She feared less for her son's life
than for his dishonour. She dreaded, on his account, the
subjection to strangers, and the death-sleep of the soul which is
brought on by what she regarded as slavery.
The moral principle which so naturally and so justly occurs to
the mind of those who have been educated under a settled
government of laws that protect the property of the weak against
the incursions of the strong, was to poor Elspat a book sealed
and a fountain closed. She had been taught to consider those
whom they call Saxons as a race with whom the Gael were
constantly at war; and she regarded every settlement of theirs
within the reach of Highland incursion as affording a legitimate
object of attack and plunder. Her feelings on this point had
been strengthened and confirmed, not only by the desire of
revenge for the death of her husband, but by the sense of general
indignation entertained, not unjustly, through the Highlands of
Scotland, on account of the barbarous and violent conduct of the
victors after the battle of Culloden. 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.
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