ndeed, it looked, as though stained with blood. But I knew
him at once, Jacob Settle! My friend pulled the winding sheet further
down.

The hands were crossed on the purple breast as they had been
reverently placed by some tender-hearted person. As I saw them my
heart throbbed with a great exultation, for the memory of his
harrowing dream rushed across my mind. There was no stain now on those
poor, brave hands, for they were blanched white as snow.

And somehow as I looked I felt that the evil dream was all over. That
noble soul had won a way through the gate at last. The white robe had
now no stain from the hands that had put it on.

Crooken Sands

Mr Arthur Fernlee Markam, who took what was known as the Red House
above the Mains of Crooken, was a London merchant, and being
essentially a cockney, thought it necessary when he went for the
summer holidays to Scotland to provide an entire rig-out as a Highland
chieftain, as manifested in chromolithographs and on the music-hall
stage. He had once seen in the Empire the Great Prince--'The Bounder
King'--bring down the house by appearing as 'The MacSlogan of that
Ilk,' and singing the celebrated Scotch song, 'There's naething like
haggis to mak a mon dry!' and he had ever since preserved in his mind
a faithful image of the picturesque and warlike appearance which he
presented. Indeed, if the true inwardness of Mr. Markam's mind on the
subject of his selection of Aberdeenshire as a summer resort were
known, it would be found that in the foreground of the holiday
locality which his fancy painted stalked the many hued figure of the
MacSlogan of that Ilk. However, be this as it may, a very kind
fortune--certainly so far as external beauty was concerned--led him to
the choice of Crooken Bay. It is a lovely spot, between Aberdeen and
Peterhead, just under the rock-bound headland whence the long,
dangerous reefs known as The Spurs run out into the North Sea.
Between this and the 'Mains of Crooken'--a village sheltered by the
northern cliffs--lies the deep bay, backed with a multitude of
bent-grown dunes where the rabbits are to be found in thousands. Thus
at either end of the bay is a rocky promontory, and when the dawn or
the sunset falls on the rocks of red syenite the effect is very
lovely. The bay itself is floored with level sand and the tide runs
far out, leaving a smooth waste of hard sand on which are dotted here
and there the stake nets and bag nets of the sal