Among the great trees.
"And all our own," cried Kate in exultation; "let us congratulate ourselves."
"I only wish it were, lassie. Why, did n't you understand we have only these woods and a few acres of ploughed land now?"
"You stupid old dad; I begin to believe that you have had no education. Of course the Hays have got the land, but we have the view and the joy of it. This is the only place where one can say to a stranger, 'Behold Drumtochty,' and he will see it at a flash and at its best."
"You 're brighter than your father, Kit, and a contented lassie to boot, and for that word I'll take you straight to the Pleasaunce."
"What a charming name; it suggests a fairy world, with all sorts of beautiful things and people."
"Quite right, Kit"—leading the way down to a hollow, surrounded by wood and facing the sun, the General opened a door in an ivy-covered wall—"for there is just one Pleasaunce on the earth, and that is a garden."
It had been a risk to raise certain people's expectations and then bring them into Tochty garden, for they can be satisfied with no place that has not a clean-shaven lawn and beds of unvarying circles, pyrethrum, calceolaria, and geranium, and brakes of rare roses, and glass-houses with orchids worth fifty pound each, which is a garden in high life, full of luxury, extravagance, weariness. As Kate entered, a moss rose which wandered at its will caught her skirt, and the General cut a blossom which she fastened in her breast, and surely there is no flower so winsome and fragrant as this homely rose.
"Like yourself, Miss Carnegie," and the General rallied his simple wit for the occasion, "very sweet and true, with a thorn, too, if one gripped it the wrong way."
Whereat he made believe to run, and had the better speed because there were no gravel walks with boxwood borders here, but alleys of old turf that were pleasant both to the touch and the eye. In the centre where all the ways met he capitulated with honours of war, and explained that he had intended to compare Kate to a violet, which was her natural emblem, but had succumbed to the temptation of her eyes, "which make men wicked, Kit, with the gleam that is in them."