Scotland/Scots > Wilson's tales of the Borders and of Scotland > Volume 3

THE HIGHLAND HOT.
237
however resigned he might have been to his boy’s having
met with a natural death, his fortitude was unequal to
the dreadful trial it was now called on to sustain. On
coming again to himself, the unfortunate man left the office
without exchanging a word with any one, and returned to
his own house. When he entered, his wife, as was her
usual practice, eagerly inquired if he had yet heard any
tidings of their son; but she soon saw that she had no
occasion whatever to put the question. The haggard
countenance of her husband—a countenance in which the
utmost depth of human misery was strongly depicted—
assured her at once that tidings had been heard of the boy,
and that these were of the most dismal land.
“ He’s dead, then,” she screamed out, on looking on the
wo-begone, or rather horror-stricken face of her husband
—“ my boy is gone.” And she flung herself on the floor
in a paroxysm of grief and despair.
To his wife’s exclamations, M'Lauchlane made no reply,
but threw himself on a bed, and buried his head beneath
the clothes. But this covering did not conceal the dread¬
ful writhings of the crushed spirit beneath. The bed¬
clothes heaved with the violent emotions that shook the
powerful frame of the miserable sufferer. From that bed
M'Lauchlane never again rose. He never, however, told
his wife of the unhappy death her son had died; steadily
I and even sternly resisting all the importunities on that ap¬
palling subj ect; and whether she ever learned it, we are
not aware.