arted to say, to show I had some knowledge of the breed, and at the
same time a notion of fairness to the clan.

This was fresh heather on the fire.

"Older!" he cried; "she was a MacVicar as far as ever I heard; it was
the name she took to kirk with her when she married your father."

"So," said I; "but----"

"And though I allow her grandfather Dpl-a-mhonadh [Donald-of-the-Hills]
was a Campbell, it was in a roundabout way; he was but the son of one of
the Craignish gentry."

"You yourself----"

"Sir!" said he in a new tone, as cold as steel and as sharp, misjudging
my intention.

"You yourself are no more than a M'Iver."

"And what of that?" he cried, cooling down a bit "The M'ivers of Asknish
are in the direct line from Duncan, Lord of Lochow. We had Pennymore,
Stron-shira, and Glenaora as cadets of Clan Campbell when your Craignish
cross-breeds were under the salt."

"Only by the third cousin," said I; "my father has told me over and over
again that Duncan's son had no heir."

And so we went into all this perplexity of Highland pedigree like old
wives at a waulking, forgetting utterly that what we began to quarrel
about was the more serious charge of lying. M'lver was most frantic
about the business, and I think I was cool, for I was never a person
that cared a bodle about my history bye the second generation. They
might be lairds or they might be lackeys for all the differ it made to
me. Not that there were any lackeys among them. My grandfather was the
grandson of Tormaid Mor, who held the whole east side of Lochow from
Ford to Sonachan, and we have at home the four-posted bed that Tormaid
slept on when the heads of the house of Argile were lying on white-hay
or chaff.

At last John broke into a laugh.

"Aren't you the _amadan_ to be biting the tongue between your teeth?" he
said.

"What is it?" I asked, constrained to laugh too.

"You talk about the crook in our Campbell tongue in one breath," said
he, "and in the next you would make yourself a Campbell more sib to
the chief than I am myself. Don't you think we might put off our
little affairs of family history till we find a lady and a child in
Stron-gara?"

"No more of it, then," said I. "Our difference began on my fool's notion
that because I had something of what you would call a liking for this
girl, no one else should let an eye light on her."

By now we were in a wide glade in the Tombreck wood. On our left we
could see lying among the