at that moment have been unable to persuade his followers to quit the heaps of spoil, and to complete the great work of the day; and Dundee was no more.

At the beginning of the action he had taken his place in front of his little band of cavalry. He bade them follow him, and rode forward. But it seemed to be decreed that, on that day, the Lowland Scotch should in both armies appear to disadvantage. The horse hesitated. Dundee turned around, stood up in his stirrups, and, waving his hat, invited them to come on. As he lifted his arm, his cuirass rose, and exposed the lower part of his left side. A musket ball struck him: his horse sprang forward and plunged into a cloud of smoke and dust, which hid from both armies the fall of the victorious general. A person named Johnstone was near him, and caught him as he sank down from the saddle. "How goes the day?" said Dundee. "Well for King James," answered Johnstone: "but I am sorry for Your Lordship." "If it is well for him," answered the dying man, "it matters the less for me." He never spoke again: but when, half an hour later, Lord Dunfermline and some other friends came to the spot, they thought they could still discern some faint remains of life. The body, wrapped in two plaids, was carried to the Castle of Blair.

Read the notes on "Lochiel's Warning," and the account of the Lochiels in the notes on the "Eve before Waterloo."

In 1688 James II of England was driven into exile, and in the early part of 1689 Mary, the daughter of James, and her consort William of Orange were made joint rulers of England. In both Ireland and Scotland the adherents of James raised his

banner and sought to secure his restoration to the English throne. In Scotland John Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, was the moving spirit of the forces of James. Lochiel, however, was second only to Claverhouse. The battle was fought July 17, 1689, in a narrow pass in one of the wildest parts of the Perthshire Highlands. Fifty-seven years later at Culloden another Lochiel fought for another Stuart in a vain effort to restore an outlawed line of kings.

The selection is from Macaulay's History of England, and illustrates admirably his narrative power; the story is as thrilling as if taken from a work of fiction. This effect is secured by the use of conversation, by specific details; and particularly by arousing a personal interest in the two commanding figures, Lochiel and Dundee.

1. Write the topic of each of five paragraphs.

2. Could any of the paragraphs have been properly divided? indicate where.

If so,

3. Which paragraph suggests the most rapid action?

4. Write a paragraph or two describing a game so as to indicate rapid action.

OVERBOARD

BLACK

When Sir Keith Macleod* got down to the stone pier, John and Duncan Cameron were in the boat. Johnny Wickes was standing at the door of the storehouse.

"Would you like to go for a sail, Johnny?" Macleod said, curtly.

"O, yes, sir," said the boy eagerly; for he had long ago lost his dread of the sea.

"Get in, then, and get up to the bow."

*Mac-loud'.

So Johnny Wickes went cautiously down the few slippery stone steps, half tumbled into the bottom of the great open boat, and then scrambled up to the bow.

"Where shall we go, sir?" said one of the men, when Macleod had jumped into the stern, and taken the tiller. "Anywhere,—right out!" he answered carelessly.

But it was all very well to say "right out!" when there was a stiff breeze blowing right in. Scarcely had the boat put her nose beyond the pier—and while as yet there was but little way on her-when a big sea caught her, springing high over her bows and coming rattling down on her with a noise as of pistol shots. The chief victim of this deluge was the luckless Johnny Wickes, who tumbled into the bottom of the boat, vehemently blowing the salt water out of his mouth, and rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. Macleod burst out laughing.

"What's the good of you as a lookout?" he cried. "Didn't you see the water coming?"

"Yes, sir," said Johnny, ruefully laughing too. But he would not be beaten. He scrambled up again to his post, and clung there, despite the fierce wind and the clouds of spray.

"Keep her close up, sir," said the man who had the sheet of the huge lugsail in both his hands, as he cast a glance out at the darkening sea.

But this great boat, rude and rough and dirty as she appeared, was a splendid specimen of her class; and they know how to build such boats up about that part of the world. No matter with how staggering a plunge she went down into the yawning green gulf,-the white foam hiss

ing away from her sides, before the next wave, high, awful, threatening, had come down on her with a crash as of mountains falling, she had glided buoyantly upwards, and the heavy blow only made her bows spring the higher, as though she would shake herself free, like a bird, from the wet.

But it was a wild day to be out. So heavy and black was the sky in the west that the surface of the sea, out to the horizon, seemed to be a moving mass of white foam, with only streaks of green and purple in it. The various islands changed every minute as the wild clouds whirled past. Already the great cliffs about Dare had grown distant and faint as seen through the spray; and here were the rocks of Colonsay, black as jet as they reappeared through the successive deluges of white foam; and far over there, a still gloomier mass against the gloomy sky told where the huge Atlantic breakers were rolling in their awful thunder into the Staffa caves.

"I would keep off a bit, sir," said the sailor next Macleod. He did not like the look of the heavy breakers that were crashing on the Colonsay rocks.

And so they went plunging and staggering and bounding onwards, with the roar of the water all around them, and the foam at her bows, as it sprang high into the air, showing quite white against the black sky ahead.

The younger lad, Duncan, was clearly of opinion that his master was running too near the shores of Colonsay; but he would say no more, for he knew that Macleod had a better knowledge of the currents and rocks of this wild coast than any man on the mainland of Mull.

John Cameron, forward, kept his head down to the gunwale, his eyes looking far over that howling waste of sea; Duncan, his younger brother, had his gaze fixed mostly on the brown breadth of the sail, hammered at by the gusts of wind; while as for the boy at the bow, that enterprising youth had got a rope's end, and was endeavoring to strike at the crest of each huge wave as it came plowing along in its resistless strength.

But at one moment the boat gave a heavier lurch than usual, and the succeeding wave struck her badly. In the great rush of water that then ran by her side, Macleod's startled eye seemed to catch a glimpse of something red,—something blazing and burning red in the waste of green, and almost the same glance showed him that there was no boy at the bow! Instantly, with just one cry to arrest the attention of the men, he had slipped over the side of the boat, just as an otter slips off a rock. The two men were bewildered but for a second. sprang to the halyards, and down came the great lugsail; the other got out one of the long oars, and the mighty blade fell into the bulk of the next wave as if he would with one sweep tear her head round. Like two madmen the men pulled; and the wind was with them, and the tide also; but nevertheless, when they caught sight-just for a moment of some object behind them, it was a terrible distance away.

One

Yet there was no time, they thought, or seemed to think, to hoist the sail again; and the small dingey attached to the boat would have been swamped in a second; and so there was nothing for it but the deadly struggle with