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.

THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 391
The prudence that might have weighed the slender means which the times
afforded for resisting the efforts of a combined government, which had, in
its less compact and established authority, been unable to put down the
ravages of such lawless caterans as MacTavish Mhor, was unknown to a
solitary woman, whose ideas still dwelt upon her own early times. She
imagined that her son had only to proclaim himself his father's successor
in adventure and enterprise, and that a force of men as gallant as those who
had followed his father's banner, would crowd around to support it when
again displayed. To her, Hamish was the eagle who had only to soar aloft
and resume his native place in the skies, without her being able to comprehend how many additional eyes would have watched his flight, how many
additional bullets would have been directed at his bosom. To be brief,
Elspat was one who viewed the present state of society with the same feelings with which she regarded the times that had passed away. She had
been indigent, neglected, oppressed, since the days that her husband had no
longer been feared and powerful, and she thought that the term of her
ascendance would return when her son had determined to play the part of
his father. If she permitted her eye to glance farther into futurity, it was
but to anticipate, that she must be for many a day cold in the grave, with
the coronach of her tribe cried duly over her, before her fair-haired Hamish
could, according to her calculation, die with his hand on the basket-hilt of
the red claymore. His father's hair was grey, ere, after a hundred dangers,
he had fallen with his arms in his hands. That she should have seen and
survived the sight, was a natural consequence of the manners of that age.
And better it was - such was her proud thought- that she had seen him
so die, than to have witnessed his departure from life in a smoky hovel —
on a begd of rotten straw, like an over-worn hound, or a bullock which died
of disease. But the hour of her young, her brave IIamish, was yet far distant.
He must succeed-he must conquer, like his father. And when he fell at
length, - for she anticipated for him no bloodless death, - Elspat would
ere then have lain long in the grave, and could neither see his death-struggle, nor mourn over his grave-sod.
With such wild notions working in her brain, the spirit of Elspat rose to
its usual pitch, or rather to one which seemed higher. In the emphatic
language of Scripture, which in that idiom does not greatly differ from her
own, she arose, she washed and changed her apparel, and ate bread, and
was refreshed.
She longed eagerly for the return of her son, but she now longed not with
the bitter anxiety of doubt and apprehension. She said to herself, that
much must be done ere he could, in these times, arise to be an eminent and
dreaded leader. Yet when she saw him again, she almost expected him at
the head of a daring band, with pipes playing, and banners flying, the noble
tartans fluttering free in the wind, in despite of the laws which had suppressed, under severe penalties, the use of the national garb, and all the
appurtenances of Highland Chivalry. For all this, her eager imagination
was content only to allow the interval of some days.
From the moment this opinion had taken deep and serious possession of
her mind, her thoughts were bent upon receiving her son at the head of his
adherents, in the manner in which she used to adorn her hut for the return
of his father.
The substantial means of subsistence she had not the power of providing,
nor did she consider that of importance. The successful caterans would
bring with them herds and flocks. But the interior of her hut was arranged
for their reception-the usquebaugh was brewed, or distilled, in a larger
quantity than it could have been supposed one lone woman could have made
ready. Her hut was put into such order as might, in some degree, give it
the appearance of a day of rejoicing. It was swept and decorated with
ooughs of various kinds, like the house of a Jewess, upon what is termed