“And a precious big feast McLeod could spread there too,” said Allan.
“And a precious big feast he did one time spread,” replied McBain, “if an old Gaelic book of mine is anything to go by.”
“Tell us,” cried Rory, who was always on tiptoe to hear a tale.
“It would seem, then, that the McLeods and the McDonalds were, in old times, deadly foes; although at times they appeared to make it up, and vowed eternal friendship. The chief McLeod invited the McDonalds once to a great ‘foy,’ and after eating and drinking on the top of that great hill, until perhaps they had had more than enough, three hundred armed Highlanders sprang from an ambush among the rocks and slew the McDonalds without mercy. Their flesh was literally given to the eagles, as Walter Scott expresses it, and their bones, which lay bleaching on the mountain top, have long since mouldered to dust.
“On another occasion,” continued McBain, “the McLeods surprised two hundred McDonalds at worship, in a cave, and building fires in front of it, smothered them. The poor half-burned wretches that leapt out through the flames speedily fell by the edge of the sword.”
“What cruel, treacherous brutes those McLeods must have been,” remarked Ralph.
“Well,” said McBain, “war is always cruel, and even in our own day treachery towards the enemy is far from uncommon; but, mind you, the McDonalds were not sinless in this respect either. A chief of this bold clan once invited a chief of the McLeods to dinner in his castle of Duntulm.”
“I wouldn’t have gone a step of my toe,” cried Rory.
“But McLeod did,” said McBain, “and he went unarmed.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Allan; “it strikes me they were playing the rogue’s game of ‘confidence.’”