"Mother," said Hamish, "it signifies little to what a criminal
may be exposed, if a man is determined not to be such.  Our
Highland chiefs used also to punish their vassals, and, as I have
heard, severely.  Was it not Lachlan MacIan, whom we remember of
old, whose head was struck off by order of his chieftain for
shooting at the stag before him?"

"Ay," said Elspat, "and right he had to lose it, since he
dishonoured the father of the people even in the face of the
assembled clan.  But the chiefs were noble in their ire; they
punished with the sharp blade, and not with the baton.  Their
punishments drew blood, but they did not infer dishonour.  Canst
thou say, the same for the laws under whose yoke thou hast placed
thy freeborn neck?"

"I cannot, mother--I cannot," said Hamish mournfully.  "I saw
them punish a Sassenach for deserting as they called it, his
banner.  He was scourged--I own it--scourged like a hound who has
offended an imperious master.  I was sick at the sight--I confess
it.  But the punishment of dogs is only for those worse than
dogs, who know not how to keep their faith."

"To this infamy, however, thou hast subjected thyself, Hamish,"
replied Elspat, "if thou shouldst give, or thy officers take,
measure of offence against thee.  I speak no more to thee on thy
purpose.  Were the sixth day from this morning's sun my dying
day, and thou wert to stay to close mine eyes, thou wouldst run
the risk of being lashed like a dog at a post--yes!  unless thou
hadst the gallant heart to leave me to die alone, and upon my
desolate hearth, the last spark of thy father's fire, and of thy
forsaken mother's life, to be extinguished together!"--Hamish
traversed the hut with an impatient and angry pace.

"Mother," he said at length, "concern not yourself about such
things.  I cannot be subjected to such infamy, for never will I
deserve it; and were I threatened with it, I should know how to
die before I was so far dishonoured."

"There spoke the son of the husband of my heart!"  replied
Elspat, and she changed the discourse, and seemed to listen in
melancholy acquiescence, when her son reminded her how short the
time was which they were permitted to pass in each other's
society, and entreated that it might be spent without useless and
unpleasant recollections respecting the circumstances under which
they must soon be separated.

Elspat was now satisfied that her son, with some of his father's
other properties, preserved the haughty masculine spirit which
rendered it impossible to divert him from a resolution which he
had deliberately adopted.  She assumed, therefore, an exterior of
apparent submission to their inevitable separation; and if she
now and then broke out into complaints and murmurs, it was either
that she could not altogether suppress the natural impetuosity of
her temper, or because she had the wit to consider that a total
and unreserved acquiescence might have seemed to her son
constrained and suspicious, and induced him to watch and defeat
the means by which she still hoped to prevent his leaving her.
Her ardent though selfish affection for her son, incapable of
being qualified by a regard for the true interests of the
unfortunate object of her attachment, resembled the instinctive
fondness of the animal race for their offspring; and diving
little farther into futurity than one of the inferior creatures,
she only felt that to be separated from Hamish was to die.

In the brief interval permitted them, Elspat exhausted every art
which affection could devise, to render agreeable to him the
space which they were apparently to spend with each other.  Her
memory carried her far back into former days, and her stores of
legendary history, which furnish at all times a principal
amusement of the Highlander in his moments of repose, were
augmented by an unusual acquaintance with the songs of ancient
bards, and traditions of the most approved seannachies and
tellers of tales.  Her officious attentions to her son's
accommodation, indeed, were so unremitted as almost to give him
pain, and he endeavoured quietly to prevent her from taking so
much personal toil in selecting the blooming heath for his bed,
or preparing the meal for his refreshment.  "Let me alone,
Hamish," she would reply on such occasions; "you follow your own
will in departing from your mother, let your mother have hers in
doing what gives her pleasure while you remain."

So much she seemed to be reconciled to the arrangements which he
had made in her behalf, that she could hear him speak to her of
her removing to the lands of Green Colin, as the gentleman was
called, on whose estate he had provided her an asylum.  In truth,
however, nothing could be farther from her thoughts.  From what
he had said during their first violent dispute, Elspat had
gathered that, if Hamish returned not by the appointed time
permitted by his furlough, he would incur the hazard of corporal
punishment.  Were he placed within the risk of being thus
dishonoured, she was well aware that he would never submit to the
disgrace by a return to the regiment where it might be inflicted.
Whether she looked to any farther probable consequences of her
unhappy scheme cannot be known; but the partner of MacTavish
Mhor, in all his perils and wanderings, was familiar with an
hundred instances of resistance or escape, by which one brave
man, amidst a land of rocks, lakes, and mountains, dangerous
passes, and dark forests, might baffle the pursuit of hundreds.
For the future, therefore, she feared nothing; her sole
engrossing object was to prevent her son from keeping his word
with his commanding officer.

With this secret purpose, she evaded the proposal which Hamish
repeatedly made, that they should set out together to take
possession of her new abode; and she resisted it upon grounds
apparently so natural to her character that her son was neither
alarmed nor displeased.  "Let me not," she said, "in the same
short week, bid farewell to my only son, and to the glen in which
I have so long dwelt.  Let my eye, when dimmed with weeping for
thee, still look around, for a while at least, upon Loch Awe and
on Ben Cruachan."

Hamish yielded the more willingly to his mother's humour in this
particular, that one or two persons who resided in a neighbouring
glen, and had given their sons to Barcaldine's levy, were also to
be provided for on the estate of the chieftain, and it was
apparently settled that Elspat was to take her journey along with
them when they should remove to their new residence.  Thus,
Hamish believed that he had at once indulged his mother's humour,
and ensured her safety and accommodation.  But she nourished in
her mind very different thoughts and projects.

The period of Hamish's leave of absence was fast approaching, and
more than once he proposed to depart, in such time as to ensure
his gaining easily and early Dunbarton, the town where were the
head-quarters of his regiment.  But still his mother's
entreaties, his own natural disposition to linger among scenes
long dear to him, and, above all, his firm reliance in his speed
and activity, induced him to protract his departure till the
sixth day, being the very last which he could possibly afford to
spend with his mother, if indeed he meant to comply with the
conditions of his furlough.



CHAPTER V.

  But for your son, believe it--oh, believe it--
  Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,
  If not most mortal to him.              CORIOLANUS.

On the evening which preceded his proposed departure, Hamish
walked down to the river with his fishing-rod, to practise in the
Awe, for the last time, a sport in which he excelled, and to
find, at the same time, the means for making one social meal with
his mother on something better than their ordinary cheer.  He was
as successful as usual, and soon killed a fine salmon.  On his
return homeward an incident befell him, which he afterwards
related as ominous, though probably his heated imagination,
joined to the universal turn of his countrymen for the
marvellous, exaggerated into superstitious importance some very
ordinary and accidental circumstance.

In the path which he pursued homeward, he was surprised to
observe a person, who, like himself, was dressed and armed after
the old Highland fashion.  The first idea that struck him was,
that the passenger belonged to his own corps, who, levied by
government, and bearing arms under royal authority, were not
amenable for breach of the statutes against the use of the
Highland garb or weapons.  But he was struck on perceiving, as he
mended his pace to make up to his supposed comrade, meaning to
request his company for the next day's journey, that the stranger
wore a white cockade, the fatal badge which was proscribed in the
Highlands.  The stature of the man was tall, and there was
something shadowy in the outline, which added to his size; and
his mode of motion, which rather resembled gliding than walking,
impressed Hamish with superstitious fears concerning the
character of the being which thus passed before him in the
twilight.  He no longer strove to make up to the stranger, but
contented himself with keeping him in view, under the
superstition common to the Highlanders, that you ought neither to
intrude yourself on such supernatural apparitions as you may
witness, nor avoid their presence, but leave it to themselves to
withhold or extend their communication, as their power may
permit, or the purpose of their commission require.

Upon an elevated knoll by the side of the road, just where the
pathway turned down to Elspat's hut, the stranger made a pause,
and seemed to await Hamish's coming up.  Hamish, on his part,
seeing it was necessary he should pass the object of his
suspicion, mustered up his courage, and approached the spot where
the stranger had placed himself; who first pointed to Elspat's
hut, and made, with arm and head, a gesture prohibiting Hamish to
approach it, then stretched his hand to the road which led to the
southward, with a motion which seemed to enjoin his instant
departure in that direction.  In a moment afterwards the plaided
form was gone--Hamish did not exactly say vanished, because there
were rocks and stunted trees enough to have concealed him; but it
was his own opinion that he had seen the spirit of MacTavish
Mhor, warning him to commence his instant journey to Dunbarton,
without waiting till morning, or again visiting his mother's hut.

In fact, so many accidents might arise to delay his journey,
especially where there were many ferries, that it became his
settled purpose, though he could not depart without bidding his
mother adieu, that he neither could nor would abide longer than
for that object; and that the first glimpse of next day's sun
should see him many miles advanced towards Dunbarton.  He
descended the path, therefore, and entering the cottage, he
communicated, in a hasty and troubled voice, which indicated
mental agitation, his determination to take his instant
departure.  Somewhat to his surprise, Elspat appeared not to
combat his purpose, but she urged him to take some refreshment
ere he left her for ever.  He did so hastily, and in silence,
thinking on the approaching separation, and scarce yet believing
it would take place without a final struggle with his mother's
fondness.  To his surprise, she filled the quaigh with liquor for
his parting cup.

"Go," she said, "my son, since such is thy settled purpose; but
first stand once more on thy mother's hearth, the flame on which
will be extinguished long ere thy foot shall again be placed
there."

"To your health, mother!"  said Hamish; "and may we meet again in
happiness, in spite of your ominous words."

"It were better not to part," said his mother, watching him as he
quaffed the liquor, of which he would have held it ominous to
have left a drop.

"And now," she said, muttering the words to herself, "go--if thou
canst go."

"Mother," said Hamish, as he replaced on the table the empty
quaigh, "thy drink is pleasant to the taste, but it takes away
the strength which it ought to give."

"Such is its first effect, my son," replied Elspat.  "But lie
down upon that soft heather couch, shut your eyes but for a
moment, and, in the sleep of an hour, you shall have more
refreshment than in the ordinary repose of three whole nights,
could they be blended into one."

"Mother," said Hamish, upon whose brain the potion was now taking
rapid effect, "give me my bonnet--I must kiss you and begone--yet
it seems as if my feet were nailed to the floor."

"Indeed," said his mother, "you will be instantly well, if you
will sit down for half an hour--but half an hour.  It is eight
hours to dawn, and dawn were time enough for your father's son to
begin such a journey."

"I must obey you, mother--I feel I must," said Hamish
inarticulately; "but call me when the moon rises."

He sat down on the bed, reclined back, and almost instantly was
fast asleep.  With the throbbing glee of one who has brought to
an end a difficult and troublesome enterprise, Elspat proceeded
tenderly to arrange the plaid of the unconscious slumberer, to
whom her extravagant affection was doomed to be so fatal,
expressing, while busied in her office, her delight, in tones of
mingled tenderness and triumph.  "Yes," she said, "calf of my
heart, the moon shall arise and set to thee, and so shall the
sun; but not to light thee from the land of thy fathers, or tempt
thee to serve the foreign prince or the feudal enemy!  To no son
of Dermid shall I be delivered, to be fed like a bondswoman; but
he who is my pleasure and my pride shall be my guard and my
protector.  They say the Highlands are changed; but I see Ben
Cruachan rear his crest as high as ever into the evening sky; no
one hath yet herded his kine on the depths of Loch Awe; and
yonder oak does not yet bend like a willow.  The children of the
mountains will be such as their fathers, until the mountains
themselves shall be levelled with the strath.  In these wild
forests, which used to support thousands of the brave, there is
still surely subsistence and refuge left for one aged woman, and
one gallant youth of the ancient race and the ancient manners."

While the misjudging mother thus exulted in the success of her
stratagem, we may mention to the reader that it was founded on
the acquaintance with drugs and simples which Elspat,
accomplished in all things belonging to the wild life which she
had led, possessed in an uncommon degree, and which she exercised
for various purposes.  With the herbs, which she knew how to
select as well as how to distil, she could relieve more diseases
than a regular medical person could easily believe.  She applied
some to dye the bright colours of the tartan; from others she
compounded draughts of various powers, and unhappily possessed
the secret of one which was strongly soporific.  Upon the effects
of this last concoction, as the reader doubtless has anticipated,
she reckoned with security on delaying Hamish beyond the period
for which his return was appointed; and she trusted to his horror
for the apprehended punishment to which he was thus rendered
liable, to prevent him from returning at all.

Sound and deep, beyond natural rest, was the sleep of Hamish
MacTavish on that eventful evening, but not such the repose of
his mother.  Scarce did she close her eyes from time to time, but
she awakened again with a start, in the terror that her son had
arisen and departed; and it was only on approaching his couch,
and hearing his deep-drawn and regular breathing, that she
reassured herself of the security of the repose in which he was
plunged.

Still, dawning, she feared, might awaken him, notwithstanding the
unusual strength of the potion with which she had drugged his
cup.  If there remained a hope of mortal man accomplishing the
journey, she was aware that Hamish would attempt it, though he
were to die from fatigue upon the road.  Animated by this new
fear, she studied to exclude the light, by stopping all the
crannies and crevices through which, rather than through any
regular entrance, the morning beams might find access to her
miserable dwelling; and this in order to detain amid its wants
and wretchedness the being on whom, if the world itself had been
at her disposal, she would have joyfully conferred it.

Her pains were bestowed unnecessarily.  The sun rose high above
the heavens, and not the fleetest stag in Breadalbane, were the
hounds at his heels, could have sped, to save his life, so fast
as would have been necessary to keep Hamish's appointment.  Her
purpose was fully attained--her son's return within the period
assigned was impossible.  She deemed it equally impossible, that
he would ever dream of returning, standing, as he must now do, in
the danger of an infamous punishment.  By degrees, and at
different times, she had gained from him a full acquaintance with
the predicament in which he would be placed by failing to appear
on the day appointed, and the very small hope he could entertain
of being treated with lenity.

It is well known, that the great and wise Earl of Chatham prided
himself on the scheme, by which he drew together for the defence
of the colonies those hardy Highlanders, who, until his time, had
been the objects of doubt, fear, and suspicion, on the part of
each successive administration.  But some obstacles occurred,
from the peculiar habits and temper of this people, to the
execution of his patriotic project.  By nature and habit, every
Highlander was accustomed to the use of arms, but at the same
time totally unaccustomed to, and impatient of, the restraints
imposed by discipline upon regular troops.  They were a species
of militia, who had no conception of a camp as their only home.
If a battle was lost, they dispersed to save themselves, and look
out for the safety of their families; if won, they went back to
their glens to hoard up their booty, and attend to their cattle
and their farms.  This privilege of going and coming at pleasure,
they would not be deprived of even by their chiefs, whose
authority was in most other respects so despotic.  It followed as
a matter of course, that the new-levied Highland recruits could
scarce be made to comprehend the nature of a military engagement,
which compelled a man to serve in the army longer than he
pleased; and perhaps, in many instances, sufficient care was not
taken at enlisting to explain to them the permanency of the
engagement which they came under, lest such a disclosure should
induce them to change their mind.  Desertions were therefore
become numerous from the newly-raised regiment, and the veteran
general who commanded at Dunbarton saw no better way of checking
them than by causing an unusually severe example to be made of a
deserter from an English corps.  The young Highland regiment was
obliged to attend upon the punishment, which struck a people,
peculiarly jealous of personal honour, with equal horror and
disgust, and not unnaturally indisposed some of them to the
service.  The old general, however, who had been regularly bred
in the German wars, stuck to his own opinion, and gave out in
orders that the first Highlander who might either desert, or fail
to appear at the expiry of his furlough, should be brought to the
halberds, and punished like the culprit whom they had seen in
that condition.  No man doubted that General -- would keep his
word rigorously whenever severity was required, and Elspat,
therefore, knew that her son, when he perceived that due
compliance with his orders was impossible, must at the same time
consider the degrading punishment denounced against his defection
as inevitable, should he place himself within the general's
power.  [See Note 10.--Fidelity of the Highlanders.]

When noon was well passed, new apprehensions came on the mind of
the lonely woman.  Her son still slept under the influence of the
draught; but what if, being stronger than she had ever known it
administered, his health or his reason should be affected by its
potency?  For the first time, likewise, notwithstanding her high
ideas on the subject of parental authority, she began to dread
the resentment of her son, whom her heart told her she had
wronged.  Of late, she had observed that his temper was less
docile, and his determinations, especially upon this late
occasion of his enlistment, independently formed, and then boldly
carried through.  She remembered the stern wilfulness of his
father when he accounted himself ill-used, and began to dread
that Hamish, upon finding the deceit she had put upon him, might
resent it even to the extent of cutting her off, and pursuing his
own course through the world alone.  Such were the alarming and
yet the reasonable apprehensions which began to crowd upon the
unfortunate woman, after the apparent success of her ill-advised
stratagem.

It was near evening when Hamish first awoke, and then he was far
from being in the full possession either of his mental or bodily
powers.  From his vague expressions and disordered pulse, Elspat
at first experienced much apprehension; but she used such
expedients as her medical knowledge suggested, and in the course
of the night she had the satisfaction to see him sink once more
into a deep sleep, which probably carried off the greater part of
the effects of the drug, for about sunrising she heard him arise,
and call to her for his bonnet.  This she had purposely removed,
from a fear that he might awaken and depart in the night-time,
without her knowledge.

"My bonnet--my bonnet," cried Hamish; "it is time to take
farewell.  Mother, your drink was too strong--the sun is up--but
with the next morning I will still see the double summit of the
ancient Dun.  My bonnet--my bonnet, mother; I must be instant in
my departure."  These expressions made it plain that poor Hamish
was unconscious that two nights and a day had passed since he had
drained the fatal quaigh, and Elspat had now to venture on what
she felt as the almost perilous, as well as painful, task of
explaining her machinations.

"Forgive me, my son," she said, approaching Hamish, and taking
him by the hand with an air of deferential awe, which perhaps she
had not always used to his father, even when in his moody fits.

"Forgive you, mother!--for what?"  said Hamish, laughing; "for
giving me a dram that was too strong, and which my head still
feels this morning, or for hiding my bonnet to keep me an instant
longer?  Nay, do YOU forgive ME.  Give me the bonnet, and let
that be done which now must be done.  Give me my bonnet, or I go
without it; surely I am not to be delayed by so trifling a want
as that--I, who have gone for years with only a strap of deer's
hide to tie back my hair.  Trifle not, but give it me, or I must
go bareheaded, since to stay is impossible."

"My son," said Elspat, keeping fast hold of his hand, "what is
done cannot be recalled.  Could you borrow the wings of yonder
eagle, you would arrive at the Dun too late for what you purpose
--too soon for what awaits you there.  You believe you see the
sun rising for the first time since you have seen him set; but
yesterday beheld him climb Ben Cruachan, though your eyes were
closed to his light."

Hamish cast upon his mother a wild glance of extreme terror, then
instantly recovering himself, said, "I am no child to be cheated
out of my purpose by such tricks as these.  Farewell, mother!
each moment is worth a lifetime."

"Stay," she said, "my dear, my deceived son, run not on infamy
and ruin.  Yonder I see the priest upon the high-road on his
white horse.  Ask him the day of the month and week; let him
decide between us."

With the speed of an eagle, Hamish darted up the acclivity, and
stood by the minister of Glenorquhy, who was pacing out thus
early to administer consolation to a distressed family near
Bunawe.

The good man was somewhat startled to behold an armed Highlander,
then so unusual a sight, and apparently much agitated, stop his
horse by the bridle, and ask him with a faltering voice the day
of the week and month.  "Had you been where you should have been
yesterday, young man," replied the clergyman, "you would have
known that it was God's Sabbath; and that this is Monday, the
second day of the week, and twenty-first of the month."

"And this is true?"  said Hamish.

"As true," answered the surprised minister, "as that I yesterday
preached the word of God to this parish.  What ails you, young
man?--are you sick?--are you in your right mind?"

Hamish made no answer, only repeated to himself the first
expression of the clergyman, "Had you been where you should have
been yesterday;" and so saying, he let go the bridle, turned from
the road, and descended the path towards the hut, with the look
and pace of one who was going to execution.  The minister looked
after him with surprise; but although he knew the inhabitant of
the hovel, the character of Elspat had not invited him to open
any communication with her, because she was generally reputed a
Papist, or rather one indifferent to all religion, except some
superstitious observances which had been handed down from her
parents.  On Hamish the Reverend Mr. Tyrie had bestowed
instructions when he was occasionally thrown in his way; and if
the seed fell among the brambles and thorns of a wild and
uncultivated disposition, it had not yet been entirely checked or
destroyed.  There was something so ghastly in the present
expression of the youth's features that the good man was tempted
to go down to the hovel, and inquire whether any distress had
befallen the inhabitants, in which his presence might be
consoling and his ministry useful.  Unhappily he did not
persevere in this resolution, which might have saved a great
misfortune, as he would have probably become a mediator for the
unfortunate young man; but a recollection of the wild moods of
such Highlanders as had been educated after the old fashion of
the country, prevented his interesting himself in the widow and
son of the far-dreaded robber, MacTavish Mhor, and he thus missed
an opportunity, which he afterwards sorely repented, of doing
much good.

When Hamish MacTavish entered his mother's hut, it was only to
throw himself on the bed he had left, and exclaiming, "Undone,
undone!"  to give vent, in cries of grief and anger, to his deep
sense of the deceit which had been practised on him, and of the
cruel predicament to which he was reduced.

Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of her son's passion,
and said to herself, "It is but the mountain torrent, swelled by
the thunder shower.  Let us sit and rest us by the bank; for all
its present tumult, the time will soon come when we may pass it
dryshod."  She suffered his complaints and his reproaches, which
were, even in the midst of his agony, respectful and
affectionate, to die away without returning any answer; and when,
at length, having exhausted all the exclamations of sorrow which
his language, copious in expressing the feelings of the heart,
affords to the sufferer, he sunk into a gloomy silence, she
suffered the interval to continue near an hour ere she approached
her son's couch.

"And now," she said at length, with a voice in which the
authority of the mother was qualified by her tenderness, "have
you exhausted your idle sorrows, and are you able to place what
you have gained against what you have lost?  Is the false son of
Dermid your brother, or the father of your tribe, that you weep
because you cannot bind yourself to his belt, and become one of
those who must do his bidding?  Could you find in yonder distant
country the lakes and the mountains that you leave behind you
here?  Can you hunt the deer of Breadalbane in the forests of
America, or will the ocean afford you the silver-scaled salmon of
the Awe?  Consider, then, what is your loss, and, like a wise
man, set it against what you have won."

"I have lost all, mother," replied Hamish, "since I have broken
my word, and lost my honour.  I might tell my tale, but who, oh,
who would believe me?"  The unfortunate young man again clasped
his hands together, and, pressing them to his forehead, hid his
face upon the bed.

Elspat was now really alarmed, and perhaps wished the fatal
deceit had been left unattempted.  She had no hope or refuge
saving in the eloquence of persuasion, of which she possessed no
small share, though her total ignorance of the world as it
actually existed rendered its energy unavailing.  She urged her
son, by every tender epithet which a parent could bestow, to take
care for his own safety.

"Leave me," she said, "to baffle your pursuers.  I will save your
life--I will save your honour.  I will tell them that my fair-
haired Hamish fell from the Corrie Dhu (black precipice) into the
gulf, of which human eye never beheld the bottom.  I will tell
them this, and I will fling your plaid on the thorns which grow
on the brink of the precipice, that they may believe my words.
They will believe, and they will return to the Dun of the double-
crest; for though the Saxon drum can call the living to die, it
cannot recall the dead to their slavish standard.  Then will we
travel together far northward to the salt lakes of Kintail, and
place glens and mountains betwixt us and the sons of Dermid.  We
will visit the shores of the dark lake; and my kinsmen--for was
not my mother of the children of Kenneth, and will they not
remember us with the old love?--my kinsmen will receive us with
the affection of the olden time, which lives in those distant
glens, where the Gael still dwell in their nobleness, unmingled
with the churl Saxons, or with the base brood that are their
tools and their slaves."

The energy of the language, somewhat allied to hyperbole, even in
its most ordinary expressions, now seemed almost too weak to
afford Elspat the means of bringing out the splendid picture
which she presented to her son of the land in which she proposed
to him to take refuge.  Yet the colours were few with which she
could paint her Highland paradise.  "The hills," she said, "were
higher and more magnificent than those of Breadalbane--Ben
Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora.  The lakes were broader
and larger, and abounded not only with fish, but with the
enchanted and amphibious animal which gives oil to the lamp.
[The seals are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted
princes.]  The deer were larger and more numerous; the white-
tusked boar, the chase of which the brave loved best, was yet to
be roused in those western solitudes; the men were nobler, wiser,
and stronger than the degenerate brood who lived under the Saxon
banner.  The daughters of the land were beautiful, with blue eyes
and fair hair, and bosoms of snow; and out of these she would
choose a wife for Hamish, of blameless descent, spotless fame,
fixed and true affection, who should be in their summer bothy as
a beam of the sun, and in their winter abode as the warmth of the
needful fire."

Such were the topics with which Elspat strove to soothe the
despair of her son, and to determine him, if possible, to leave
the fatal spot, on which he seemed resolved to linger.  The style
of her rhetoric was poetical, but in other respects resembled
that which, like other fond mothers, she had lavished on Hamish,
while a child or a boy, in order to gain his consent to do
something he had no mind to; and she spoke louder, quicker, and
more earnestly, in proportion as she began to despair of her
words carrying conviction.

On the mind of Hamish her eloquence made no impression.  He knew
far better than she did the actual situation of the country, and
was sensible that, though it might be possible to hide himself as
a fugitive among more distant mountains, there was now no corner
in the Highlands in which his father's profession could be
practised, even if he had not adopted, from the improved ideas of
the time when he lived, the opinion that the trade of the cateran
was no longer the road to honour and distinction.  Her words were
therefore poured into regardless ears, and she exhausted herself
in vain in the attempt to paint the regions of her mother's
kinsmen in such terms as might tempt Hamish to accompany her
thither.  She spoke for hours, but she spoke in vain.  She could
extort no answer, save groans and sighs and ejaculations,
expressing the extremity of despair.

At length, starting on her feet, and changing the monotonous tone
in which she had chanted, as it were, the praises of the province
of refuge, into the short, stern language of eager passion--"I am
a fool," she said, "to spend my words upon an idle, poor-
spirited, unintelligent boy, who crouches like a hound to the
lash.  Wait here, and receive your taskmasters, and abide your
chastisement at their hands; but do not think your mother's eyes
will behold it.  I could not see it and live.  My eyes have
looked often upon death, but never upon dishonour.  Farewell,
Hamish!  We never meet again."

She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and perhaps for the
moment actually entertained the purpose which she expressed, of
parting with her son for ever.  A fearful sight she would have
been that evening to any who might have met her wandering through
the wilderness like a restless spirit, and speaking to herself in
language which will endure no translation.  She rambled for
hours, seeking rather than shunning the most dangerous paths.
The precarious track through the morass, the dizzy path along the
edge of the precipice or by the banks of the gulfing river, were
the roads which, far from avoiding, she sought with eagerness,
and traversed with reckless haste.  But the courage arising from
despair was the means of saving the life which (though deliberate
suicide was rarely practised in the Highlands) she was perhaps
desirous of terminating.  Her step on the verge of the precipice
was firm as that of the wild goat.  Her eye, in that state of
excitation, was so keen as to discern, even amid darkness, the
perils which noon would not have enabled a stranger to avoid.

Elspat's course was not directly forward, else she had soon been
far from the bothy in which she had left her son.  It was
circuitous, for that hut was the centre to which her heartstrings
were chained, and though she wandered around it, she felt it
impossible to leave the vicinity.  With the first beams of
morning she returned to the hut.  Awhile she paused at the
wattled door, as if ashamed that lingering fondness should have
brought her back to the spot which she had left with the purpose
of never returning; but there was yet more of fear and anxiety in
her hesitation--of anxiety, lest her fair-haired son had suffered
from the effects of her potion--of fear, lest his enemies had
come upon him in the night.  She opened the door of the hut
gently, and entered with noiseless step.  Exhausted with his
sorrow and anxiety, and not entirely relieved perhaps from the
influence of the powerful opiate, Hamish Bean again slept the
stern, sound sleep by which the Indians are said to be overcome
during the interval of their torments.  His mother was scarcely
sure that she actually discerned his form on the bed, scarce
certain that her ear caught the sound of his breathing.  With a
throbbing heart, Elspat went to the fireplace in the centre of
the hut, where slumbered, covered with a piece of turf, the
glimmering embers of the fire, never extinguished on a Scottish
hearth until the indwellers leave the mansion for ever.

"Feeble greishogh," [Greishogh, a glowing ember.] she said, as
she lighted, by the help of a match, a splinter of bog pine which
was to serve the place of a candle--"weak greishogh, soon shalt
thou be put out for ever, and may Heaven grant that the life of
Elspat MacTavish have no longer duration than thine!"

While she spoke she raised the blazing light towards the bed, on
which still lay the prostrate limbs of her son, in a posture that
left it doubtful whether he slept or swooned.  As she advanced
towards him, the light flashed upon his eyes--he started up in an
instant, made a stride forward with his naked dirk in his hand,
like a man armed to meet a mortal enemy, and exclaimed, "Stand
off!--on thy life, stand off!"

"It is the word and the action of my husband," answered Elspat;
"and I know by his speech and his step the son of MacTavish
Mhor."

"Mother," said Hamish, relapsing from his tone of desperate
firmness into one of melancholy expostulation--"oh, dearest
mother, wherefore have you returned hither?"

"Ask why the hind comes back to the fawn," said Elspat, "why the
cat of the mountain returns to her lodge and her young.  Know
you, Hamish, that the heart of the mother only lives in the bosom
of the child."

"Then will it soon cease to throb," said Hamish, "unless it can
beat within a bosom that lies beneath the turf.  Mother, do not
blame me.  If I weep, it is not for myself but for you; for my
sufferings will soon be over, but yours--oh, who but Heaven shall
set a boundary to them?"

Elspat shuddered and stepped backward, but almost instantly
resumed her firm and upright position and her dauntless bearing.

"I thought thou wert a man but even now," she said, "and thou art
again a child.  Hearken to me yet, and let us leave this place
together.  Have I done thee wrong or injury?  if so, yet do not
avenge it so cruelly.  See, Elspat MacTavish, who never kneeled
before even to a priest, falls prostrate before her own son, and
craves his forgiveness."  And at once she threw herself on her
knees before the young man, seized on his hand, and kissing it an
hundred times, repeated as often, in heart-breaking accents, the
most earnest entreaties for forgiveness.  "Pardon," she
exclaimed, "pardon, for the sake of your father's ashes--pardon,
for the sake of the pain with which I bore thee, the care with
which I nurtured thee!--Hear it, Heaven, and behold it, Earth--
the mother asks pardon of her child, and she is refused!"

It was in vain that Hamish endeavoured to stem this tide of
passion, by assuring his mother, with the most solemn
asseverations, that he forgave entirely the fatal deceit which
she had practised upon him.

"Empty words," she said, "idle protestations, which are but used
to hide the obduracy of your resentment.  Would you have me
believe you, then leave the hut this instant, and retire from a
country which every hour renders more dangerous.  Do this, and I
may think you have forgiven me; refuse it, and again I call on
moon and stars, heaven and earth, to witness the unrelenting
resentment with which you prosecute your mother for a fault,
which, if it be one, arose out of love to you."

"Mother," said Hamish, "on this subject you move me not.  I will
fly before no man.  If Barcaldine should send every Gael that is
under his banner, here, and in this place, will I abide them; and
when you bid me fly, you may as well command yonder mountain to
be loosened from its foundations.  Had I been sure of the road by
which they are coming hither, I had spared them the pains of
seeking me; but I might go by the mountain, while they perchance
came by the lake.  Here I will abide my fate; nor is there in
Scotland a voice of power enough to bid me stir from hence, and
be obeyed."

"Here, then, I also stay," said Elspat, rising up and speaking
with assumed composure.  "I have seen my husband's death--my
eyelids shall not grieve to look on the fall of my son.  But
MacTavish Mhor died as became the brave, with his good sword in
his right hand; my son will perish like the bullock that is
driven to the shambles by the Saxon owner who had bought him for
a price."

"Mother," said the unhappy young man, "you have taken my life.
To that you have a right, for you gave it; but touch not my
honour!  It came to me from a brave train of ancestors, and
should be sullied neither by man's deed nor woman's speech.  What
I shall do, perhaps I myself yet know not; but tempt me no
farther by reproachful words--you have already made wounds more
than you can ever heal."

"It is well, my son," said Elspat, in reply.  "Expect neither
farther complaint nor remonstrance from me; but let us be silent,
and wait the chance which Heaven shall send us."

The sun arose on the next morning, and found the bothy silent as
the grave.  The mother and son had arisen, and were engaged each
in their separate task--Hamish in preparing and cleaning his arms
with the greatest accuracy, but with an air of deep dejection.
Elspat, more restless in her agony of spirit, employed herself in
making ready the food which the distress of yesterday had induced
them both to dispense with for an unusual number of hours.  She
placed it on the board before her son so soon as it was prepared,
with the words of a Gaelic poet, "Without daily food, the
husbandman's ploughshare stands still in the furrow; without
daily food, the sword of the warrior is too heavy for his hand.
Our bodies are our slaves, yet they must be fed if we would have
their service.  So spake in ancient days the Blind Bard to the
warriors of Fion."

The young man made no reply, but he fed on what was placed before
him, as if to gather strength for the scene which he was to
undergo.  When his mother saw that he had eaten what sufficed
him, she again filled the fatal quaigh, and proffered it as the
conclusion of the repast.  But he started aside with a convulsive
gesture, expressive at once of fear and abhorrence.

"Nay, my son," she said, "this time surely, thou hast no cause of
fear."

"Urge me not, mother," answered Hamish--"or put the leprous toad
into a flagon, and I will drink; but from that accursed cup, and
of that mind-destroying potion, never will I taste more!"

"At your pleasure, my son," said Elspat, haughtily, and began,
with much apparent assiduity, the various domestic tasks which
had been interrupted during the preceding day.  Whatever was at
her heart, all anxiety seemed banished from her looks and
demeanour.  It was but from an over-activity of bustling exertion
that it might have been perceived, by a close observer, that her
actions were spurred by some internal cause of painful
excitement; and such a spectator, too, might also have observed
how often she broke off the snatches of songs or tunes which she
hummed, apparently without knowing what she was doing, in order
to cast a hasty glance from the door of the hut.  Whatever might
be in the mind of Hamish, his demeanour was directly the reverse
of that adopted by his mother.  Having finished the task of
cleaning and preparing his arms, which he arranged within the
hut, he sat himself down before the door of the bothy, and
watched the opposite hill, like the fixed sentinel who expects
the approach of an enemy.  Noon found him in the same unchanged
posture, and it was an hour after that period, when his mother,
standing beside him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said, in
a tone indifferent, as if she had been talking of some friendly
visit, "When dost thou expect them?"

"They cannot be here till the shadows fall long to the eastward,"
replied Hamish; "that is, even supposing the nearest party,
commanded by Sergeant Allan Breack Cameron, has been commanded
hither by express from Dunbarton, as it is most likely they
will."

"Then enter beneath your mother's roof once more; partake the
last time of the food which she has prepared; after this, let
them come, and thou shalt see if thy mother is an useless
encumbrance in the day of strife.  Thy hand, practised as it is,
cannot fire these arms so fast as I can load them; nay, if it is
necessary, I do not myself fear the flash or the report, and my
aim has been held fatal."

"In the name of Heaven, mother, meddle not with this matter!"
said Hamish.  "Allan Breack is a wise man and a kind one, and
comes of a good stem.  It may be, he can promise for our officers
that they will touch me with no infamous punishment; and if they
offer me confinement in the dungeon, or death by the musket, to
that I may not object."

"Alas, and wilt thou trust to their word, my foolish child?
Remember the race of Dermid were ever fair and false; and no
sooner shall they have gyves on thy hands, than they will strip
thy shoulders for the scourge."

"Save your advice, mother," said Hamish, sternly; "for me, my
mind is made up."

But though he spoke thus, to escape the almost persecuting
urgency of his mother, Hamish would have found it, at that
moment, impossible to say upon what course of conduct he had thus
fixed.  On one point alone he was determined--namely, to abide
his destiny, be what it might, and not to add to the breach of
his word, of which he had been involuntarily rendered guilty, by
attempting to escape from punishment.  This act of self-devotion
he conceived to be due to his own honour and that of his
countrymen.  Which of his comrades would in future be trusted, if
he should be considered as having broken his word, and betrayed
the confidence of his officers?  and whom but Hamish Bean
MacTavish would the Gael accuse for having verified and confirmed
the suspicions which the Saxon General was well known to
entertain against the good faith of the Highlanders?  He was,
therefore, bent firmly to abide his fate.  But whether his
intention was to yield himself peaceably into the bands of the
party who should come to apprehend him, or whether he purposed,
by a show of resistance, to provoke them to kill him on the spot,
was a question which he could not himself have answered.  His
desire to see Barcaldine, and explain the cause of his absence at
the appointed time, urged him to the one course; his fear of the
degrading punishment, and of his mother's bitter upbraidings,
strongly instigated the latter and the more dangerous purpose.
He left it to chance to decide when the crisis should arrive; nor
did he tarry long in expectation of the catastrophe.

Evening approached; the gigantic shadows of the mountains
streamed in darkness towards the east, while their western peaks
were still glowing with crimson and gold.  The road which winds
round Ben Cruachan was fully visible from the door of the bothy,
when a party of five Highland soldiers, whose arms glanced in the
sun, wheeled suddenly into sight from the most distant extremity,
where the highway is hidden behind the mountain.  One of the
party walked a little before the other four, who marched
regularly and in files, according to the rules of military
discipline.  There was no dispute, from the firelocks which they
carried, and the plaids and bonnets which they wore, that they
were a party of Hamish's regiment, under a non-commissioned
officer; and there could be as little doubt of the purpose of
their appearance on the banks of Loch Awe.

"They come briskly forward"--said the widow of MacTavish Mhor;--
"I wonder how fast or how slow some of them will return again!
But they are five, and it is too much odds for a fair field.
Step back within the hut, my son, and shoot from the loophole
beside the door.  Two you may bring down ere they quit the
highroad for the footpath--there will remain but three; and your
father, with my aid, has often stood against that number."

Hamish Bean took the gun which his mother offered, but did not
stir from the door of the hut.  He was soon visible to the party
on the highroad, as was evident from their increasing their pace
to a run--the files, however, still keeping together like coupled
greyhounds, and advancing with great rapidity.  In far less time
than would have been accomplished by men less accustomed to the
mountains, they had left the highroad, traversed the narrow path,
and approached within pistol-shot of the bothy, at the door of
which stood Hamish, fixed like a statue of stone, with his
firelock in his band, while his mother, placed behind him, and
almost driven to frenzy by the violence of her passions,
reproached him in the strongest terms which despair could invent,
for his want of resolution and faintness of heart.  Her words
increased the bitter gall which was arising in the young man's
own spirit, as he observed the unfriendly speed with which his
late comrades were eagerly making towards him, like hounds
towards the stag when he is at bay.  The untamed and angry
passions which he inherited from father and mother, were awakened
by the supposed hostility of those who pursued him; and the
restraint under which these passions had been hitherto held by
his sober judgment began gradually to give way.  The sergeant now
called to him, "Hamish Bean MacTavish, lay down your arms and
surrender."

"Do YOU stand, Allan Breack Cameron, and command your men to
stand, or it will be the worse for us all."

"Halt, men," said the sergeant, but continuing himself to
advance.  "Hamish, think what you do, and give up your gun; you
may spill blood, but you cannot escape punishment."

"The scourge--the scourge--my son, beware the scourge!"
whispered his mother.

"Take heed, Allan Breack," said Hamish.  "I would not hurt you
willingly, but I will not be taken unless you can assure me
against the Saxon lash."

"Fool!"  answered Cameron, "you know I cannot.  Yet I will do all
I can.  I will say I met you on your return, and the punishment
will be light; but give up your musket--Come on, men."

Instantly he rushed forward, extending his arm as if to push
aside the young man's levelled firelock.  Elspat exclaimed, "Now,
spare not your father's blood to defend your father's hearth!"
Hamish fired his piece, and Cameron dropped dead.  All these
things happened, it might be said, in the same moment of time.
The soldiers rushed forward and seized Hamish, who, seeming
petrified with what he had done, offered not the least
resistance.  Not so his mother, who, seeing the men about to put
handcuffs on her son, threw herself on the soldiers with such
fury, that it required two of them to hold her, while the rest
secured the prisoner.

"Are you not an accursed creature," said one of the men to
Hamish, "to have slain your best friend, who was contriving,
during the whole march, how he could find some way of getting you
off without punishment for your desertion?"