It was in vain that Elspat's eyes surveyed the distant path by the earliest light of the dawn and the latest glimmer of the twilight.

No rising dust awakened the expectation of nodding plumes or flashing arms.
The solitary traveller trudged listlessly along in his brown lowland greatcoat, his tartans dyed black or purple, to comply with or evade the law which prohibited their being worn in their variegated hues.
The spirit of the Gael, sunk and broken by the severe though perhaps necessary laws, that proscribed the dress and arms which he considered as his birthright, was intimated by his drooping head and dejected appearance.

Not in such depressed wanderers did Elspat recognise the light and free step of her son, now, as she concluded, regenerated from every sign of Saxon thraldom.

Night by night, as darkness came, she removed from her unclosed door, to throw herself on her restless pallet, not to sleep, but to watch.

The brave and the terrible, she said, walk by night.