She reasoned
in vain---her son's expected summons did not call
her from the lowly couch, where she lay dreaming
of his approach. Hamish came not.
``Hope deferred,'' saith the royal sage, ``maketh
the heart sick;'' and strong as was Elspat's
constitution, she began to experience that it was
unequal to the toils to which her anxious and immoderate
affection subjected her, when early one
morning the appearance of a traveller on the lonely
mountain-road, revived hopes which had begun to
sink into listless despair. There was no sign of
Saxon subjugation about the stranger. At a distance
she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid,
that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the
plume that, placed in the bonnet, showed rank and
gentle birth. He carried a gun over his shoulder,
the claymore was swinging by his side, with its
usual appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the
_sporran mollach_.* Ere yet her eye had scanned all
* The goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round
their waist.
these particulars, the light step of the traveller
was hastened, his arm was waved in token of recognition---
a moment more, and Elspat held in her
arms her darling son, dressed in the garb of his
ancestors, and looking, in her maternal eyes, the
fairest among ten thousand!
The first outpouring of affection it would be
impossible to describe.
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