entiful
hospitality which was the most valued attribute of a chieftain. For the
same reason he crowded his estate with a tenantry, hardy indeed, and fit
for the purposes of war, but greatly outnumbering what the soil was
calculated to maintain. These consisted chiefly of his own clan, not one
of whom he suffered to quit his lands if he could possibly prevent it.
But he maintained, besides, many adventurers from the mother sept, who
deserted a less warlike, though more wealthy chief to do homage to Fergus
Mac-Ivor. Other individuals, too, who had not even that apology, were
nevertheless received into his allegiance, which indeed was refused to
none who were, like Poins, proper men of their hands, and were willing to
assume the name of Mac-Ivor.

He was enabled to discipline these forces, from having obtained command
of one of the independent companies raised by government to preserve the
peace of the Highlands. While in this capacity he acted with vigour and
spirit, and preserved great order in the country under his charge. He
caused his vassals to enter by rotation into his company, and serve for a
certain space of time, which gave them all in turn a general notion of
military discipline. In his campaigns against the banditti, it was
observed that he assumed and exercised to the utmost the discretionary
power which, while the law had no free course in the Highlands, was
conceived to belong to the military parties who were called in to support
it. He acted, for example, with great and suspicious lenity to those
freebooters who made restitution on his summons and offered personal
submission to himself, while he rigorously pursued, apprehended, and
sacrificed to justice all such interlopers as dared to despise his
admonitions or commands. On the other hand, if any officers of justice,
military parties, or others, presumed to pursue thieves or marauders
through his territories, and without applying for his consent and
concurrence, nothing was more certain than that they would meet with some
notable foil or defeat; upon which occasions Fergus Mac-Ivor was the
first to condole with them, and after gently blaming their rashness,
never failed deeply to lament the lawless state of the country. These
lamentations did not exclude suspicion, and matters were so represented
to government that our Chieftain was deprived of his military command.
[Footnote: See Note 19.]

Whatever Fergus Mac-Ivor felt on this occasion, he had the art