‘The most unfair book that ever was written!’ exclaimed Margaret with some heat—‘a book that every true Scotchman should be ashamed of.’
‘I don’t see that,’ returned Cameron; ‘I think Sir Walter held the balance very fairly.’
‘He simply turns the Covenanters into ridicule and tries to make his readers sympathize with the persecutors,’ said Margaret.
‘Well, you can’t deny that a good many of them were ridiculous,’ said Cameron lightly.
‘And you have no sympathy for these brave men who won our liberties for us with their blood!’ exclaimed the girl.
‘I don’t say that,’ said the young Highlander cautiously; ‘but I’m not so sure about their having won our liberties for us,’ he added with a laugh. ‘There wasn’t much liberty in the Highlands when their King got the upper hand.’
Then he tried to change the subject; but Margaret answered him only in monosyllables. This daughter of the Covenanters could not forgive anyone who refused to consider those who took part in the petty rebellion of the west as heroes and martyrs. She made their cause her own, and decided that Cameron was thenceforth to be regarded as a ‘malignant.’
As for Cameron, he mentally banned the whole tribe of Covenanters, as well as his own folly in offering any opposition to Margaret’s prejudices; and before he could make his peace with her Mr. Lindsay drove up, and the tête-à-tête came to an end.
Duncan Cameron had felt the spell of Margaret’s beauty, as everyone did who approached her. But he had made a bad beginning in his intercourse with her, and he now felt a strong sense of repulsion mingling with his admiration. It was not only that he despised her narrowness of mind; there was between the two something of the old antagonism between Cavalier and Puritan. For the rest of his stay at Castle Farm he avoided meeting her alone, and only spoke to her when ordinary politeness required it. And yet, whenever she addressed him, he felt that the fascination of her beauty was as strong as ever. When Alec came home on the day of the curling-match, and shouted out in triumph that Muirburn had won, Margaret’s eyes flashed, and her cheek flushed in sympathy; and Cameron, watching her, forgot that she had not forgiven him for his lack of sympathy with the men of Drumclog.