ones,
That yon grim head, clean sever'd from the trunk,
Was the chief trophy of that night. Nay;
For kindly thoughts endure, and the High Will
That holds all things within the ever-opening fold
Of His eternal purpose--that High Will
Look'd down with loving eyes that pierce the dark,
And bless'd the deeds that glorified MacNab,
The abbot's son--half-savage and half-saint.
Time sped; the deed was not forgot, and still
The tale is told when nights are long and the lone
Owl hoots upon the hill. And now there stands
Within bowshot of the isle--a house of God
That calls to prayer--a parish church--the fruit
Of kindly thoughts that stirr'd the watcher's heart,
And clomb to Heaven in mute appeal, that night
When vengeance smote and light and life went out together.

So much, then, for the prospect which an antiquarian standing by the
Well of St. Fillan would embrace within the programme of his research.
If we try to form a picture of the social condition of the people who
lived in the midst of this fair vale of Earn in those early days, it is
a scene of continual strife we conjure up--clan fighting with clan, and
one feud succeeding another. These were the days of superstitious
pilgrimages, days of rooted custom and unchanging faith. So much the
better for the Saint. The halo of his sanctity shines out all the more
against the background of ignorance and strife. If he were to re-visit
those scenes now, how much would he have to deplore! No more
pilgrimages, no more belief in miracles. What a downcome from his
dignity to be the patron of a golf course or the chaplain of a curling
club, instead of enjoying the fame and name of the holy well.
_Requiescat in pace_.

The past was not all strife, however. Traces of agriculture lead us to
picture this fine strath as at one time throng with peaceful and busy
life. There were, no doubt, in those warlike times intervals of peace,
when the inhabitants of the glen could tend their cattle and cultivate
their potatoes and corn at leisure; and whether we look back upon this
land of the "mountain and the flood" as having been the nursery of our
best soldiers, or as having been peopled by a race rendered strong and
manly by a simple mode of life, the present prospect of our Highland
glens cannot but fill us with sad reflection when we behold the process
of emigration and depopulation still going on, and when we see that ere
long the only links