'Oh, mother, do not speak or think of that!' I exclaimed, hastily, while half kneeling and half embracing her, 'there is to be a gathering on the Braes, and a shooting-match. Miss Everingham gives a hundred sovereigns—think of that, mother, a hundred sovereigns to the best rifle-shot. I may win them, or Callum, and that prize would pay a portion of our debts; hear me, mother, dear mother! and if I lose, there is still hope for us in Callum. We have done this man, Sir Horace, a service—Callum Dhu saved him from a dreadful death at the Black Water—might we not ask a little time, a little mercy at least, for your sake, mother?'
'No! I would rather perish than stoop to sue from such as he, for mercy or for grace. No, no; if it is written in the book of fate that the stranger shall rule here, then let our glen be swept bare as the Braes of Lochaber. But oh, mo mhac! mo mhac! (my son! my son!) your home and grave will lie in a land that is distant far from mine.'
'Mo mhathair! mo mhathair!' I exclaimed in a wild burst of grief at her words, which I vainly endeavour to give here literally in English; 'even when you are gone, I cannot go to that distant land beyond the Atlantic. There is no heather there, nor aught that speaks of home; the broad salt sea shall never roll between your resting-place and mine. I will trust to the honesty, the manliness, and the sympathy of Sir Horace; he will never be so cruel as to unhouse the widow of a brave Highland officer, who carried the colours of the Black Watch at the Battle of the Pyramids, and led three assaults at Burgos and Badajoz.'
My mother was a Scottish matron of the old school—a genuine Highlander, with all a Highlander's impulsive spirit, warmth of heart and temper—their pride and their prejudices if you will; but honest prejudices withal, of that bluff olden time which scorned and spurned the cold-blooded conventionality of the new. My suggestions or hopes of temporizing with Sir Horace, whom she could never be brought to view otherwise than as a sorner in the land, and usurper of our patrimony, though the poor man had bought it legally, honestly, and fairly at its then market-price, brought on such a paroxysm of irritation, sorrow, and weakness, that I became seriously alarmed for her life, and committed her to the care of Minnie and old Mhari, whose fion-na-uisc a batha, or wine distilled from the birch, was considered in Glen Ora a sovereign remedy 'for all the ills that flesh is heir to;' and was deemed moreover very conducive to strength and longevity.
I was now summoned by Callum, who earnestly begged my company, if I could spare an hour with him.
CHAPTER X.
THE STONE OF THE SUN.
I have now arrived at a point in the history of that acute factor, pious elder, and severe moralist, Mr. Snaggs, which I would willingly, but cannot omit, without leaving in my narrative a hiatus which every dramatist, novelist, historian, and biographer would unanimously condemn. With the suspicion natural to a Celt, Minnie mistrusted Ephraim Snaggs, and informed Callum of the proposed meeting.
Callum's eyes flashed fire! he grasped his skene, and bit his lips, with a dark expression on his brow; for it was well known in the district that two handsome girls had already been wiled by Snaggs to distant towns, where, after a time, all trace of them was lost; and when questioned by their friends (he had taken care to evict and expatriate their relations), he had only groaned, turned up his eyes, twiddled his thumbs, and quoted Blair.
The peculiarity of his request, the solitude of the place, and its traditionary character, excited the keenest suspicion in the mind of Callum Dhu, and he begged of me to accompany him to the trysting-place, to which we accordingly proceeded, and there ensconced ourselves among the thick broom, juniper-bushes, and long wavy bracken, about an hour or so after sunset.