Then I will still have Callum Dhu,' murmured Minnie, in a voice that trembled.

'Callum Dhu,' reiterated Snaggs, with scornful impatience; 'what is he that you should regret him?'

My betrothed husband,' said Minnie, with honest pride; and none can reap in harvest or handle the cashcroimh like he; but he preferred to be a hunter like his fathers before him; and at shinty, wrestling, racing, tossing the stone, the hammer, or the caber, there is no one on the Braes of Loch Ora like Callum Dhu Mac Ian.'

• Stuff! These qualities, lassie, only fit him for the trade of a housebreaker. Better would it be for him if he read his prayers; for as the divine Blair sayeth, " every prayer sent up from a secret retirement is listened to." See, here is money, dear Minnie,' continued the wily Snaggs, holding before her a handful of bank-notes; those wretched pieces paper which cause so much misery and crime, will be yours if

of

If-what?'

The tempter whispered in her ear, and his eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

She uttered a half-stifled scream.

'For Heaven's sake let me go, Mr. Snaggs, or 1 shall scream for help,' said Minnie, as a rosy crimson replaced the paleness of her cheek.

None can hear you.'

'Be not so sure of that,' she retorted, with a scornful smile.

Remember your uncle, his sick wife and family! Why are you so afraid?' he whispered; I will be your protector for life, Minnie, and will open up a thousand new scenes and pleasures to you. Let me teach you that you were not born to live always in this dull and hideous glen. Oh, Minnie, have my eyes not told you the secret of my heart?'

I am getting quite faint,' said Minnie, overcome by excitement and alarm.

Apply my handkerchief to your nostrils-this strange perfume may revive you.'

He placed his voluminous silk handkerchief close to her face. In a moment a tremor passed over the form of Minnie, and she sank senseless on the grassy mound of the Clach-na-greiné. With a triumphant chuckle the pious moralist knelt down and threw his arms around her; but in the next moment a fierce shout rang in his startled ears, and the strong hand of Callum Dhu was on his throat, while the blade of a bare skene glittered before his eyes.

For a moment these two men glared at each other like a snake and a tiger. In the next, the frail moralist was dashed upon the turf, and the iron fingers of Callum compressed his throat like a vice, until his eyeballs were starting from their sockets.

'Mac Innon,' cried my fosterer, 'what shall I do with him? we are near the old Hill of Justice-his life in your hands-say but the word, and the last breath is in the nostrils of our tormentor!'

'Let us drag him to prison,' said I.

'Prison-ha-but there is none nearer than the Castle of Inverness.'

Then let us fling him into the Poul-a-baidh, where the bones of many a better man are whitening among the weeds.'

• Right—mona mon dioul! but few stones will be on your cairn, dog!'

And snatching by the throat and heels the terrified wretch, who could scarcely gasp for mercy, we rushed to the edge of the pool, where justice was executed of old, and flung him headlong in.

'The curse of the Red Priest be on him!' cried Callum, as Snaggs disappeared with a scream of terror. Anon, he rose to the surface, floundering, dashing, and bellowing for aid, until he laid hold of

the long weeds and broad-bladed water-docks, that fringed the margin, and after being nearly suffocated by the floating watercresses (of which, I suppose, he would in future share the horror of the learned Scaliger), he scrambled out in a woful plight, and ran towards his pony, which was cropping the scanty herbage that grew among the blasted pines. The moment he was mounted, he turned towards us a face that was ghastly and white with fear and fury; he was minus a hat, and his grizzled hair hung lank and dripping about his ears.

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Scoundrels!' he cried, for this outrage you shall both rot in the Castle of Inverness.'

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I will not be the only one of my race who has been within its towers,' said I; but they suffered for fighting brave battles on the mountain side-not for ducking a yelping hound like you.'

In token of vengeance, he shook his clenched hand at us, and galloped away. Long before this, the situation of Minnie attracted all our attention, and excited our wonder and alarm.

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Laoighe mo chri-speak to me-hear me!' implored Callum, kneeling beside her on the grass and taking her tenderly in his arms. But she remained quite insensible and unconscious of all he said to her.

By what witchcraft did she faint thus?' said Callum she, a strong and healthy girl-so full of life and spirit too!'

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Snaggs spoke of a perfume in his handkerchief." A perfume,' responded the black-browed Celt, grinding his teeth; what could it be?'

Oh-this phial may tell,' said I, picking up a little bottle which lay on the turf beside Minnie. It was labelled Chloroform.'

'Dioul! what is that?' asked Callum.

'An essence invented by a Lowland physician. It makes even the strongest man so insensible for a

time, that you might cut off his leg and draw all his feeth without having the slightest resistance offered.' • Insensible!'

Ay, as a stone; look at our poor Minnie.'

The unhanged villain!' exclaimed Callum, swelling with new wrath; dioul! why did I not gash his throat with my skene as I would have scored a stag? He had some dark and sinister end in view; he deemed Minnie but a poor, ignorant, and unprotected Highland girl, who knew no language but her native Gaelic, and had no idea of aught beyond the sides of the glen; but as far as grass grows and wind blows will I follow and have vengeance on him!'

Minnie recovered slowly and with difficulty: she was sick and had an overwhelming headache, with such a weakness in all her limbs, that we were compelled to support, and almost carry her between us to Glen Ora. Callum mingled his endearments with muttered threats of vengeance on Snaggs, and as I knew that he would keep them too, I was not without anxiety as to the mode in which his wrath might develop itself.

Two days after this affair, on the application of Mr. Snaggs, the sheriff of the county granted warrants of removal against every family in the glen; and these long-dreaded notices of eviction were duly served in form of law by a messenger-at-arms, in the name of Fungus Mac Fee, Esquire, Advocate and Sheriff,' a position that worthy had gained, after the usual lapse of time spent in sweeping the Scottish Parliament House with the tail of his gown.

Six days now would seal our doom!

Such was the result of poor Minnie's intercession for her old uncle, with the admirer of the divine Blair.'

CHAPTER XI.

MY MOTHER.

My mother was now so frail, weakened. by long illness and by being almost constantly confined to bed, that I dared not communicate to her the fatal ' notice,' which had been served on us, in common with all the people in the glen; but I never hoped that she would remain long ignorant of the ruin that hovered over all, while the garrulous old Mhari was daily about her sick-bed.

The moanings and mutterings of that aged crone, together with her occasional remarks whispered in Gaelic, of course to Minnie, soon acquainted the poor patient that every door in the glen, including her own, had been chalked with a mark of terrible significance; and that the crushed remnant of a brave old race which had dwelt by the Ora for ages -yea, before the Roman eagles cowered upon the Scottish frontier-was at last to be swept away.

It gave her a dreadful shock-our fate she knew was fixed and while Mhari, Minnie, and the older people of the glen, croaked incessantly among themselves of the old legend of the Red Priest and the curse he had laid on the stones of the jointurehouse,' my mind was a chaos; for I knew not on what hand to turn, or where to seek a shelter for my mother's head. She had her little pension as a captain's widow-true; but we had so many dependants who clung to us in the good old Celtic fashion, and for whom our little farm had furnished subsistence, that to be driven from it was to tear asunder a hundred tender and long-cherished ties, which few but a Highlander can comprehend.