michael, with no
truth to back it, that you could run, shoot, or sing any Campbell ever
put on hose; let a Campbell show you the way out of a bees'-bike. Take
the back-window for it, and out the way we came in. I'll warrant there's
not a wise enough (let alone a sober enough) man among all the idiots
battering there who'll think of watching for your retreat."

MacLachlan, a most extraordinarily vain and pompous little fellow, put
his bonnet suddenly on his head, scragged it down vauntingly on one
side over the right eye, and stared at John Splendid with a good deal of
choler or hurt vanity.

"Sir," said he, "this was our affair till you put a finger into it. You
might know me well enough to understand that none of our breed ever took
a back-door if a front offered."

"Whilk it does not in this case," said John Splendid, seemingly in a
mood to humour the man. "But I'll allow there's the right spirit in the
objection--to begin with in a young lad. When I was your age I had the
same good Highland notion that the hardest way to face the foe was
the handsomest 'Pallas Armata'* (is't that you call the book of arms,
Elrigmore?) tells different; but 'Pallas Armata' (or whatever it is) is
for old men with cold blood."

* It could hardly be 'Pallas Armata.' The narrator
anticipates Sir James Turner's ingenious treatise by several
years.--N. M.

Of a sudden MacLachlan made dart at the chests and pulled them back
from the door with a most surprising vigour of arm before any one could
prevent him. The Provost vainly tried to make him desist; John Splendid
said in English, "Wha will to Cupar maun to Cupar," and in a jiffy the
last of the barricade was down, but the door was still on two wooden
bars slipping into stout staples. Betty in a low whisper asked me to
save the poor fellow from his own hot temper.

At the minute I grudged him the lady's consideration--too warm, I
thought, even in a far-out relative, but a look at her face showed she
was only in the alarm of a woman at the thought of any one's danger.

I caught MacLachlan by the sleeve of his shirt--he had on but that and a
kilt and vest--and jerked him back from his fool's employment; but I was
a shave late. He ran back both wooden bars before I let him.

With a roar and a display of teeth and steel the MacNicolls came into
the lobby from the crowded stair, and we were driven to the far parlour
end. In the forefront of them was Nicol Beg MacNicoll, th