Note 1 — LEGEND OF GIBBON MORE CUMIN AND HIS DAUGHTER BIGLA.

Whether Hector’s renewed cautions did or did not succeed in making his master think something more of this matter than he was thus at first disposed to do, I cannot say; but certain it is, that the Lord of Glenchearnich was somewhat suddenly seized with the resolution of going some weeks earlier than he was wont, to spend the summer months on his hill-grazing property of Delnahaitnich, near the source of the river Dulnan. This was a most untoward event for the lovers, not only because the distance between them was thus immensely increased, but because Gibbon More’s residence there was a small cottage, which might be called little better than a mere shealing,1 in or about which it would be next to impossible for them to meet without observation. And accordingly after this move was made, some weeks were vainly expended in fruitless attempts on the part of Archy Abhach to procure for his master Sir John, even the gratification of such a distant view of the Lady Bigla’s robe as her father described in his conversation with Hector. Yet Sir John often hovered about the place, and lay for many a night wrapped up in his plaid among the heather of the neighbouring forest with no other shelter but a projecting rock and the thick foliage of the firs that grew over it. Archy Abhach was almost as much disappointed as Sir John himself at being so baulked. His ingenuity was put to the very rack, but all without effect; because it somehow or other happened that Gibbon More never went from home, and so his daughter was never left for one moment out of his sight. The knight had thus no comfort but in the frequent letters and messages which Archy contrived to carry between the lovers, and which they were fain to employ for want of those more interesting interviews, of which they were now altogether deprived.