ing by his side, pouring forth
exhortations of courage and consolation, to which the youth appeared
to listen with respectful devotion. With slow, and, it seemed, almost
unwilling steps, the firing party entered the square, and were drawn
up facing the prisoner, about ten yards distant. The clergyman was now
about to retire. "Think, my son," he said, "on what I have told you, and
let your hope be rested on the anchor which I have given. You will then
exchange a short and miserable existence here for a life in which you
will experience neither sorrow nor pain. Is there aught else which you
can entrust to me to execute for you?"

The youth looked at his sleeve buttons. They were of gold, booty perhaps
which his father had taken from some English officer during the civil
wars. The clergyman disengaged them from his sleeves.

"My mother!" he said with some effort--"give them to my poor mother! See
her, good father, and teach her what she should think of all this. Tell
her Hamish Bean is more glad to die than ever he was to rest after the
longest day's hunting. Farewell, sir--farewell!"

The good man could scarce retire from the fatal spot. An officer
afforded him the support of his arm. At his last look towards Hamish,
he beheld him alive and kneeling on the coffin; the few that were around
him had all withdrawn. The fatal word was given, the rock rung sharp to
the sound of the discharge, and Hamish, falling forward with a groan,
died, it may be supposed, without almost a sense of the passing agony.

Ten or twelve of his own company then came forward, and laid with solemn
reverence the remains of their comrade in the coffin, while the Dead
March was again struck up, and the several companies, marching in single
files, passed the coffin one by one, in order that all might receive
from the awful spectacle the warning which it was peculiarly intended to
afford. The regiment was then marched off the ground, and reascended the
ancient cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions, striking lively
strains, as if sorrow, or even deep thought, should as short a while as
possible be the tenant of the soldier's bosom.

At the same time the small party, which we before mentioned, bore the
bier of the ill-fated Hamish to his humble grave, in a corner of the
churchyard of Dunbarton, usually assigned to criminals. Here, among the
dust of the guilty, lies a youth, whose name, had he survived the ruin
of the fatal events by which he w