vement of his haunch, thrust clear the hilt of it, so that it might be
the more readily grasped and the blade drawn.

"Mr. Stewart, I am thinking," says Robin.

"Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it's not a name to be ashamed of," answered Alan.

"I did not know ye were in my country, sir," says Robin.

"It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the
Maclarens," says Alan.

"That's a kittle point," returned the other. "There may be two words to
say to that. But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your
sword?"

"Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will have heard a good deal
more than that," says Alan. "I am not the only man that can draw steel
in Appin; and when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a
gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I could never hear that
the Macgregor had the best of it."

"Do ye mean my father, sir?" says Robin.

"Well, I wouldna wonder," said Alan. "The gentleman I have in my mind
had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name."

"My father was an old man," returned Robin. "The match was unequal. You
and me would make a better pair, sir."

"I was thinking that," said Alan.

I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these
fighting-cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when
that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never; and Duncan, with
something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself between.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I will have been thinking of a very different
matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who
are baith acclaimed pipers. It's an auld dispute which one of ye's the
best. Here will be a braw chance to settle it."

"Why, sir," said Alan, still addressing Robin, from whom, indeed, he had
not so much as shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him, "why, sir,"
says Alan, "I think I will have heard some sough[31] of the sort. Have
ye music, as folk say? Are ye a bit of a piper?"

"I can pipe like a Macrimmon!" cries Robin.

"And that is a very bold word," quoth Alan.

"I have made bolder words good before now," returned Robin, "and that
against better adversaries."

"It is easy to try that," says Alan.

Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the pair of pipes that was his
principal possession, and to set before his guests a mutton-ham and a
bottle of that drink which they call Athole brose, and which is made of
old whisky, strained honey and sweet cr