mulated the exertions of her husband.

Their morality was of the old Highland cast--faithful friends and
fierce enemies. The Lowland herds and harvests they accounted their own,
whenever they had the means of driving off the one or of seizing upon
the other; nor did the least scruple on the right of property interfere
on such occasions. Hamish Mhor argued like the old Cretan warrior:

"My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield,
They make me lord of all below;
For he who dreads the lance to wield,
Before my shaggy shield must bow.
His lands, his vineyards, must resign,
And all that cowards have is mine."

But those days of perilous, though frequently successful depredation,
began to be abridged after the failure of the expedition of Prince
Charles Edward. MacTavish Mhor had not sat still on that occasion, and
he was outlawed, both as a traitor to the state and as a robber and
cateran. Garrisons were now settled in many places where a red-coat had
never before been seen, and the Saxon war-drum resounded among the most
hidden recesses of the Highland mountains. The fate of MacTavish became
every day more inevitable; and it was the more difficult for him to make
his exertions for defence or escape, that Elspat, amid his evil days,
had increased his family with an infant child, which was a considerable
encumbrance upon the necessary rapidity of their motions.

At length the fatal day arrived. In a strong pass on the skirts of Ben
Crunchan, the celebrated MacTavish Mhor was surprised by a detachment
of the Sidier Roy. [The Red Soldier.] His wife assisted him heroically,
charging his piece from time to time; and as they were in possession of
a post that was nearly unassailable, he might have perhaps escaped
if his ammunition had lasted. But at length his balls were expended,
although it was not until he had fired off most of the silver buttons
from his waistcoat; and the soldiers, no longer deterred by fear of the
unerring marksman, who had slain three and wounded more of their number,
approached his stronghold, and, unable to take him alive, slew him after
a most desperate resistance.

All this Elspat witnessed and survived; for she had, in the child which
relied on her for support, a motive for strength and exertion. In what
manner she maintained herself it is not easy to say. Her only ostensible
means of support were a flock of three or four goats, which she fed
wherever she pleased on the mountain p