United States or Honduras ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He hoped that, before that time, he should reach Glencoe with four hundred men, and should have stopped all the earths in which the old fox and his two cubs,-so Mac Ian and his sons were nicknamed by the murderers, could take refuge. But, at five precisely, whether Hamilton had arrived or not, Glenlyon was to fall on, and to slay every Macdonald under seventy. The night was rough.
For, while the faults of a good man cannot be such evil things as the faults of a bad man, they are more blameworthy, and greater faults than the same would be in a bad man: we must not confuse the guilt of the person with the abstract evil of the thing. Ian was one of those blessed few who doubt in virtue of a larger faith.
The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian went up to her. "What is the matter with you, Mistress Conal?" he asked, addressing her in English because of the ladies. But in reply she poured out a torrent of Gaelic, which seemed to the girls only grumbling, but was something stronger.
I did not care for it enough to repeat it to you, and I fear we shall find it very bad." Stopping often to recall and rearrange words and lines, Ian completed at last the following sonnet:
Could he do the thing he thought wrong?" She was silent. "Mother dear," resumed lan, "the only Way to get at what IS right is to do what seems right. Even if we mistake there is no other way!" "You would do evil that good may come! Oh, Ian!" "No, mother; evil that is not seen to be evil by one willing and trying to do right, is not counted evil to him.
'No, that is not his name; and he would consider MASTER as a sort of affront, only that you are an Englishman, and know no better. But the Lowlanders call him, like other gentlemen, by the name of his estate, Glennaquoich; and the Highlanders call him Vich Ian Vohr, that is, the son of John the Great; and we upon the braes here call him by both names indifferently.
And Ian Direach knew that all this he owed to Gille Mairtean the fox, and he made a compact with him that he might choose any beast out of his herds, whenever hunger seized him, and that henceforth no arrow should be let fly at him or at any of his race. But Gille Mairtean the fox would take no reward for the help he had given to Ian Direach, only his friendship.
"You cannot mean, Ian," he said-and his face was white through all its brown, "that I am to think no more of the fields of my fathers than of any other ground on the face of the earth!" "Think of them as the ground God gave to our fathers, which God may see fit to take from us again, and I shall be content for the present," answered Ian. "Do not be vexed with me," cried Alister.
No, there was no hope; and poor Ian sat there in silent despair, with no sign, however, of the bitter thoughts within on his grave, thoughtful countenance. Not less gravely sat Michel Rollin in the stern of his canoe. No sense of the ludicrous was left in his anxious brain. He had but one idea, and that was old Liz!
He laid his hand on her wrist, and felt her pulse. It was Ian! She could not see his face for there was no light on it, but she knew his shape, his movements! She was saved! He saw her wide eyes, two great spiritual nights, gazing up at him. "All, you are better, Miss Mercy!" lie said cheerily. "Now you shall have some tea!"
Word Of The Day