with the cadences more prolonged, and wailing with a more plaintive grief. Then it seemed as if the player had gone out upon the leads, and was pouring out his lament anew, thinned now and purified as it spread itself in the void of night. The poignant misery of the strain grew mellowed into a mournful sadness, and then it seemed to mount upon the passing wind and slowly drift away, leaving our sorely-racked senses exhausted, yet scarce able to endure the oppressive silence.

We remained all three as we had been for some time, without either speaking or moving. My grandmother was the first to come to herself. She drew a deep sigh and sat up in her chair. Then she began to tremble violently, and fell forward on the table in a tumult of weeping. Aunt Elspeth and I were at her side, but what could we do to soothe her? We could but wait till the paroxysm had spent itself, as by-and-by it did, and her trouble found vent in words. My precious husband!' was what she sobbed out,' must-must we then part? After all these years of trust and happiness? Come, Elspeth! Come! I must go to your father!' And so we supported her, one on either hand, for she could not walk alone after the excitement we had gone through; and we made what haste we could to my grandfather's room.

How soothing and tranquil the scene was there after the terrifying disturbance we had undergone! My grandmother's maid sat in the anteroom, sewing peacefully by the candle, while through the open door of the chamber within appeared my grandfather in his dressing-gown, with his easy chair drawn close to the fire. He seemed to be asleep, for his eyes were closed, and the book he had been reading lay on the carpet by his footstool. The light of the reading lamp fell on his long white hair, and shone among the threads as though they had been silver. He opened his eyes as we entered, and seemed surprised at the intensity with which my grandmother embraced him. He had been drowsing, he said, most of the evening, and was glad of our coming to rouse him up. Nothing unusual, seemingly, had occurred with him, and when I began to ask him if he had not been disturbed, my aunt shot me a glance which closed my lips.

The second morning after, my dear grandfather was found dead in his bed. He had passed into the other life without awaking, and as easily, it would seem, as we enter the land of dreams; so sweet a serenity rested on his features, and the coverings of his couch were so undisturbed.

II.

My grandmother did not long survive her husband. From the day of his death life ceased to interest her, and her only satisfaction was to mark the progress of her own decay. In a week or two she had ceased to leave her room, a little longer and she did not leave her bed, and it was not many weeks after that the feeble life flickered out altogether, like the flame of a lamp when there is no more oil. Within three months she was laid beside her husband.

My father inherited the property, and Aunt Elspeth wrote urging him to come home at once, leave the service, and assume his place in the county; for a laird had always lived at Cairndhu, and she did not feel competent to advise with Mr. Pittendreigh, the man of business, about leases and other affairs. In answer he told us there was little prospect of his early return. He had received orders to join Lord Gough, and it was generally expected they would have warm work. The months slid by, relieved only by an occasional letter, and that with never a hint of my father's home-coming. We grew reconciled in time, and strove to do our best for the property in its owner's absence.

One day it was a Sunday-I recollect our going to church. The drive is stamped on my memory as though it were yesterday, and I can see again the breezy dappled sky, and feel the soft air about my face, as we lay back in the barouche and swept down the hill. The light paled as we proceeded my own life seemed to grow dim. It may have been merely the shadow of the beeches overhead, or a cloud may have drifted over the sun, but my heart grew heavy like lead, though there seemed no reason for it. We passed the gates, leaving the trees behind, but the gloom only deepened, and the high overhanging wall of the old graveyard seemed to block the very stirrings of the air. The crumbling stones were blotched with the gray and yellow scurf of years, and bearded with wall rue; and there hung an earthy savour all around, and a stillness such as brooded over the shaggy hillocks within the enclosure, where we caught a glimpse of them through gaps and rents in the wall. There was nothing really the matter, but yet I felt oppressed and terrified in some nameless way. I would have fain cried out, though I knew not what for; but the breath had thickened in my throat, and I gasped in silence.

The lightsome wind got at us again when the churchyard enclosure was past, and the nightmare feelings were dissipated like fog before a rising breeze. I felt rather ashamed of myself, and pleased that my companion had not noticed my fantastic qualms.

At church the earlier portion of the service passed off as usual. The congregation had sung twice. The minister had prayed, read a chapter of Scripture and given out his text, when I was startled by sounds of commotion in the porch and vestibule-a blare of bagpipes, loud, shrill, discordant, echoing and multiplying and repeating itself in the confined space, till the building seemed to rock and shiver in the tempest of sound..

Aunt Elspeth started and grew sickly pale, braced herself back in the corner of the pew, and covered her face with her hands.

The din resolved itself into the old horrible tune. The lobby door swung open without hands, and the clangour surged into the church, a hurrying flood of sound.

I grew sick and powerless. My breath stopped I think, and I lost the faculty of sight.

The rush of wild discordant lamentation filled the church, and a heavy step could be heard marching with it slowly up the aisle. It passed our pew so close that I felt the sough of the wind on my face as it went by, and I thought I should die; for it was damp and clammy of the churchyard and the mouldering graves. Then it went round the pulpit and down the other aisle.

Anything more piercingly earsplitting I never heard, and the heart-crushing agony of grief it conveyed was beyond description. It went three times round the church, growing slower and less loud each time, exhausted as it seemed with its burden of anguish, and then vanished through the vestry door. I thought I saw the shadowy flutter of a plaid for an instant at that door, but my sight was only coming back to me, as the apparition-shall I call it ?— or the sound vanished.

A hearty cry came to my relief when all was over, bringing back composure and enabling me to avoid a scene in church; and I could see my aunt also was shedding tears.

When I became aware again of what was passing around me, it seemed strange to note that the minister was proceeding tranquilly with his sermon, and the congregation, quite undisturbed, sat listening as usual. The disturbance had only affected ourselves, and this, I think, made it more terrible and uncanny.

As may be supposed, we avoided meeting our friends that day

after service, and got home as quietly as possible. I did not venture to speak till having safely passed the old burying-ground we were again within our own policies. Then I ventured to break silence.

'Did you hear it, auntie?' I asked.

6

Ah, my poor child!' she answered, you are an orphan to-day, Barbara! I

true. Hamish MacTavish never plays but for the laird. Your father is dead, Barbara dearest, and the next mail from India will bring the news. My poor brother, and my poor fatherless girl!' It was a great shock to me to be told this, and my aunt was

deeply distressed at the loss of her brother. It never occurred to us to doubt the warning, yet we could not put the household into black and announce our bereavement (what would people have said if we had?); yet under its shadow we could not live as before. To ourselves that would have appeared indecent; we could only deny ourselves to our friends and live alone.

It was under the pressure of this enforced seclusion that I at last found courage to question Aunt Elspeth about the piper. I shrank from thinking of this unearthly retainer of the family myself, and she had shown unwillingness to mention him; but thrown on each other as we now were for companionship, overshadowed by anticipation of bereavement which we could not divulge, and oppressed by the idea of whence came our knowledge, I grew nervous, and, like all timid things driven to bay, desired to confront the terrors I could not evade. Aunt Elspeth consented at last to enlighten my curiosity, admitting that after twice being frightened I had a right to know, and that it was but justice to our 'forbears' to tell all, they having done no wrong, and I must not be left to suspect them of evil. The following is what she told me.

One of our ancestors, it appears, was out in the Forty-five,' to use the old-fashioned phrase. He followed Prince Charlie in his triumphant march through England, and escaped with his body servant from the final overthrow on Culloden Moor, stealing back by circuitous ways to the neighbourhood of Cairndhu, and remaining there in hiding for some time.

There was a ruinous shieling at the head of the glen, some distance above the house, in a lonely spot surrounded with bog, and hidden even from the straggling cattle-tracks across the hills. In this the laird concealed himself.

cry

He would send Hamish down to the house an hour or two before the break of day, when his wife would be waiting to let down a basket of necessaries so soon as she heard the of a muircock beneath her casement. The laird himself is said to have been in the house more than once, but that is doubtful. There was a price upon his head, and care was necessary lest some one should suspect and give information in hopes of gaining the reward.

Before long suspicion did arise that the laird was not far off. The lady may have looked less miserable than her neighbours thought she should have looked under the circumstances, or the prattle of one of the children may have divulged something of