o your cairn!"

"Daughter of a foolish mother," answered the widow of MacTavish Mhor,
"know that the gibbet with which you threaten us is no portion of our
inheritance. For thirty years the Black Tree of the Law, whose apples
are dead men's bodies, hungered after the beloved husband of my heart;
but he died like a brave man, with the sword in his hand, and defrauded
it of its hopes and its fruit."

"So shall it not be with thy child, bloody sorceress," replied the
female mourner, whose passions were as violent as those of Elspat
herself. "The ravens shall tear his fair hair to line their nests,
before the sun sinks beneath the Treshornish islands."

These words recalled to Elspat's mind the whole history of the last
three dreadful days. At first she stood fixed, as if the extremity of
distress had converted her into stone; but in a minute, the pride and
violence of her temper, outbraved as she thought herself on her own
threshold, enabled her to reply, "Yes, insulting hag, my fair-haired boy
may die, but it will not be with a white hand. It has been dyed in the
blood of his enemy, in the best blood of a Cameron--remember that; and
when you lay your dead in his grave, let it be his best epitaph that
he was killed by Hamish Bean for essaying to lay hands on the son of
MacTavish Mhor on his own threshold. Farewell--the shame of defeat,
loss, and slaughter remain with the clan that has endured it!"

The relative of the slaughtered Cameron raised her voice in reply; but
Elspat, disdaining to continue the objurgation, or perhaps feeling her
grief likely to overmaster her power of expressing her resentment, had
left the hut, and was walking forth in the bright moonshine.

The females who were arranging the corpse of the slaughtered man hurried
from their melancholy labour to look after her tall figure as it glided
away among the cliffs. "I am glad she is gone," said one of the younger
persons who assisted. "I would as soon dress a corpse when the great
fiend himself--God sain us!--stood visibly before us, as when Elspat of
the Tree is amongst us. Ay, ay, even overmuch intercourse hath she had
with the enemy in her day."

"Silly woman," answered the female who had maintained the dialogue
with the departed Elspat, "thinkest thou that there is a worse fiend on
earth, or beneath it, than the pride and fury of an offended woman, like
yonder bloody-minded hag? Know that blood has been as familiar to her as
the dew to the mount