e conviction that the world owes them as easy a
living as they can cheat it out of, and they never mentioned war. The
landlord's dram was on, and 'twas it I had shared in, and when it was
over I pulled out a crown and bought the heartiest goodwill of a score
of rogues with some flagons of ale.

A beetle-browed chamber, long, narrow, stifling with the heat of a great
fire, its flagged floor at intervals would slap with bare or bauchled
feet dancing to a short reel. First one gangrel would sing a verse or
two of a Lowland ballant, not very much put out in its sentiment by the
presence of the random ladies; then another would pluck a tune upon the
Jew's-trump, a chorus would rise like a sudden gust of wind, a jig
would shake upon the fiddle. I never saw a more happy crew, nor yet one
that--judging from the doctrine that thrift and sobriety have their just
reward--deserved it less. I thought of poor Master Gordon somewhere dead
or alive in or about Dalness, a very pupil of Christ, and yet with
a share of His sorrows, with nowhere to lay his head, but it did not
bitter me to my company.

By-and-by the landlord came cannily up to me and whispered in my ear a
sort of apology for the rabble of his house.

"You ken, sir," said he in very good English--"you ken yourself what
the country's like just now, given over to unending brawl, and I am
glad to see good-humoured people about me, even if they are penniless
gangrels."

"My own business is war," I acknowledged; "I'll be frank enough to tell
you I'm just now making my way to Inneraora as well as the weather and
the MacDonalds will let me."

He was pleased at my candour, I could see; confidence is a quality that
rarely fails of its purpose. He pushed the bottle towards me with the
friendliest of gestures, and took the line of the fellow-conspirator.

"Keep your thumb on that," said he; "I'm not supposed to precognosce
every lodger in Tynree upon his politics. I'm off Clan Chattan myself,
and not very keen on this quarrel--that's to say, I'll take no side
in it, for my trade is feeding folk and not fighting them. Might I be
asking if you were of the band of Campbells a corps of MacDonalds were
chasing down the way last night?"

I admitted I was.

"I have nothing to do with it," said he; "and I'll do a landlord's duty
by any clan coming my way. As for my guests here, they're so pleased to
see good order broken in the land and hamlets half-harried that
they'll favour any m