our path, and fine I proved it. I clean forgot it was the
Sabbath and louped the dyke after him. My kiltie caught on a
stone, and there I was hanging upside down. My father loosed me,
but my kiltie was torn and I had to go to bed without my supper
for breaking the Sabbath."

"Is the hole there yet?" asked Jean.

"Na, na;" said the Shepherd. "You didn't think your grandmother
was such a thriftless wifie as that! She mended the hole so that
you could never find where it had been."

He examined fold after fold carefully.

"There, now," he exclaimed at last, "if you want to see mending
that would make you proud to wear it, look at that."

Jean and Jock stuck their heads over his shoulder, and Alan
twisted himself nearly in two trying to see his own back.

"We have a plaid a good deal like this," said Alan, looking
closely at the pattern. "My mother's name was McGregor, but she
has relations named Campbell."

"Are you really a Scotch body, then?" cried Robin with new
interest in Alan. "I thought you were an English boy."

"I live in London," Alan answered, "but my mother's people are
all Scotch, and she loves Scotland. That's one reason why she
sent me up here to be with Eppie McLean."

"Losh, mannie," cried the Shepherd, "if you have Campbell
relatives and your mother's name was McGregor, it's likely you
are a descendant from old Rob Roy himself, and if so, we're all
kinsmen. Inversnaid, where Rob Roy's cave is, is but a few miles
from here, and it was in this very country that he hid himself
among rocks and caves, giving to the poor with his left hand what
he took from the rich with his right. Well, well, laddie, the
old clans are scattered now, but blood is thicker than water
still, and you're welcome to the fireside of your kinsman!"

"Is he really a relation?" cried Jean and Jock eagerly.

"Well," said the Scotchman cautiously, "I'm not saying he is
precisely, but I'm not saying he is not, either. The Campbells
and the McGregors have lived in these parts for better than two
hundred years, and it's not likely that Alan could lay claim to
both names and be no relation at all. If there were still clans,
as there used to be in the old days, we'd all belong to the same
one, and that I do not doubt."

"I'm sure I'd like that," said Alan, and Jock was so delighted
with his new relative that he stood on his head in the middle of
the floor to express his feelings. When the excitement had died
down a bit, Alan dr