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.

390 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
"He is gone, he is gone!" exclaimed Elspat; "he has sold himself to be
the servant of the Saxons, and I shall never more behold him! Tell me,
Miles MacPhadraick, for now I know you, is it the price of the son's blood
that you have put into the mother's hand?"
"Now, God forbid!" answered MacPhadraick, who was a tacksman, and
had possession of a considerable tract of ground under his Chief, a proprietor
who lived about twenty miles off-" God forbid I should do wrong, or say
wrong, to you, or to the son of MacTavish Mhor! I swear to you by the
hand of my Chief, that your son is well, and will soon see you, and the rest
he will tell you himself." So saying, MacPhadraick hastened back up the
pathway, gained the road, mounted his pony, and rode upon his way.
tf4pqtr tat ~Iir.
ELSPAT MACTAVISH remained gazing on the money, as if the impress of
the coin could have conveyed information how it was procured.
"I love not this MacPhadraick," she said to herself; "it was his race
of whom the Bard hath spoken, saying, Fear them not when their words
are loud as the winter's wind, but fear them when they fall on you like the
sound of the thrush's song. And yet this riddle can be read but one way:
My son hath taken the sword, to win that with strength like a man, which
churls would keep him from with the words that frighten children." This
idea, when once it occurred to her, seemed the more reasonable, that MacPhadraick, as she well knew, himself a cautious man, had so far encouraged
her husband's practices, as occasionally to buy cattle of MacTavish, although
he must have well known how they were come by, taking care, however, that
the transaction was so made, as to be accompanied with great profit and
absolute safety. Who so likely as MacPhadraick to indicate to a young
cateran the glen in which he could commence his perilous trade with most
prospect of success? who so likely to convert his booty into money? The
feelings which another might have experienced on believing that an only
son had rushed forward on the same path in which his father had perished,
were scarce known to the Highland mothers of that day. She thought of
the death of MacTavish Mhor as that of a hero who had fallen in his proper trade of war, and who had not fallen unavenged. She feared less for
her son's life than for his dishonour. She dreaded on his account the subjection to strangers, and the death-sleep of the soul which is brought on by
what she regarded as slavery.
The moral principle which so naturally and so justly occurs to the mind
of those who have been educated under a settled government of laws that
protect the property of the weak against the incursions of the strong, was
to poor Elspat a book sealed and a fountain closed. She had been taught
to consider those whom they called Saxons, as a race with whom the Gael
were constantly at war, and she regarded every settlement of theirs within
the reach of Highland incursion, as affording a legitimate object of attack
and plunder. ter feelings on this point had been strengthened and confirmed, not only by the desire of revenge for the death of her husband, but
by the sense of general indignation entertained, not unjustly, through the
Highlands of Scotland, on account of the barbarous and violent conduct of
the victors after the battle of Culloden. Other Highland clans, too, she
regarded as the fair objects of plunder when that was possible, upon the
score of ancient enmities, and deadly feuds.