Hamish Bean took the gun which his mother offered, but did not stir from the door of the hut. He was soon visible to the party on the highroad, as was evident from their increasing their pace to a run--the files, however, still keeping together like coupled greyhounds, and advancing with great rapidity. In far less time than would have been accomplished by men less accustomed to the mountains, they had left the highroad, traversed the narrow path, and approached within pistol-shot of the bothy, at the door of which stood Hamish, fixed like a statue of stone, with his firelock in his band, while his mother, placed behind him, and almost driven to frenzy by the violence of her passions, reproached him in the strongest terms which despair could invent, for his want of resolution and faintness of heart. Her words increased the bitter gall which was arising in the young man’s own spirit, as he observed the unfriendly speed with which his late comrades were eagerly making towards him, like hounds towards the stag when he is at bay. The untamed and angry passions which he inherited from father and mother, were awakened by the supposed hostility of those who pursued him; and the restraint under which these passions had been hitherto held by his sober judgment began gradually to give way. The sergeant now called to him, “Hamish Bean MacTavish, lay down your arms and surrender.” “Do YOU stand, Allan Breack Cameron, and command your men to stand, or it will be the worse for us all.” “Halt, men,” said the sergeant, but continuing himself to advance. “Hamish, think what you do, and give up your gun; you may spill blood, but you cannot escape punishment.” “The scourge--the scourge--my son, beware the scourge!” whispered his mother. “Take heed, Allan Breack,” said Hamish. “I would not hurt you willingly, but I will not be taken unless you can assure me against the Saxon lash.” “Fool!” answered Cameron, “you know I cannot. Yet I will do all I can. I will say I met you on your return, and the punishment will be light; but give up your musket--Come on, men.” Instantly he rushed forward, extending his arm as if to push aside the young man’s levelled firelock. 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?”