bonniest way of showing you
what we think of such on-goings in honest Inneraora; or getting the
Doomster to bastinado you up and down the street But we'll try what a
fortnight in the Tolbooth may do to amend your visiting manners. Take
them away, officers."

"_Abair moran taing_--say 'many thanks' to his lordship," whispered
one of the red-coat halberdiers in the ear of the bigger of the two
prisoners. I could hear the command distinctly where I sat, well back in
the court, and so no doubt could Gillesbeg Gruamach, but he was used to
such obsequious foolishness and he made no dissent or comment.

"_Taing! taing!_" said one spokesman of the two MacLachlans in his
hurried Cowal Gaelic, and his neighbour, echoing him word for word in
the comic fashion they have in these parts; "_Taing! taing!_ I never
louted to the horseman that rode over me yet, and I would be ill-advised
to start with the Gruamach one!"

The man's face flushed up as he spoke. It's a thing I've noticed about
our own poor Gaelic men: speaking before them in English or Scots, their
hollow look and aloofness would give one the notion that they lacked
sense and sparkle; take the muddiest-looking among them and challenge
him in his own tongue, and you'll find his face fill with wit and
understanding.

I was preparing to leave the court-room, having many people to call on
in Inneraora, and had turned with my two friends to the door, when a
fellow brushed in past us--a Highlander, I could see, but in trews--and
he made to go forward into the body of the court, as if to speak to
his lordship, now leaning forward in a cheerful conversation with
the Provost of the burgh, a sonsy gentleman in a peruke and figured
waistcoat.

"Who is he, this bold fellow?" I asked one of my friends, pausing with
a foot on the door-step, a little surprised at the want of reverence to
MacCailein in the man's bearing.

"Iain Aluinn--John Splendid," said my friend. We were talking in the
Gaelic, and he made a jocular remark there is no English for. Then he
added, "A poor cousin of the Marquis, a M'Iver Campbell (_on the wrong
side_), with little schooling, but some wit and gentlemanly parts. He
has gone through two fortunes in black cattle, fought some fighting
here and there, and now he manages the silver-mines so adroitly that
Gillesbeg Gruamach is ever on the brink of getting a big fortune, but
never done launching out a little one instead to keep the place going. A
decent sou