"
"Mother," said Hamish, relapsing from his tone of desperate
firmness into one of melancholy expostulation--"oh, dearest
mother, wherefore have you returned hither?"
"Ask why the hind comes back to the fawn," said Elspat, "why the
cat of the mountain returns to her lodge and her young. Know
you, Hamish, that the heart of the mother only lives in the bosom
of the child."
"Then will it soon cease to throb," said Hamish, "unless it can
beat within a bosom that lies beneath the turf. Mother, do not
blame me. If I weep, it is not for myself but for you; for my
sufferings will soon be over, but yours--oh, who but Heaven shall
set a boundary to them?"
Elspat shuddered and stepped backward, but almost instantly
resumed her firm and upright position and her dauntless bearing.
"I thought thou wert a man but even now," she said, "and thou art
again a child. Hearken to me yet, and let us leave this place
together. Have I done thee wrong or injury? if so, yet do not
avenge it so cruelly. See, Elspat MacTavish, who never kneeled
before even to a priest, falls prostrate before her own son, and
craves his forgiveness.
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