``I am glad she is
gone,'' said one of the younger persons who assisted.
``I would as soon dress a corpse when the
great Fiend himself---God sain us---stood visibly
before us, as when Elspat of the Tree is amongst
us.---Ay---ay, even overmuch intercourse hath she
had with the Enemy in her day.''
``Silly woman,'' answered the female who had
maintained the dialogue with the departed Elspat,
``thinkest thou that there is a worse fiend on earth,
or beneath it, than the pride and fury of an offended
woman, like yonder bloody-minded hag? Know
that blood has been as familiar to her as the dew
to the mountain-daisy. Many and many a brave
man has she caused to breathe their last for little
wrong they had done to her or theirs. But her
hough-sinews are cut, now that her wolf-burd must,
like a murderer as he is, make a murderer's end.''
Whilst the women thus discoursed together, as
they watched the corpse of Allan Breack Cameron,
the unhappy cause of his death pursued her lonely
way across the mountain. While she remained
within sight of the bothy, she put a strong constraint
on herself, that by no alteration of pace or
gesture, she might afford to her enemies the triumph
of calculating the excess of her mental agitation,
nay, despair.
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