had left exposed a long stretch of sand, there was fought a fierce clan battle.

On the strand and grassy shore the rival forces met. The MacLeans in the first fury of their onslaught bore the MacDonalds back. Death charged in their van at the points of their heavy claymores, and in the forefront fought their chief, his life's ambition strengthening his arm.

"Beatha no Bàs!" (life or death) he shouted, his battlecry, dealing destruction among his enemies, carving for himself a path strewn with MacDonalds.

"Life or death!" his men repeated.

But it was not to be life. Twice had Sir Lauchlan engaged with Sir James MacDonald, and twice had Hugh MacKay drawn the attack upon himself, to shield his young chief from one who knew few equals with the claymore.

From each attack MacKay and James went scathless; and for a third time MacDonald beset by Sir Lauchlan's skill, was hard pressed to hold his own.

MacKay was dealing giant blows elsewhere for his own Rhinns, for his chief, and most of all for the thought of the lady Muriel.

More than ever were Clan Donald's interests his, for Muriel MacDonald on hearing of the MacLean's coming, had sent for MacKay and charged him to see to her brother's safety.

Then she had pinned into his bonnet a bunch of heaththe Clan Donald cognizance-mingled with the reed-grass that formed MacKay's own badge.

Now, shouting "Fraoch Eilean!" "The Heathery Isle!" MacDonald's war-cry, he carried Muriel's heath bravely against the foes of her clan till they quailed before him; and he was unaware of James MacDonald's danger.

But another perceived it; and when things looked blackest for James, MacLean's sword fell from his hand, and he dropped with an arrow in his heart.

Upon an eminence near at hand, a youth with face distorted by fiendish triumph, fixed another arrow in his bow. It was Ian, his hatred of MacLean a thousandfold intensified. He had suffered little but a momentary shock as the result of his fall from the tree, and now, even as on the night when he ran from Dun Brolchain, he fled before the avenging hand

of MacLean's henchman. Swift as a hare he ran, but Malcolm's rage lent him the wings of an eagle to follow the slayer of his chief, and Ian perished.

From the moment of Sir Lauchlan's fall, a paralysis seized upon his men, and Clan Donald gained ground despite the desperate valour of the MacLean leaders.

"The Heathery Isle!" rang loud above the fainter shouts of "Life or death!"

Alas, it was death for most that day. Had Hector MacLean been there to rally his clan, it might have been victory, but he was held a hostage in Mulindry and knew not what was passing seven miles away. The MacLeans were routed, and fled in disorder. Some of the bravest made a ring and reached their boats fighting every inch of the way and so escaped, though there was not a man but bore some bloody token of the fight. Those who remained were slain by the victors while light served. Many, making for the boats, fell as they ran. Others, overtaken by their foes, threw themselves into the church and barred the door. Here in earlier days they might have been safe, but now there was no sanctuary for them. Straw was to hand in plenty, for it was harvest time. MacDonalds, filled with hatred of a rival clan, piled it about the church and lighted it with flaming peats from a farmhouse fire. The roar of the flames about the burning building was the dirge of those who perished within. The harvest moon looked down that night upon a woeful scene, a lochside strewn with dead.

In came the tide, slow rising till it covered some of those who had fallen on the strand. It reached Sir Lauchlan's feet and there it stopped. He lay with face towards the sky and the fingers of both hands dug rigidly into the sand. The night breeze ruffled his hair, white without years, like the bosom of a swan.

Thick around him lay his followers, and beside him, blind to the horror of that fearful lochside, with eyes but for the body of him she had nursed, mourned Janet of Mull, her vision or her dream fulfilled.

A little Islay earth in the land he had coveted and Islay men to dig his grave, was the end of a mighty chief's ambition.

Confusion had come to Clan MacLean, and the Rhinns were Clan Donald's.

Hugh MacKay's heart sang as he made his report to his chief on the morrow, and greatly was Sir Angus pleased at the course of events. His losses had been comparatively small and his enemies were all but annihilated, but there was one fear in his heart-a fear for his brother Coll, who was lying wounded in a farmhouse near the field of slaughter, tossing uneasily from side to side, raving in delirium with one name constantly upon his lips, while she who bore it watched beside him with his mother.

Coll's eyes indeed may have seen the figure of his Irish cousin kneeling at his bedside fondling his poor limp hand, laying it tenderly against her cheek, hot almost as his own, and bathing it in her tears, but they were illuminated by no spark of recognition, and a feeling of utter desolation took possession of Grace MacDonald's sore-tried heart.

But Coll MacDonald's wounds did not prove so serious as Grace in her first wild grief imagined. His fever quickly abated and he awoke to the full pain of his hurts.

But what was pain to him when he read in his cousin's eyes the love that she had no wish to hide from him?

Eagerly he clung to the life that again held out to him alluring promises, drawing strength from Grace's smiles and patience from her love so simply and so happily confessed.

Deep was the sorrow of Hector MacLean and Ella MacDonald for the gallant Sir Lauchlan, but when the heart is young it refuses to weep for ever, and longs to shake from it the trammels of its grief.

Sir Angus consented to, and even hastened the marriage of his younger daughter, and Sir Hector carried back with him a bride when he went to take his father's place among his clan in Mull.

When Sorley Boy MacDonald returned to Antrim, his granddaughter went with him, the betrothed of Coll MacDonald, to prepare for her fast-coming nuptials.

October brought a day on which Coll MacDonald's galley drew in to Rathlin, and Grace saw it come with a joy she could not half express.

With Coll was Sir Angus, but partially recovered, yet

strong enough to pleasure his well-loved brother. James MacDonald and Muriel were with him also, and Hugh MacKay, whose patient devotion had not been in vain.

From Duart came Sir Hector and Lady Ella MacLean to see happiness such as their own conferred on two who deserved it quite as much as they.

Earl and Countess ClanConnell and many ladies and gentlemen of Antrim, Tyrone, and Tyrconnel had gathered in Rathlin, for Grace's choice was greatly pleasing to her grandfather, who had sent out invitations far and wide among his friends, and had planned festivities on a scale that would make even those that had taken place at the marriage of Lady Agnes fade into insignificance.

Coll and Grace were to reside in Rathlin. The island belonged to Grace, and a large area on the mainland had been added to her already large dower by Sorley MacDonald. Coll had given his Islay Castle-Dunad-to Muriel to be her future home.

As at Lady Agnes's wedding, a procession of boats went out across the belt of water between Rathlin and the Antrim shore to Ballycastle Bay, where the little village of Bun-naMargy nestled white at the foot of a hill with Dunrainie Castle, another of Sorley's strongholds, towering over it. High above the castle, town, and bay the summits of the Antrim hills were cleaving the sky, and away to the east a long line of sand stretched from Bun-na-Margy to where Fair Head opposed its huge bulk to the sea.

All the countryside had flocked to Bun-na-Margy, and the Friary Church was thronged when Grace MacDonald linked her future with her Islay cousin. Then back to Rathlin went the newly-wedded and the wedding guests, and that night the island was ringed about once more with joy-fires.

[THE END]

ABOUT CERTAIN LITTLE FOXES

By ALICE FURLONG.

ATCH us the little foxes that spoil the grapes." The

"C people who read this modest little homily are not

likely to be reckoned among great sinners. As warning to them, secure in the fold of the Church, there is little need to cry out against the ravening wolves of false teaching. In quest of them, sheltered in Christian homes built about with purity as a strong wall, the adversary, who goeth about like a roaring lion, ranges in vain the acrid deserts of evil places, seeking and finding not. But if they are, so far, safe from the fang of the wolf and from the jaws of the lion, not so are they defended from the teeth of the foxes, "the little foxes that spoil the grapes.'

When we come to think upon it, there is something especially hateful in little sins. Great sins are bad, but they are not always what one would call mean. Little sinsdeliberate ones, that is-are always mean. We do as much wrong as we may-with safety. We are as evil as we can be -short of incurring the judgment to come. And without going even so far as sin at all, what ugly things imperfections are. They may not be evil, strictly speaking, but they are certainly spoiled good. Take our justice to our neighbour. We will not steal that much-appreciated trash, his purse; we will not defraud him of his legal due; but how, in every bargain, we will scheme that the advantages may weigh down our side of the scale! How jealous are we of that snatch at the newspaper made by the "cook-general" while she waits for the water in the pot to boil: how eloquent our rebuke of the moment's idling by those poor pale girls standing all the long day behind our counters, trying to please exacting customers, who never seem to quite know what they want except that your shop does not stock it. Yet we will often pause in our own particular occupations of sewing, or corre