red the astonished mother--"against MY will--without MY
consent! You could not! you would not!" Then rising up, and assuming a
posture of almost imperial command, "Hamish, you DARED not!"

"Despair, mother, dares everything," answered Hamish, in a tone of
melancholy resolution. "What should I do here, where I can scarce get
bread for myself and you, and when the times are growing daily worse?
Would you but sit down and listen, I would convince you I have acted for
the best."

With a bitter smile Elspat sat down, and the same severe ironical
expression was on her features, as, with her lips firmly closed, she
listened to his vindication.

Hamish went on, without being disconcerted by her expected displeasure.
"When I left you, dearest mother, it was to go to MacPhadraick's house;
for although I knew he is crafty and worldly, after the fashion of the
Sassenach, yet he is wise, and I thought how he would teach me, as it
would cost him nothing, in which way I could mend our estate in the
world."

"Our estate in the world!" said Elspat, losing patience at the word;
"and went you to a base fellow with a soul no better than that of a
cowherd, to ask counsel about your conduct? Your father asked none, save
of his courage and his sword."

"Dearest mother," answered Hamish, "how shall I convince you that you
live in this land of our fathers as if our fathers were yet living? You
walk as it were in a dream, surrounded by the phantoms of those who
have been long with the dead. When my father lived and fought, the great
respected the man of the strong right hand, and the rich feared him. He
had protection from Macallum Mhor, and from Caberfae, and tribute from
meaner men. [Caberfae--ANGLICE, the Stag's-head, the Celtic designation
for the arms of the family of the high Chief of Seaforth.] That is
ended, and his son would only earn a disgraceful and unpitied death by
the practices which gave his father credit and power among those
who wear the breacan. The land is conquered; its lights are
quenched--Glengarry, Lochiel, Perth, Lord Lewis, all the high chiefs are
dead or in exile. We may mourn for it, but we cannot help it. Bonnet,
broadsword, and sporran--power, strength, and wealth, were all lost on
Drummossie Muir."

"It is false!" said Elspat, fiercely; "you and such like dastardly
spirits are quelled by your own faint hearts, not by the strength of the
enemy; you are like the fearful waterfowl, to whom the least cloud in
t