The Prisoners of Craigmacaire

ng ocean, watching the frail hark that bore a son or husband from his perilous daily task. But no stormy sea or angry cloud on the night we have alluded to disturbed the sweet serenity of nature: man's bad passions alone jarred the universal harmony. At that distance the shouts of the soldiery as they pressed on to their sacrilegious work in Craigmacaire, were wafted by the soft south wind, and the lurid flames of fire shot up into the darkening sky. Several groups of fishermen watched the work from a distance, and speculations of various kinds occupied their minds as to its immediate cause. They knew that the Hanoverian army had possessed itself of the town; reports, perhaps not exaggerated, of the profligacy of the soldiers in the Low Countries, had reached them. An indefinite fear had possessed them, but no idea had entered their mind of the peculiar nature of the outrage committed: an outrage beyond all other calculated to inspire a simple and devotional race with horror.

"Woe's me," said an aged c