t my--my--my part in the affair? His
reverence here has had his will of me on that score."

M'Iver darted a look of annoyance at the minister, who seemed to pay no
heed, but still to have his thoughts far off.

"I have really nothing to say, your lordship, except that I'm glad to
see you spared to us here instead of being left a corpse with our honest
old kinsman Auchinbreac (_beannachd leas!_) and more gentry of your clan
and house than the Blue Quarry will make tombs for in Kilmalieu. If the
minister has been preaching, it's his trade; it's what you pay him for.
I'm no homilist, thank God, and no man's conscience."

"No, no; God knows you are not," said Argile, in a tone of pity
and vexation. "I think I said before that you were the poorest of
consciences to a man in a hesitancy between duty and inclination....
And all my guests have left me, John; I'm a lonely man in my castle of
Inneraora this day, except for the prayers of a wife--God bless and keep
her!--who knows and comprehends my spirit And I have one more friend
here in this room------"

"You can count on John M'Iver to the yetts of Hell," said my friend,
"and I am the proud man that you should think it."

"I am obliged to you for that, kinsman," said his lordship in Gaelic,
with a by-your-leave to the cleric. "But do not give your witless vanity
a foolish airing before my chaplain." Then he added in the English,
"When the fairy was at my cradle-side and gave my mother choice of my
gifts, I wish she had chosen rowth of real friends. I could be doing
with more about me of the quality I mention; better than horse and foot
would they be, more trusty than the claymores of my clan. It might be
the slogan 'Cruachan' whenever it wist, and Archibald of Argile would be
more puissant than he of Homer's story. People have envied me when they
have heard me called the King of the Highlands--fools that did not know
I was the poorest, weakest man of his time, surrounded by flatterers
instead of friends. Gordon, Gordon, I am the victim of the Highland
liar, that smooth-tongued----"

"Call it the Campbell liar," I cried bitterly, thinking of my father.
"Your clan has not the reputation of guile for nothing, and if you
refused straightforward honest outside counsel sometimes, it was not for
the want of its offering."

"I cry your pardon," said MacCailein, meekly; "I should have learned to
discriminate by now. Blood's thicker than water, they say, but it's not
so pure an