on 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