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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