'Sir Horace—well,' she muttered with a sigh of anger.
'Yes, dear mother—Laura Everingham and her friend, Miss Clavering, have made up a purse of guineas (some say fifty, others a hundred) with a silver brooch, for the best rifle-shot, and Callum and I have sworn to win it if we can.'
'How many better marksmen than either of you have, ere this, sworn the same thing?'
'But God will aid me, mother. I will shoot neither with pride nor with a desire to emulate any one; but to find bread for our starving household—to satisfy the cravings of the villain Snaggs, and to keep this roof a little—a very little—longer over your head.'
'And this prize you say——'
'Will, at least, be fifty guineas, mother—think of that.'
'Scorn alike the prize and the donor.'
'The prize I may—but the donor—ah, mother, you know her not; but think of this money and all it may do, if fairly and honestly won; how long is it since we saw fifty guineas at once, mother? It will pay part of our arrears, and win us a little time, if it cannot win us mercy from Snaggs and his master.'
I dared not add that I had also in my breast a desire to appear to advantage before the winning daughter of Sir Horace, and the lingering hope of eclipsing the holiday Captain Clavering and that mustachioed popinjay Mr. Snobleigh, who had been rifle-practising incessantly to gain the ladies' prize. Yielding to the pressure of our affairs, and, perhaps, to her inability to argue the point with me, my mother gave her reluctant consent that I might compete.
She was very weak and faint, and before I left her, beckoned me to kiss her cheek. Then she burst into tears, and this sorely startled me—for it was long since I had seen her weep. Her great lassitude required composure, and more than all, it required many comforts, which, in that sequestered district, and with straitened means, she was compelled to relinquish: thus, when I addressed her now, a time always elapsed before she could collect her scattered energies to understand or reply to me. This prostration of a spirit once so proud, so fiery and energetic—this emaciation of a form once so stately and so beautiful, with those gentle hands now so tremulous—those kind eyes now so sad and sunken, and those weak, querulous whisperings of affection, with the pallor of that beloved face, smote heavily on my heart, which was traversed by more than one sharp pang, as the terrible conviction came upon me, that she could not be long with us now. Yet Mhari, Minnie, and Callum Dhu, all strong in the belief of the legend of the Red Priest of Applecross, believed that she was perfectly safe while enclosed by the four charmed walls of the old jointure-house.