“Stay,” exclaimed the intruder in a deep stern voice, whose tone the young chief knew but too well, “Thou hast a small reckoning to discharge ere thou go, my good boy. I am Macrae.”
“And I,” answered the other, “am Hugh Munro, what seek’st thou from me?”
“That thou shalt soon know, thou skulking hill cat,” answered Macrae, throwing his unbuckled sword, belt, and scabbard on the ground, and advancing with extended weapon.
“Indeed! then beware of the wild-cat’s spring,” Munro promptly replied, giving a sudden bound which placed him inside the guard of his antagonist, whose waist he instantly encircled with his sinewy arms with the design of hurling him over the crag on which they stood. The struggle was momentary. Munro, struck to the heart with Macrae’s dagger, fell with May’s loved name on his lips, while Macrae, staggering over the height, in the act of falling so wounded himself by his own weapon as to render his future life one of helpless manhood and bitter mental regret.
Macleod was soon after slain in one of the many quarrels of the time, while his daughter May, the sorrowing heiress of the broad lands of Cadboll, lived on for fifty years one long unrelieved day of suffering.
Fifty years! alas for the mourner—spring succeeded winter, and summer spring, but no change of season lightened May Macleod’s burden! Fifty years! year by year passing away only brought changes to those who lived under her gentle sway, and among the dependents of her home; youth passed into age, young men and maidens filled the places of the valued attendants of her girlhood; and the lady, solitary, still a mourner, in her feudal tower grew old and bent, thin and wan, but still in her heart the love of her youth bloomed fresh for her betrothed.
And then disease laid hold of her limbs—paralyzed, unable to move, she would fain have died, but the spell of Cadboll was on her, death could not enter within its walls.
Sickness and pain, care and grief, disappointment, trust betrayed, treachery, and all the ills which life is heir to, all might and did enter there. Death alone was barred without.
Sadly her maidens listened to her heart-breaking appeals to the spirit of Munro, her unwed husband, the murdered bridegroom of her young life, to come to her aid from the land of shadows and of silence. They knew her story of the fifty years of long ago, and they pitied and grieved with her, wondering at the constancy of her woman’s heart.
Still more sadly did they listen to her appeals to be carried out from the castle to the edge of the precipice, where the power of the spell ceased, there to look for, meet and welcome death; but they knew not the story of the spell, and they deemed her mad with grief.