were larger and more numerous---the white-tusked
boar, the chase of which the brave loved best, was
yet to be roused in those western solitudes---the
men were nobler, wiser, and stronger, than the
degenerate brood who lived under the Saxon banner.
The daughters of the land were beautiful,
with blue eyes and fair hair, and bosoms of snow,
and out of these she would choose a wife for Hamish,
of blameless descent, spotless fame, fixed and
true affection, who should be in their summer bothy
as a beam of the sun, and in their winter abode as
the warmth of the needful fire.''
Such were the topics with which Elspat strove
to soothe the despair of her son, and to determine
him, if possible, to leave the fatal spot, on which
he seemed resolved to linger. The style of her
rhetoric was poetical, but in other respects resembled
that which, like other fond mothers, she had
lavished on Hamish, while a child or a boy, in
order to gain his consent to do something he had
no mind to; and she spoke louder, quicker, and
more earnestly, in proportion as she began to despair
of her words carrying conviction.
On the mind of Hamish her eloquence made no
impression. He knew far better than she did the
actual situation of the country, and was sensible,
that, though it might be possible to hide himself
as a fugitive among more distant mountains, there
was now no corner in the Highlands in which his
father's profession could be practised, even if he,
had not adopted, from the improved ideas of the
time when he lived, the opinion that the trade of
the cateran was no longer the road to honour and
distinction.
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