The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1898-11-04

".'it "i'l ilit plllcl Illus anu liSSlcS III
the sports, True sports they were, as
the fashion was. with Highland reel
and fling, and bobbing for apples, and
with low lights, telling eerie tales till
| the witching time.
At these stories Lochlin of all was
best; he played the hagpipe and reciteCl
his pibrochs in a weird. uncannv way.
fairly raising the hair OF some Of the
| LowIand lads. whose lives. passed on
the links. knew little of the fierce and
stormy delights of the Highlander.
\ brave, fine lad was Lochin; he
had laid aside his blue bonnet, but in
all else was clad in full Highland COS
| tume,-plaid of tartan, sporan of the
wolf with the hair on, girdied to his
aist, adorned with silver tags and the
Ward of the beast himself skirt and
| kilt. Of course. and, for further adorn-
ment. a brooch OF Lorn with sparkling
cairngOrms.
The songs he recited were those of
his own mountain fastness, of the clans
and their valor, and more interesting
still of the gnomcs and kelpies and
their doings in the heart of Wonder
wood
Now. Wondcrwood was the great
northern forest, leagues and leagues
long and broad stretching away over
many wild fell, circling the sheep
ranges of Lochlin s father, and its lower
border black with frs and centuries
old hemlocks rising up into the sky
from the very edge of the road beyond
the manse. Not one there but thrilled
at the name of underwood; not one
good Christians though all professed
to be-that would have dared, even at
broad noon. to venture alone into those
dense businesses. How much less,
then, at night at midnight, and mid
night, too, of the very day of all the
year when kelpie power was at its best,
and humal strength at its weakest.
The manse clock struck the haif:hour
before twelve; the maids, giving over
their fright. began to think OF lighting
each her candle, and, tiny mirror in
hand, making ready to go, one by one,
down into the hi q cellar of the mansc,
to 90 alone. after the clock should
strike midnight, to know of the fates
their fortune for the coming year,-to
see, mayhap over the shoulder, in the
glass, the face of the man they should
marry.
None but thought this brave enough
for Scottish lass. With what gruc-
some awe, then, they heard Maggie
McCallum as she told, not whispering
as if affrightened, nor yet with any
bravado, but in her own sweet voice,
is ever she spoke calmly, her resolve
to 90 out into the night to learn her
fatc,-yes, even into the heart of Won
derwood
What made our gentle Maggie so OF
sudden, as it seemed, determined,
and 50 calm withal? Her little sister
Agnes began to cry; but Mary Col
quhon, sitting near to Lochlin, and, it
must be said, setting her cap at him,
with tiirt of her haXen head SPOKE
up: "A wlfu' lass maun gang her ain
gait"
And Lochln himself, never thinking
Maggie could mean Il word Of what she
said, quoted the familiar proverbs:
'Brtter n wee fire to warm We than a
big to burn
And none thought she meant it; so,
when they were lifting their candle
ends and getting their bits of looking
glass, Maggie stole up the stairs and
down again, wrapped in her snood,
opened the sidc-boor of the mansc,
gliding out into the darkness and into
the shadow OF Wonderwood, dull dis
tress driving her on, in her ears ring
ing the h.ppant gayety of Lochlin' s
words, and ever before her eyes the big
blue ones and the wavy yellow i:air Of
Mary Colquhon.
The night was not cold, but the sky
was overcast, and not a star to be seen.
1t was calm, most deathly calm, and
the darkness rose before Maggie like a
black wall She knew we'll the way
through the garden and across the
road, and even beyond far away
through the pasture. 1t was here the
wood began, the big holes of the hem
locks, i'll the daylight savage with mvs-
terry, now only sentinels of the mys-
terry her heart cravcd. On she went
into the wood, the trees seeming to
part on either hand for her, the ground
; cming to level itself as for a path.
On She went i'll the pitch-dark night,
OH and On and on.
Presently the blackness of the oh
scnrity changed ever SO little, to vel
vet violet, glimmering ahead, brighter
and bolder momently, Now the path
was visible, and 50 were the mighty
torest-trecs, towering overhead where
the evergreen, circling over, shut in
the weird illumination. SO Maggie
prcsS,d on, till Of sudden the vio.et
radiance changed to Il soft, white light,
and at the change, by the magic art of
the forest fairies, her steps We're stayed.
SI,, l,,,l-,,l ,I, Il :