"Just so," said M'Iver, fumbling in his hand some coin he had taken from
his sporran; "have you heard of the gold touch for fever? A child has
been brought from the edge of the grave by the virtue of a dollar rubbed
on its brow. I think I heard you say some neighbour's child was ill? I'm
no physician, but if my coin could--what?"

The woman flushed deeper than ever, an angered pride this time in her
heat.

"There's no child ill that I know of," said she; "if there was, we have
gold of our own."

She bustled about the house and put past her blankets, and out with a
spinning-wheel and into a whirr of it, with a hummed song of the country
at her lips--all in a mild temper, or to keep her confusion from showing
itself undignified.

"Come away," I said to my comrade in English; "you'll make her bitterly
angry if you persist in your purpose."

He paid no heed to me, but addressed the woman again with a most
ingenious story, apparently contrived, with his usual wit, as he went on
with it.

"Your pardon, goodwife," said he, "but I see you are too sharp for my
small deceit I daresay I might have guessed there was no child ill; but
for reasons of my own I'm anxious to leave a little money with you till
I come back this road again. We trusted you with our lives for a couple
of hours there, and surely, thinks I, we can trust you with a couple of
yellow pieces."

The woman stopped her wheel and resumed her good-humour. "I thought,"
said she,--"I thought you meant payment for----"

"You're a bit hard on my manners, goodwife," said John. "Of course I
have been a soldier, and might have done the trick of paying forage
with a sergeant's blunt-ness, but I think I know a Gaelic woman's spirit
better."

"But are you likely to be passing here again at any time?" cried the
woman, doubt again darkening her face, and by this time she had the
money in her hand. "I thought you were going back by the Glen?"

"That was our notion," said my comrade, marvellously ready, "but to tell
the truth we are curious to see this Keppoch bard, whose songs we know
very well in real Argile, and we take a bit of the road to Kilcumin
after him."

The weakness of this tale was not apparent to the woman, who I daresay
had no practice of such trickery as my friend was the master of, and she
put the money carefully in a napkin and in a recess beneath one of the
roof-joists. Our thanks she took carelessly, no doubt, because we were
Campbells.

I wa