[The seals are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted
princes.] The deer 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.
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