The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Scenes of Lono- Ago.
spearinc;^ char, for at this season of the year great shoals of
this beautiful scarlet-bellied fish came up the streams to
spawn, so that men and boys, concealing themselves among
the dense foliage, could readily snare them with nooses of
horse hair by day, and spear them of clear nights still more
readih'. A second glance convinced the Borderer that the
being, whatever it vvas, stood of purpose in the track which
his horse must takt, and, as he afterwards confessed, he felt
reassured by observing that the faithful animal showed no
signs of fear.
When, with a slight bound, his horse stood on the dry
ground, a voice called, "Stop, Mark Teviot, and beware!
It is no spirit of the
"
dead, but a living friend who is here
for your good !
" Alister INIacindrui ! Who could have looked to meet
you here at this hour, and what danger would you warn me
of?" exclaimed the tacksman.
" My fathers, who lived in days passed away on the
pleasant holms of Inverbeltane, would say that I, their
desendant, had small cause to befriend you who, although
a stranger and having no position by right in the land
of my people, occupy their inheritance and mine."
" Yes. Macindrui !
but who is to blame for your expatria-
tion. Not I, and not His Lordship of Duncairn. You are
well aware that it was while the Duncairn estates were
managed by a government factor, that Inverbeltane was
cleared of its old inhabitants, and did not his Lordship, as
soon as he had the power, give you a croft at Balmo^es ? "
" A croft at Balmoses !" exclaimed Black Alister, his
voice weird and trembling with old age and the scorn which
he tried to express. " A croft at Balmoses ! do you sup-
pose that a croft even in the fertile Lothians, or, what's
more likely, within the Home farm of Duncairn, could even
make up to me for the banks of the Baltane, where I spent
my boyhood days, or, for the loss of every kindred, who on
the shores of the distant Savannah will nevermore hear the
sweet rippling waters that made music to their young ear?