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He had dashed headlong down the ravine to a tongue of rock covered with long heath, which stretched forward in the river Girsac, and, by its proximity to the cataract, brought the spectator, as it were, face to face with the roaring torrent,

"And on his upturn'd forehead fell
The baptism of that mighty well."

But we fear Finlay was baptised to no good thoughts. Tearing up a tuft of saxifrage by the roots, he flung it passionately into the wild abyss, crying,

"Oh! that thus I could cast down the enemies who to-day mocked at my disgrace!"

As he uttered the unhallowed wish the twilight suddenly darkened around him. From the linn into which the plant had fallen a mist gathered, uprising slowly as it resolved itself into form. And what a form! Finlay had heard dreadful tales of the "Eagch Uisk," or waterhorse, and he imagined this must be that terrible thing. But no! the dank, watery folds clung more perpendicularly, until, through the increasing darkness, the shivering hunter could trace the colossal outline of a human figure. The faithful hounds which had followed their master to this perilous encounter, whined, crouched, and trembled, as all domestic animals do at the approach of the savage prowlers of the waste.

"It can be no good sign," thought Finlay, "when the beasts are in such a fright."

Nevertheless, he plucked up courage, and, remembering that spirits seldom speak till addressed by man, he determined to give his shadowy visitor no advantage of the kind. So he whistled to his dogs with an air of unconcern, though under his plaid his skin was bristling with terror. From the misty phantom came a chorus of mocking laughter, and there was a distant jabbering as of gibing tongues.

Finlay had made up his mind to peril, but he could not bear ridicule from either man or goblin, and in high wrath called out in his native Erse,

"Whoever you are, depart on the mist as you came. If you wish to mock, go join the jeering fools in the

glen.

man!"

Tempt not a desperate

To his infinite surprise, the shade bent courteously towards him, and uttered, with a soft, rippling voice, the following harangue:

"Has Finlay of the Deer, then, already recovered his skill? I come from the valley; I heard the scornful MacCraes, and the wondering women and the little boys asked if it could be true that Finlay of the crags had failed in his aim. Go to, thou fallen hunter! buy thee a field and a herd of goats, and sell milk and ewe-cheese; the chase is no more for thee !"

The peculiar suavity of the strange voice in which these taunts were delivered exasperated the Gaelic archer to madness.

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Why come you here ?" he cried. Why sting the fallen if you cannot help him ?"

"I can help thee," responded the grim shadow. "I can raise thee as high as thou hast sunk low. Give me the first whelp produced by that good hound at thy feet, and centuries to come shall hear of the greatness of Finlay Roy."

The hunter by this time had grown bold enough to shake hands, if need be, with the Evil One himself.

"Your shadowship has a strange taste. What use a dog can be to you in your black linn down there I cannot imagine; but give me once more a triumph over my foes, and I will give you dog, body, soul-any thing and every thing!"

Another wild laugh arose shrilly high above the roar of the cataract, a violent hailstorm came on, and Finlay, cold, wet, and wearied, sunk into a profound slumber.

When he awoke it was a bright morning, the river roared, swollen by the storm of the preceding night, his dangerous sleeping-place seemed surrounded by water, and, bruised and stiff as he felt, and giddy with the sudden knowledge of the abyss on whose verge he had been lying, it was with difficulty that Finlay found his way through the tangled brushwood and slippery crags to the outlet of the ravine. But for his keenscented dogs he might have been there to this day. Fortunately these sagacious guides were able to discover in some parts, where the heavy rain

had not washed away all traces, the track by which they had descended the night before.

At length the hunter, scrambling up a huge rock, emerged upon the open moor. The keen air played revivingly upon his forehead, the elastic heather sprang up invitingly beneath his feet, the sun shining clearly on the distant peak of Scùrrùran, made its bald grey head glisten with a crown of diamonds; and here and there the morasses betrayed to the piercing eye of light their glittering but treacherous pools.

Finlay thought he had had an ugly dream, but its reality seemed impossible on that fresh October morning.

"Only over-excitement," he exclaimed to himself; but just then his eye fell on his two dogs. One was bounding with the noisy vigour of canine glee, from ridge to ridge of the thickly-strewn fragments of rock; the other, his favourite, and a hound famed for cleverness and fidelity, whined mournfully at his side, dropping her tail, and looking up in his face with a gesture of supplication. "Poor beast, she is not canny!" said her master. "So I am to sell your pups to the de'il, Menie!" The dog gave a long howl, and pressed closer to the feet of her human protector. "The foul fiend take myself first!" cried Finlay. "I can keep my own hand, I hope, without assistance from such quarters. No bartering with the de'il for me!"

You perceive the broad daylight and the familiar sight of his own hills had worked a wondrous change on Finlay's nerves; he resembled many infidels of our own day, who tremble at midnight, and sneer at

noon.

But when the hunter went down to the glen, and marked the contemptuous expression on his neighbours' faces, when he saw the MacCraes whispering together and pointing the finger at him, when grand huntings were arranged without consulting him who had been so great an authority, and, worse than all, when he, in his rage, called on his foes to fight, and they shrugged the shoulder and passed by without answering, Finlay wished fiercely in his heart for the infernal aid he had slighted a few hours before.

"By the head of my father!" he swore upon his dirk, "you shall every one rue this day!"

But the MacCraes only laughed at him, and that laughter seemed to ring in his ears as he pursued his sullen way to the hills of Monar, his birth-place, where he betook himself to a lonely shealing on the mountainside, and held communication with

no one.

His only pleasure was tending his dogs, or hunting with them in the most solitary places.

He

In due time Menie presented him with two beautiful whelps. Both were so handsome that the hunter had some difficulty in choosing which was to be his gift to the Spirit of the Glomach. One day a pole-cat bit one of them during the mother's absence, and it died in a few hours. Finlay was in despair. The remaining pup was too precious to cast into the dark linn of the Glomach. had some idea of plunging in the dead body, but this seemed so much of a practical joke upon the devil, that he was afraid to provoke retaliation. Day after day he resolved to set forth with his beautiful little pet, but his heart failed him when he tried to take it away from the mother. Menie seemed to have more than a dog's sagacity on this subject; she bit, she tore, she howled at her master on these occasions, and used all her efforts to prevent the removal of her offspring.

After much cogitation Finlay, like greater men of modern times, determined to try temporising. So he went to the Glomach (taking care it was not twilight), and made a harangue to the invisible genius of the waters, setting forth his poverty, his need of a hound, now that Hector was growing old, and finishing with a promise, on the honour of a Highlander, that the next whelp Menie might bestow on him, should be devoted to the aquatic sports in which the Spirit of the Glomach chose to indulge.

He paused for some token of approbation or displeasure; but the cataract tumbled as usual into the linn, the linn boiled, and seethed, and emptied itself into the river's rocky channel, and no sign was there that Finlay's eloquence had found a hearer at all.

However, Finlay went back to his lonely shealing, and there he stayed until Menie gave him another beautiful puppy, but it had unfortunately only one good eye; the other was inflamed soon after its birth, and the sight lost.

"Well," said the discomfited huntsman, on discovering this new mishap, "the poor brute will not much require eyesight in the watery world where it is going. The spray of the Glomach will soon spoil the best eyes and the keenest scent ever possessed by hound."

So he took the young dog in his arms, and strode away to the old trysting-place.

It was a gloomy November day. The dull sky hung low and heavily over the landscape, the hills frowned in that depressing shade, the moors were saturated with frequent rain during the previous month, and even the light brogues of the mountaineer and his thick plaid could not protect him from the boggy path or the drizzling mist, which blinded as well as drenched him.

The fall of the swollen river was terrific on that occasion. Even in summer there is an uninterrupted cascade of three hundred feet, broken by a single rock, which, fifty feet from the top of the ravine, juts out boldly in the drought of the hot season. But when autumn rains have fallen here, that solitary black crag is swallowed up by the immense mass of water, and the sheer leap of the river is upwards of three hundred and fifty feet.

Finlay advanced cautiously and slowly along the neck of rock which had once been his sleeping-place; his heart sank when he descried the portentous mist hanging over the depths below. He called, in a faltering voice,

Spirit of the resounding Glomach, I am here! I have brought the offering, give me the reward!"

Slowly the dark mist ascended, till nearly on a level with the crag where the hunter stood. But this time he saw a face within the vapoury veila fearful face it was. The fierce, restless eyes seemed to burn away the shadows around them, and their beams fell hot upon Finlay's clammy cheek. The lips moved, and the spray of the cataract hissed

when touched by their fiery breath. And the voice, no longer like the rippling stream of summer, thundered with the roar of a tropic storm as it cursed Finlay for his cowardice and treachery,

"Hadst thou kept faith, blind mortal, thine had been the kingdoms of the earth! Now thou shalt have neither crown nor realm, neither pomp nor power; woman shall not love thee, and children shall not rise up about thy threshold; thou shalt be only Red Finlay of the Deer! Thy bow shall never fail, and thy shaft shall never go astray!"

A loud peal of thunder that shook the skies, and a flash of lurid lightning that confused Finlay's senses, immediately succeeded; the little dog leaped from his arms with a sharp yell, and tumbled headlong into the linn; and then the clouds cleared away, the sun broke forth, and Finlay found himself grasping a bow of curious workmanship.

He looked down from his rocky perch, but there was no shadow now hovering over the black caldron; the waters had closed over both fiend and hound,

Finlay's heart was stirred within him with violent passions. His communion with a creature of the world of woe had surely inflamed him with like impulses. He bent his bow with a vindictive frown,-it was not of the stricken deer that he dreamed.

The next day Finlay was seen among the MacCraes, the wild caterans of Kintail; he had come to wreak his deadly hatred. Their scoffs were soon silenced-a shaft from the magic weapon pierced the leader of the band. They all set upon the slayer, but he fled. The caterans swore a terrible oath to have Finlay's life. His steps were watched, and it was soon discovered that he went often, with a strangely discomposed air, to the cataract of the Glomach. What spell it possessed over his mind none knew, but it was his continual resort. The MacCraes discovered a cave close to the fall, where six of the bravest hid themselves, resolved to slay the hunter on the first opportunity.

But fortune was against them. A successful chase led Finlay to some distance, and they began to weary of confinement, and to suffer from hun

ger. One of them went out, and returned with an old woman laden with provisions.

Now the entrance to the cave was very narrow, and much cumbered with brushwood. It happened that Finlay arrived in sight of the cave's mouth just as the old woman was creeping in. Her back was towards him, so he was unperceived; but, guessing the whole plot from this clue, he took up a concealed position close to the cavern. His favourite Menie arriving some time after him, ran as usual to the rocky peninsula where Finlay was accustomed to sit. The MacCraes, thus advertised of their victim's proximity, crept one by one cautiously forth from their dangerous concealment. But as each emerged on the narrow, slippery platform which overhung the linn, an arrow from Finlay's unerring bow sent him rolling in the death-agony to the waves below. Thus each came forth, and each fell, worthy sacrifices to Finlay's friend of the waters!

When Finlay had waited a long time, and saw no more come out, he descended to the cave to examine it, and discovering the old woman, halfdead with terror, he hurled her also into the torrent. I am ashamed to confess this cruelty of my savage hero, but those were not days of mercy or gentleness.

The triumphant hunter returned to Monar, and the fame of his prowess spread abroad. He grew mighty in his tribe, even the chiefs feared him, for the fatal bow was ever ready for revenge, and a rumour of its magical spell and infernal origin having been set on foot, there were few who cared to incense a man who had made a contract with the Evil One.

The MacCraes, however, would not relinquish their vengeance. They sent an embassy to the redoubted hunter, who went in peaceful guise, and carried presents in their hands. But these treacherous visitors mistook the person of him they had been despatched to assail, and inquired for Finlay from a commonlooking red-haired man, whom they passed working in his garden. Gentle reader, the veritable Celtic legend which I have imitated with biographer-like accuracy, distinctly says garden, but I should be sorry

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to lead you into the delusion that it was a garden after Lord Bacon's magnificent model, with its artificial ponds and grottoes, its parterres, its bosquets, its quincunxes; nor was this a garden on the model of a London "back-green," one huge stucco vase, and ten red flower-pots. It is an abstruse subject for antiquarians to consider, but my own private conclusion on the matter is, that the said Highland garden was neither more nor less than an enclosure for potatoes and kailblades.

In this inclosure the MacCrae ambassadors stopped to inquire from the peasant where they could find Red Finlay of the Deer. The person questioned, far less simple than themselves, at once guessed their errand, and replied he would fetch Finlay forthwith to speak to them. As he needed not to go far to fetch himself, Finlay brought with speed the magic bow. At the sight of that well-known instrument of fate his enemies fled in disorder, but the enraged hunter pursued, and being fleet of foot, he successively slew them with his unerring shafts.

This victory raised his name higher than ever, and, as is generally the case, the prosperous man grew vainglorious. The vengeance of the MacCraes always was defeated, and Finlay began to imagine that his good-natured friend of the Glomach might have thrown long life, nay, who knows but immortality itself, into the bargain? He boasted loud of his invincibility, and while he had the bow in hand none dared to say nay. Nevertheless, the women utterly disliked him. They could not overcome the idea of his having sold himself to the devil; and, with all his renown, Finlay never could get a wife. So he was childless and lonely in his dwelling, and when he came home wearied from the chase there were none to welcome him with loving words, none to clasp him with endearing caresses.

In the midst of this chilly fame Finlay knew not that an ignominious death awaited him. The MacCraes had agreed that Finlay should be despatched by the doctor of his own village. If we think for a moment what sort of medical men ventured in those rude times to penetrate beyond the Grampians, and what

Alma Mater they owned, if, indeed, an M.D.-ship were not a work of supererogation for a mountain practitioner, we shall readily confess that the hand of the doctor of Monar was by no means a glorious weapon of destruction.

A fever and ague, caught by Finlay in one of the sudden storms common in autumn through the Highlands, afforded the MacCraes an unexpectedly speedy opportunity for their machinations.

The poor hunter had no female assistance, and his only relative, a younger brother, ran in haste for the doctor when he saw the sufferer's plight. The learned leech arrived, looked solemn, asked various inquiries in Latin, which were as unintelligible to the patient as they probably would have been to a Roman of the ancient world. The professor of medicine then produced a leather scrip, from which he took various ingredients, which he compounded into an inky potion, and this he desired the invalid to swallow in his presence. When he perceived the bicker containing his elixir had been fairly drained, he resumed his bonnet with the slow dignity with which a physician of May Fair used formerly to grasp the indispensable cocked hat and gold-headed cane.

The leech departed, and Finlay

seemed inclined to sleep, but he had not long lain down when he started, crying he was on fire within.

"I am poisoned, Farquhar!-I am poisoned by that starveling pottercarrier! Go! pursue him!-take my bow, and avenge the death of Red Finlay!"

Farquhar waited not to see his expiring agonies, but, seizing the enchanted bow, sped swiftly after the traitor. Young and little of figure was the boy, and the doctor had no power to escape him; his attempts to flee entangled his feet in the rough and rocky way, he repeatedly stumbled and fell, and was at length overtaken by Farquhar, and slain by a shaft from the unerring bow. He fell by the water of Sing, and the stone that marks his grave is over him to this day. The youth returned so hastily to his brother's death-bed that he dropped the bow on the way; and when he went back afterwards to search, he could find nothing resembling it, but, near the place where he thought he had lost it, there lay the dead body of a young hound; mere skin and bone it was, and all blue and livid as if it had been a long while immersed in water.

Such was the end of the farfamed Celtic hunter of Monar, Red Finlay of the Deer.

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