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HAMISH BEAN AND HIS MOTHER.

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"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 high road, 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. . . . They 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 hand; his mother behind him, reproaching him in the strongest terms which despair could invent, for his want of resolution and faintness of heart....I will not be taken,' said Hamish, unless you can secure me against the Saxon lash.'. . . The sergeant 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.

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"But a few brief days passed over, after the enactment of this tragedy, when the unhappy victim of his mother's ungovernable passion, paid the forfeit of his crime in the manner appointed for military executions; being shot to death by his own comrades."-Highland Widow.

"Ir must be so ;-the fleet hour wanes,
The madden'd pulse grows still;
Death! death! is in the wind's low sigh,

The breeze is faint and chill!
The storm that in my spirit raged

Is quiet now, within!

Bright sun! I cannot gaze on thee!
The murderer's eye grows dim.

I leave thee, mother! never more
To hear thy voice again;

Forgive each harsh, upbraiding word,
Wrung from the heart's deep pain.
Forgive me-time is ebbing fast,

My life is passing now,

I leave thee, never to return;
Oh! bless me ere I go!

Full well, thou know'st my father's son
Could never brook the shame

That pour'd contempt upon his race,

And sullied his high name.

Think'st thou I could have still lived on,

With free, rejoicing soul,

Still trod my brave, undaunted way,

To valour's lofty goal?

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