"It was my favourite haunt in my boyhood, though I believe I thought more of the birds I shot in the glen, and the water-fowls of the Esk, than of Drummond himself at that time."
"And yet there was Patria in every line of your face when you heard his sonnet just now," she said, with a smile.
"Ah! you know that Pope says,
'A Scot would fight for "Christ's Kirk o' the Green."'
To hear any of the old ballads is like hearing a trumpet-call; besides—Drummond's words on your lips! I cannot tell you what they were to me."
He paused abruptly, the silence more eloquent than any words could have been.
"You have never heard me speak English," she said, carelessly. "In truth, if you will pardon me, it is the language I like least. Its low Dutch, with all the exotic additions that have grown on it, is too hard for my lips; and I have rarely had occasion to use what knowledge I possess of it. Apropos of Scottish poetry, are you descended from the Rhymer?"
"We believe him to have been of the same race; but what is known of him is so enveloped in legend, that it is hard to trace. Thomas himself has grown
