The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

658 llie Highland Mo)ithly.
and stared. A great terror appeared to awaken within her,
and multiply in intensity at each tone of the bell.
Ding ! How solemn and strong old Tammas rung out
the dirge ! Elspcth, with a cr\- of distress, rushed out of
the hut, as an hysterical woman does at a precipice, and
never drew breath till she had reached the verge of the
wood, and had the Castle, the kirk, and the open country
beneatli her view. She saw the famil\- flag proclaiming its
.sad message on the Castle turret ; the
t^roups or rushing hither and thither ; the
people gathering in
first rays of the
sun struck the bell itself, and she could anticipate each
Her mood changed as her eyes rested upon a
ding !
shattered pile—her former abode—over against a boulder-
clad knoll in that field below the Castle.
At the sight Elspeth's hands clenched, her features
once more she was the Witch,
shook off their terror ; and
cruel, cunning, and forbidding, cursing after her fashion, a
maniac in all but the strait-jacket. Witches have not
ceased to live ; the national as\'lums ha\"e onh- become
more absorbing.
" Curse !
tlie bell.
curse
!
curse
!
" Curse the rotten-hearted laird ;
and kin ;
curse
the house ;
may
—
" she repeated at each ring of
curse his proud kith
the mortar turn tae dust,
and a' its stanes fa', fa', fa' tae their nati\-e grund, as those
of my hoose did at his biddin'. I see twa green graves ; I
se^i thp craws biggin' their nests in a roofless Castle ;
Tammas has his work afore him ! Ha, ha, ha ! Ding awa ;
Ding ! Ding !
"
Ding !
aukl
After giving utterance to these incoherences, Klspeth
re-entered the wood, gesticulating and muttering ; and
once more she began the operation of lighting her peat
fire. The bell still tolled doleful!}- its message. By and
bye, as some resinous \\ood burst into flame, her unnatural
paroxysm of rage and hatred subsided, and her feelings
appeared to thaw, and again follow the common plane of
humanity, under the influence of the warmth.