g sorrow, that Ranald joyed not in his great
affliction to claim her for his wife. Poor were they to be sure--yet not
so poor as to leave life without its comforts; and in every glen of her
native Highlands, were there not worthy families far poorer than they?
But weeks, months, passed on, and Ranald remained in a neighbouring hut,
shunning the sunshine, and moaning, it was said, when he thought none
were near, both night and day. Sometimes he had been overheard muttering
to himself lamentable words--and, blind as his eyes were to all the
objects of the real world, it was rumoured up and down the glen, that he
saw visions of woeful events about to befall one whom he loved.

One midnight he found his way, unguided, like a man walking in his
sleep--but although in a hideous trance, he was yet broad awake--to the
hut where Flora dwelt, and called on her, in a dirge-like voice, to
speak a few words with him ere he died. They sat down together among the
heather, on the very spot where the farewell embrace had been given the
morning he went away to the wars; and Flora's heart died within her,
when he told her that the Curse under which his forefathers had
suffered, had fallen upon him; and that he had seen his wraith pass by
in a shroud, and heard a voice whisper the very day he was to die.

And was it Ranald of the Red-Cliff, the bravest of the brave, that thus
shuddered in the fear of death like a felon at the tolling of the great
prison-bell? Ay, death is dreadful when foreseen by a ghastly
superstition. He felt the shroud already bound round his limbs and body
with gentle folds, beyond the power of a giant to burst; and day and
night the same vision yawned before him--an open grave in the corner of
the hill burial-ground without any kirk.

Flora knew that his days were indeed numbered; for when had he ever been
afraid of death--and could his spirit have quailed thus under a mere
common dream? Soon was she to be all alone in this world; yet when
Ranald should die, she felt that her own days would not be many, and
there was sudden and strong comfort in the belief that they would be
buried in one grave.

Such were her words to the dying man; and all at once he took her in his
arms, and asked her "If she had no fears of the narrow house?" His whole
nature seemed to undergo a change under the calm voice of her reply; and
he said, "Dost thou fear not then, my Flora, to hear the words of doom?"
"Blessed will they be, if in de