"Do you hear THAT, mother?"  said Hamish, turning himself as much
towards her as his bonds would permit; but the mother heard
nothing, and saw nothing.  She had fainted on the floor of her
hut.  Without waiting for her recovery, the party almost
immediately began their homeward march towards Dunbarton, leading
along with them their prisoner.  They thought it necessary,
however, to stay for a little space at the village of Dalmally,
from which they despatched a party of the inhabitants to bring
away the body of their unfortunate leader, while they themselves
repaired to a magistrate, to state what had happened, and require
his instructions as to the farther course to be pursued.  The
crime being of a military character, they were instructed to
march the prisoner to Dunbarton without delay.

The swoon of the mother of Hamish lasted for a length of time--
the longer perhaps that her constitution, strong as it was, must
have been much exhausted by her previous agitation of three days'
endurance.  She was roused from her stupor at length by female
voices, which cried the coronach, or lament for the dead, with
clapping of hands and loud exclamations; while the melancholy
note of a lament, appropriate to the clan Cameron, played on the
bagpipe, was heard from time to time.

Elspat started up like one awakened from the dead, and without
any accurate recollection of the scene which had passed before
her eyes.  There were females in the hut who were swathing the
corpse in its bloody plaid before carrying it from the fatal
spot.  "Women," she said, starting up and interrupting their
chant at once and their labour--"Tell me, women, why sing you the
dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of MacTavish Mhor?"

"She-wolf, be silent with thine ill-omened yell," answered one of
the females, a relation of the deceased, "and let us do our duty
to our beloved kinsman.  There shall never be coronach cried, or
dirge played, for thee or thy bloody wolf-burd.  [Wolf-brood--
that is, wolf-cub.] The ravens shall eat him from the gibbet, and
the foxes and wild-cats shall tear thy corpse upon the hill.
Cursed be he that would sain [Bless.] your bones, or add a stone
to your cairn!"

"Daughter of a foolish mother," answered the widow of MacTavish
Mhor, "know that the gibbet with which you threaten us is no
portion of our inheritance.  For thirty years the Black Tree of
the Law, whose apples are dead men's bodies, hungered after the
beloved husband of my heart; but he died like a brave man, with
the sword in his hand, and defrauded it of its hopes and its
fruit."

"So shall it not be with thy child, bloody sorceress," replied
the female mourner, whose passions were as violent as those of
Elspat herself.  "The ravens shall tear his fair hair to line
their nests, before the sun sinks beneath the Treshornish
islands."

These words recalled to Elspat's mind the whole history of the
last three dreadful days.  At first she stood fixed, as if the
extremity of distress had converted her into stone; but in a
minute, the pride and violence of her temper, outbraved as she
thought herself on her own threshold, enabled her to reply, "Yes,
insulting hag, my fair-haired boy may die, but it will not be
with a white hand.  It has been dyed in the blood of his enemy,
in the best blood of a Cameron--remember that; and when you lay
your dead in his grave, let it be his best epitaph that he was
killed by Hamish Bean for essaying to lay hands on the son of
MacTavish Mhor on his own threshold.  Farewell--the shame of
defeat, loss, and slaughter remain with the clan that has endured
it!"

The relative of the slaughtered Cameron raised her voice in
reply; but Elspat, disdaining to continue the objurgation, or
perhaps feeling her grief likely to overmaster her power of
expressing her resentment, had left the hut, and was walking
forth in the bright moonshine.

The females who were arranging the corpse of the slaughtered man
hurried from their melancholy labour to look after her tall
figure as it glided away among the cliffs.  "I am glad she is
gone," said one of the younger persons who assisted.  "I would as
soon dress a corpse when the great fiend himself--God sain us!--
stood visibly before us, as when Elspat of the Tree is amongst
us.  Ay, ay, even overmuch intercourse hath she had with the
enemy in her day."

"Silly woman," answered the female who had maintained the
dialogue with the departed Elspat, "thinkest thou that there is a
worse fiend on earth, or beneath it, than the pride and fury of
an offended woman, like yonder bloody-minded hag?  Know that
blood has been as familiar to her as the dew to the mountain
daisy. Many and many a brave man has she caused to breathe their
last for little wrong they had done to her or theirs.  But her
hough-sinews are cut, now that her wolf-burd must, like a
murderer as he is, make a murderer's end."

Whilst the women thus discoursed together, as they watched the
corpse of Allan Breack Cameron, the unhappy cause of his death
pursued her lonely way across the mountain.  While she remained
within sight of the bothy, she put a strong constraint on
herself, that by no alteration of pace or gesture she might
afford to her enemies the triumph of calculating the excess of
her mental agitation, nay, despair.  She stalked, therefore, with
a slow rather than a swift step, and, holding herself upright,
seemed at once to endure with firmness that woe which was passed,
and bid defiance to that which was about to come.  But when she
was beyond the sight of those who remained in the hut, she could
no longer suppress the extremity of her agitation.  Drawing her
mantle wildly round her, she stopped at the first knoll, and
climbing to its summit, extended her arms up to the bright moon,
as if accusing heaven and earth for her misfortunes, and uttered
scream on scream, like those of an eagle whose nest has been
plundered of her brood.  Awhile she vented her grief in these
inarticulate cries, then rushed on her way with a hasty and
unequal step, in the vain hope of overtaking the party which was
conveying her son a prisoner to Dunbarton.  But her strength,
superhuman as it seemed, failed her in the trial; nor was it
possible for her, with her utmost efforts, to accomplish her
purpose.

Yet she pressed onward, with all the speed which her exhausted
frame could exert.  When food became indispensable, she entered
the first cottage.  "Give me to eat," she said.  "I am the widow
of MacTavish Mhor--I am the mother of Hamish MacTavish Bean,--
give me to eat, that I may once more see my fair-haired son."
Her demand was never refused, though granted in many cases with a
kind of struggle between compassion and aversion in some of those
to whom she applied, which was in others qualified by fear.  The
share she had had in occasioning the death of Allan Breack
Cameron, which must probably involve that of her own son, was not
accurately known; but, from a knowledge of her violent passions
and former habits of life, no one doubted that in one way or
other she had been the cause of the catastrophe, and Hamish Bean
was considered, in the slaughter which he had committed, rather
as the instrument than as the accomplice of his mother.

This general opinion of his countrymen was of little service to
the unfortunate Hamish.  As his captain, Green Colin, understood
the manners and habits of his country, he had no difficulty in
collecting from Hamish the particulars accompanying his supposed
desertion, and the subsequent death of the non-commissioned
officer.  He felt the utmost compassion for a youth, who had thus
fallen a victim to the extravagant and fatal fondness of a
parent.  But he had no excuse to plead which could rescue his
unhappy recruit from the doom which military discipline and the
award of a court-martial denounced against him for the crime he
had committed.

No time had been lost in their proceedings, and as little was
interposed betwixt sentence and execution.  General -- had
determined to make a severe example of the first deserter who
should fall into his power, and here was one who had defended
himself by main force, and slain in the affray the officer sent
to take him into custody.  A fitter subject for punishment could
not have occurred, and Hamish was sentenced to immediate
execution.  All which the interference of his captain in his
favour could procure was that he should die a soldier's death;
for there had been a purpose of executing him upon the gibbet.

The worthy clergyman of Glenorquhy chanced to be at Dunbarton, in
attendance upon some church courts, at the time of this
catastrophe.  He visited his unfortunate parishioner in his
dungeon, found him ignorant indeed, but not obstinate, and the
answers which he received from him, when conversing on religious
topics, were such as induced him doubly to regret that a mind
naturally pure and noble should have remained unhappily so wild
and uncultivated.

When he ascertained the real character and disposition of the
young man, the worthy pastor made deep and painful reflections on
his own shyness and timidity, which, arising out of the evil fame
that attached to the lineage of Hamish, had restrained him from
charitably endeavouring to bring this strayed sheep within the
great fold.  While the good minister blamed his cowardice in
times past, which had deterred him from risking his person, to
save, perhaps, an immortal soul, he resolved no longer to be
governed by such timid counsels, but to endeavour, by application
to his officers, to obtain a reprieve, at least, if not a pardon,
for the criminal, in whom he felt so unusually interested, at
once from his docility of temper and his generosity of
disposition.

Accordingly the divine sought out Captain Campbell at the
barracks within the garrison.  There was a gloomy melancholy on
the brow of Green Colin, which was not lessened, but increased,
when the clergyman stated his name, quality, and errand.  "You
cannot tell me better of the young man than I am disposed to
believe," answered the Highland officer; "you cannot ask me to do
more in his behalf than I am of myself inclined, and have already
endeavoured to do.  But it is all in vain.  General -- is half a
Lowlander, half an Englishman.  He has no idea of the high and
enthusiastic character which in these mountains often brings
exalted virtues in contact with great crimes, which, however, are
less offences of the heart than errors of the understanding.  I
have gone so far as to tell him, that in this young man he was
putting to death the best and the bravest of my company, where
all, or almost all, are good and brave.  I explained to him by
what strange delusion the culprit's apparent desertion was
occasioned, and how little his heart was accessory to the crime
which his hand unhappily committed.  His answer was, 'These are
Highland visions, Captain Campbell, as unsatisfactory and vain as
those of the second sight.  An act of gross desertion may, in any
case, be palliated under the plea of intoxication; the murder of
an officer may be as easily coloured over with that of temporary
insanity.  The example must be made, and if it has fallen on a
man otherwise a good recruit, it will have the greater effect.'
Such being the general's unalterable purpose," continued Captain
Campbell, with a sigh, "be it your care, reverend sir, that your
penitent prepare by break of day tomorrow for that great change
which we shall all one day be subjected to."

"And for which," said the clergyman, "may God prepare us all, as
I in my duty will not be wanting to this poor youth!"

Next morning, as the very earliest beams of sunrise saluted the
grey towers which crown the summit of that singular and
tremendous rock, the soldiers of the new Highland regiment
appeared on the parade, within the Castle of Dunbarton, and
having fallen into order, began to move downward by steep
staircases, and narrow passages towards the external barrier-
gate, which is at the very bottom of the rock.  The wild wailings
of the pibroch were heard at times, interchanged with the drums
and fifes, which beat the Dead March.

The unhappy criminal's fate did not, at first, excite that
general sympathy in the regiment which would probably have arisen
had he been executed for desertion alone.  The slaughter of the
unfortunate Allan Breack had given a different colour to Hamish's
offence; for the deceased was much beloved, and besides belonged
to a numerous and powerful clan, of whom there were many in the
ranks.  The unfortunate criminal, on the contrary, was little
known to, and scarcely connected with, any of his regimental
companions.  His father had been, indeed, distinguished for his
strength and manhood; but he was of a broken clan, as those names
were called who had no chief to lead them to battle.

It would have been almost impossible in another case to have
turned out of the ranks of the regiment the party necessary for
execution of the sentence; but the six individuals selected for
that purpose, were friends of the deceased, descended, like him,
from the race of MacDhonuil Dhu; and while they prepared for the
dismal task which their duty imposed, it was not without a stern
feeling of gratified revenge.  The leading company of the
regiment began now to defile from the barrier-gate, and was
followed by the others, each successively moving and halting
according to the orders of the adjutant, so as to form three
sides of an oblong square, with the ranks faced inwards.  The
fourth, or blank side of the square, was closed up by the huge
and lofty precipice on which the Castle rises.  About the centre
of the procession, bare-headed, disarmed, and with his hands
bound, came the unfortunate victim of military law.  He was
deadly pale, but his step was firm and his eye as bright as ever.
The clergyman walked by his side; the coffin, which was to
receive his mortal remains, was borne before him.  The looks of
his comrades were still, composed, and solemn.  They felt for the
youth, whose handsome form and manly yet submissive deportment
had, as soon as he was distinctly visible to them, softened the
hearts of many, even of some who had been actuated by vindictive
feelings.

The coffin destined for the yet living body of Hamish Bean was
placed at the bottom of the hollow square, about two yards
distant from the foot of the precipice, which rises in that place
as steep as a stone wall to the height of three or four hundred
feet.  Thither the prisoner was also led, the clergyman still
continuing by his side, pouring forth exhortations of courage and
consolation, to which the youth appeared to listen with
respectful devotion.  With slow, and, it seemed, almost unwilling
steps, the firing party entered the square, and were drawn up
facing the prisoner, about ten yards distant.  The clergyman was
now about to retire.  "Think, my son," he said, "on what I have
told you, and let your hope be rested on the anchor which I have
given.  You will then exchange a short and miserable existence
here for a life in which you will experience neither sorrow nor
pain.  Is there aught else which you can entrust to me to execute
for you?"

The youth looked at his sleeve buttons.  They were of gold, booty
perhaps which his father had taken from some English officer
during the civil wars.  The clergyman disengaged them from his
sleeves.

"My mother!"  he said with some effort--"give them to my poor
mother!  See her, good father, and teach her what she should
think of all this.  Tell her Hamish Bean is more glad to die than
ever he was to rest after the longest day's hunting.  Farewell,
sir--farewell!"

The good man could scarce retire from the fatal spot.  An officer
afforded him the support of his arm.  At his last look towards
Hamish, he beheld him alive and kneeling on the coffin; the few
that were around him had all withdrawn.  The fatal word was
given, the rock rung sharp to the sound of the discharge, and
Hamish, falling forward with a groan, died, it may be supposed,
without almost a sense of the passing agony.

Ten or twelve of his own company then came forward, and laid with
solemn reverence the remains of their comrade in the coffin,
while the Dead March was again struck up, and the several
companies, marching in single files, passed the coffin one by
one, in order that all might receive from the awful spectacle the
warning which it was peculiarly intended to afford.  The regiment
was then marched off the ground, and reascended the ancient
cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions, striking lively
strains, as if sorrow, or even deep thought, should as short a
while as possible be the tenant of the soldier's bosom.

At the same time the small party, which we before mentioned, bore
the bier of the ill-fated Hamish to his humble grave, in a corner
of the churchyard of Dunbarton, usually assigned to criminals.
Here, among the dust of the guilty, lies a youth, whose name, had
he survived the ruin of the fatal events by which he was hurried
into crime, might have adorned the annals of the brave.

The minister of Glenorquhy left Dunbarton immediately after he
had witnessed the last scene of this melancholy catastrophe.  His
reason acquiesced in the justice of the sentence, which required
blood for blood, and he acknowledged that the vindictive
character of his countrymen required to be powerfully restrained
by the strong curb of social law.  But still he mourned over the
individual victim.  Who may arraign the bolt of Heaven when it
bursts among the sons of the forest?  yet who can refrain from
mourning when it selects for the object of its blighting aim the
fair stem of a young oak, that promised to be the pride of the
dell in which it flourished?  Musing on these melancholy events,
noon found him engaged in the mountain passes, by which he was to
return to his still distant home.

Confident in his knowledge of the country, the clergyman had left
the main road, to seek one of those shorter paths, which are only
used by pedestrians, or by men, like the minister, mounted on the
small, but sure-footed, hardy, and sagacious horses of the
country.  The place which he now traversed was in itself gloomy
and desolate, and tradition had added to it the terror of
superstition, by affirming it was haunted by an evil spirit,
termed CLOGHT-DEARG--that is, Redmantle--who at all times, but
especially at noon and at midnight, traversed the glen, in enmity
both to man and the inferior creation, did such evil as her power
was permitted to extend to, and afflicted with ghastly terrors
those whom she had not license otherwise to hurt.

The minister of Glenorquhy had set his face in opposition to many
of these superstitions, which he justly thought were derived from
the dark ages of Popery, perhaps even from those of paganism, and
unfit to be entertained or believed by the Christians of an
enlightened age.  Some of his more attached parishioners
considered him as too rash in opposing the ancient faith of their
fathers; and though they honoured the moral intrepidity of their
pastor, they could not avoid entertaining and expressing fears
that he would one day fall a victim to his temerity, and be torn
to pieces in the glen of the Cloght-dearg, or some of those other
haunted wilds, which he appeared rather to have a pride and
pleasure in traversing alone, on the days and hours when the
wicked spirits were supposed to have especial power over man and
beast.

These legends came across the mind of the clergyman, and,
solitary as he was, a melancholy smile shaded his cheek, as he
thought of the inconsistency of human nature, and reflected how
many brave men, whom the yell of the pibroch would have sent
headlong against fixed bayonets, as the wild bull rushes on his
enemy, might have yet feared to encounter those visionary
terrors, which he himself, a man of peace, and in ordinary perils
no way remarkable for the firmness of his nerves, was now risking
without hesitation.

As he looked around the scene of desolation, he could not but
acknowledge, in his own mind, that it was not ill chosen for the
haunt of those spirits, which are said to delight in solitude and
desolation.  The glen was so steep and narrow that there was but
just room for the meridian sun to dart a few scattered rays upon
the gloomy and precarious stream which stole through its
recesses, for the most part in silence, but occasionally
murmuring sullenly against the rocks and large stones which
seemed determined to bar its further progress.  In winter, or in
the rainy season, this small stream was a foaming torrent of the
most formidable magnitude, and it was at such periods that it had
torn open and laid bare the broad-faced and huge fragments of
rock which, at the season of which we speak, hid its course from
the eye, and seemed disposed totally to interrupt its course.
"Undoubtedly," thought the clergyman, "this mountain rivulet,
suddenly swelled by a waterspout or thunderstorm, has often been
the cause of those accidents which, happening in the glen called
by her name, have been ascribed to the agency of the Cloght-
dearg."

Just as this idea crossed his mind, he heard a female voice
exclaim, in a wild and thrilling accent, "Michael Tyrie!  Michael
Tyrie!"  He looked round in astonishment, and not without some
fear.  It seemed for an instant, as if the evil being, whose
existence he had disowned, was about to appear for the punishment
of his incredulity.  This alarm did not hold him more than an
instant, nor did it prevent his replying in a firm voice, "Who
calls?  and where are you?"

"One who journeys in wretchedness, between life and death,"
answered the voice; and the speaker, a tall female, appeared from
among the fragments of rocks which had concealed her from view.

As she approached more closely, her mantle of bright tartan, in
which the red colour much predominated, her stature, the long
stride with which she advanced, and the writhen features and wild
eyes which were visible from under her curch, would have made her
no inadequate representative of the spirit which gave name to the
valley.  But Mr. Tyrie instantly knew her as the Woman of the
Tree, the widow of MacTavish Mhor, the now childless mother of
Hamish Bean.  I am not sure whether the minister would not have
endured the visitation of the Cloght-dearg herself, rather than
the shock of Elspat's presence, considering her crime and her
misery.  He drew up his horse instinctively, and stood
endeavouring to collect his ideas, while a few paces brought her
up to his horse's head.

"Michael Tyrie," said she, "the foolish women of the Clachan [The
village; literally, the stones.] hold thee as a god--be one to
me, and say that my son lives.  Say this, and I too will be of
thy worship; I will bend my knees on the seventh day in thy house
of worship, and thy God shall be my God."

"Unhappy woman," replied the clergyman, "man forms not pactions
with his Maker as with a creature of clay like himself.  Thinkest
thou to chaffer with Him, who formed the earth, and spread out
the heavens, or that thou canst offer aught of homage or devotion
that can be worth acceptance in his eyes?  He hath asked
obedience, not sacrifice; patience under the trials with which He
afflicts us, instead of vain bribes, such as man offers to his
changeful brother of clay, that he may be moved from his
purpose."

"Be silent, priest!"  answered the desperate woman; "speak not to
me the words of thy white book.  Elspat's kindred were of those
who crossed themselves and knelt when the sacring bell was rung,
and she knows that atonement can be made on the altar for deeds
done in the field.  Elspat had once flocks and herds, goats upon
the cliffs, and cattle in the strath.  She wore gold around her
neck and on her hair--thick twists, as those worn by the heroes
of old.  All these would she have resigned to the priest--all
these; and if he wished for the ornaments of a gentle lady, or
the sporran of a high chief, though they had been great as
Macallum Mhor himself, MacTavish Mhor would have procured them,
if Elspat had promised them.  Elspat is now poor, and has nothing
to give.  But the Black Abbot of Inchaffray would have bidden her
scourge her shoulders, and macerate her feet by pilgrimage; and
he would have granted his pardon to her when he saw that her
blood had flowed, and that her flesh had been torn.  These were
the priests who had indeed power even with the most powerful;
they threatened the great men of the earth with the word of their
mouth, the sentence of their book, the blaze of their torch, the
sound of their sacring bell.  The mighty bent to their will, and
unloosed at the word of the priests those whom they had bound in
their wrath, and set at liberty, unharmed, him whom they had
sentenced to death, and for whose blood they had thirsted.  These
were a powerful race, and might well ask the poor to kneel, since
their power could humble the proud.  But you!--against whom are
ye strong, but against women who have been guilty of folly, and
men who never wore sword?  The priests of old were like the
winter torrent which fills this hollow valley, and rolls these
massive rocks against each other as easily as the boy plays with
the ball which he casts before him.  But you!--you do but
resemble the summer-stricken stream, which is turned aside by the
rushes, and stemmed by a bush of sedges.  Woe worth you, for
there is no help in you!"

The clergyman was at no loss to conceive that Elspat had lost the
Roman Catholic faith without gaining any other, and that she
still retained a vague and confused idea of the composition with
the priesthood, by confession, alms, and penance, and of their
extensive power, which, according to her notion, was adequate, if
duly propitiated, even to effecting her son's safety.
Compassionating her situation, and allowing for her errors and
ignorance, he answered her with mildness.

"Alas, unhappy woman!  Would to God I could convince thee as
easily where thou oughtest to seek, and art sure to find,
consolation, as I can assure you with a single word, that were
Rome and all her priesthood once more in the plenitude of their
power, they could not, for largesse or penance, afford to thy
misery an atom of aid or comfort--Elspat MacTavish, I grieve to
tell you the news."

"I know them without thy speech," said the unhappy woman.  "My
son is doomed to die."

"Elspat," resumed the clergyman, "he WAS doomed, and the sentence
has been executed."

The hapless mother threw her eyes up to heaven, and uttered a
shriek so unlike the voice of a human being, that the eagle which
soared in middle air answered it as she would have done the call
of her mate.

"It is impossible!"  she exclaimed--"it is impossible!  Men do
not condemn and kill on the same day!  Thou art deceiving me.
The people call thee holy--hast thou the heart to tell a mother
she has murdered her only child?"

"God knows," said the priest, the tears falling fast from his
eyes, "that were it in my power, I would gladly tell better
tidings.  But these which I bear are as certain as they are
fatal.  My own ears heard the death-shot, my own eyes beheld thy
son's death--thy son's funeral.  My tongue bears witness to what
my ears heard and my eyes saw."

The wretched female clasped her bands close together, and held
them up towards heaven like a sibyl announcing war and
desolation, while, in impotent yet frightful rage, she poured
forth a tide of the deepest imprecations.  "Base Saxon churl!"
she exclaimed--"vile hypocritical juggler!  May the eyes that
looked tamely on the death of my fair-haired boy be melted in
their sockets with ceaseless tears, shed for those that are
nearest and most dear to thee!  May the ears that heard his
death-knell be dead hereafter to all other sounds save the
screech of the raven, and the hissing of the adder!  May the
tongue that tells me of his death and of my own crime, be
withered in thy mouth--or better, when thou wouldst pray with thy
people, may the Evil One guide it, and give voice to blasphemies
instead of blessings, until men shall fly in terror from thy
presence, and the thunder of heaven be launched against thy head,
and stop for ever thy cursing and accursed voice!  Begone, with
this malison!  Elspat will never, never again bestow so many
words upon living man."

She kept her word.  From that day the world was to her a
wilderness, in which she remained without thought, care, or
interest, absorbed in her own grief, indifferent to every thing
else.

With her mode of life, or rather of existence, the reader is
already as far acquainted as I have the power of making him.  Of
her death, I can tell him nothing.  It is supposed to have
happened several years after she had attracted the attention of
my excellent friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol.  Her benevolence, which
was never satisfied with dropping a sentimental tear, when there
was room for the operation of effective charity, induced her to
make various attempts to alleviate the condition of this most
wretched woman.  But all her exertions could only render Elspat's
means of subsistence less precarious--a circumstance which,
though generally interesting even to the most wretched outcasts,
seemed to her a matter of total indifference.  Every attempt to
place any person in her hut to take charge of her miscarried,
through the extreme resentment with which she regarded all
intrusion on her solitude, or by the timidity of those who had
been pitched upon to be inmates with the terrible Woman of the
Tree.  At length, when Elspat became totally unable (in
appearance at least) to turn herself on the wretched settle which
served her for a couch, the humanity of Mr. Tyrie's successor
sent two women to attend upon the last moments of the solitary,
which could not, it was judged, be far distant, and to avert the
possibility that she might perish for want of assistance or food,
before she sunk under the effects of extreme age or mortal
malady.

It was on a November evening, that the two women appointed for
this melancholy purpose arrived at the miserable cottage which we
have already described.  Its wretched inmate lay stretched upon
the bed, and seemed almost already a lifeless corpse, save for
the wandering of the fierce dark eyes, which rolled in their
sockets in a manner terrible to look upon, and seemed to watch
with surprise and indignation the motions of the strangers, as
persons whose presence was alike unexpected and unwelcome.  They
were frightened at her looks; but, assured in each other's
company, they kindled a fire, lighted a candle, prepared food,
and made other arrangements for the discharge of the duty
assigned them.

The assistants agreed they should watch the bedside of the sick
person by turns; but, about midnight, overcome by fatigue, (for
they had walked far that morning), both of them fell fast asleep.
When they awoke, which was not till after the interval of some
hours, the hut was empty, and the patient gone.  They rose in
terror, and went to the door of the cottage, which was latched as
it had been at night.  They looked out into the darkness, and
called upon their charge by her name.  The night-raven screamed
from the old oak-tree, the fox howled on the hill, the hoarse
waterfall replied with its echoes; but there was no human answer.
The terrified women did not dare to make further search till
morning should appear; for the sudden disappearance of a creature
so frail as Elspat, together with the wild tenor of her history,
intimidated them from stirring from the hut.  They remained,
therefore, in dreadful terror, sometimes thinking they heard her
voice without, and at other times, that sounds of a different
description were mingled with the mournful sigh of the night-
breeze, or the dashing of the cascade.  Sometimes, too, the latch
rattled, as if some frail and impotent hand were in vain
attempting to lift it, and ever and anon they expected the
entrance of their terrible patient, animated by supernatural
strength, and in the company, perhaps, of some being more
dreadful than herself.  Morning came at length.  They sought
brake, rock, and thicket in vain.  Two hours after daylight, the
minister himself appeared, and, on the report of the watchers,
caused the country to be alarmed, and a general and exact search
to be made through the whole neighbourhood of the cottage and the
oak-tree.  But it was all in vain.  Elspat MacTavish was never
found, whether dead or alive; nor could there ever be traced the
slightest circumstance to indicate her fate.

The neighbourhood was divided concerning the cause of her
disappearance.  The credulous thought that the evil spirit, under
whose influence she seemed to have acted, had carried her away in
the body; and there are many who are still unwilling, at untimely
hours, to pass the oak-tree, beneath which, as they allege, she
may still be seen seated according to her wont.  Others less
superstitious  supposed, that had it been possible to search the
gulf of the Corri Dhu, the profound deeps of the lake, or the
whelming eddies of the river, the remains of Elspat MacTavish
might have been discovered--as nothing was more natural,
considering her state of body and mind, than that she should have
fallen in by accident, or precipitated herself intentionally,
into one or other of those places of sure destruction.  The
clergyman entertained an opinion of his own.  He thought that,
impatient of the watch which was placed over her, this unhappy
woman's instinct had taught her, as it directs various domestic
animals, to withdraw herself from the sight of her own race, that
the death-struggle might take place in some secret den, where, in
all probability, her mortal relics would never meet the eyes of
mortals.  This species of instinctive feeling seemed to him of a
tenor with the whole course of her unhappy life, and most likely
to influence her when it drew to a conclusion.
Гї
End of THE HIGHLAND WIDOW.


*


MR. CROFTANGRY INTRODUCES ANOTHER TALE.

 Together both on the high lawns appeared.
 Under the opening eyelids of the morn
 They drove afield.             ELEGY ON LYCIDAS.

I have sometimes wondered why all the favourite occupations and
pastimes of mankind go to the disturbance of that happy state of
tranquillity, that OTIUM, as Horace terms it, which he says is
the object of all men's prayers, whether preferred from sea or
land; and that the undisturbed repose, of which we are so
tenacious, when duty or necessity compels us to abandon it, is
precisely what we long to exchange for a state of excitation, as
soon as we may prolong it at our own pleasure.  Briefly, you have
only to say to a man, "Remain at rest," and you instantly inspire
the love of labour.  The sportsman toils like his gamekeeper, the
master of the pack takes as severe exercise as his whipper-in,
the statesman or politician drudges more than the professional
lawyer; and, to come to my own case, the volunteer author
subjects himself to the risk of painful criticism, and the
assured certainty of mental and manual labour, just as completely
as his needy brother, whose necessities compel him to assume the
pen.

These reflections have been suggested by an annunciation on the
part of Janet, "that the little Gillie-whitefoot was come from
the printing-office."

"Gillie-blackfoot you should call him, Janet," was my response,
"for he is neither more nor less than an imp of the devil, come
to torment me for COPY, for so the printers call a supply of
manuscript for the press."

"Now, Cot forgie your honour," said Janet; "for it is no like
your ainsell to give such names to a faitherless bairn."

"I have got nothing else to give him, Janet; he must wait a
little."

"Then I have got some breakfast to give the bit gillie," said
Janet; "and he can wait by the fireside in the kitchen, till your
honour's ready; and cood enough for the like of him, if he was to
wait your honour's pleasure all day."

"But, Janet," said I to my little active superintendent, on her
return to the parlour, after having made her hospitable
arrangements, "I begin to find this writing our Chronicles is
rather more tiresome than I expected, for here comes this little
fellow to ask for manuscript--that is, for something to print--
and I have got none to give him."

"Your honour can be at nae loss.  I have seen you write fast and
fast enough; and for subjects, you have the whole Highlands to
write about, and I am sure you know a hundred tales better than
that about Hamish MacTavish, for it was but about a young cateran
and an auld carlin, when all's done; and if they had burned the
rudas quean for a witch, I am thinking, may be they would not
have tyned their coals--and her to gar her ne'er-do-weel son
shoot a gentleman Cameron!  I am third cousin to the Camerons
mysel'--my blood warms to them.  And if you want to write about
deserters, I am sure there were deserters enough on the top of
Arthur's Seat, when the MacRaas broke out, and on that woeful day
beside Leith Pier--ohonari!"--

Here Janet began to weep, and to wipe her eyes with her apron.
For my part, the idea I wanted was supplied, but I hesitated to
make use of it.  Topics, like times, are apt to become common by
frequent use.  It is only an ass like Justice Shallow, who would
pitch upon the over-scutched tunes, which the carmen whistled,
and try to pass them off as his FANCIES and his GOOD-NIGHTS.
Now, the Highlands, though formerly a rich mine for original
matter, are, as my friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol warned me, in some
degree worn out by the incessant labour of modern romancers and
novelists, who, finding in those remote regions primitive habits
and manners, have vainly imagined that the public can never tire
of them; and so kilted Highlanders are to be found as frequently,
and nearly of as genuine descent, on the shelves of a circulating
library, as at a Caledonian ball.  Much might have been made at
an earlier time out of the history of a Highland regiment, and
the singular revolution of ideas which must have taken place in
the minds of those who composed it, when exchanging their native
hills for the battle-fields of the Continent, and their simple,
and sometimes indolent domestic habits for the regular exertions
demanded by modern discipline.  But the market is forestalled.
There is Mrs. Grant of Laggan, has drawn the manners, customs,
and superstitions of the mountains in their natural
unsophisticated state; [Letters from the Mountains, 3 vols.--
Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders--The Highlanders,
and other Poems, etc.]  and my friend, General Stewart of Garth,
[The gallant and amiable author of the History of the Highland
Regiments, in whose glorious services his own share had been
great, went out Governor of St Lucia in 1828, and died in that
island on the 18th of December 1829,--no man more regretted, or
perhaps by a wider circle of friends and acquaintance.]  in
giving the real history of the Highland regiments, has rendered
any attempt to fill up the sketch with fancy-colouring extremely
rash and precarious.  Yet I, too, have still a lingering fancy to
add a stone to the cairn; and without calling in imagination to
aid the impressions of juvenile recollection, I may just attempt
to embody one or two scenes illustrative of the Highland
character, and which belong peculiarly to the Chronicles of the
Canongate, to the grey-headed eld of whom they are as familiar as
to Chrystal Croftangry.  Yet I will not go back to the days of
clanship and claymores.  Have at you, gentle reader, with a tale
of Two Drovers.  An oyster may be crossed in love, says the
gentle Tilburina--and a drover may be touched on a point of
honour, says the Chronicler of the Canongate.


*


THE TWO DROVERS.



CHAPTER I.

It was the day after Doune Fair when my story commences.  It had
been a brisk market.  Several dealers had attended from the
northern and midland counties in England, and English money had
flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland
farmers.  Many large droves were about to set off for England,
under the protection of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they
employed in the tedious, laborious, and responsible office of
driving the cattle for many hundred miles, from the market where
they had been purchased, to the fields or farmyards where they
were to be fattened for the shambles.

The Highlanders in particular are masters of this difficult trade
of driving, which seems to suit them as well as the trade of war.
It affords exercise for all their habits of patient endurance and
active exertion.  They are required to know perfectly the drove-
roads, which lie over the wildest tracts of the country, and to
avoid as much as possible the highways, which distress the feet
of the bullocks, and the turnpikes, which annoy the spirit of the
drover; whereas on the broad green or grey track which leads
across the pathless moor, the herd not only move at ease and
without taxation, but, if they mind their business, may pick up a
mouthful of food by the way.  At night the drovers usually sleep
along with their cattle, let the weather be what it will; and
many of these hardy men do not once rest under a roof during a
journey on foot from Lochaber to Lincolnshire.  They are paid
very highly, for the trust reposed is of the last importance, as
it depends on their prudence, vigilance, and honesty whether the
cattle reach the final market in good order, and afford a profit
to the grazier.  But as they maintain themselves at their own
expense, they are especially economical in that particular.  At
the period we speak of, a Highland drover was victualled for his
long and toilsome journey with a few handfulls of oatmeal and two
or three onions, renewed from time to time, and a ram's horn
filled with whisky, which he used regularly, but sparingly, every
night and morning.  His dirk, or SKENE-DHU, (that is, black-
knife), so worn as to be concealed beneath the arm, or by the
folds of the plaid, was his only weapon, excepting the cudgel
with which he directed the movements of the cattle.  A Highlander
was never so happy as on these occasions.  There was a variety in
the whole journey, which exercised the Celt's natural curiosity
and love of motion.  There were the constant change of place and
scene, the petty adventures incidental to the traffic, and the
intercourse with the various farmers, graziers, and traders,
intermingled with occasional merry-makings, not the less
acceptable to Donald that they were void of expense.  And there
was the consciousness of superior skill; for the Highlander, a
child amongst flocks, is a prince amongst herds, and his natural
habits induce him to disdain the shepherd's slothful life, so
that he feels himself nowhere more at home than when following a
gallant drove of his country cattle in the character of their
guardian.

Of the number who left Doune in the morning, and with the purpose
we have described, not a GLUNAMIE of them all cocked his bonnet
more briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee over a pair
of more promising SPIOGS, (legs), than did Robin Oig M'Combich,
called familiarly Robin Oig, that is young, or the Lesser, Robin.
Though small of stature, as the epithet Oig implies, and not very
strongly limbed, he was as light and alert as one of the deer of
his mountains.  He had an elasticity of step which, in the course
of a long march, made many a stout fellow envy him; and the
manner in which he busked his plaid and adjusted his bonnet
argued a consciousness that so smart a John Highlandman as
himself would not pass unnoticed among the Lowland lasses.  The
ruddy cheek, red lips, and white teeth set off a countenance
which had gained by exposure to the weather a healthful and hardy
rather than a rugged hue.  If Robin Oig did not laugh, or even
smile frequently--as, indeed, is not the practice among his
countrymen--his bright eyes usually gleamed from under his bonnet
with an expression of cheerfulness ready to be turned into mirth.

The departure of Robin Oig was an incident in the little town, in
and near which he had many friends, male and female.  He was a
topping person in his way, transacted considerable business on
his own behalf, and was entrusted by the best farmers in the
Highlands, in preference to any other drover in that district.
He might have increased his business to any extent had he
condescended to manage it by deputy; but except a lad or two,
sister's sons of his own, Robin rejected the idea of assistance,
conscious, perhaps, how much his reputation depended upon his
attending in person to the practical discharge of his duty in
every instance.  He remained, therefore, contented with the
highest premium given to persons of his description, and
comforted himself with the hopes that a few journeys to England
might enable him to conduct business on his own account, in a
manner becoming his birth.  For Robin Oig's father, Lachlan
M'Combich (or SON OF MY FRIEND, his actual clan surname being
M'Gregor), had been so called by the celebrated Rob Roy, because
of the particular friendship which had subsisted between the
grandsire of Robin and that renowned cateran.  Some people even
said that Robin Oig derived his Christian name from one as
renowned in the wilds of Loch Lomond as ever was his namesake
Robin Hood in the precincts of merry Sherwood.  "Of such
ancestry," as James Boswell says, "who would not be proud?"
Robin Oig was proud accordingly; but his frequent visits to
England and to the Lowlands had given him tact enough to know
that pretensions which still gave him a little right to
distinction in his own lonely glen, might be both obnoxious and
ridiculous if preferred elsewhere.  The pride of birth,
therefore, was like the miser's treasure--the secret subject of
his contemplation, but never exhibited to strangers as a subject
of boasting.

Many were the words of gratulation and good-luck which were
bestowed on Robin Oig.  The judges commended his drove,
especially Robin's own property, which were the best of them.
Some thrust out their snuff-mulls for the parting pinch, others
tendered the DOCH-AN-DORRACH, or parting cup.  All cried, "Good-
luck travel out with you and come home with you.  Give you luck
in the Saxon market--brave notes in the LEABHAR-DHU," (black
pocket-book), "and plenty of English gold in the SPORRAN" (pouch
of goat-skin).

The bonny lasses made their adieus more modestly, and more than
one, it was said, would have given her best brooch to be certain
that it was upon her that his eye last rested as he turned
towards the road.

Robin Oig had just given the preliminary "HOO-HOO!"  to urge
forward the loiterers of the drove, when there was a cry behind
him:--

"Stay, Robin--bide a blink.  Here is Janet of Tomahourich--auld
Janet, your father's sister."

"Plague on her, for an auld Highland witch and spaewife," said a
farmer from the Carse of Stirling; "she'll cast some of her
cantrips on the cattle."

"She canna do that," said another sapient of the same profession.
"Robin Oig is no the lad to leave any of them without tying Saint
Mungo's knot on their tails, and that will put to her speed the
best witch that ever flew over Dimayet upon a broomstick."

It may not be indifferent to the reader to know that the Highland
cattle are peculiarly liable to be TAKEN, or infected, by spells
and witchcraft, which judicious people guard against by knitting
knots of peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair which terminates
the animal's tail.

But the old woman who was the object of the farmer's suspicion
seemed only busied about the drover, without paying any attention
to the drove.  Robin, on the contrary, appeared rather impatient
of her presence.

"What auld-world fancy," he said, "has brought you so early from
the ingle-side this morning, Muhme?  l am sure I bid you good-
even, and had your God-speed, last night."

"And left me more siller than the useless old woman will use till
you come back again, bird of my bosom," said the sibyl.  "But it
is little I would care for the food that nourishes me, or the
fire that warms me, or for God's blessed sun itself, if aught but
weel should happen to the grandson of my father.  So let me walk
the DEASIL round you, that you may go safe out into the far
foreign land, and come safe home."

Robin Oig stopped, half embarrassed, half laughing, and signing
to those around that he only complied with the old woman to
soothe her humour.  In the meantime, she traced around him, with
wavering steps, the propitiation, which some have thought has
been derived from the Druidical mythology.  It consists, as is
well known, in the person who makes the DEASIL walking three
times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking
care to move according to the course of the sun.  At once,
however, she stopped short, and exclaimed, in a voice of alarm
and horror, "Grandson of my father, there is blood on your hand."

"Hush, for God's sake, aunt!"  said Robin Oig.  "You will bring
more trouble on yourself with this TAISHATARAGH" (second sight)
"than you will be able to get out of for many a day."

The old woman only repeated, with a ghastly look, "There is blood
on your hand, and it is English blood.  The blood of the Gael is
richer and redder.  Let us see--let us--"

Ere Robin Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only have
been by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her
proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in
the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming, although the
weapon gleamed clear and bright in the sun, "Blood, blood--Saxon
blood again.  Robin Oig M'Combich, go not this day to England!"

"Prutt, trutt," answered Robin Oig, "that will never do neither
--it would be next thing to running the country.  For shame,
Muhme--give me the dirk.  You cannot tell by the colour the
difference betwixt the blood of a black bullock and a white one,
and you speak of knowing Saxon from Gaelic blood.  All men have
their blood from Adam, Muhme.  Give me my skene-dhu, and let me
go on my road.  I should have been half way to Stirling brig by
this time.  Give me my dirk, and let me go."