l a mother she has murdered her only
child?"

"God knows," said the priest, the tears falling fast from his eyes,
"that were it in my power, I would gladly tell better tidings. But these
which I bear are as certain as they are fatal. My own ears heard the
death-shot, my own eyes beheld thy son's death--thy son's funeral. My
tongue bears witness to what my ears heard and my eyes saw."

The wretched female clasped her bands close together, and held them up
towards heaven like a sibyl announcing war and desolation, while, in
impotent yet frightful rage, she poured forth a tide of the deepest
imprecations. "Base Saxon churl!" she exclaimed--"vile hypocritical
juggler! May the eyes that looked tamely on the death of my fair-haired
boy be melted in their sockets with ceaseless tears, shed for those
that are nearest and most dear to thee! May the ears that heard his
death-knell be dead hereafter to all other sounds save the screech of
the raven, and the hissing of the adder! May the tongue that tells me of
his death and of my own crime, be withered in thy mouth--or better, when
thou wouldst pray with thy people, may the Evil One guide it, and give
voice to blasphemies instead of blessings, until men shall fly in terror
from thy presence, and the thunder of heaven be launched against thy
head, and stop for ever thy cursing and accursed voice! Begone, with
this malison! Elspat will never, never again bestow so many words upon
living man."

She kept her word. From that day the world was to her a wilderness, in
which she remained without thought, care, or interest, absorbed in her
own grief, indifferent to every thing else.

With her mode of life, or rather of existence, the reader is already as
far acquainted as I have the power of making him. Of her death, I can
tell him nothing. It is supposed to have happened several years after
she had attracted the attention of my excellent friend Mrs. Bethune
Baliol. Her benevolence, which was never satisfied with dropping a
sentimental tear, when there was room for the operation of effective
charity, induced her to make various attempts to alleviate the condition
of this most wretched woman. But all her exertions could only render
Elspat's means of subsistence less precarious--a circumstance which,
though generally interesting even to the most wretched outcasts, seemed
to her a matter of total indifference. Every attempt to place any
person in her hut to take charge of her miscarried,