of them, and both in
the English that most of our clansmen but indifferently understood. They
prayed as prayed David, that the counsel of Ahithophel might be turned
to foolishness; and "Lo," they said, "be strong and courageous; fear
not, neither be afraid of the King of Ashur, neither for all the
multitude that is with him; for there be more with us than with him,"
and John Splendid turned to me at this with a dry laugh.

"Colin, my dear," said he, "thus the hawk upon the mountain-side, and
the death of the winged eagle to work up a valour for! 'There be more
with us than with him.' I never heard it so bluntly put before. But
perhaps Heaven will forgive us the sin of our caution, seeing that half
our superior number are but Lowland levies."

And all night long deer belled to deer on the braes of Glen Noe.

CHAPTER XVII.--IN THE LAND OF LORN.

We might well be at our prayers. Appin paid dearly for its merriment in
the land of Cailein Mor, and the MacDonalds were mulct most generously
for our every hoof and horn. For when we crossed Loch Etive there came
behind us from the ruined glens of Lower Lorn hordes of shepherds,
hunters, small men of small families, who left their famished dens and
holes, hunger sharping them at the nose, the dead bracken of concealment
in their hair, to join in the vengeance on the cause of their distress.
Without chieftains or authority, they came in savage bands, affronting
the sea with their shouts as they swam or ferried; they made up with the
wildest of our troops, and ho, ro! for the plaids far and wide on the
errands of Hell. In that clear, cold, white weather--the weather of
the badger's dream, as our proverb calls it--we brought these glens
unfriendly, death in the black draught and the red wine of fire. A
madness of hate seized on us; we glutted our appetites to the very
gorge. I must give Argile the credit of giving no licence to
our on-goings. He rode after us with his Lowlanders, protesting,
threatening, cajoling in vain. Many a remonstrance, too, made Gordon,
many an opening fire he stamped out in cot and bam. But the black smoke
of the granary belching against the white hills, or the kyloe, houghed
and maimed, roaring in its agony, or the fugitive brought bloody on his
knees among the rocks--God's mercy!

Do you know why those unco spectacles were sometimes almost sweet to me,
though I was more often a looker-on than a sharer in their horror? It
was because I never saw