"Tuts, man," replied Sir William, "wad he hae us to disgrace our royal commission by hangin' an auld wife an a bairn? Gae awa, ye limmer, ye--gae awa wi' your brat," he added, addressing Elspeth, "an' learn to live like honest folk; or, if ye fa' in my way again, ye shall dance by the crook frae a woodie." "Where can I gang?" said she sorrowfully, as she withdrew. "O Archy! we hae neither house nor hauld--friend nor kindred!--an' wha will shelter the wife and bairn o' poor persecuted Sandy Armstrong!" "Dinna fret, mother," said Archy; "though they hae burned Cleughfoot, the stanes are still left, an' I can soon big a bit place to stop in; nor, while there's a hare in Tarras wood, or a sheep on the Leadhills, shall ye ever want, mother." They returned in sorrow to the heap of ruins that had been their habitation; and Elspeth, in the bitterness of her spirit, sat down upon the stones and wept. But after she had wept long, and the sound of her lamentation had howled across the desert, she arose and assisted her son in constructing a hut from the ruins, in which they might lay their heads. In two days it was completed, but, on the third day, the disconsolate wife of the freebooter sank on her bed of rushes, and the sickness of death was in her heart. "Oh, speak to me, mother!" cried Archy; "what--what can I do for ye?" "Naethin', my bairn!--naethin'!" groaned the dying woman--"the sun's fa'in dark on the een o' Elspeth Armstrong; but, oh, may the saunts o' heaven protect my poor Archy!" She tried to repeat the only prayer she had ever learned--for religion was as little understood in the house of a freebooter as the eighth commandment. Poor Archy wrung his hands and sobbed aloud. "Dinna die, mother--oh! dinna die!" he exclaimed, "or what will become o' your Archy!" He rushed from the hut, and with a broken vessel which he had found among the ruins, he brought water from the rivulet. He applied it to her lips--he bathed her brow--"O mother! mother, dinna die!" he cried again, "and I will get you bread too!" He again hurried from the hut, and bounded across the moss with the fleetness of a young deer. It was four long miles to the nearest habitation, and in it dwelt Ringan Scott, a dependent of the Buccleuchs. There had never been friendship between his family and that of Sandy Armstrong, but, in the agony of Archy's feelings, he stopped not to think of that nor of aught but his dying mother. He rushed into the house--"Gie me bread!" he exclaimed wildly, "for the love o' heaven gie me bread, for my mother is perishin'!" "Let her perish!--an may ye a' perish!" said a young man, the son of Ringan, who stood by the fire with his right hand in a sling, "ye's get nae bread here."