played before him, that of the Davsa-na-mairv, the Dance of the Dead. Swiftly and silently he rose and crossed the room. In the dark shadows cast by the byre he could see nothing; but the music ceased. He went out, and searched everywhere, but found no one. So he returned, took down the Holy Book, and with awed heart read slowly, till peace came upon him, soft and sweet as the warmth of the peat-glow. But as for Anne, she had never even this hint that one of the supposed dead might be alive; or that, being dead, Gloom might yet touch a shadowy _feadan_ into a wild, remote air of the Grave. When month after month went by, and no hint of ill came to break upon their peace, Mànus grew light-hearted again. Once more his songs were heard as he came back from the fishing or loitered ashore mending his nets. A new happiness was nigh to them, for Anne was with child. True, there was fear also, for the girl was not well at the time when her labour was near, and grew weaker daily. There came a day when Mànus had to go to Loch Boisdale in South Uist; and it was with pain, and something of foreboding, that he sailed away from Berneray in the Sound of Harris, where he lived. It was on the third night that he returned. He was met by Katreen MacRanald, the wife of his mate, with the news that, on the morrow after his going, Anne had sent for the priest, who was staying at Loch Maddy, for she had felt the coming of death. It was that very evening she died, and took the child with her. Mànus heard as one in a dream. It seemed to him that the tide was ebbing in his heart, and a cold sleety rain falling, falling through a mist in his brain. Sorrow lay heavily upon him. After the earthing of her whom he loved he went to and fro solitary; often crossing the Narrows and going to the old Pictish Tower under the shadow of Ben Breac. He would not go upon the sea, but let his kinsman Callum do as he liked with the _Luath_. Now and again Father Allan MacNeill sailed northward to see him. Each time he departed sadder. “The man is going mad, I fear,” he said to Callum, the last time he saw Mànus. The long summer nights brought peace and beauty to the isles. It was a great herring-year, and the moon-fishing was unusually good. All the Uist men who lived by the sea-harvest were in their boats whenever they could. The pollack, the dogfish, the otters, and the seals, with flocks of sea-fowl beyond number, shared in the common joy. Mànus MacCodrum alone paid no need to herring or mackerel. He was often seen striding along the shore, and more than once had been heard laughing. Sometimes, too, he was come upon at low tide by the great Reef of Berneray, singing wild strange runes and songs, or crouching upon a rock and brooding dark.