Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 6, 1898

14
THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
And Maisrie — what was it that she was doing
in the silence of her own room that night when
all in the house were asleep — save one other!
She sat looking out at the moonlight kissing the
water and tried to understand all that had
happened to her. Why was it that she felt so
lonely and distressed! Then suddenly she
remembered the picture that hung above the
piano in the room below. The thought that
she was motherless was too much for her, and
bursting into tears, she wept in solitude as if
her heart would break.
One afternoon in the following week Bethune
was out on the moor with his gun, but to judge
flora the long intervals that passed between the
reports of liis gun he did not seem to be getting
much sport. Mr. Macleod and Diinciin had
gone over to Flowerdale on some business, and
Maisrie was in the house where she always
seemed to be busy now with something or other.
Bethune was sick of the shooting. The birds
seemed to have disappeared altogether, and the
dog kept running wildly on every side in spite of
repeated admonitions. But above all, Bethune
was sick at heart because he felt that there was
something wrong with Maisrie, and because lie
was a man he did not know what to do in the
circumstances. He was more annoyed than he
cared to admit about the loss of the note-book,
so he gave up the shooting in disgust and lay
down on a heathery knoll just above the house
and began to think.
But he hiid not lain long before he saw the
figure of Maisrie leaving the house, and coming
up the hill in his direction. She must have
seen him from one of the windows, for she never
once looked up, but kept steadily climbing the
hillside with her eyes bent on the ground. She
was evidently coming with some message.
What could it be ? The man began to have an
indiscribable feeling of apprehension as she
drew near to him.
" What a warm day this is. Miss Maisrie,"
said Bethune, as he rose to meet her.
" Yes indeed," slie replied, with her eyes still
fixed on the heather.
Then a silence fell strangely upon these two
as they stood together in the golden August
sunshine, and each of them felt in an instant
that the breaking of it would mean something
fateful for them lioth. It was the girl who
spoke first.
" Mr. Bethune," and lier voice quivered when
she spoke, " 1 was wishing to say something to
you about what you told Duncan the other day.
He brought me a little blue book, and I — I
should not have looked at it — I know I have done
wrong — but I am sorry — and, and I beg your
pardon, Mr. Bethune. Here is the book."
"Maisrie, Maisrie, you know then? and you
are not angry Maisrie 1 Say you are not angry."
'■No" was all that she said, and Bethune
shewed her the next moment that he was satis-
fied. Just above them on the hill a lark rose
from the heather and began to pour forth a
ghidsome burst of song as it mounted up and up
into the blue.
Then Bethune told Maisrie all that had been in
his heart for many days. And as they sat on
the heather side by side with the drone of the
bees around them, it was of many things they
talked that only they themselves could under-
stitnd. But when they rose, Bethune took the
little book and gave it to Maisrie to keep for
ever
TORQUIL Macleod.
THE LATE SIR RICHARD GRAVES
MACDONNELL, K. C. M.G. & C. B.
ip)n||HE LATE SIR RICHARD GRAVES
IXk ^IAODONNELL, K.C.M.G. and C.B.,
■'— was the ninth in direct lineal descent
from Colla MacDonnell of Tynekill (or Tenne-
kille) in the Queen's County; Colla in 1562 had
received a grant from Queen Elizabeth of 30
Townlands there, and of "all that had been in
possession of liis ancestors " — a very elastic
expression ! Colla himself was slain at Shrule
in 1570; and his grandson James, having joined
the Catholic Confederates as a Colonel with
1200 men in 1611, lost all the estates by for-
feiture for rebellion; and the Lord Justices also
offered £400 for his head. They never got his