two of them to hold her, while the rest secured the
prisoner.

"Are you not an accursed creature," said one of the men to Hamish, "to
have slain your best friend, who was contriving, during the whole march,
how he could find some way of getting you off without punishment for
your desertion?"

"Do you hear THAT, mother?" said Hamish, turning himself as much towards
her as his bonds would permit; but the mother heard nothing, and saw
nothing. She had fainted on the floor of her hut. Without waiting for
her recovery, the party almost immediately began their homeward march
towards Dunbarton, leading along with them their prisoner. They thought
it necessary, however, to stay for a little space at the village of
Dalmally, from which they despatched a party of the inhabitants to
bring away the body of their unfortunate leader, while they themselves
repaired to a magistrate, to state what had happened, and require his
instructions as to the farther course to be pursued. The crime being
of a military character, they were instructed to march the prisoner to
Dunbarton without delay.

The swoon of the mother of Hamish lasted for a length of time--the
longer perhaps that her constitution, strong as it was, must have been
much exhausted by her previous agitation of three days' endurance. She
was roused from her stupor at length by female voices, which cried
the coronach, or lament for the dead, with clapping of hands and loud
exclamations; while the melancholy note of a lament, appropriate to the
clan Cameron, played on the bagpipe, was heard from time to time.

Elspat started up like one awakened from the dead, and without any
accurate recollection of the scene which had passed before her eyes.
There were females in the hut who were swathing the corpse in its
bloody plaid before carrying it from the fatal spot. "Women," she said,
starting up and interrupting their chant at once and their labour--"Tell
me, women, why sing you the dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of
MacTavish Mhor?"

"She-wolf, be silent with thine ill-omened yell," answered one of the
females, a relation of the deceased, "and let us do our duty to our
beloved kinsman. There shall never be coronach cried, or dirge played,
for thee or thy bloody wolf-burd. [Wolf-brood--that is, wolf-cub.] The
ravens shall eat him from the gibbet, and the foxes and wild-cats shall
tear thy corpse upon the hill. Cursed be he that would sain [Bless.]
your bones, or add a stone t