On hearing of the step her adopted son had taken, she gave way to the most poignant grief.
"Oh, my bairn! my bairn!" she cried, "are ye gaun to leave me? Can ye hae the heart to desert her wha has carried ye in her arms through frost and snaw, through wind and weet--frae the time ye was a cradled wean till ye was able to tak the road yersel--wha has tended ye nicht an' day, wi' a mother's care, frae that time till this hoor--and wha has mony and aft the time sheltered ye in her bosom frae the biting blast which was like to cut short the thread o' her ain life? Ay, warm and dry hae I aften keepit ye then, when I was mysel' perishin wi' baith hunger and cauld, nane o' whilk, I trow, e'er came near ye. But ye shanna gang wi' the redcoats, Gordon," she added, with a determined air; "rather than ye should do that, I'll tell the haill secret we hae a' keepit sae lang, although it should bring every ane o' us to the gibbet--and that'll prevent ye gaun, I jalouse."
"That ye won't, old devil," here chimed in a ferocious-looking member of the gang. "We'll tak care o' that. Ye ken we hae a way o' disposing o' tell-tales, Jean; and, if ye talk o' peaching, ye shall hae a taste o't, I warrant."
To this threat Jean made no reply, and probably she would have entirely disregarded it, had there been no other inducement for her to keep silence on the subject she hinted at. But other inducements there were. Had she divulged the secret to which she alluded, and which was no other than that of Gordon's real parentage, she would have exposed two brothers and a husband to the vengeance of the law--and this consideration at once checked the resolution she had begun to entertain.
To return to our story. Jean's expostulations with Gordon on the step he had taken, and her appeals to his gratitude, in behalf of her wish to induce him to remain with her, were not unheeded by the young man, who readily acknowledged, with a tear in his eye while he spoke, all her kindnesses to him. But it was now too late. The deed was done, and there was no recalling it; neither, it must be confessed, did Gordon wish it should be recalled.
We have said that there was none of the little community to which Gordon belonged, who felt so much at the prospect of his leaving them as Jean; but this was not strictly correct. There was another who felt even more than she did; although these feelings were not, in every particular, of precisely the same description. That other person was Jean's daughter--a little black-eyed gipsy of about eighteen years of age, and between whom and Gordon there had long subsisted a mutual attachment.