God, to forage
for themselves than has an army?"

"There's a difference," said the minister, stiffly. "We were then
legitimate troops of war, fighting for the Solemn League and Covenant
under a noble lord with Letters. It was the Almighty's cause, and----"

"Was it indeed?" said John Splendid. "And was Himself on the other side
of Loch Leven when His tulzie was on?"

"Scoffer!" cried Gordon, and M'Iver said no more, but led us through the
dark to the house whose light so cheerfully smiled before us.

The house, when we came to it, proved a trig little edifice of far
greater comfort than most of the common houses of the Highlands--not
a dry-stone bigging but a rubble tenement, very snugly thacked and
windowed, and having a piece of kail-plot at its rear. It was perched
well up on the brae, and its light at evening must have gleamed like a
friendly star far up the glen, that needs every touch of brightness to
mitigate its gloom. As we crept close up to it in the snow, we could
hear the crooning John Splendid had told us of, a most doleful sound in
a land of darkness and strangers.

"Give a rap, and when she answers the door we can tell our needs
peaceably," said the minister.

"I'm not caring about rapping, and I'm not caring about entering at all
now," said M'I ver, turning about with some uneasiness. "I wish we had
fallen on a more cheery dwelling, even if it were to be coerced with
club and pistol. A prickle's at my skin that tells me here is dool, and
I can smell mort-cloth."

Sonachan gave a grunt, and thumped loudly on the fir boards. A silence
that was like a swound fell on the instant, and the light within went
out at a puff. For a moment it seemed as if our notion of occupancy and
light and lament had been a delusion, for now the grave itself was no
more desolate and still.

"I think we might be going," said I in a whisper, my heart thud-thudding
at my vest, my mind sharing some of John Splendid's apprehension that we
were intruders on some profound grief. And yet my hunger was a furious
thing that belched red-hot at my stomach.

"Royal's my race!" said Stewart "I'll be kept tirling at no door-pin in
the Highlands,--let us drive in the bar."

"What does he say?" asked the cleric, and I gave him the English of it.

"You'll drive no doors in here," said he firmly to Stewart "We can but
give another knock and see what comes of it Knock you, M'Iver."

"Barbreck."

"Barbreck be it then."

"I would so