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.
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
ascendence would return when her son had determined
to play the part of his father.
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