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Updated: June 5, 2025
He threw the fragments with an impatient cry into the fireplace. Many a time I could wish for the salving influence of the confessional, even without the absolution to follow." "I think," said John Splendid, "it would be a strange day when MacCailein Mor, Marquis of Argile, would ask or need shriving from anything or any one.
"I misdoubt it," said M'Iver. "You know the stuff, MacCailein? He may have his Irish still; but I'll wager the MacDonalds, the Stewarts, and all the rest of that reiving crowd are off to their holds, like the banditty they are, with their booty. A company of pikes on the rear of him, as like as not, would settle his business." The Marquis, besides his dishevelment, was looking very lean and pale.
It happened on a night of nights as the saying goes that thus we were gathered in the rushy flat of Elrigmore and our hearts easy as to reivers for was not MacCailein scourging them over the north? when a hint came to us of a strange end to these Lorn wars, and of the last days of the Lord of Argile.
With my kilt and the memory of old times about me, I went walking down to Inneraora in the middle of the day. I was prepared for change from the complaints of my father, but never for half the change I found in the burgh town of MacCailein Mor.
At last M'Iver rapped on the door and demanded attention. "Is there any one there with the English?" he asked. The gentleman of Dalness answered that he could speak English with the best cateran ever came out of MacCailein Mor's country, and he called for instant release, with a menace added that Hell itself could not excel the punishment for us if they were kept much longer under lock and bar.
"Then why in the name of God do you urge him on to a course that a fool could read the poltroonery of? I never gave MacCailein Mor credit for being a coward before," said I. "Coward!" cried Splendid. "It's no cowardice but selfishness the disease, more or less, of us all. Do you think yon gentleman a coward? Then you do not know the man.
"But to leave his people twice in one war with no apparent valid excuse must look odd to his unfriends," I said, and I toasted my hose at the fire. "I wish I could make up my mind whether an excuse is valid or not," said the cleric; "and I'm willing to find more excuses for MacCailein than I'll warrant he can find for himself this morning, wherever he may happen to be.
The deer and the heath-cock, the curd from the pen, The blaeberry fresh from the dew! We saw the piper strut upon the gravelled walk beside the bridgegate, we saw Argile himself come out to meet the traveller. "MacCailein! MacCailein! Ah the dear heart!" cried all our people, touched by this rare and genteel courtesy.
I know it, man. I see it in the faces about me. I saw it at Rosneath, when my very gardener fumbled, and refused to touch his bonnet when I left. I saw it to-night at my own table, when the company talked of what they should do, and what my men should do, and said never a word of what was to be expected of MacCailein Mor."
"You do me less than half justice," said Splendid, the blood coming back to his face, and him smiling again; "I allow I'm no preacher. If a man must to hell, he must, his own gait. The only way I can get into argument with him about the business is to fly in a fury. If I let my temper up I would call MacCailein coward to his teeth, though I know it's not his character.
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