vour of God) you
grow older and more reflective, seeking perhaps for more in these pages
than they meant to give, you may wonder that the streets, the lanes, the
tenements herein set forth so much resemble those we know to-day, though
less than two hundred years ago the bracken waved upon their promontory.
You may wonder, too, that the Silver Mines of Coillebhraid, discovered
in the time of your greatgrandfather, should have so strangely
been anticipated in the age of Gillesbeg Gruamach. Let not those
chronological divergences perturb you; they were in the manuscript
(which you will be good enough to assume) of Elrigmore, and I would not
alter them. Nor do I diminish by a single hour Elrigmore's estimate
that two days were taken on the Miraculous Journey to Inverlochy,
though numerous histories have made it less. In that, as in a few other
details, Elrigmore's account is borne out by one you know to whom The
Little Wars of Lorn and Lochaber are yet, as it were, an impulse of
yesterday, and the name of Athole is utterly detestable.

I give you this book, dear Hugh, not for History, though a true tale--a
sad old tale--is behind it, but for a picture of times and manners, of a
country that is dear to us in every rock and valley, of a people we know
whose blood is ours. And that you may grow in wisdom as in years, and
gain the riches of affection, and escape the giants of life as Connal
did the giants of Erin O, in our winter tale, is my fervent prayer.

N. M.

September 1898.

JOHN SPLENDID.

CHAPTER I.--FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD.

Many a time, in college or in camp, I had planned the style of my
home-coming. Master Webster, in the Humanities, droning away like a
Boreraig bagpipe, would be sending my mind back to Shira Glen, its braes
and corries and singing waters, and Ben Bhuidhe over all, and with my
chin on a hand I would ponder on how I should go home again when this
weary scholarship was over. I had always a ready fancy and some of the
natural vanity of youth, so I could see myself landing off the lugger at
the quay of Inneraora town, three inches more of a man than when I
left with a firkin of herring and a few bolls of meal for my winter's
provand; thicker too at the chest, and with a jacket of London green
cloth with brass buttons. Would the fishermen about the quay-head
not lean over the gun'les of their skiffs and say, "There goes young
Elrigmore from Colleging, well-knit in troth, and a pretty l