“The Lord preserve my puir bairn!” was the instantaneous and instinctive exclamation of the agonized and now demented mother, springing at the same time from her couch, and catching up her child with a look of the most despairing alarm.  A cloud of darkened feeling seemed to pass over the face and features of the infant,[*] and a cry of helpless suffering succeeded, at once to comfort and to madden the mother.  “A murderous and monstrous herd are ye all,” said she, again resuming her position, and pressing the affrighted, rather than injured child to her breast.  “Limbs of Satan and enemies of God, begone!  He whom ye seek is not here; nor will the God he serves and you defy, ever suffer him, I fervently hope and trust, to fall into your merciless and unhallowed hands.”

  [note *:  “In the light of heaven its face
  Grew dark as they were speaking.”]

At this instant a boy about twelve years of age was dragged into the room, and questioned respecting the place of his father’s retreat, sometimes in a coaxing, and at others in a threatening manner.  The boy presented, to every inquiry, the aspect of dogged resistance and determined silence.

“Have the bear’s cub to the croft,” said Clavers, “and shoot him on the spot.”

The boy was immediately removed; and the distracted mother left, happily for herself, in a state of complete insensibility.  There grew, and there still grows, a rowan-tree in the corner of the garden or kailyard of Mitchelslacks; to this tree or bush the poor boy was fastened with cords, having his eyes bandaged, and being made to understand, that, if he did not reveal his father’s retreat, a ball would immediately pass through his brain.  The boy shivered, attempted to speak, then seemed to recover strength and resolution, and continued silent.

“Do you wish to smell gunpowder?” ejaculated Rob, firing a pistol immediately under his nose, whilst the ball perforated the earth a few paces off.

The boy uttered a loud and unearthly scream, and his head sunk upon his breast.  At this instant, the aroused and horrified mother was seen on her bended knees, with clasped hands, and eyes in which distraction rioted, at the feet of the destroyers.  But nature, which had given her strength for the effort, now deserted her, and she fell lifeless at the feet of her apparently murdered son.  Even the heart of Clavers was somewhat moved at this scene; and he was in the act of giving orders for an immediate retreat, when there rushed into the circle, in all the frantic wildness of a maniac, at once the father and the husband.  He had observed from his retreat the doings of that fearful hour:  and, having every reason to conclude that he was purchasing his own safety at the expense of the lives of his whole family, he had issued from the cave, and hurled himself from the steep, and was now in the presence of those whom he deemed the murderers of his family.