onduct of his sons the broken-hearted
father did find some consolation. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, though in a
tremulous voice, "my brave boys have done their duty, and died as became
their name, with their swords in their hands, and their enemies in their
front." But there was one circumstance mentioned in the letter, that
affected the poor father more than all the rest--this was the
intimation, that the writer had, in his hands, a sum of money and a gold
brooch, which his son Alister had bequeathed, the first to his father,
the latter to his mother, as a token of remembrance. "These," he said,
"had been deposited with him by the young man previous to the
engagement, under a presentiment that he should fall."

When he had finished the perusal of the letter, M'Pherson sought his
wife, whom he found weeping bitterly, for she had already learned the
fate of her sons. On entering the apartment where she was, he flung his
arms around her, in an agony of grief, and, choking with emotion,
exclaimed, that two more of his fair lights had been extinguished by the
hand of heaven. "One yet remains," he said, "but that, too, must soon
pass away from before mine eyes. His doom is sealed; but God's will be
done."

"What mean ye, John?" said his sobbing wife, struck with the prophetic
tone of his speech--"is the measure of our sorrows not yet filled? Are
we to lose him, too, who is now our only stay, my fair-haired Ian. Why
this foreboding of more evil--and whence have you it, John?" she said,
now looking her husband steadfastly in the face; and with an expression
of alarm that indicated that entire belief in supernatural intelligence
regarding coming events, then so general in the Highlands.

Urged by his wife, who implored him to tell her whence he had the
tidings of her Ian's approaching fate, M'Pherson related to her the
circumstance of the mysterious lights.

"But there were seven, John," she said, when he had concluded--"how
comes that?--our children were but six." And immediately added, as if
some fearful conviction had suddenly forced itself on her mind--"God
grant that the seventh light may have meant me!"

"God forbid!" exclaimed her husband, on whose mind a similar conviction
with that with which his wife was impressed, now obtruded itself for the
first time; that conviction was, that he himself was indicated by the
seventh light. But neither of the sorrowing pair communicated their
fears to the other.

Two days subs