Then will we travel together far northward
to the salt lakes of Kintail, and place glens
and mountains betwixt us and the sons of Dermid.
We will visit the shores of the dark lake, and my
kinsmen---(for was not my mother of the children
of Kenneth, and will they not remember us with
the affection of the olden time, which lives in those
distant glens, where the Gael still dwell in their
nobleness, unmingled with the churl Saxons, or
with the base brood that are their tools and their
slaves.''
The energy of the language, somewhat allied to
hyperbole, even in its most ordinary expressions,
now seemed almost too weak to afford Elspat the
means of bringing out the splendid picture which
she presented to her son of the land in which she
proposed to him to take refuge. Yet the colours
were few with which she could paint her Highland
paradise. ``The hills,'' she said, ``were higher and
more magnificent than those of Breadalbane---Ben
Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora. The lakes
were broader and larger, and abounded not only
with fish, but with the enchanted and amphibious
animal which gives oil to the lamp.* The deer
* The seals are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted
princes.
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