Terrified at last by her appeals to the dead, with whom she seemed to hold continual conversation, and who seemed to be present in the chamber with them, though unseen, and partly, at length, worn out with her unceasing importunities, and partly to gratify the whim, as they considered it, of the sufferer, tremblingly they agreed to obey her requests and to carry her forth to the edge of the cliff. A frightened band, they bore the Lady May, lying on her couch, smiling with hope and blessing them for thus consenting. Over the threshold, over the drawbridge, her eyes, fixed on the heavens, brightened as they proceeded. Hope flushed with hectic glow upon her pale suffering face, grateful thanks broke from her lips. Hastening their steps, they passed through the gate, wound along the hill side, and as the broad expanse of ocean, with the fresh wind curling it into wavelets, burst upon the sight, a flash of rapture beamed on her countenance, a cry of joy rushed from her pallid lips—their feeble burden grew heavier; a murmur of welcoming delight was uttered to some glorious presence, unseen by the maidens, and all became hushed eternally. The Lady May lay on her couch a stiffening corpse. The spell of Cadboll had been broken at last. A Macleod inhabited it no more, and decay and ruin seized on the hoary pile of which now scarcely a vestige remains to tell of the former extent and feudal strength of Castle Cadboll.
PRINCE CHARLIE AND MARY MACLEOD.
The fate of the Chevalier and his devoted Highlanders forms one of the most romantic and darkest themes in the history of Scotland, so rich in historical narrative, song, and tradition—
Still freshly streaming When pride and pomp have passed away, To mossy tomb and turret grey, Like friendship clinging.
In the contemplation of their misfortunes, their faults and failings are forgotten, and now that the unfortunate Chevalier’s name and memory have become “such stuff as dreams are made of,” every heart throbs in sympathy with the pathetic lyric “Oh! wae’s me for Prince Charlie.”
In the present day, when it is not accounted disloyal to speak kindly of the Prince, or of those who espoused his cause—one cannot help indulging in admiration of the courage and cheerfulness with which he bore trials, dangers, and “hairbreadth ’scapes by flood and field,” nor wonder at the devotedness of the poorer Highlanders; their affection to his person; the care with which they watched over him in his wanderings; and, above all, the incorruptible fidelity which scorned to betray him, though tempted by what, in their poverty, must have seemed inconceivable wealth.
The history of the rising, and particularly of what followed after Culloden, relating to Prince Charlie, although generally minute, gives but little idea of the wonderful dangers he incurred, and the escapes he made. One should, in order to form a moderately correct idea of his hardships, have listened to those who had been out with him, as they, in the late evening of their days, talked of the past, and of the “lad they looed sae dearly,” or heard their descendants, who were proud of their forbears, having been out in the ’45, when—