Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/187

 Rh Fraser went out barefoot across the Inverness-shire hills. The mother did not long survive the shock and the obloquy cast on her son's name, and they laid her head under the shadow of his deserted church.

The penitent kept his vow, and reached the Sepulchre, where he fell down on his face, praying for pardon and forgiveness. Suddenly a light filled the place, and he lifted his face, streaming with tears, to hear a voice say, "I am Mary, and thy sins are forgiven of God; go in peace." And Alexander Fraser arose, and rested not till his foot trod again the hills of Lochaber. He was a sore altered man when he came by the old place again; grey was his beard, and his clothes hanging in rents, as he slouched and stooped in his gait. The house where his mother had lived he entered last. He had begged a trifling alms first in many others, aye asking who was the priest of the parish. "Their minister," they said, "had fallen in with the Evil One, and for five years had not been seen." A glance at his old house showed him that it was in a state of commotion; he entered it by the kitchen door an eldritch-looking beggar, whom the serving-maids ordered out. They were preparing a wedding-feast. Their old mistress was dead, and their young one was to wed, on the morrow's morn, a certain Patrick Morrison. "Tell your mistress that there is a wanderer that wants word of her," and the maid went ben to Miss Betty's chamber, where she was sewing the wedding-clothes.

"Tell the gaberlunzie that I cannot come for any but one, I am that busy in the house; but give him," she added, "a glass of wine to drink our health and luck." The wine was served to the beggar, who, when he had drunk it, slipped off a ring he wore into the glass, and returned that to Miss Betty's message. At the sight of the ring Miss Betty fainted. When she came to herself, she ran to the kitchen, where the ragged strange man sat. "The mischief! the mischief!" she cried; "that took off my brother; put him out!" "Keep quiet, and you will, maybe, see your brother yet," he said. He told her what his errand had been and now was. Then he went upstairs and washed and shaved himself, and came down and sat with her, and put it all before her; and that he had forgiveness given him at our Lord's grave. And syne he made the marriage between Miss