Wait here, and receive your taskmasters, and abide your
chastisement at their hands; but do not think your mother's eyes
will behold it. I could not see it and live. My eyes have
looked often upon death, but never upon dishonour. Farewell,
Hamish! We never meet again."
She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and perhaps for the
moment actually entertained the purpose which she expressed, of
parting with her son for ever. A fearful sight she would have
been that evening to any who might have met her wandering through
the wilderness like a restless spirit, and speaking to herself in
language which will endure no translation. She rambled for
hours, seeking rather than shunning the most dangerous paths.
The precarious track through the morass, the dizzy path along the
edge of the precipice or by the banks of the gulfing river, were
the roads which, far from avoiding, she sought with eagerness,
and traversed with reckless haste. But the courage arising from
despair was the means of saving the life which (though deliberate
suicide was rarely practised in the Highlands) she was perhaps
desirous of terminating.
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