“We had been pushed at by the M’Aulays, and other western tribes,” said Ranald, “till our possessions became unsafe for us.”

“Ah ha!” said Dalgetty; “I have faint remembrance of having heard of that matter.  Did you not put bread and cheese into a man’s mouth, when he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?”

“You have heard, then,” said Ranald, “the tale of our revenge on the haughty forester?”

“I bethink me that I have,” said Dalgetty, “and that not of an old date.  It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man’s mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation, besides wasting the good victuals.  I have seen when at a siege or a leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald, for that crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow.”

“We were attacked by Sir Duncan,” continued MacEagh, “and my brother was slain—­his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled—­I vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken.”

“It may be so,” said Dalgetty; “and every thorough-bred soldier will confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move him to intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death by torture, surpasses my comprehension.  Were I you, Ranald, I would be for miskenning Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly by suffocation, like your ancestors before you.”

“Yet hearken, stranger,” said the Highlander.  “Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr had four children.  Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives; and more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which remains, than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost indulgence of his wrath.  One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his day of humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing, and breaking of bread.  O, I know it by my own heart?  Dearer to me is the child Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than ten sons who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of the air.”

“I presume, Ranald,” continued Dalgetty, “that the three pretty fellows whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like rizzer’d haddocks, claimed some interest in you?”

There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong emotion,—­“They were my sons, stranger—­they were my sons!—­blood of my blood—­bone of my bone!—­fleet of foot—­unerring in aim—­unvanquished by foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers!  Why do I wish to survive them?  The old trunk will less feel the rending up of its roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs.  But Kenneth must be trained to revenge—­the young eagle must learn from the old how to stoop on his foes.  I will purchase for his sake my life and my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr.”