Then will we
travel together far northward to the salt lakes of Kintail, and
place glens and mountains betwixt us and the sons of Dermid. We
will visit the shores of the dark lake; and my kinsmen--for was
not my mother of the children of Kenneth, and will they not
remember us with the old love?--my kinsmen will receive us with
the affection of the olden time, which lives in those distant
glens, where the Gael still dwell in their nobleness, unmingled
with the churl Saxons, or with the base brood that are their
tools and their slaves."
The energy of the language, somewhat allied to hyperbole, even in
its most ordinary expressions, now seemed almost too weak to
afford Elspat the means of bringing out the splendid picture
which she presented to her son of the land in which she proposed
to him to take refuge. Yet the colours were few with which she
could paint her Highland paradise. "The hills," she said, "were
higher and more magnificent than those of Breadalbane--Ben
Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora. The lakes were broader
and larger, and abounded not only with fish, but with the
enchanted and amphibious animal which gives oil to the lamp.
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