Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 8, No.5 (February, 1900)

THE CELTIC MONTHLY
Then he thought of the Maclean lady over the
water, and the eyes of him grew wet, and he
breathed hard, and swallowed something in a
haste as he went.
Wlien he came to the Roaring Mill he went
down to the river and sat on a rock abo\ e the
fall, and took out a letter from his breast and
began to read it for the twentieth time. The
salmon were leaping up the fall, and turning
somersaults in the spray, and falling back again
to avoid the jagged rocks. The rock on which
Evander sat was wet with the splashing of the
linn, and round about him everywhere the hills
and bens were laughing in a wealth of April
sunlight. But his eyes only saw the queer mad
words before them —
" Evander, son of my heart, take the way by
the kirkyard and spiel the braeface till you
reach the shieling on the hill, and when you
swing back the door it is no more you will need
to ask what to do. Mind your father's last
words and haste ye to join him where he is in
a queer place. Farewell, Evander, and if ye
turn back from the shieling ye are lost, and all
the House o' Nevis. Written by me, Ranald
Macdonald, laird in Nevis, this fifteenth day of
November, seventeen eighty three."
" A queer will for a Macdonald to be leaving
— with ne'er a single bag o' siller ! "
And Evander rose and took the way, not by
the kirkyard, but down to Linnhetown. He
stepped into his boat, set the sail, and made
down the loch for Ardgour. And long before
he was there, a dark-haired girl was at the
jetty waiting for him, with the white lovelight
shining in her blue-grey eyes that is the sign of
true love in Highland hearts, and will be for
ever and a day.
" Evander ! "
That was all she could say. And the lovelight
danced. But he waited till he was ashore, and
then made answer. And he made answer in
the way that all maids like, and her lips bad
the speech taken from them for a space in which
a lad with a stutter might count ten.
Then they sat down in the shadow of a rock,
and when all their love passages were over,
Evander turned and said :
" Mary, I am going away."
" Evander 1 "
"Aye, I mean it."
" Away ! but not from me, Evander f "
"Aye — it is alone I must go."
" But why, Evander, why 1 It is I that will
go with you ; aye, anywhere."
" I am going to the wars, my treasure."
And the colour flew from the girl's cheek till
it was as white as snow.
" Tell me," she whispered, " tell me what it
means ? Is it because you are poor, Evander 1
Do you think that a Maclean cares for siller?
Are not ye the laird of Nevis, though there be
not a single gold piece in your sporran ? Ob,
Evander, there is something more. Tell me.
For the love of our hearts, tell me."
Then he told her about (he letter. "Fine
you know, Mary, that the laird that was my
father was queer in the way he spoke and did
before he died. Aye, we were poor, bitter poor,
but at least it was some sort of a will I was
looking for, and here is all the laird left me — a
mad scrawl o' a pen that was held by an old
man who had ta'en leave o' his wits long syne.
Many a time have I been for throwing it into
the Roaring Mill. Well, well, if ye have done
reading it, my lass, we'll end the joke and light
a fire on the shore with it. For I am ofl' to the
wars now to win a fortune for my love."
" Evander, you will go this very night to the
shieling."
" No, Mary, and that is what I will not do.
Once have I been made a jest of by the old
laird, and to day I heard the lowland hounds
laughing at me and my fine will. By God ! I
am poor, but I am proud. And I will not go."
" Evander, my own, it is I that am asking
you. You will go to the shieling. I knew the
old laird, it seems, better than liis ain laddie —
and he was wiser than he liked to show.
Evander, for my sake, you will do it ? "
And she kissed him.
" No, I will not. God ! do I not hear them
laughing even now t. "
" Evander — is this how you keep your promise
to me 1 And will you refuse to do the first
thing I will be asking you 1 Evander, do you
love me t "
" Mary — don't."
But it fell out as it has aye fallen out since
the world began, the man could not stand
against the maid, and the lass had her way in
the end, and a smother of kisses forbye.
That night Evander Macdonald took the way
by the kirkyard in the glen, and when the
moon was filling the corries of the hill of
heaven with a pale misty light, he came to the
old ruined shieling. The walls were standing,
and the roof was still there, but the nettles were
growing everywhere like brackens for thickness,
and he had to push his way through them to the
door. He was for turning away and going down
to the glen again, when he minded the promise
he had made to Mary, and he pushed open the
door.
" God keep us ! "
And Evander, for all his big ways, trembled
in the very limbs.
The moonlight lit up the interior of the hut
and shewed a gallows standing in the middle of
the floor, with a rope and a noose hanging