“No, no, par ma foi! not wholly that. But yes, I love my country—ah! the happy days I have known there, the sunny weather, the friends so good, the comradeship so true. Your land is beautiful—it is even more beautiful than the exiles in Paris told me; but I was not born here, and there are times when your mountains seem to crush my heart.”
“Is it so, indeed?” said Doom. “As for me, I would not change the bleakest of them for the province of Champagne.” And he beat an impulsive hand upon the table.
“Yes, yes, I understand that,” cried Olivia. “I understand it very well. It is the sorrow of the hills and woods you mean; ah! do I not know it, too? It is only in my own little wee glens among the rowans that I can feel careless like the birds, and sing; when I walk the woods or stand upon the shore and see the hills without a tree or tenant, when the land is white with the snow and the mist is trailing, Olivia Lamond is not very cheery. What it is I do not know—that influence of my country; it is sad, but it is good and wholesome, I can tell you; it is then I think that the bards make songs, and those who are not bards, like poor myself, must just be feeling the songs there are no words for.”
At this did Doom sit mighty pleased and humming to himself a bar of minstrelsy.
“Look at my father there!” said Olivia; “he would like you to be thinking that he does not care a great deal for the Highlands of Scotland.”
“Indeed, and that is not fair, Olivia; I never made pretence of that,” said Doom. “Never to such as understand; Montaiglon knows the Highlands are at my heart, and that the look of the hills is my evening prayer.”
“Isn't that a father, Count Victor?” cried Olivia, quite proud of the confession. “But he is the strange father, too, that will be pretending that he has forgotten the old times and the old customs of our dear people. We are the children of the hills and of the mists; the hills make no change, the mists are always coming back, and the deer is in the corrie yet, and when you will hear one that is of the Highland blood say he does not care any more for the old times, and preferring the English tongue to his own, and making a boast of his patience when the Government of England robs him of his plaid, you must be watchful of that man, Count Victor. For there is something wrong. Is it not true, that I am saying, father?” She turned a questioning gaze to Doom, who had no answer but a sigh.
“You will have perhaps heard my father miscall the breacan, miscall the tartan, and—”
“Not at all,” cried the Baron. “There is a great difference between condemning and showing an indifference.”
“I think, father,” said Olivia, “we are among friends. Count Victor, as you say, could understand about our fancies for the hills, and it would be droll indeed if he smiled at us for making a treasure of the tartan. Whatever my father, the stupid man, the darling, may be telling you of the tartan and the sword, Count Victor, do not believe that we are such poor souls as to forget them. Though we must be wearing the Saxon in our clothes and in our speech, there are many like me—and my dear father there—who will not forget.”