They were stout hearts the race of
Glenallan, male and female, and sae were a' that in auld times cried
their gathering-word of Clochnaben--they stood shouther to shouther--nae
man parted frae his chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or of
wrang. The times are changed, I hear, now."

The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused
and distracted reflections, to notice the rude expressions of savage
fidelity, in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author
of his misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of
consolation.

"Great Heaven!" he exclaimed, "I am then free from a guilt the most
horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however
involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me
down to an untimely grave. Accept," he fervently uttered, lifting his
eyes upwards, "accept my humble thanks! If I live miserable, at least
I shall not die stained with that unnatural guilt!--And thou--proceed if
thou hast more to tell--proceed, while thou hast voice to speak it, and I
have powers to listen."

"Yes," answered the beldam, "the hour when you shall hear, and I shall
speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with
his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day coulder at my heart.
Interrupt me nae mair with exclamations and groans and accusations, but
hear my tale to an end! And then--if ye be indeed sic a Lord of Glenallan
as I hae heard of in my day--make your merrymen gather the thorn, and
the brier, and the green hollin, till they heap them as high as the
house-riggin', and burn! burn! burn! the auld witch Elspeth, and a' that
can put ye in mind that sic a creature ever crawled upon the land!"

"Go on," said the Earl, "go on--I will not again interrupt you."

He spoke in a half-suffocated yet determined voice, resolved that no
irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of
acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Elspeth had
become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length;
the subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still
distinctly intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid
conciseness which the first part of her narrative had displayed to such
an astonishing degree. Lord Glenallan found it necessary, when she had
made some attempts to continue her narrative without success, to prompt
her memory by demanding--"Wh