"He is quite well and of good hope. He says he will soon come and see us now."
"And take you away, Annie?"
"Well, sir," returned Annie, after a moment's hesitation, "he does not SAY so!"
"If he did not mean it, he would be a rascal, and I should have to kill him. But my life on Lachlan's honesty!"
"Thank you, sir. He would lay down his for you."
"Not if you said to him, DON'T!-eh, Annie?"
"But he would, Macruadh!" returned the young woman, almost angrily.
"Are not you his chief?"
"Ah, that is all over now, my girl! There are no chiefs, and no clans any more! The chiefs that need not, yet sell their land like Esau for a mess of pottage—and their brothers with it! And the Sasunnach who buys it, claims rights over them that never grew on the land or were hid in its caves! Thank God, the poor man is not their slave, but he is the worse off, for they will not let him eat, and he has nowhere to go. My heart is like to break for my people. Sometimes I feel as if I would gladly die."
"Oh, sir! don't say that!" expostulated the young woman, and her voice trembled. "Every heart in Glenruadh is glad when it goes well with the Macruadh."
"Yes, yes; I know you all love my father's son and my uncle's nephew; but how can it go well with the Macruadh when it goes ill with his clan? There is no way now for a chief to be the father of his people; we are all poor together! My uncle—God rest his soul!—they managed it so, I suppose, as to persuade him there was no help for it! Well, a man must be an honest man, even if there be no way but ruin! God knows, as we've all heard my father say a hundred times from the pulpit, there's no ruin but dishonesty! For poverty and hard work, he's a poor creature would crouch for those!"