Their steps are heard in darkness, when all is silent save the whirlwind and the cataract.

The timid deer comes only forth when the sun is upon the mountain's peak, but the bold wolf walks in the red light of the harvest-moon.

She reasoned in vain; her son's expected summons did not call her from the lowly couch where she lay dreaming of his approach.

Hamish came not.
"Hope deferred," saith the royal sage, "maketh the heart sick;" and strong as was Elspat's constitution, she began to experience that it was unequal to the toils to which her anxious and immoderate affection subjected her, when early one morning the appearance of a traveller on the lonely mountain-road, revived hopes which had begun to sink into listless despair.

There was no sign of Saxon subjugation about the stranger.