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Hell's flame! is there anything smaller than the self-esteem of a man who by some infernal quirk of his nature turns his back on his most manifest duty leaves the blood of his blood and the skin of his skin to perish for want of his guidance and encouragement, and wakens at morning to find it no black nightmare but the horrible fact? Answer me that, Elrigmore!"
I muttered, giving him parry of low quarte like a good swordsman, and he came to the recover with a laugh. "Foil, Elrigmore!" he cried. "But we're soldiers and lads of the world, and you need hardly be so canny. You see MacCailein's points as well as I do.
MacLachlan leered at me with a most devilish light in his black eyes, and said, "Well, well, I might have even more. Marriage, they say, makes the sweetest woman wersh. But I hope you'll not grudge me, my dear Elrigmore, some anxiety about my own relatives." That little tirravee passed, and we were soon heartily employed on a supper that had to do duty for two meals.
And this time I put the cartes bye, firmly determined that my usual easy and pliant mood in fair company would be my own enemy no more. "Another chappin of ale," said he. "Tearlach, get Elrigmore to bide another bit. Tuts, the night's but young, the chap of two and a fine clear clean air with a wind behind you for Shira Glen." "Wheest!" said Tearlach of a sudden, and he put up a hand.
He might have been a plain cottar on Glen Aora side rather than King of the Highlands for all the airs he assumed, and when he saw me, better put-on in costume than my neighbours in court, he seemingly asked my name in a whisper from the clerk beside him, and finding who I was, cried out in St Andrew's English "What! Young Elrigmore back to the Glens! I give you welcome, sir, to Baile Inneraora!"
"I have been bargaining for a horse up here," said John in a while, "and I'm anxious that Elrigmore should see it. You'll have heard I'm off again on the old road." "There's a rumour of it," said MacLachlan, cogitating on his own affairs, or perhaps wondering what our new interest in his company was due to. "Ah! it's in my blood," said John, "in my blood and bones!
It was well on in the day: high above this stagnant plain among tall bens there must be shining a friendly and constant sun; but Elrigmore, gentleman and sometime cavalier of Mackay's Scots, was in the very gullet of night for all he could see around him.
On this John Splendid would ruffle up wrothily with blame for my harping on that incident, as if it were a crime to hint at any weakness in his chief. "You are very much afraid of a waff of wind blowing on your cousin's name," I would cry. "My chief, Elrigmore, my chief.
"You see your pledge calls for redemption sooner than you expected, Elrigmore. The enemy's not far from Ben Bhuidhe now, and your sword is mine by the contract." "Your lordship can count on me to the last ditch," I cried; and indeed I might well be ready, for was not the menace of war as muckle against my own hearth as against his?
I'm glad to see you, sir!" cried the Provost, "and you, Elrigmore!" He came forward in a trepidation which was shared by few of the people about him. Young MacLachlan stood up against the wall facing the barricaded door, a lad little over twenty, with a steel-grey quarrelsome eye, and there was more bravado than music in a pipe-tune he was humming in a low key to himself.
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