"A word, and I will steer you there," said he, “it is not far."

Grace met his glance, and wondered at the earnestness expressed in his eyes, ebony black and shining like wet rocks at ebb of tide.

"Oh, Coll," she cried, "I meant it not so seriously," and he was sane again. He had suffered but a moment's madness. "Ah," he said in a moment, "how often shall I think in my lone castle of Dunad of these too happy days with you, my cousin! But we shall meet again, and soon. Tell me, fair Grace, will you be glad to see your grim old cousin, Coll, once more?"

Why need you ask? You know I will-not once but many

times."

Her bright smile and the frank directness of her answer were not quite pleasing to the Highlander: his swarthy cheek reddened, and he muttered something unintelligible to Grace. In the evening Coll and his mother had a long familiar talk. “Must I then go and leave all that I long to say unsaid?" he asked her at the end.

You must, Coll. It would be useless to do otherwise. Grace knows little of love except from whatever songs she hears the harper sing, though there are many of the sons of Ireland ardently desirous of her smiles. She is little more than a child in her knowledge of anything but sorrow and her country's griefs."

"Then I must live through the coming month as best I may. I know not for whom it will be longer, Grace or me. To me it will be an eternity."

one

"" What if one of these ardent sons of Ireland comes when I am absent and says the words that I would say?" Coll was thinking while he bade his dark love good-bye.

Then he was gone, and Grace MacDonald stood with parted lips and strange new feelings in her heart, watching the galley that bore away her cousin from her. She turned to Countess Clanconnell. "Coll frightened me when he was leaving," she said. "Did you see his eyes, and how wildly he looked at me ? And he did not kiss me as he used."

Lady Agnes smiled at the lovely face so near her own. She drew the girl towards her and embraced her with a mother's warmth, thinking the while how she might further the cause of true love. Then, as an afterthought, she said:

"Now you are woman-grown, Coll doubtless was afraid to venture."

Grace was to Lady Agnes as a daughter, and very much the Countess wished her son's desire might be fulfilled. There seemed no reason why it should not.

But many a good ship splits upon a hidden rock.

CHAPTER V

THE BIG STRAND OF ISLAY

THE vanguard of the sun, the long bright line of the dawn, invaded the neutral sky, flying gay pennons of orange and rose; and Islay, the princely possession of Sir Angus MacDonald, awoke to a new day.

Higher and higher climbed the sun, flinging his royal favours far and wide on wood and mountain, moor and loch and river, till he looked straight down upon the Big Strand of Islay that stretches mile upon mile round Laggan Bay. His beams searched every corner among the sand-dunes, leaving no shade, and robbed the grass of its early morning moisture, making it hot and dry as the sand itself.

Long-horned, shaggy-coated cattle, wandering at will among the sand hills, felt the call of the ocean, and, forsaking the scorched earth, sought the sea. They had feasted on sweet, dewy grass before the dawn. Now they stood knee-deep in the sandy shallows, preferably where a streamlet freshened the waters of the bay, ruminating, cool of hoof, with gently swishing tails.

At no time is the voice of the Atlantic wholly silent on this strand. After days of storm, it roars in anger, while long rollers, glittering lines of Neptune's cavalry, with sheeny backs and manes of foam, charge with awe-inspiring impetus up to the very limits of their allotted bounds, and then retire broken and in disorder, to gather force for a renewed attack foredoomed to failure.

But on this day of early summer there was a truce between earth and water, and the ocean spoke but in whispers as the wavelets lapped lazily on the rippled sand. Southwards, where the Mull of Oa presented its rugged front to the Atlantic, the whispering increased to a hollow, muffled roar, which made a steady accompaniment to every other sound.

From Dunyvaig Castle, Sir Angus MacDonald's chief stronghold, the road leading to the Big Strand ran past heather-grown knowes, where honeysuckle twined itself round shrubs and dwarf oaks, across swift-running noisy burns, and through a stretch of moorland, passing at one place a solitary standing stone which memorialised a by-gone age and a forgotten worship, and a little further on, lying in the shadow of a church whose ruined walls were eloquent of the passing of the old Faith from an island where Columba had lived and worked.

Along this track a party had come from Dunyvaig. Now they rode at walking pace upon the Big Strand by the edge of the ebbing tide-two ladies, daughters of the lordly House of Islay, Coll MacDonald, and a tall fair youth arrayed in the colours of the MacLeans of Mull.

Night and day are not more different from one another than were the daughters of Sir Angus MacDonald. Muriel was a true MacDonald-a study in black and red, tall, and with a high, proud look such as dwelt in her father's eyes. Their MacLean mother, long since dead, slept with the wives and children of former Islay chiefs in a peaceful island in a lovely loch, where the flowers and grass that covered the graves were untrodden save by reverent feet; where no brawls arose but only the mournful coronach; where no sword was drawn, but where prayers, weapons strong enough to pierce the gates of heaven, went up for their repose.

Ella, the younger of her daughters, was the only one of her children who had taken from her the fair complexion of the Clan MacLean, and she was fair as the first sweet flowers that follow the winter's snow.

So at least thought young Hector MacLean when, seeing her for the first time woman-grown, he had fallen to wondering wistfully and with a feeling almost amounting to resentment if those blue eyes of hers, soft and gentle as the summer sky, had ever looked love into a lover's.

Now, as he rode beside her, he knew that she, of whom Coll MacDonald had said that she was like to be the cause of many heart-breaks, had no thought for anyone but him, despite the many who had sought her favour; and he looked forward with joy to the day, soon to come he told himself, when he would ask her from her father. But anxiety was mingled with his joy, and even while he mentally rehearsed what he would say to Sir Angus, he wondered how that chief would take a

request for his daughter's hand from the son of his most dangerous rival.

There was no love lost between Sir Angus MacDonald and Hector's father, Sir Lauchlan MacLean; and their clans were neutral or at daggers drawn according as the chiefs were covertly or openly at enmity.

Still, feud was no bar to the union of individual members of the opposing clans. Sir Angus himself had married Sir Lauchlan's sister; and Hector MacLean would have been unworthy of Ella MacDonald's love had the thought of difficulties in his path made him a laggard in his suit.

Rather, the fear of probable opposition fired him, till he felt that all obstacles must go down before him. Who values what lies easily to hand? Hector's nature was such that the farther off success appeared, the more it was desired. For him, the best fruit hung upon the topmost branch, and he would strain every nerve to reach it, thinking no effort over-great, counting no cost.

Homeward bound to Mull from Edinburgh, he had taken in Islay on the way, fully resolved to put his fate to the test; but to his surprise, he had learned on arrival at Dunyvaig that Sir Angus MacDonald had gone to Duart Castle, the MacLean stronghold in Mull, to settle some minor dispute with Sir Lauchlan MacLean. So Hector, at Ella's request, had remained to await Sir Angus's return.

The long delay of that return had become—as a week, and two weeks slipped away—a subject of anxious conjecture at Dunyvaig, since MacDonald, with the courage of his race, had taken but a few retainers with him into the midst of his enemies, rejecting all outside offers at mediation, scorning even the sound advice to meet MacLean on neutral ground, heedless also of the warning given by not a few that, if he feared not to peril himself, he should at least leave his only son at home.

MacDonald was obstinate and headstrong; prudence was not in him. He had taken his heir, James, and one of his brothers, Ronald, along with him. There was every fear that the chiefs would agree but ill together; still, even in those days, bad news travelled fast, and Hector MacLean comforted himself with the thought that had there been a grave quarrel, word of it would have quickly reached Islay, and he passed off Ella's troubled surmises with light words.

Now, as they rode together, he refused to listen even to his VC. XLII.-No. 488

7

own fears for MacDonald. With the selfishness of an accepted suitor, he said within his heart, "Our sky is bright; our sun is shining. Why fancy clouds?" And he turned towards his love.

But away to the west, in full sight of the riders, lay the cause of the feuds between Ella's clan and Hector's-a smiling strip of fertile Islay, known as "the Rhinns."

Sir Angus MacDonald was the descendant and representative of the illustrious Lords of the Isles. "Of the Isles " he was still sometimes styled, but "Of Islay" was more correct, for to him had come but a small portion of the vast lordship of his ancestors. The imprudence of the Lords of the Isles and the attacks of neighbouring chiefs had robbed Sir Angus of the rest. His own imprudence and the rivalry of Sir Lauchlan MacLean threatened to deprive him of what remained to him.

Mull had belonged to his forefathers; now the MacLeans held it. Kintyre was his, as was also the southern portion of the mountainous and beautiful island of Jura, but Islay was his richest possession. There he made his home, and there his name was strong and well-beloved; but there, too, the MacLeans came between him and peace.

For generations they had held the Rhinns of Islay as vassals of Clan MacDonald, and had done yeoman service in payment to MacDonald chiefs; but Sir Lauchlan, when he assumed the chieftainship, both refused the service and claimed the Rhinns as his own.

His clan had been driven from the Rhinns by Sir Angus, and for years feud had run high between the men of Mull and Islay. But now there was a truce, or at least a pause in the hostilities, and Sir Lauchlan brooded in Duart Castle over his latest defeat; his heart swelled with envy and his eyes turned longingly southward towards Islay, "Queen of the Hebrides"; but his eldest son coveted none of Sir Angus MacDonald's possessions save the Lady Ella.

After a little, the party left the strand, and riding by the almost dry bed of a tiny stream, gained the links and dismounted. Ella MacDonald's usually pale cheeks were aglow with exercise as Hector helped her to alight; and as he spread his plaid for her upon a low knoll, she blushed still more. He seated himself beside her, and for a space they basked in the sunshine of one another's presence, heedless of the two who had ridden with them, while the gilded moments fled away on swifter pinions.