with John of
Moidart, the Captain of Clanranald, Donald Glas MacRanald of Keppoch,
the laird of Glencoe, Stewart of Appin, and one of the Knoydart house,
all of whilk we distinguished by their tartans and badges.

In the mien of these savage chiefs there was great elation that Montrose
had little share in, to all appearance. He rode moodily, and when fair
opposite our place of concealment he stopped his horse as if to quit the
sell, but more likely to get, for a little, out of the immediate company
of his lawless troops. None of those home-returning Gaels paid heed
to his pause, for they were more Alasdair Macdonald's men than his;
Mac-Donald brought them to the lair of the boar, MacDonald glutted their
Highland thirst for Campbell blood, Mac-Donald had compelled this raid
in spite of the protests of the nobleman who held the King's Commission
and seal.

For some minutes his lordship stood alone on the pathway. The house
where we lay was but one, and the meanest, among a numerous cluster of
such drear memorials of a black business, and it was easy to believe
this generalissimo had some gloomy thoughts as he gazed on the work he
had lent consent to. He looked at the ruins and he looked up the pass at
his barbarians, and shrugged his shoulders with a contempt there was no
mistaking.

"I could bring him down like a capercailzie," said M'Iver, coolly,
running his eye along his pistol and cocking it through his keek-hole.

"For God's sake don't shoot!" I said, and he laughed quietly.

"Is there anything in my general deportment, Colin, that makes ye think
me an assassin or an idiot? I never wantonly shot an unsuspecting enemy,
and I'm little likely to shoot Montrose and have a woman and bairn
suffer the worst for a stupid moment of glory."

As ill luck would have it, the bairn, that had been playing peacefully
in the dusk, at this critical minute let up a cry Montrose plainly
heard.

"We're lost, we're lost," said Betty, trembling till the crisp dry
bracken rustled about her, and she was for instant flight.

"If we're lost, there's a marquis will go travelling with us," said
M'Iver, covering his lordship's heart with his pistol.

Had Montrose given the slightest sign that he intended to call back his
men to tread out this last flicker of life in Aora Glen he would never
have died on the gibbet at the Grassmarket of Dunedin, Years after,
when Grahame met his doom (with much more courtliness and dignity than
I could