In this occupation she spent many hours of each
morning and evening.
CHAPTER IV.
It was in vain that Elspat's eyes surveyed the
distant path, by the earliest light of the dawn and
the latest glimmer of the twilight. No rising dust
awakened the expectation of nodding plumes or
flashing arms---the solitary traveller trudged listlessly
along in his brown lowland great-coat, his
tartans dyed black or purple, to comply with or
evade the law which prohibited their being worn
in their variegated hues. The spirit of the Gael,
sunk and broken by the severe though perhaps
necessary laws, that proscribed the dress and arms
which he considered as his birthright, was intimated
by his drooping head and dejected appearance. Not
in such depressed wanderers did Elspat recognise
the light and free step of her son, now, as she concluded,
regenerated from every sign of Saxon
thraldom. Night by night, as darkness came, she
removed from her unclosed door to throw herself
on her restless pallet, not to sleep, but to watch.
The brave and the terrible, she said, walk by night
---their steps are heard in darkness, when all is
silent save the whirlwind and the cataract---the
timid deer comes only forth when the sun is upon
the mountain's peak; but the bold wolf walks in
the red light of the harvest-moon.
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