nemy will be in the place before
us, and we shall have done harm. Why do they not come? If I had but
fifty men like you, Humphrey, we need not be sitting thus."

But sit we did, till the sun looked at us over the hill. Then Ludar
could wait no longer, but summoned me to my feet, and stalked up the
valley. We had gone about an hour, when a loud tramp and shouting
ahead, together with a vision of wild figures on the hills on either
hand, told us that the long expected meeting had come at last. The next
turn of the valley brought us full in view of the McDonnell host. It
stretched in a wild irregular line far up the glen, the men marching
four or five abreast, armed, some with spears, some with swords and
bucklers, others with bows, and a very few with firearms. They sang a
loud wailing song as they marched, mingled with cries of defiance, and
now and then of laughter. But what moved me most was the aspect of the
two men who marched a dozen paces in the front of all.

The elder was a giant, huge of limb, towering above his clan like Saul,
in the Bible, among his Israelites. His white hair hung wildly on his
shoulders, and tossed defiantly with every step he took. He may have
been seventy years of age, yet his face was knit as hard as a warrior's
of thirty, and he stepped out as lissom and quick as his youngest
gallowglass. Yet all this was as nothing to the noble sadness of his
face and the blaze of his deep, blue eyes, which, had I not known it
already, would have betrayed him to me anywhere as Ludar's father. The
younger warrior at his side, a man of thirty-five, joyous of mien, his
yellow hair glistening in the sunlight, and his massive form (only less
massive than his father's), moving with a careless ease, it was not hard
to guess was Alexander, the darling of the clan and the pride of his
father's life.

Seeing us in the path, they suddenly halted, while the musketeers behind
levelled their pieces.

But Ludar stepped solemnly forward.

"Father, I am Ludar," said he.

The old man uttered a quick exclamation and stepped back a pace to look
at this stalwart man, whom he had seen last a young boy ten years ago.
Then, with a face as solemn as that of his son's, he laid his great hand
on the lad's shoulder and said:

"Thou art come in good time, Ludar, my son."

That was all the greeting that passed betwixt these two; for immediately
the march began again, the old man stalking first alone, and the two