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Updated: June 24, 2025
Two hours after daylight, the minister himself appeared, and, on the report of the watchers, caused the country to be alarmed, and a general and exact search to be made through the whole neighbourhood of the cottage and the oak-tree. But it was all in vain. Elspat MacTavish was never found, whether dead or alive; nor could there ever be traced the slightest circumstance to indicate her fate.
So saying, MacPhadraick hastened back up the pathway, gained the road, mounted his pony, and rode upon his way. Elspat MacTavish remained gazing on the money as if the impress of the coin could have conveyed information how it was procured. "I love not this MacPhadraick," she said to herself.
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.
The clergyman was at no loss to conceive that Elspat had lost the Roman Catholic faith without gaining any other, and that she still retained a vague and confused idea of the composition with the priesthood, by confession, alms, and penance, and of their extensive power, which, according to her notion, was adequate, if duly propitiated, even to effecting her son's safety.
And when he fell at length for she anticipated for him no bloodless death Elspat would ere then have lain long in the grave, and could neither see his death-struggle nor mourn over his grave-sod. With such wild notions working in her brain, the spirit of Elspat rose to its usual pitch, or, rather, to one which seemed higher.
He took the cloak, however, and proceeding with the provident caution of a spaniel hiding a bone, concealed it among some furze and carefully marked the spot, observing that, if he chanced to return that way, it would be an excellent rokelay for his auld mother Elspat.
The energy of the language, somewhat allied to hyperbole, even in its most ordinary expressions, now seemed almost too weak to afford Elspat the means of bringing out the splendid picture which she presented to her son of the land in which she proposed to him to take refuge. Yet the colours were few with which she could paint her Highland paradise.
The unfortunate young man again clasped his hands together, and, pressing them to his forehead, hid his face upon the bed. Elspat was now really alarmed, and perhaps wished the fatal deceit had been left unattempted.
His mother was scarcely sure that she actually discerned his form on the bed, scarce certain that her ear caught the sound of his breathing. With a throbbing heart, Elspat went to the fireplace in the centre of the hut, where slumbered, covered with a piece of turf, the glimmering embers of the fire, never extinguished on a Scottish hearth until the indwellers leave the mansion for ever.
Was it not Lachlan MacIan, whom we remember of old, whose head was struck off by order of his chieftain for shooting at the stag before him?" "Ay," said Elspat, "and right he had to lose it, since he dishonoured the father of the people even in the face of the assembled clan. But the chiefs were noble in their ire; they punished with the sharp blade, and not with the baton.
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