All this Elspat witnessed and survived, for she
had, in the child which relied on her for support, a
motive for strength and exertion. In what manner
she maintained herself it is not easy to say.
Her only ostensible means of support were a flock
of three or four goats, which she fed wherever she
pleased on the mountain pastures, no one challenging
the intrusion. In the general distress of the
country, her ancient acquaintances had little to
bestow; but what they could part with from their
own necessities, they willingly devoted to the relief
of others. From Lowlanders she sometimes
demanded tribute, rather than requested alms. She
had not forgotten she was the widow of MacTavish
Mhor, or that the child who trotted by her knee
might, such were her imaginations, emulate one day
the fame of his father, and command the same influence
which he had once exerted without control.
She associated so little with others, went so
seldom and so unwillingly from the wildest recesses
of the mountains, where she usually dwelt with
her goats, that she was quite unconscious of the
great change which had taken place in the country
around her, the substitution of civil order for military
violence, and the strength gained by the law and
its adherents over those who were called in Gaelic
song, ``the stormy sons of the sword.
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