''
``I have lost all, mother,'' replied Hamish, ``since
I have broken my word, and lost my honour. I
might tell my tale, but who, oh, who would believe
me?'' 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.
She had no hope or refuge saving in the eloquence
of persuasion, of which she possessed no small
share, though her total ignorance of the world as
it actually existed, rendered its energy unavailing.
She urged her son, by every tender epithet which
a parent could bestow, to take care for his own
safety.
``Leave me,'' she said, ``to baffle your pursuers.
I will save your life---I will save your honour---I
will tell them that my fair-haired Hamish fell from
the Corrie dhu (black precipice) into the gulf, of
which human eye never beheld the bottom. I will
tell them this, and I will fling your plaid on the
thorns which grow on the brink of the precipice,
that they may believe my words. They will believe,
and they will return to the Dun of the double-crest;
for though the Saxon drum can call the living
to die, it cannot recall the dead to their slavish
standard.
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