Minnie clung in terror to her fiery lover.
'Laoighe mo chri,' she whispered, 'be calm and tempt him not!'
'Mr. Snaggs, I am but a half-lettered Highlandman, and know not what you mean; but this I know—and here I speak for my chief Glen Ora, as well as for his people—the sun shines as bright, and the woods are as green, as ever they were twenty centuries ago, and yet we starve where our fathers lived in plenty! Why is this?'
'Because you are a pack of lazy and idle fellows.'
'We are not,' retorted Callum, fiercely; 'the dun hills swarm with fatted deer; the green woods are alive with game, and the blue rivers teem with fish; but who among us dares to use a net or gun? For now the land, with all that is in its waters, its woods, and in the air, belong to the stranger. God was kind to the poor Celts, Mr. Snaggs, in the days before you were born,' he continued, with unintentional irony. 'He gave us all those things, because He saw that the land, though beautiful, was very barren; but you, and such as you, have robbed us of them, and one day God will call you to an account for this. Listen: in the days of the kelp manufacture, we made twenty thousand tons of it annually, here on the western coast alone—ay, we lazy Highlandmen, raising two hundred thousand pounds sterling every year. This work, with a cow's milk, butter, and cheese, a few potatoes, and a few sheep, for food and clothes, kept many a large family in happiness, in health, and comfort; rents were paid strictly and regularly in rent and kain, and arrears were never heard of. But the Parliament, influenced by the English manufacturers, DESTROYED us by taking the duty off barilla; and when Lord Binning said, that a hundred thousand clansmen in the West would starve, the English Chancellor of the Exchequer replied—"Let them starve—I care not!" may God and St. Colme forgive his soul the sin. There were only forty-five Scotsmen—time-serving and tongue-tied Scotsmen—in that House, opposed to six hundred wordy Englishmen, so how could our case be otherwise? Now, this was only thirty years ago, and since then arrears, ruin, misery, and famine have fallen upon the people of the glens; the castles of their chiefs have become English grouse-lodges, and the West Highlands are well nigh a voiceless wilderness, from the Mull of Cantyre to the Kyle of Duirness—two hundred and fifty good miles, Mr. Snaggs.'
'Where the deuce did you pick up all this stuff—this Lay of the Last Outlaw?' sneered Snaggs, with unfeigned surprise, while a murmur of assent from the poor tenantry followed Callum's words.
'I could tell you more, Snaggs, esquire and factor,' replied Callum, still maintaining his fire; 'esquire means nothing now in this world, though factor may have a terrible signification in the next; I can tell you, that these poor people whom you are about to evict—for I know their doom is sealed—have a right in the soil superior to that claimed by any landlord or overlord either. The Lowlanders, like the English, were feudal serfs, while we—the Celts—were freemen, and our land belonged not to the chiefs, but to the people; it was ours; but lawyers came with their feu-charters and damnable legalities, and then the patriarchal clansman became what you find him now, something between a slave and an outcast—a wretch to be retained or expelled at the will of his landlord. The chief was a thing of our breath, whom we could make or unmake; but the land, with its mountains, woods, and waters, was the unalienable birthright of the people; it was their home—their dwelling-place—their grave! The King of Scotland could neither give it nor take it away, for it was the patrimony of the tribes of the Gael; and it was for this patriarchal right in the land that John of Moidart and Ranald Galda died at the battle of Blairleine!'
'And so the land belonged to the Gael,' continued Snaggs, with his calm sneer; 'but who gave it to them?'
'God!' replied Callum, lifting his bonnet with reverence; 'but no doubt, Mr. Snaggs, a lawyer like you will have more faith in feu-charters, and bonds, and bank-notes, than in Him; it is only to be expected of one of your dirty trade; and now I have only a few words more.'
'I am glad to hear it.'