on the bleak
hillside just described. She sat, on that evening, on a low stool
before the hearth, on which a few clods of peat, smouldering slowly with
some scarcely dry sticks on the top of them, served as an apology for a
fire, and threw out the smallest possible heat to warm the shrivelled
palms held up ever and anon before it. As she sat, occasionally rocking
herself backwards and forwards, she sang, in a voice which sometimes
sounded high and shrill, till it rose into almost a shriek, and then
again sank down into a long-continued moan. She uttered words often
with great rapidity, though even the poor creature herself might
scarcely have been able to explain the burden of her song. The gentle
breeze, pleasant in the cheerful sunshine, sighed through the rents in
the tottering walls, and amid the branches of the solitary, crooked
pine-tree, which bent its riven head over the building, its distorted
limbs creaking and groaning as they swayed to and fro; while an owl
shrieked his twit-to-hoo to the departing sun, as he prepared to go
abroad with other creatures of the night in search of prey; and cold
grey twilight covered the mountain-side. There still sat the lone old
woman, crouching over the mocking fire. Dark and drear was the hovel--
floor it had none, save the damp, cold earth--nor was there a chimney or
other outlet for the smoke, except a hole which a branch of the
ill-favoured pine-tree had made in the roof, in one of his most restless
moods. More light came through this hole than through the window, the
broken panes of which were stuffed with rags, dry grass, and heather,
though not tight enough to prevent the wind from whistling, and the
rain, snow, and sleet from driving in upon the wretched inmate. Except
where the solitary gleam of cold evening light fell upon the crouching
figure of poor Mountain Moggy, all else in the hovel was gloom and
obscurity. Little, however, did Moggy heed the weather. Winter or
summer, chilling blasts or warm sunshine, the changeful seasons brought
no change to her. Her brain was on fire, her heart cold and forlorn,
"icy cold, utterly forlorn and deserted," so she says, and all feeling
for outward things has long since departed.

Why does Moggy start, clasp her bony hands, open wide her almost
sightless eyes, and mutter, "Yes, yes--that's it. Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. But it's hard,
very hard to forgive our foes. Does