United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Taing! taing!" said one spokesman of the two MacLachlans in his hurried Cowal Gaelic, and his neighbour, echoing him word for word in the comic fashion they have in these parts; "Taing! taing! I never louted to the horseman that rode over me yet, and I would be ill-advised to start with the Gruamach one!" The man's face flushed up as he spoke.
It was the first time ever I saw Gillesbeg Gruamach sitting on the bench, and I was startled at the look of the man. I've seen some sour dogs in my day few worse than Ruthven's rittmasters whom we met in Swabia but I never saw a man who, at the first vizzy, had the dour sour countenance of Archibald, Marquis of Argile and Lord of Lochow.
M'Iver with an utterance the least thought choked by an anger due to the insult he had wrought for, shrugged his shoulders, and at the same time gave me his elbow in the side for his sign. "I'm sorry to hear you say that about Gillesbeg Gruamach," said he.
He has gone through two fortunes in black cattle, fought some fighting here and there, and now he manages the silver-mines so adroitly that Gillesbeg Gruamach is ever on the brink of getting a big fortune, but never done launching out a little one instead to keep the place going.
"Abair moran taing say 'many thanks' to his lordship," whispered one of the red-coat halberdiers in the ear of the bigger of the two prisoners. I could hear the command distinctly where I sat, well back in the court, and so no doubt could Gillesbeg Gruamach, but he was used to such obsequious foolishness and he made no dissent or comment.
Sit down, sir; sit down, if it please you," he said more sternly, the scowl that gave him the gruamach reputation coming on his face; "sit down, if it please you, and instead of ruffling up like the bubbly-jock over words, tell me, if you can, how to save a reputation from the gutter. If it was not that I know I have your love, do you think I should be laying my heart bare here and now?
In my twelve foreign years the place was swamped by incomers, black unwelcome Covenanters from the shires of Air and Lanrick Brices, Yuilles, Rodgers, and Richies all brought up here by Gillesbeg Gruamach, Marquis of Argile, to teach his clans the arts of peace and merchandise.
Her ladyship had much of the French manner a dainty dame with long thin face and bottle shoulders, attired always in Saxon fashion, and indulgent in what I then thought a wholesome levity, that made up for the Gruamach husband. And she thought him, honestly, the handsomest and noblest in the world, though she rallied him for his overmuch sobriety of deportment.
All this I dwell on for a sensible purpose, though it may seem to be but an old fellow's boasting and a childish vanity about my own calf-country. 'Tis the picture I would paint a land laughing and content, well governed by Gillesbeg, though Gruamach he might be by name and by nature.
Gruamach, or grim-faced, our good Gaels called him in a bye-name, and well he owned it, for over necklace or gorget I've seldom seen a sterner jowl or a more sinister eye. And yet, to be fair and honest, this was but the notion one got at a first glint; in a while I thought little was amiss with his looks as he leaned on the table and cracked in a humoursome laughing way with the paneled jury.
Word Of The Day