Stepping proudly to the lilt of her Campbell eulogy, she went to her daughters with flashing eyes and a kindling face, and after a few moments of thrilling silence said:
"I hae got my way, girls, by the name o' the Campbells. Dod! but it's the great name! It unlocked his heart like a pass-key—yet I had to stoop a wee. I had to stoop in order to conquer."
"Mother, you always manage Robert."
"I ne'er saw the man I couldna manage, that is, if he was a sober man; but I'll tak' the management out o' her—see if I don't. I'll mak' her eat the humble pie she baked for me—I'll hae the better o' the English huzzy yet—I'll sort her, when I get the right time. I can do naething o' an extreme nature just yet. It has been a calamitous day, girls, morning and night. Now, go awa' to your ain rooms, I be to think the circumstances weel over."
"Mother, you are a wonderful woman," said Christina.
"Also a very discreet woman," added Isabel.
And the old lady walked to the sideboard, filled a glass with wine, lifted it upwards, and nodding to her daughters, said in a low but triumphant voice:
"Here's to the Campbells! Wha's like us?"
At the same moment Robert Campbell was stepping proudly upstairs with a heart full of racial pride. He had forgotten the ironworks. He was a Campbell of the Argyle clan, he was kin to all the Breadalbanes, and Cawdors, and Loudons. He was a Campbell, and all the glory of the large and powerful family was his glory. At that moment he heard the dirl of the bagpipes and felt the rough beauty of the thistle, and knew in his heart of hearts, that he was a son of Scotland, an inheritor of all her passions and traditions, her loves and her hatreds, and glad and proud to be so favored.
But even at this critical hour of his wife's life, he could not be much blamed, for all is race. There is no other truth, because it includes all others.