he could not bear when Hamish, with advancing
life, made repeated steps towards independence, absented himself from
her cottage at such season and for such length of time as he chose,
and seemed to consider, although maintaining towards her every possible
degree of respect and kindness, that the control and responsibility
of his actions rested on himself alone. This would have been of little
consequence, could she have concealed her feelings within her own bosom;
but the ardour and impatience of her passions made her frequently show
her son that she conceived herself neglected and ill-used. When he was
absent for any length of time from her cottage without giving intimation
of his purpose, her resentment on his return used to be so unreasonable,
that it naturally suggested to a young man fond of independence, and
desirous to amend his situation in the world, to leave her, even for the
very purpose of enabling him to provide for the parent whose egotistical
demands on his filial attention tended to confine him to a desert, in
which both were starving in hopeless and helpless indigence.

Upon one occasion, the son having been guilty of some independent
excursion, by which the mother felt herself affronted and disobliged,
she had been more than usually violent on his return, and awakened in
Hamish a sense of displeasure, which clouded his brow and cheek. At
length, as she persevered in her unreasonable resentment, his patience
became exhausted, and taking his gun from the chimney corner, and
muttering to himself the reply which his respect for his mother
prevented him from speaking aloud, he was about to leave the hut which
he had but barely entered.

"Hamish," said his mother, "are you again about to leave me?" But Hamish
only replied by looking at and rubbing the lock of his gun.

"Ay, rub the lock of your gun," said his parent bitterly. "I am glad you
have courage enough to fire it? though it be but at a roe-deer." Hamish
started at this undeserved taunt, and cast a look of anger at her in
reply. She saw that she had found the means of giving him pain.

"Yes," she said, "look fierce as you will at an old woman, and your
mother; it would be long ere you bent your brow on the angry countenance
of a bearded man."

"Be silent, mother, or speak of what you understand," said Hamish, much
irritated, "and that is of the distaff and the spindle."

"And was it of spindle and distaff that I was thinking when I bore you
away