“Alas! unfortunate—”
“And why unfortunate, I pray you?” exclaimed the youth. “If I am coward and villain, have not villainy and cowardice command over the elements? Have I not braved the water without its choking me, and trod the firm earth without its opening to devour me? And shall a mortal oppose my purpose?”
“He raves, alas!” said Catharine. “Haste to call some help. He will not harm me; but I fear he will do evil to himself. See how he stares down on the roaring waterfall!”
The glee woman hastened to do as she was ordered, and Conachar’s half frenzied spirit seemed relieved by her absence.
“Catharine,” he said, “now she is gone, I will say I know thee—I know thy love of peace and hatred of war. But hearken; I have, rather than strike a blow at my enemy, given up all that a man calls dearest: I have lost honour, fame, and friends, and such friends! (he placed his hands before his face). Oh! their love surpassed the love of woman! Why should I hide my tears? All know my shame; all should see my sorrow. Yes, all might see, but who would pity it? Catharine, as I ran like a madman down the strath, man and woman called ‘shame’ on me! The beggar to whom I flung an alms, that I might purchase one blessing, threw it back in disgust, and with a curse upon the coward! Each bell that tolled rung out, ‘Shame on the recreant caitiff!’ The brute beasts in their lowing and bleating, the wild winds in their rustling and howling, the hoarse waters in their dash and roar, cried, ‘Out upon the dastard!’ The faithful nine are still pursuing me; they cry with feeble voice, ‘Strike but one blow in our revenge, we all died for you!’”
While the unhappy youth thus raved, a rustling was heard in the bushes.
“There is but one way!” he exclaimed, springing upon the parapet, but with a terrified glance towards the thicket, through which one or two attendants were stealing, with the purpose of surprising him. But the instant he saw a human form emerge from the cover of the bushes, he waved his hands wildly over his head, and shrieking out, “Bas air Eachin!” plunged down the precipice into the raging cataract beneath.
It is needless to say, that aught save thistledown must have been dashed to pieces in such a fall. But the river was swelled, and the remains of the unhappy youth were never seen. A varying tradition has assigned more than one supplement to the history. It is said by one account, that the young captain of Clan Quhele swam safe to shore, far below the Linns of Campsie; and that, wandering disconsolately in the deserts of Rannoch, he met with Father Clement, who had taken up his abode in the wilderness as a hermit, on the principle of the old Culdees. He converted, it is said, the heart broken and penitent Conachar, who lived with him in his cell, sharing his devotion and privations, till death removed them in succession.
Another wilder legend supposes that he was snatched from death by the daione shie, or fairy folk, and that he continues to wander through wood and wild, armed like an ancient Highlander, but carrying his sword in his left hand. The phantom appears always in deep grief. Sometimes he seems about to attack the traveller, but, when resisted with courage, always flies. These legends are founded on two peculiar points in his story—his evincing timidity and his committing suicide—both of them circumstances almost unexampled in the history of a mountain chief.
When Simon Glover, having seen his friend Henry duly taken care of in his own house in Curfew Street, arrived that evening at the Place of Campsie, he found his daughter extremely ill of a fever, in consequence of the scenes to which she had lately been a witness, and particularly the catastrophe of her late playmate. The affection of the glee maiden rendered her so attentive and careful a nurse, that the glover said it should not be his fault if she ever touched lute again, save for her own amusement.