Now a mournful cry came at times upon the wind of the valley, and made her blood curdle. Was it the voice of a spirit of the air, or of a water-cow, that had come down the stream from the loch? Again and again it fell upon her ear, till at last she recognized it to be the howling of her son's companion and favourite, the little otter terrier; and she rushed forward to discover the dog, which was concealed by some tufts of broom. The sweet perfume of the bog-myrtle was filling the atmosphere as the dew fell on its leaves; and now, deep down in the glen, where the soil had never been stirred, where the heather grew thick and soft, and where the yellow broom shed "its tassels on the lea," the poor woman found her son, her only child, lying dead, and covered with blood. His right hand still grasped his skene dhu, and near him lay the chanter, to the notes of which Oina had sung, and a black, ravenous glede soared away from the spot as she approached. At first, his white and ghastly face, his fixed and glazed eyes, struck terror on the mother's soul, and she shrunk back--shrunk from the babe she had borne, the child she had nursed; then she cast herself in wild despair beside the body--in such despair as had never filled her heart since the Grahames of Montrose had hanged her husband, Ian Bane, on the old yew-tree of Kincardine, for the crime of being a--MacGregor. Then endued by frenzy with superhuman strength, she snatched up the dead boy, and bore him in her arms, sending shriek after shriek before her, as she rushed through the glen and across the moorland, towards the clachan of Inversnaid. It was her cry that Rob Roy heard, as he paused at his own threshold, and turning away, he hastened to meet her, just as she sank at the door of her cottage. The whole population of the clachan was speedily alarmed, and the wailing of the women mingled with the deep-muttered vengeance of the men, as they began to arm, and looked to Rob Roy for orders and instructions. CHAPTER IV. THE HOLY STEEL. The inhabitants of the little hamlet were soon assembled in and around the hut of the widow of Ian Bane. The latter had been a brave man, sacrificed in their feud with the Grahames, after the battle of Killycrankie, where he had served under Viscount Dundee. He was long remembered on the Braes of Balquhidder, as an expert swordsman, a hardy deer-stalker, and a careful drover of cattle for the English and Lowland markets, where he had wont to march after his herds, with his sword at his side, and a target slung on his back, as was then the custom of the Highlanders to go to fair and market. A few lines will describe the residence of his widow.