Oh, England! I hae likeit ye sae weel, ye suld na rob me o' my lad--he's a' the joy I hae!" "I love you," said Gatty.

"Do you love me ?" All the answer was, her head upon his shoulder.
"I can't do it," thought Gatty, "and I won't! Christie," said he, "stay here, don't move from here." And he dashed among the boats in great agitation.
He found his mother rather near the scene of the late conference.
"Mother," said he, fiercely, like a coward as he was, "ask me no more, my mind is made up forever; I will not do this scoundrelly, heartless, beastly, ungrateful action you have been pushing me to so long." "Take care, Charles, take care," said the old woman, trembling with passion, for this was a new tone for her son to take with her.

"You had my blessing the other day, and you saw what followed it; do not tempt me to curse an undutiful, disobedient, ungrateful son." "I must take my chance," said he, desperately, "for I am under a curse any way! I placed my ring on her finger, and held up my hand to God and swore she should be my wife; she has my ring and my oath, and I will not perjure myself even for my mother." "Your ring! Not the ruby ring I gave you from your dead father's finger--not that! not that!" "Yes! yes! I tell you yes! and if he was alive, and saw her, and knew her goodness, he would have pity on me, but I have no friend; you see how ill you have made me, but you have no pity; I could not have believed it; but, since you have no mercy on me, I will have the more mercy on myself; I marry her to-morrow, and put an end to all this shuffling and maneuvering against an angel! I am not worthy of her, but I'll marry her to-morrow.

Good-by." "Stay!" said the old woman, in a terrible voice; "before you destroy me and all I have lived for, and suffered, and pinched for, hear me; if that ring is not off the hussy's finger in half an hour, and you my son again, I fall on this sand and--" "Then God have mercy upon me, for I'll see the whole creation lost eternally ere I'll wrong the only creature that is an ornament to the world." He was desperate; and the weak, driven to desperation, are more furious than the strong.
It was by Heaven's mercy that neither mother nor son had time to speak again.
As they faced each other, with flaming eyes and faces, all self-command gone, about to utter hasty words, and lay up regret, perhaps for all their lives to come, in a moment, as if she had started from the earth, Christie Johnstone stood between them! Gatty's words, and, still more, his hesitation, had made her quick intelligence suspect.

She had resolved to know the truth; the boats offered every facility for listening--she had heard every word.
She stood between the mother and son.
They were confused, abashed, and the hot blood began to leave their faces.
She stood erect like a statue, her cheek pale as ashes, her eyes glittering like basilisks, she looked at neither of them.
She slowly raised her left hand, she withdrew a ruby ring from it, and dropped the ring on the sand between the two.
She turned on her heel, and was gone as she had come, without a word spoken.
They looked at one another, stupefied at first; after a considerable pause the stern old woman stooped, picked up the ring, and, in spite of a certain chill that the young woman's majestic sorrow had given her, said, placing it on her own finger, "This is for your wife!!!" "It will be for my coffin, then," said her son, so coldly, so bitterly and so solemnly that the mother's heart began to quake.
"Mother," said he calmly, "forgive me, and accept your son's arm.
"I will, my son!" "We are alone in the world now, mother." Mrs.Gatty had triumphed, but she felt the price of her triumph more than her victory.