Add to all this, that here Mr. Peregrine Palmer was in a place whose remoteness lightened the pressure of conventional restraints, while its wildness tended to rouse all the old savage in him—its very look suggesting to the city-man its fitness for an unlawful deed for a lawful end. Persons more RESPECTABLE than Mr. Palmer are capable of doing the most wicked and lawless things when their selfish sense of their own right is uppermost. Witness the occasionally iniquitous judgments of country magistrates in their own interest—how they drive law even to cruelty!
"Are you not aware you are trespassing on my land, Macruadh?" cried the new laird, across several holes full of black water which obstructed his nearer approach.
"On the contrary, Mr. Palmer," replied the chief, "I am perfectly aware that I am not!"
"You have no right to cut peats there without my permission!"
"I beg your pardon: you have no right to stand where you speak the words without my permission. But you are quite welcome."
"I am satisfied there is not a word of truth in what you say," rejoined Mr. Palmer. "I desire you to order your people away at once."
"That I cannot do. It would be to require their consent to die of cold."
"Let them die! What are they to me—or to anybody! Order them off, or it will be the worse for them—and for you too!"
"Excuse me; I cannot."
"I give you one more warning. Go yourself, and they will follow."