'Heaven help you, poor Mr. Mac Innon,' she said; 'we all deplore your bereavement, and feel only remorse and shame for the severity with which my angry papa——but what can I do?'
I kissed her hand, and she did not withdraw it; while the beautiful expression that filled her eyes, to which her half-drooping lids lent a wonderful sweetness, made my heart swell with tenderness and gratitude; for human sympathy was doubly valuable, and hers was doubly dear to me at a time so terrible; but again the shrill notes of the wild pipe struck up—again the solemn procession went forward, and a turn of the road hid Laura from my view—yet her eyes seemed before me still, and her voice was lingering in my car.
A half mile further on brought us to the ancient burial-ground; it was circular and surrounded by a low ruined wall of rough dry stones, as it had once been a Druidical circle. Here the grass grew with peculiar richness and rankness, for the dead of more than two thousand years lay there. Old stones, graven with quaint runes, lay half sunk, amid the moss and nettles, like the Celtic cross that marked where the Christianized Scot had laid his dust in the same grave with his pagan fathers, who had worshipped the God of Day and the Spirit of Loda. Close by stood an old chapel of the Kuldei, dedicated to St. Colme, the Abbot of Iona. It had been a ruin since the Spaniards, under the loyal and noble Marquis of Tullibardine, had landed in Glensheil, and fought the Government troops early in the last century; but a vaulted corner of this venerable fane was still used as a chapel by the poor Catholic Gael of the district. Here a rough deal table served them for an altar; a rough crucifix, and six candles, in clay holders, stood thereon, with a few garlands of freshly-gathered wild flowers, while heather was spread before it for those who chose to kneel. Near it was a miserable hut, or wigwam, where Father Raoul Beg Mac Donuil (i.e., Little Father Ronald, the son of Donald), a priest from the Scottish College at Valladolid, dwelt in prayer, penury, and misery; for among the poor clansmen of the impoverished and almost desolate West, the labours of the Catholic clergy are indeed the labour of love and self-denial.
Three Mac Innons had been Abbots of Iona, and one of them built this chapel. In ancient times, when one of the house of Glen Ora died, a grave was found in the morning ready dug; but by whose hands no mortal knew—for none had ever dared to watch so said old tradition; but even this mysterious sexton had left the country, unable perhaps, as Callum Dhu affirmed, to breathe the air that was infected by factors, gangers, and rural police.
Before entering the burying-ground we performed the deasuil, and went round it with the sun. The people insisted on this, and I had no wish or will but theirs; besides, the Celt is a great stickler for ancient customs. The parish minister permitted Father Raoul to say a prayer at the grave, for she who was gone had ever been kind to him, as a priest of that faith in which her forefathers had lived and died; and it is a noble feature in the Highland character, that neither priestcraft, rancour, nor bigotry could ever warp or sever the kindly ties of blood and clanship.
The Place of Sleep, or, as some still named it as in the Druid days, The Place of the Stones, was one of those old yew-shaded graveyards which still remain in many a desolate glen, to mark where our expatriated people were wont to lay their dead. Here we lowered her into the narrow house.
A little shovelling, a little batting of sods, every stroke on which went home to my aching heart, an uncovering of heads—a little time, and all was over. I felt more than ever alone in the world—for a recollection was all that remained to me of my mother—my last relative on this side of that remorseless grave.
The minister patted me on the shoulder—the old priest shook me kindly by the hand, and led me away. In vain did they tell me, in hackneyed phrase, that those whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; my rebellious spirit spurned the stereotyped idea. I felt myself a beggar and a lonely outcast—that all was over now, that every human tie which bound me to my home (but had I now a home?) was torn asunder for ever!
Omens of evil, such as serve to feed the superstitious mind, and to make a deep impression on a people so filled with poetry and wild fancies as our unlettered Gael, had not been wanting, as forerunners of these calamities; and these omens had been duly remarked by the aged dwellers in our glen, as the sure forerunners of direful events.
In the preceding winter, when the country was covered by snow, Gillespie Ruadh and others averred, that early one morning they discovered marks of the feet or talons of a gigantic bird, each impression being at least twenty yards apart. These tremendous footmarks were traced across the glen, and over Ben Ora, from the loch to the sea shore, where all trace of them was lost in the flowing tide. On hearing of this marvel, I hurried to the spot, but a fresh fall of snow had obliterated these strange marks, which were declared to indicate a departure of our people towards the western sea.