ing against any man in
Berwickshire, yea in all Scotland. The blood of old Cunningham boiled at
the bravado. He said he had had three sons--yea, he hoped to have said
four--any of whom would have stopped the boasting, and taken up the
challenge of his Northumbrian friend. But he said he had still a nephew,
and he would risk him against Sandy's champion.

"A bargain be it," cried Sandy, and the young men proceeded to various
trials of strength; but the nephew of Cunningham, though apparently a
strong man, was as a weaned child in the hands of young Patrick. Their
countrymen, on both sides, became enraged, and it soon became a national
quarrel. Scores were engaged on either side--knives were drawn and blood
spilt: and headmost in the fray, but unarmed, was Sandy Reed, striking
to the ground every one on whom his hand fell. But at length he fell,
pierced by a knife, by the edge of a pool of water; and his last words
were--"Revenge me, Patrick--protect my Anne--mine is yours!"

When weapons were exhibited, young Patrick drew one also, and he dealt
a wound at every blow. Just as he heard the voice of his foster-father,
he held the aged Cunningham by the throat, and his hand was uplifted to
avenge his protector's death by the sacrifice of the old man's--when a
loud, a hurried, and a wild voice cried aloud--"Hold, parricide!
hold!--he against whom your hand is raised is your father!"

It was the voice of Barbara Moor. The young man's arms fell by his side
as if a palsy had smitten them. He remembered the voice of the sibyl.

"What say ye!" cried the agonised old man--"who is my son?--how shall I
know him?" For he, too, remembered her and well.

"He whose hand has been raised against your life," she cried, "and on
whose bosom ye will remember and find the mark of a berry!
Farewell!--farewell!" she added--"I am childless--ye are not." She had
been wounded in the conflict as she rushed forward, and she sank down
and died. We might lengthen our story with details; but it would be
fruitless. In young Patrick old Cunningham found his long lost son; with
her last breath Barbara Moor acknowledged how she had decoyed him from
the tent, at the fair, where his father had left him; and how, when she
saw Sandy Reed asleep upon the moor, she had administered to the child a
sleeping draught, and laid him upon his breast. Vain would it be to
describe the joy of the old man, and as vain would it be to speak of the
double chagrin of the nep