FOREST, LAKE, AND RIVER 



" Have you no word for me, Maggie ? " said 

 O'Scanlen, touching the shoulder of the woman. 



" Man," said I, as gently as I could, " she has 

 left a message for you, but she is dead." 



He staggered and would have fallen, but for 

 McTavish, who at that moment came into the 

 house and caught him in his arms. 



Let me, as is the storyteller's privilege, merci- 

 fully draw a veil over the husband's first violent 

 outpourings of grief. When we had decently 

 and reverently placed the body of the dead 

 woman upon the bed, and had made a fire to 

 warm the chilled house, in the last flickering 

 light of the day I read to O'Scanlen the mes- 

 sage which I had found upon the table : 



Dear Pat, — I am ritin' this in hopes that you will 

 get it to let you now that I am true to you to the ind, 

 and that the prisint year, God be praised, will be your 

 last in prison. It has been a lonesome time, dear Pat, 

 but glory be to God it 's a great farm I 've got, and it's 

 happy you '11 be whin you get here for it 's a great 

 country entirely. It 's the Maid of the Mountain I 

 am, dear Pat, for I 've kept our sacret, and it 's siveral 

 of the lads, fine min, Pat, and trew, who would marry 

 me, but I put thim off with one excuse and another 

 for it's thinkin' of you, Pat, I am and the little 

 dead one. They think it 's hard I am, Pat, but it 's 

 you who nows best, for it 's always of you I 'm dram- 



312 



