Elspat exclaimed, "Now, spare not your father's blood to defend your father's hearth!" Hamish fired his piece, and Cameron dropped dead.

All these things happened, it might be said, in the same moment of time.

The soldiers rushed forward and seized Hamish, who, seeming petrified with what he had done, offered not the least resistance.

Not so his mother, who, seeing the men about to put handcuffs on her son, threw herself on the soldiers with such fury, that it required two of them to hold her, while the rest secured the prisoner.
"Are you not an accursed creature," said one of the men to Hamish, "to have slain your best friend, who was contriving, during the whole march, how he could find some way of getting you off without punishment for your desertion ?" "Do you hear THAT, mother ?" said Hamish, turning himself as much towards her as his bonds would permit; but the mother heard nothing, and saw nothing.

She had fainted on the floor of her hut.