The worship of the sun was gone, indeed; the bones of his priests had long since turned to dust in forgotten graves, but the great stone was not neglected. It had become as an altar whereat the priests and priestesses of a worship old as the world came to pour out the ardours of their souls; it was a trysting place for Islay lovers.

Along a track, marked plainly out by the feet of generations of worshippers at the shrine of love, yet another pilgrim was hastening with all a votary's eagerness. Yet, he was doomed to disappointment, for he found no loved one waiting in the shadow of the monolith. He turned away across the moors towards the sea that still was bright with sunset glory, and his eyes caught a crimson patch upon the water, drawing away into the west. He reached a turbulent stream, which ran riotously over its stony bed between shallow banks starred with wild flowers, thick with ferns.

Beside this stream, in a sheltered spot, a cottage stood, a warm red glow within. The man approached its hospitably open door and crossed the threshold with a Highland greeting.

At the sound of his voice, a girl sprang towards him from the fire, exclaiming rapturously:

“Neill, Neill, I thought you had not returned. Oh, but you stayed long in Mull. I wearied for you." And she drew him down beside her. She had been carding wool for her grandmother who sat at the other side of the fire, spinning. The blazing peat revealed a clean-swept floor, a bed, some stools, and little else; but Neill's eyes were all for the bright face of the girl beside him.

The old woman smiled and spun continuously, then nodded and slept, while Neill and his sweetheart talked.

"Heard you not the guns?" he asked in Gaelic, the only tongue he or the girl spoke.

'I heard them well enough and went to the old stone to wait for you, but," the girl pouted and glanced sideways at him, "you did not come, and I thought to myself, ' He has forgotten. A Mull lass has wiled away his heart from me.''

"Ha, Maggie! Jealous? No need, lass, no need." His arm stole round her waist. My heart was here with you," he whispered. "None could wile from me what I had not."

Maggie smiled once more, though when Neill attempted to snatch a kiss, she drew back coyly.

"Is it before folk? We're not alone. lad."

Remember that,

"A careless watch invites the thief," he whispered back, "the old wife's deaf."

But not blind, Neill."

That she is, lass, for she's sleeping. Listen," and in truth the old dame was snoring loudly. Maggie took up the cards that, for the last ten minutes, had lain idle in her lap, and affected to be unconscious of the kiss Neill pressed upon her rosy cheek.

Presently she said, "I expected you back from Mull long since. I feared-well, what use speaking now, but Mull robbed me of my father and my two fine brothers," she shuddered and edged closer to her lover. "Oh, Neill, I lay awake nights fearing the chiefs would fight and you would perish."

In the firelight she could see his face grow grave.

"I'm thinking you're a witch, lassie," he said, "for the chiefs did fight, but"-as, dropping her cards again, she clung to him-" you see I won back to you. It was a strange business, a bad one for MacDonald and his servants. Long we lay in Duart dungeons, and there's a black bruise on my leg where the chain was round me."

He bared his ankle in confirmation of his words, and Maggie's pity was as wine to him.

'Into a prison underground and foul he thrust us. The walls were running wet, and the tide rose in the centre twice a day. What think you of that lodging for our chief and his men ? "

The girl raised her head from its resting-place on his shoulder. "I say that I hate the coward that dared serve my lad so ill. I knew Mull meant danger, but I thought not the Chief of Mull so base."

Neill thanked her in a manner pleasing to both, and then went on: "There are some that say it was a kinsman of Sir Lauchlan that put the plan into his head, a dour looking chief with a face that would frighten a bairn, that came home from Edinburgh the day after we reached Duart. The Lady Ella MacDonald has good reason to weep this night. Oh, but there's woe in her heart for her bonnie Hector MacLean."

"Neill, Neill, MacDonald has never killed his dead wife's nephew ! "

"No, but he drove the lad from Dunyvaig, and I heard he would have given him something worse than words but for the Lady Muriel. She flung herself between them. A brave lady. As for the Lady Ella, she is over-timid, but she did the best she

could, for she fainted dead away, and MacDonald thought he had killed her."

"And the young chief got safe away?"

"Aye, lass, so I've said. I manned his galley by MacDonald's order. But for that I'd have been earlier at the tryst. I saw the galley away west as I came here. The sun was blinking on the dripping sweeps, and the sail was red as blood. An evil omen, lass. There'll be blood spilled yet ere all's over between the chiefs."

Maggie put her hand across his mouth.

"Hush! Neill. Hush! I like not to hear you speak of omens; you, the son of the Soothsayer. Oh, but it's a black ending to a bright day for the Lady Ella. This morning when I was gathering rock lichen and whin bark to make dyes for the wool, I saw her go riding to the Big Strand. A bonnie couple, she and young Hector MacLean! Oh, I'm glad we're not great folk. Castles and cares aye go together."

"Yes; and land and the longing for more, Maggie. Better lack land and plenishing and live in peace. It was the land did it."

"The Rhinns ? "

"Aye! and MacDonald would be a close prisoner in Mull this day if he had not given his promise that the Rhinns should be MacLean's and now the chief's son and brother are held in Mull to keep him to his word."

Maggie flung out both hands.

“Eh, lad ? but MacDonald missed his chance. Are there not dungeons in Dunyvaig as deep as in Duart? He could have kept MacLean's heir prisoner against James and Ranald and held fast to the Rhinns; for what's a forced promise? I wonder he let him go."

The self-same wonder filled many minds, and none more than that of Hugh MacKay, the lieutenant of Sir Angus MacDonald, as he sat facing his chief in Dunyvaig.

He had been listening wrathfully to a detailed account of the unfortunate visit to Mull.

"Like a fool I put myself in the hollow of his hand. He would not have stopped at my life to get his will." MacDonald's voice ceased, but his eyes continued to blaze with anger.

"But what avails a promise given under compulsion?" he went on. "James and Ranald are left behind, it is true, and my hands are fettered by their danger more securely than they were in Duart dungeon; but hostages have escaped from Duart

before, and may again, and there's no tide without a turn, MacKay. We must watch and wait our opportunity."

"You had your opportunity, Sir Angus, and you let it pass. You'll never get a better. Why sent you away the young MacLean? You could have forced Sir Lauchlan to ransom him with James. I marvel much you did not seize that chance."

66

"Then marvel no more, MacKay." Sir Angus drew a packet from his sporran and tossed it to his lieutenant. See that! It was put into my hands in Jura yesterday. If you can read Scotch as well as you can speak our own Gaelic, you will see that it is a command not to be trifled with."

MacKay, not much of a scholar, even for those days, turned the packet round and round, eyeing the seal. Then he opened it and glanced at what it held. "James Rex" at the foot of the message caught his eye. They were familiar words. Men who could read no others knew their import, and the sight of them was little loved by lawless chiefs.

"From the King?" he said.

"Aye! From the boy who sits upon his mother's throne. Spell it through, MacKay. It's pleasant reading, over pleasant to be safe, I think."

While MacKay laboriously puzzled out the writing, MacDonald went to impart to his daughters the contents of the royal letter.

The time came for the sweethearts in the cottage to part, and Neill MacDougal took his way home to Dunyvaig, Maggie walking with him as far as the trysting-stone.

There they paused, and Neill, to prolong the all too short parting, spoke.

'The Chief is going to Edinburgh within the week."
"You will be with him?"

"Yes."

Maggie's apron went to her eyes and she stammered, "You came home but now, and you must go so soon." He pressed her to him. "You need not cry, sweetheart, it's only to Edinburgh. If it was to Mull, now? I might be killed there"; but she refused to be comforted.

"You might be married in Edinburgh," she said. "Is it the Edinburgh lasses you're fearing? I've been there before. I know them well, and it's not in Edinburgh an Islesman must seek a wife. There was more danger of that in Mull."

"Little danger by your own account, since you scarce saw a lass at all in Duart dungeon."

"Dioul! You're a jealous woman, Maggie! And all because I daffed with Jean Gilvray! Let by-gones be by-gones, and you'll not have to complain of me again. I'll look neither to right nor left in Edinburgh, though well the lasses there know when they see a fine man." He drew himself up, and Maggie felt a thrill of pride, "and well they like an Islesman. I mind when I was there last He broke off lamely, but too late. "Well, what do you mind?" asked Maggie, and he trailed off some pointless story which deceived her not a whit.

..

"Town lasses for town lads!" he finished; may my eyes drop out if I look at one of them! Come to the stone."

Half way up the monolith was pierced by a circular hole, into which Neill and Maggie, one each side of the stone, thrust their hands and clasped them in the centre. Then they murmured some quaint Gaelic oath and loosed their hands.

"Now," said Neill, "are you satisfied?" and Maggie answered him in lover's fashion, for had he not just sworn himself to her with fearsome words?

"Next to no wife, a good one's best," he said lightly; "so when I come back we'll to Father O'Moore and wed."

(To be continued.)

THE EVENING BREEZE

ROUNDEL.

THE evening breeze blows soft and sweet,
And gently stirs the rustling trees
That whisper faint as passes fleet
The evening breeze.

In wavelets as on summer seas,
Or as 'twere trod by viewless feet,
A tremor o'er the lakelet flees.

I feel the wings of memory beat,
Come whisperings in a hundred keys,
As Time's stirred waters trembling meet
The evening breeze.

JOHN J. HAYDEN,