracing any figure to whom it might belong, or which might have sheltered behind it. The thought glanced across him that Mari might have retreated to her favourite haunt, and he pushed his way through the brechans, with the intention of winning her home out of the chill autumn air to her mother's warm hearth; but when he drew aside the plaid, which hung like a screen from some hazels, he became like one transfixed at the vision which met him. The poor child stood like one spell-stricken close by the verge of the streamlet, with her small fleshless feet touching the water, her hands pressed convulsively over her breast, and her eyes fixed with a wild and rigid stare upon the surface of the stream, while the masses of long black hair, which waved by the action of the wind back from her unearthly and colourless features, gave her, even in the eyes that were familiar with her wildest moods, an expression of frenzied excitement.

Murdoch hesitated for a moment, in doubt whether or not he could with safety arrest the young Pythoness in her mood of inspiration; but apprehension for the afflicted creature's bodily health prevailed, and he advanced slowly, yet with a warning noise, to her side, and said softly,

"The burn side is ower chilly for you, Mari dear; come with me to your mother's fire. See how the chimney smokes; I warrant it is cozier by the nook this bitter even than standing there without plaid or brogues upon you. Come your ways, Mari."

And he advanced nearer and nearer, with always a deeper tone of entreaty. The maiden stretched out her hand without looking towards him, and drew her friendly visitant closer to the water's edge.

"Look you there, and see what your morning work will be. You are come to ask Robin Ure to hunt the fox on Craig Caillach—ay, ay; but Heaven sends me the power to keep him. And I would keep you too; for you are one half o' my treasure of dust. There! -there!-Will you do as I have warned you, or will ye dree the weird that mun surely come?"

Murdoch looked eagerly into the water, but his gaze discovered nothing, except a dark spot upon its surface, caused by the shadow from one of the sharp cliffs as it deepened in the increasing twilight.

"Well, well, Mari dear," answered he at last, "there is nothing but the figure of the craig there is surely nothing to frighten you in a rock near which you have lived all your life. And if I do wile your father to the fox-hunt the morn, he kens all the wild places in the corri ower well to make it a dangerous chase to him."

Mari made a movement of impatience, and exclaimed hastily, and as it seemed angrily,

"Ah! dull dark eye-balls-clogged with worldly wisdom - see you not that withered cluster of beechen leaves that floats upon the burn?— there is blood in its track, and it has lodged in the shadow of the Devil's Dyke. See! see!-it shivers and trembles, and the water gurgles under it. Blood - blood and brains! - God be with us, Murdoch! one of ye will find his last chase on yon craig tomorrow. Come-come!"

The unfortunate young prophetess, overcome by the terrible frenzy of her vision, staggered backwards, and fell into the arms of the terrified and compassionate shepherd.

Murdoch's blood ran cold at the mysterious language of the excited creature before him. That he had sought the cottage of Glenshee for the express purpose of persuading Robin to join in the sport to which she had alluded was true; but it was equally certain that no living thing had as yet been apprised of that intention; and the information of Mari must have been conveyed by a channel such as Murdoch was far too genuine a Highlander to contemplate without a shudder. He carried his unconscious burthen to her home, and committed her to the mournful and anxious attendance of Elspeth, who found a ready solution to the riddle of Murdoch's scared and solemn looks in the situation of the poor little sufferer, whom he loved, as she well knew, like a sister, and whom he had but seldom before seen in the paroxysms of her disease. Robin was from home far over the mountain, and, although the good wife was in hourly expectation of his return, yet Murdoch was not to be prevailed upon to wait for him, but avowed his intention of returning straight to his home, as the business which brought him to the glen was not of so pressing a nature as to demand his longer sojourn. He satisfied himself, accordingly, that the hour of Robin's return from a toilsome trudge over the hill would place his accidental attendance on the fox-chase out of the question; and having so secured the safety of the old man from the perils which threatened him, he availed himself of the good wife's proffered repast of cheese and bannocks, and once more retraced his steps down the side of the lake, forbearing, from motives which may be traced to the sensitiveness of the superstitious, to lighten the load that weighed him down with its mystery by imparting any portion of it to the maternal heart of Elspeth.

A fox-chase over the giant hills, cliffs, and crags of the Highlands is, no doubt, a species of amusement that may prove somewhat startling to the ear of a southern sportsman; but when the hunt is described as performed on foot, and for the sole purpose of exterminating the creature, which the sheep-farmer finds so inimical to the interests of his fold, the practicability of the exploit may be admitted, though the perils attending it continue as before; for they who have had an opportunity of seeing the stout and fearless agility with which the young Highlander springs from crag to crag after his prey, or follows the hounds down the shelving sides of scaur and corri, will confess that the chamois is won through scarcely superior hazard. Accordingly, Mari's prediction of danger to the hunters on that rugged and most dangerous promontory of the mountain called the Devil's Dyke was by no means chimerical, as Murdoch, with all his strength of limb and nerve,

acknowledged; and he waited in considerable anxiety the reports of the chase throughout the early part of the morning that followed its occurrence. It was not long that his suspense continued; for before noontide a gilly from the other side of the hill came over to tell him that Angus Bane had slid from the uppermost pinnacle of the craig, and dashed his head to atoms among the rocks at the foot of the corri called the Devil's Stair, and to bid Murdoch come over to his funeral on the day following.

A thoughtful and an awe-stricken man was Murdoch that evening, as he once more took his solitary way over the path that led him to Glenshee. His blood curdled in his veins as he considered the verification of Mari's prophecy, with the natural timidity which, even among the most steady believers in the supernatural, fails not to assail them on any immediate experience of its effects. He longed to be himself the first to communicate to the girl the fulfilment of her wild prediction, partly because he wished to judge of her faith in her own powers by her manner of receiving it, and partly because he was apprehensive of evil consequences, should she hear of the accident from a less heedful informant. His heart beat quickly as he passed the scene of his last night's adventure, and he asked himself if it were possible that a frame so feeble could struggle long with such fierce emotions as he had witnessed there; and, as the question arose, he involuntarily quickened his pace, as if in anxiety to learn the well-being of the unfortunate Mari. The shadows had deepened as he sped along, and before Murdoch had crossed the burn its surface was dimmed by the descending night; but a bright spark glowed from the cottage window, and the wayfarer strode forward enlivened, and almost reassured, by the picture his fancy presented of the snug group, and the warm welcome which awaited him. His visions, however, were interrupted; for before he crossed the threshold he saw the door open, and a figure closely muffled, which he, nevertheless, recognised to be Mari, stepped out into the darkness. He drew aside for an instant to watch her motions, half afraid to cross the young prophetess for the second time by his presence, and yet determined, if possible, to prevent so dismal a triumph of her disease as that to which he had been witness on the previous night. He was concealed under the hazel bushes as she passed, but her garments touched him, and from within the folds of her plaid he heard a loud sob and a plaining sound, that convinced him she was weeping bitterly, and there was something in the natural and familiar evidence of such suffering which transformed the afflicted being before him from an object of dread and horror to one of sympathy and compassion.

"Is it you, Mari dear?" said he in a gentle voice, and walking up to her from behind. "What's takin' you out at this time o' night, an' the sky sae dark, an' the wind sae snell as it is e'en now? Surely the beasts are a' closed in by this time; an' your mother could ha'e nae bit errand to tak' ye doon the loch side after gloaming. Come your ways hame again, dearie, and leave that silly moon to look frae behind the clouds at her ain white face in the water, an' ye shall see her some other night, when there is nae wind to drive the black curtain ower, an' to cut ye through as this does.”

The girl turned round to him at once, and answered in a plaintive and sorrowful tone as she withdrew the screen from her face.

"Is it you, Murdoch? I am thankful to God for sending you to me. I would have had a cold walk over Ben Shee if you had not come."

"Ben Shee!" repeated the shepherd. "Was it over Ben Shee that ye were bound, Mari, and in search o' me? What can I do for you? Tell me that. I'se do it, whatever it may be," and he drew her towards him, and wrapt the sheltering plaid closer round her shivering frame, while she continued to weep piteously, and clung to his strong arm, as if in entreaty.

"Promise me one thing, Murdoch of Ben Shee-promise me," said she in a paroxysm of anxiety, "promise, as ye would on a dying bed, one thing that I shall ask you; for, if you refuse, it will bring me to the grave. Old Robin Ure, my father, the kindest of fathers, and the wisest and the best, he that would not break one of the least of the commands of God, nor teach others to disregard them, has refused me, and the sin shall be upon his head, and the suffering upon mine. Promise me that you will be less headstrong, Murdoch, and that you will add your words to mine, that we may move the old man from his purpose; promise that you will not attend the funeral of Angus Bane."

Murdoch gave the excited creature the promise she desired, and then stood silent for a few moments, surprised and bewildered.

Oh, Murdoch! Murdoch!" said Mari in a voice of utter despair, "what shall we do to keep my father at home? Remember my words last night, and then ask if any childish whim is on my spirit now. You, Murdoch, you can testify to the truth of mine observance. You can say whether phantasies struggle with truth within my brain till it be crazed. Oh, Murdoch ! Murdoch! tell you the old man, that if he go to the burial, he will never return. Tell him that he will leave his child an orphan, and his wife a widow, and that his own old bones shall whiten where never a voice will wail his coronach, nor kindly hand be nigh to close his eyelids, or to streak his corpse; that no lyke wake will be held over him, nor grass grow green upon his heart. Oh, Murdoch! Murdoch! is it not an awful thing to die unblessed, and by our own wilful agency? to sleep with unhallowed things, and to leave those we love best without a prayer for them or ourselves?"

The poor girl stopped her gasping address, and her whole form seemed to heave with agitation. Murdoch soothed her for a while with promises of his uttermost endeavours to move the resolution of her father, and she grew calmer under the hopes of success with which he strove to reassure her.

66

"An' what for should we no follow poor old Angus to his lang hame, Mari?" asked he at last. Angus was one of your father's oldest friends on all Ben Shee; an' he must hae a gude reason for 't before he agree to stay at hame, an' let others mourn for him. Tell me, Mari dear, what ye are afraid for?"

Mari flung the plaid far back from her face and head, and turned her forehead up to the white moonshine, till Murdoch could see that the beam itself was not more wan and deathlike. Her features were all at work with the spell of her malady; she waved her arms for him to follow, and then flitted past him to a small ridge, or knoll, on the margin of her favourite stream. When she had gained the summit, she stood with her back towards the waters, her face turned fully

up to the sky, and her arms stretched out over the valley at her feet, the impersonation of an inspired priestess.

"See, see, they are coming," said she in an eager and concentrated tone, and with her eyes fastened upon some object in the valley, which Murdoch fancied the dim night alone prevented him from tracing: "they are coming slowly slowly a bonny burial, an' six mourners at the bier: they are coming o'er the moor o' Chrom Dhu, and their black shadows are following them like spirits. Stand aside, Murdoch; they will pass even now, and we may count the bearers, and see if Robin Ure be among them."

Murdoch stared wistfully at the spell-bound creature before him, and, as he scanned the deathly features and gleaming eyes, his heart swelled with a compassionate longing to arrest, even in its progress, the destroying influence that was upon her. He felt that it could be no visible shadow on which her gaze was fixed with such a fearful intensity, for the moor of Chrom Dhu was far away over the other side of the mountain. He took both her cold hands, and, chafing them gently with his own, spoke kindly to her in words of comfort and remonstrance.

"Yon's no Chrom Dhu, Mari dear; it's your ain bonnie Glenshee, an' there's nae living shadows moving on it; it is but the waving of your ain black firs you are looking at, and the clouds that are scudding so mirkily ower the moor. Let us go, Mari; ye will catch your very death in this dreary night."

"Trees and clouds!" said the maiden with a terrible laugh: "do they bury each other, and walk in such goodly ranks as these do? Kneel down, poor clay, and you shall see.'

"

Murdoch almost unconsciously obeyed her, and she stood hanging over him, so as to bring their figures into the closest possible contact; then, placing one hand upon her side, she made him look through the angle formed by her elbow, and speak not till his gaze was done. The prohibition was unnecessary. Murdoch drew his breath between his closed teeth, the blood stood still in his veins, his flesh moved, and his brain sickened with horror.

A funeral procession, in solemn and regular array, moved steadily along within a few paces of the spot where he stood. The pall, the bier, the coffin, and the mourning habiliments, all were as distinct and palpable as the commonest occurrences of life, and they gradually approached nearer and nearer with their slow and measured movement, and their noiseless tread, till the gazer felt his eye-strings crack as he measured the diminishing distance. On they came dark, dismal, and solemn-nearer, nearer, and nearer,-on they came with a tread which was the more horrible because it gave back no sound. Murdoch felt the atmosphere of a crowd; felt their garments stir the air as they passed him; felt the burial-pall flap beside his very cheek, and his soul shuddered with horror. The faces of friends and kinsmen were among that company of wraiths, and Murdoch felt the arm of Mari grasp his neck with a convulsive clutch as the last stragglers passed the spot. Another, and another lingered; one more, - it was Robin Ure. A white mist fell upon the vision of Murdoch, and, with a scream of agony, he fell senseless upon the heather.

When Murdoch awoke from his trance he was alone. Mari had disappeared, the sky was pure and cloudless, and the full moon