Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1898-11-26

father, laid himself down upon it with
his arms outstre;ched. Then Macdonald
and another nan stopped over him,
Iashing his feet together and then Sc
curing MS arms to the crosspicCe just
above the elbows. Two stout ropes held
him by the shoulders and went over his
body, crossing ON the breast, and these
were drawn so tightly that Alastair,
after enduring with clinched teeth for a
minute, was forced to cry out. Loosen
it, Ian MacAlastair said hoarsely, and
the others obeyed.
81 am safe now," Alastair said, smil-
ing, as they drew back from him for a
minute. "Your knots are fast, Macdon-
aid, and so are-ah! !" They had raised
tho cross upright now, and the sudden
strain upon his overwrought nerves had
forced another cry from Alastair, but
the next rough movement he bore in si-
lence and it was with shut lips and
quiet eyes that he endured the sudden
casting out from their midst and smoth-
ering splash into deep water.
"a boat will be picking you up may
lie, but you will not be coming back to
Ronaldshay, Judas MacAlastair!' - Mac.
donald shouted after him, but Alastair
called no curse back, as those on shore
half expected. He did not even turn his
head to look at the Shore but lay still
upon his cross, taking with the same
quietness the singing of the salt spray
in his eyes and the tingling pain in his
bound limbs.
"Naked limbs-the sea has need of, :"
Alastair whispered presently. "Does the
sea want me any more than the land
does, wonder? Oh, but it's cold, cold !"
shuddering as one wave after another
drove over lis naked body. 81 wish the
wind would rise; then I would get a
chance of drowning. Is that mutter of
thunder? l wish it were. Mother, are
you sorrowful somewhere for me to-
night?" A nearer mutter of thunder
stopped his murmuring, and the next
hour laid another cross upon Alastair' s
burdened shoulders-the cross of per-
petual tossing about from drowning to
life as the big seas lifted him now and
now broke over him in clatter of yell
low foam. When the stress of the storm
went by, Alastair had tainted, but pres
emily the splash of some tossing wrack
upon his naked breast brought him to a
knowledge of hunger and cold and pain.
"The fish will be plenty next cast,
I'm thinking" Alastair gasped as he
tried to shake the drenched hair from
his eyes eff only the sea won't cast
me up at their very doors-or then they
will be thinking I'd be coming back
again to haunt them Is it coming loose
l am?' The rope had slipped from his
right arm, leaving it free, and the next
wave flung him against "a sharp edged
rock bruising his free arm on the small
sharp shells that covered it, But Alas
tair clurg fast to the rock, with light
in his face that would not fade for all
the pain of torn flesh and nerves, and
presently he found what he was seeking
IA creVice through which he could
thrust his fingers. When his hand was
fixed fast i'll the Jagged hole, the light
deepened and softened in Alastair's face.
'"This is good, this is better,' he
whispered, "than the open sea- and still
this will not hurt my own folk, for this
rock is not Ronaldshay. * Kind,
kind, after all, are you sea O. me, kind
er than l dared hope you'd be-" And
now a big wave lifted him softly and
turned him over on his face, still an
chored to the rock by his right hand.
The weight of the cross on his back
pressed him down an arms length, no
more, and then the sea that he had
loved very gently took the soul of Alas
tair MacAlastair to itself.
At long last fishermen from the is
land of Eday found him, still bound to
his cross.
Though they were afraid to take the
drowned lad aboard their boat, lest they
should suffer in their herring harvests,
they towed cross and all ashore with
them and buried cross and all in their
windy hill graveyard, where lie those
few men of Eday that the sea has not
drowned.
And the story of Cross Alastair is a
woeful story in the North isles to this
day.-Black and White.