But she neither is mad nor mischievous; and yet,
my leddy, I think you had best not go nearer to her." And then,
in a few hurried words, he made me acquainted with the story
which I am now to tell more in detail. I heard the narrative
with a mixture of horror and sympathy, which at once impelled me
to approach the sufferer, and speak to her the words of comfort,
or rather of pity, and at the same time made me afraid to do so.
This indeed was the feeling with which she was regarded by the
Highlanders in the neighbourhood, who looked upon Elspat
MacTavish, or the Woman of the Tree, as they called her, as the
Greeks considered those who were pursued by the Furies, and
endured the mental torment consequent on great criminal actions.
They regarded such unhappy beings as Orestes and OEdipus, as
being less the voluntary perpetrators of their crimes than as the
passive instruments by which the terrible decrees of Destiny had
been accomplished; and the fear with which they beheld them was
not unmingled with veneration.
I also learned further from Donald MacLeish, that there was some
apprehension of ill luck attending those who had the boldness to
approach too near, or disturb the awful solitude of a being so
unutterably miserable--that it was supposed that whosoever
approached her must experience in some respect the contagion of
her wretchedness.
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