's feather out of the chief's bonnet;
and were he the first in the Highlands, and to be sure so is Eachin,
he must fight the man he has wronged, or else a rose falls from his
chaplet."

"Will you move him to this," said Henry, "after the fight on Sunday?"

"Oh, her nainsell will do her best, if the hawks have not got her
nainsell's bones to pick; for you must know, brother, that Clan
Chattan's claws pierce rather deep."

"The armour is your chief's on that condition," said Henry; "but I will
disgrace him before king and court if he does not pay me the price."

"Deil a fear--deil a fear; I will bring him in to the barrace myself,"
said Norman, "assuredly."

"You will do me a pleasure," replied Henry; "and that you may remember
your promise, I will bestow on you this dirk. Look--if you hold it
truly, and can strike between the mail hood and the collar of your
enemy, the surgeon will be needless."

The Highlander was lavish in his expressions of gratitude, and took his
leave.

"I have given him the best mail harness I ever wrought," said the smith
to himself, rather repenting his liberality, "for the poor chance
that he will bring his chief into a fair field with me; and then let
Catharine be his who can win her fairly. But much I dread the youth will
find some evasion, unless he have such luck on Palm Sunday as may induce
him to try another combat. That is some hope, however; for I have often,
ere now, seen a raw young fellow shoot up after his first fight from a
dwarf into a giant queller."

Thus, with little hope, but with the most determined resolution, Henry
Smith awaited the time that should decide his fate. What made him augur
the worst was the silence both of the glover and of his daughter.

"They are ashamed," he said, "to confess the truth to me, and therefore
they are silent."

Upon the Friday at noon, the two bands of thirty men each, representing
the contending clans, arrived at the several points where they were to
halt for refreshments.

The Clan Quhele was entertained hospitably at the rich abbey of Scone,
while the provost regaled their rivals at his Castle of Kinfauns, the
utmost care being taken to treat both parties with the most punctilious
attention, and to afford neither an opportunity of complaining of
partiality. All points of etiquette were, in the mean while, discussed
and settled by the Lord High Constable Errol and the young Earl of
Crawford, the former acting on the part of the C