veness." And at once
she threw herself on her knees before the young man, seized on his hand,
and kissing it an hundred times, repeated as often, in heart-breaking
accents, the most earnest entreaties for forgiveness. "Pardon," she
exclaimed, "pardon, for the sake of your father's ashes--pardon, for the
sake of the pain with which I bore thee, the care with which I nurtured
thee!--Hear it, Heaven, and behold it, Earth--the mother asks pardon of
her child, and she is refused!"

It was in vain that Hamish endeavoured to stem this tide of passion, by
assuring his mother, with the most solemn asseverations, that he forgave
entirely the fatal deceit which she had practised upon him.

"Empty words," she said, "idle protestations, which are but used to hide
the obduracy of your resentment. Would you have me believe you, then
leave the hut this instant, and retire from a country which every hour
renders more dangerous. Do this, and I may think you have forgiven me;
refuse it, and again I call on moon and stars, heaven and earth, to
witness the unrelenting resentment with which you prosecute your mother
for a fault, which, if it be one, arose out of love to you."

"Mother," said Hamish, "on this subject you move me not. I will fly
before no man. If Barcaldine should send every Gael that is under his
banner, here, and in this place, will I abide them; and when you bid
me fly, you may as well command yonder mountain to be loosened from
its foundations. Had I been sure of the road by which they are coming
hither, I had spared them the pains of seeking me; but I might go by the
mountain, while they perchance came by the lake. Here I will abide my
fate; nor is there in Scotland a voice of power enough to bid me stir
from hence, and be obeyed."

"Here, then, I also stay," said Elspat, rising up and speaking with
assumed composure. "I have seen my husband's death--my eyelids shall not
grieve to look on the fall of my son. But MacTavish Mhor died as became
the brave, with his good sword in his right hand; my son will perish
like the bullock that is driven to the shambles by the Saxon owner who
had bought him for a price."

"Mother," said the unhappy young man, "you have taken my life. To that
you have a right, for you gave it; but touch not my honour! It came to
me from a brave train of ancestors, and should be sullied neither by
man's deed nor woman's speech. What I shall do, perhaps I myself yet
know not; but tempt me no farther