by reproachful words--you have already
made wounds more than you can ever heal."

"It is well, my son," said Elspat, in reply. "Expect neither farther
complaint nor remonstrance from me; but let us be silent, and wait the
chance which Heaven shall send us."

The sun arose on the next morning, and found the bothy silent as the
grave. The mother and son had arisen, and were engaged each in their
separate task--Hamish in preparing and cleaning his arms with the
greatest accuracy, but with an air of deep dejection. Elspat, more
restless in her agony of spirit, employed herself in making ready the
food which the distress of yesterday had induced them both to dispense
with for an unusual number of hours. She placed it on the board before
her son so soon as it was prepared, with the words of a Gaelic poet,
"Without daily food, the husbandman's ploughshare stands still in the
furrow; without daily food, the sword of the warrior is too heavy for
his hand. Our bodies are our slaves, yet they must be fed if we would
have their service. So spake in ancient days the Blind Bard to the
warriors of Fion."

The young man made no reply, but he fed on what was placed before him,
as if to gather strength for the scene which he was to undergo. When
his mother saw that he had eaten what sufficed him, she again filled the
fatal quaigh, and proffered it as the conclusion of the repast. But he
started aside with a convulsive gesture, expressive at once of fear and
abhorrence.

"Nay, my son," she said, "this time surely, thou hast no cause of fear."

"Urge me not, mother," answered Hamish--"or put the leprous toad into
a flagon, and I will drink; but from that accursed cup, and of that
mind-destroying potion, never will I taste more!"

"At your pleasure, my son," said Elspat, haughtily, and began, with
much apparent assiduity, the various domestic tasks which had been
interrupted during the preceding day. Whatever was at her heart, all
anxiety seemed banished from her looks and demeanour. It was but from an
over-activity of bustling exertion that it might have been perceived, by
a close observer, that her actions were spurred by some internal cause
of painful excitement; and such a spectator, too, might also have
observed how often she broke off the snatches of songs or tunes which
she hummed, apparently without knowing what she was doing, in order to
cast a hasty glance from the door of the hut. Whatever might be in the
mind of Hamish, h