Two days after this affair, on the application of Mr. Snaggs, the sheriff of the county granted warrants of removal against every family in the glen; and these long-dreaded notices of eviction were duly served in form of law by a messenger-at-arms, in the name of 'Fungus Mac Fee, Esquire, Advocate and Sheriff,' a position that worthy had gained, after the usual lapse of time spent in sweeping the Scottish Parliament House with the tail of his gown.
Six days now would seal our doom!
Such was the result of poor Minnie's intercession for her old uncle, with the admirer of the 'divine Blair.'
CHAPTER XI.
MY MOTHER.
My mother was now so frail, weakened by long illness and by being almost constantly confined to bed, that I dared not communicate to her the fatal 'notice,' which had been served on us, in common with all the people in the glen; but I never hoped that she would remain long ignorant of the ruin that hovered over all, while the garrulous old Mhari was daily about her sick-bed.
The moanings and mutterings of that aged crone, together with her occasional remarks whispered in Gaelic, of course to Minnie, soon acquainted the poor patient that every door in the glen, including her own, had been chalked with a mark of terrible significance; and that the crushed remnant of a brave old race which had dwelt by the Ora for ages—yea, before the Roman eagles cowered upon the Scottish frontier—was at last to be swept away.
It gave her a dreadful shock—our fate she knew was fixed: and while Mhari, Minnie, and the older people of the glen, croaked incessantly among themselves of the old legend of the Red Priest and 'the curse he had laid on the stones of the jointure-house,' my mind was a chaos; for I knew not on what hand to turn, or where to seek a shelter for my mother's head. She had her little pension as a captain's widow—true; but we had so many dependants who clung to us in the good old Celtic fashion, and for whom our little farm had furnished subsistence, that to be driven from it was to tear asunder a hundred tender and long-cherished ties, which few but a Highlander can comprehend.
A little hope was kindled in my breast, by my foster-brother reminding me of that which (in the hurry of other thoughts I had forgotten)—the great annual gathering on the Braes of Loch Ora being now almost at hand; and that he or I—it mattered not which—might win one of the handsome prizes which the generosity of Cluny Mac Pherson, the Laird of Invercauld, and other true Highland gentlemen, offered to the men of the mountains on such occasions, to foster their ancient spirit, to develop their hardihood, and excite their emulation in feats of strength and skill.
'Mother,' I whispered, and stooped over her bed, 'the gathering takes place in three days—the daughter of the Englishman——'