United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
What I had in my mind was that I might count on you taking a company of our fencible men, as John here is going to do, and going over-bye to Lorn with me to cut off those Irish blackguards of Alasdair MacDonald's from joining Montrose."
"My friend here, M'Iver, has come hot-foot to tell me of a rumour that a body of Irish banditry under Alasdair MacDonald, the MacColkitto as we call him, has landed somewhere about Kinlochaline or Knoydart This portends damnably, if I, an elder ordained of this kirk, may say so. We have enough to do with the Athole gentry and others nearer home.
It was the nightfall when we were turned into the presence of Sir Alasdair, who was sitting under a few ells of canvas playing cartes with some chieftains by the light of a fir-root fire. "Whom have we here?" said he, never stopping for more than a glimpse of us. "Two Campbells and a man who says he's bard of Keppoch," he was told.
None of those home-returning Gaels paid heed to his pause, for they were more Alasdair Macdonald's men than his; Mac-Donald brought them to the lair of the boar, MacDonald glutted their Highland thirst for Campbell blood, Mac-Donald had compelled this raid in spite of the protests of the nobleman who held the King's Commission and seal. For some minutes his lordship stood alone on the pathway.
So far is this from the fact that M'Iver and I on many available occasions disputed as old men at the trade of arms will do the reasons of a reverse so much unexpected, so little to be condoned, considering the advantage we had in numbers compared with the fragments of clans Alasdair MacDonald brought down from the gorges of Lochaber to the waters of Loch Linnhe and Locheil.
Alasdair," he said, turning to his man, who it seemed was his dalta or foster-brother, "we'll accommodate those two friends of ours when and where they like." "Master," cried the gillie, "I would like well to have this on my own hands," and he looked at me with great venom as he spoke. MacLachlan laughed.
"Ay, ay!" he said in the English, after a pause that kept the room more intent on his face than on the balefire. "My old luck bides with me. I thought the weather guaranteed me a season's rest, but here's the claymore again! Alasdair, Craignish, Sir Donald, I wish you gentlemen would set the summons about with as little delay as need be.
'Come, girlie; come, said Hollyhock in her most seductive tones. 'My Lord Alasdair had no right to ask you to dry his locks. Lean on me, lassie; lean on me. You did get an awful shock. 'Oh, oh, sobbed Leucha, 'then I did see a ghost! 'You saw what you saw. Come along home now. I 'll see to you. 'You are Hollyhock, said Leucha. 'Yes; and whyever not?
Some hours after us came up the Camerons, who had fallen behind, but fresher and more eager for fighting than our own company, for they had fallen on a herd of roe on the slope of Sgur an Iolair, and had supped savagely on the warm raw flesh. "You might have brought us a gigot off your take," Sir Alasdair said to the leader of them, Dol Ruadh.
The issue of the quarrel that thus I retarded was postponed altogether by a circumstance that changed the whole course of our adventure in this wild country, severed us at a sharp wrench from the Campbell regiments, and gave us the chance very unwelcome it was of beholding the manner of war followed by Alasdair MacDonald's savage tribes. It happened in a flash, without warning.
Word Of The Day