The young Highland regiment was
obliged to attend upon the punishment, which struck a people,
peculiarly jealous of personal honour, with equal horror and
disgust, and not unnaturally indisposed some of them to the
service. The old general, however, who had been regularly bred
in the German wars, stuck to his own opinion, and gave out in
orders that the first Highlander who might either desert, or fail
to appear at the expiry of his furlough, should be brought to the
halberds, and punished like the culprit whom they had seen in
that condition. No man doubted that General -- would keep his
word rigorously whenever severity was required, and Elspat,
therefore, knew that her son, when he perceived that due
compliance with his orders was impossible, must at the same time
consider the degrading punishment denounced against his defection
as inevitable, should he place himself within the general's
power. [See Note 10.--Fidelity of the Highlanders.]
When noon was well passed, new apprehensions came on the mind of
the lonely woman. Her son still slept under the influence of the
draught; but what if, being stronger than she had ever known it
administered, his health or his reason should be affected by its
potency? For the first time, likewise, notwithstanding her high
ideas on the subject of parental authority, she began to dread
the resentment of her son, whom her heart told her she had
wronged.
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