The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

388 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
aware of the extremely reduced scale to which his parent was limited, and
learned that she possessed little or nothing more than the absolute necessaries of life, and that these were sometimes on the point of failing. At
times his success in fishing and the chase was able to add something to her
subsistence; but he saw no regular means of contributing to her support,
unless by stooping to servile labour, which, if he himself could have endured
it, would, he knew, have been like a death's-wound to the pride of his mother.
Elspat, meanwhile, saw with surprise, that Hamish Bean, although now
tall and fit for the field, showed no disposition to enter on his father's scene
of action. There was something of the mother at her heart, which prevented
her from urging him in plain terms to take the field as a cateran, for the
fear occurred of the perils into which the trade must conduct him; and
when she would have spoken to him on the subject, it seemed to her heated
imagination as if the ghost of her husband arose between them in his bloody
tartans, and laying his finger on his lips, appeared to prohihit the topic.
Yet she wondered at what seemed his want of spirit, sighed-as she saw
him.from day to day lounging about in the long-skirted Lowland coat, which
the legislature had imposed upon the Gael instead of their own romantic
garb, and thought how much nearer he would have resembled her husband,
had he been clad in the belted plaid and short hose, with his polished arms
gleaming at his side.
Besides these subjects for anxiety, Elspat had others arising from the
engrossing impetuosity of her temper. Her love of MacTavish Mhor had
been qualified by respect and sometimes even by fear; for the cateran was
not the species of man who submits to female government; but over his son
she had exerted, at first during childhood, and afterwards in early youth, an
imperious authority, which gave her maternal love a character of jealousy.
She could not bear, when Hamish, with advancing life, made repeated steps
towards independence, absented himself from her cottage at such season,
and for such length of time as he chose, and seemed to consider, although
maintaining towards her every possible degree of respect and kindness,
that the control and responsibility of his actions rested on himself alone.
This would have been of little consequence, could she have concealed her
feelings within her own bosom; but the ardour and impatience of her
passions made her frequently show her son that she conceived herself
neglected and ill-used. When he was absent for any length of time from
her cottage, without giving intimation of his purpose, her resentment on
his return used to be so unreasonable, that it naturally suggested to a young
man, fond of independence, and desirous to amend his situation in the world,
to leave her, even for the very purpose of enabling him to provide for the
parent whose egotistical demands on his filial attention tended to confine
him to a desert, in which both were starving in hopeless and helpless
indigence.
Upon one occasion, the son having been guilty of some independent excursion, by which the mother felt herself affronted and disobliged, she had
been more than usually violent on his return, and awakened in Hamish a
sense of displeasure, which clouded his brow and cheek. At length, as she
persevered in her unreasonable resentment, his patience became exhausted,
and taking his gun from the chimney corner, and muttering to himself the
reply which his respect for his mother prevented him from speaking aloud,
he was about to leave the hut which he had but barely entered.
"Hamish," said his mother, "are you again about to leave me?" But
Hamish only replied by looking at, and rubbing the lock of his gun.
"Ay, rub the lock of your gun," said his parent bitterly; "I am glad
you have courage enough to fire it, though it be but at a roe-deer." Hamish
started at this undeserved taunt, and cast a look of anger at her in reply.
She saw that she had found the means of giving him pain..
"Yes," she said, "look fierce as you will at an old woman, and your