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When we reached Port Sonachan we heard that our driver had only arrived towards mid-day, and that his horses not being strong enough to stop the carriage on the slope to the ferry, had fallen into the lake, from which they were rescued with great difficulty.
It was useless to bring either the baron-bailie or Sonachan into our deliberations; neither of them had any idea of how the thing had happened, though they were very well informed indeed about certain trivial departures from strict forms of Highland procedure in the hurried marshalling of the troops.
"Cheap trash of pennyland men from Lochow-side were put on the right of gentlemen cadets of the castle and Loch Finne-side lairds," was the baron-bailie's bitter protestation. Sonachan, who was naturally possessed of a warm side to the people, even common quality, of his own part of the country, would sniff at this with some scorn.
The Green Island, with its strange Celtic burying-ground, where the daffodils bloom among the sepulchres with their rude carvings of battles and of armed men, has many trout around its shores. The favourite fishing-places, however, are between Port Sonachan and Ford.
Fresh wood hissed on the fire, but the candles burned low in their sockets. Sonachan and the baron-bailie slept with their heads on the table, and the man with the want, still sodden at the eyes, turned his wet hose upon his feet with a madman's notion of comfort. "I hope," said M'Iver, "there's no ambuscade here, as in the house of the cousin of his Grace of Pomerania.
"But all that," said Sonachan, a pawky, sturdy little gentleman with a round ruddy face and a great store of genealogy that he must be ever displaying "But all that makes it more incumbent on us to hang together.
Sonachan and the baron-bailie dipped their beaks in the jugs, and with lifted heads, as fowls slocken their thirst, they let the wine slip slowly down their throats, glucking in a gluttonous ecstasy. "God's grace for us all!" said the minister again, as in a benediction.
"I'm altogether with Sonachan," said M'Iver, "and I could mention half a hundred soldierly reasons for the policy; but it's enough for me that here are seven of us, no more and no less, and with seven there should be all the luck that's going." He caught the minister's eyes on him at this, and met them with a look of annoyance.
I am glad to see you back, more especially as Master Gordon was just telling me of the surprise at Dalness, and the chance that you had been cut down there by the MacDonalds, who, luckily for him and Sonachan and the others, all followed you in your flight, and gave them a chance of an easy escape." He shook hands with us warmly enough, with fingers moist and nervous.
My grandfather was the grandson of Tormaid Mor, who held the whole east side of Lochow from Ford to Sonachan, and we have at home the four-posted bed that Tormaid slept on when the heads of the house of Argile were lying on white-hay or chaff. At last John broke into a laugh. "Aren't you the amadan to be biting the tongue between your teeth?" he said. "What is it?"
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