''
``Mother,'' said Hamish, proudly, ``lay not faint
heart to my charge. I go where men are wanted
who have strong arms and bold hearts too. I leave
a desert, for a land where I may gather fame.''
``And you leave your mother to perish in want,
age, and solitude,'' said Elspat, essaying successively
every means of moving a resolution, which she
began to see was more deeply rooted than she had
at first thought.
``Not so, neither,'' he answered; ``I leave you
to comfort and certainty, which you have yet never
known. Barcaldine's son is made a leader, and
with him I have enrolled myself; MacPhadraick
acts for him, and raises men, and finds his own in
doing it.''
``That is the truest word of the tale, were all
the rest as false as hell,'' said the old woman, bitterly.
``But we are to find our good in it also,'' continued
Hamish; ``for Barcaldine is to give you a
shieling in his wood of Letter-findreight, with grass
for your goats, and a cow, when you please to have
one, on the common; and my own pay, dearest
mother, though I am far away, will do more than
provide you with meal, and with all else you can
want. Do not fear for me. I enter a private gentleman;
but I will return, if hard fighting and
regular duty can deserve it, an officer, and with half
a dollar a-day.
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