ed to hear."

"No, sir," said I, a little alarmed; "nor yet of your father,
Macgregor-Campbell." And I sat up and bowed in bed; for I thought best
to compliment him, in case he was proud of having had an outlaw to his
father.

He bowed in return. "But what I am come to say, sir," he went on, "is
this. In the year '45, my brother raised a part of the 'Gregara' and
marched six companies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the
surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my brother's leg when it
was broken in the brush at Preston Pans, was a gentleman of the same
name precisely as yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and if
you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of that gentleman's
kin, I have come to put myself and my people at your command."

You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger's
dog; my uncle, to be sure, had prated of some of our high connections,
but nothing to the present purpose; and there was nothing left me but
that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell.

Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his
back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the
door, I could hear him telling Duncan that I was "only some kinless loon
that didn't know his own father." Angry as I was at these words, and
ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a
man who was under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some three
years later) should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances.

Just in the door, he met Alan coming in; and the two drew back and
looked at each other like strange dogs. They were neither of them big
men, but they seemed fairly to swell out with pride. Each wore a sword,
and by a movement 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; a