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 prohibit 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.
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