Diana clasped the girls’ hands in hers.
“Are they not a splendid sight?” she whispered. “Is not the Jacobite cause one to sacrifice life for? Oh, one day, when I am a woman, I too will serve it!”
Her uncle turned to her.
“Do ye propose a toast, Di, and then ye must e’en run away and leave us to our parley.”
Di sprang on her chair. With her black hair floating on her shoulders, her colour high with excitement, her lips parted, her slender arm stretched up as she clasped in her hand a small glass of red wine, she was an inspiring sight.
“To the Clan MacGregor,” she cried, “and its head, Rob Roy. May God fight with him!”
There was a roar, and every Highlander, springing to his feet, half drew the sword hanging at his side and sent it back with a crash into the scabbard. The pipes broke out into wilder music, and the level rays of the setting sun shone in on waving plume and brilliant tartan, lighting up the wild, dark faces that crowded round the girls. Suddenly they burst into song, to a tune lively and ringing, and these were the words that sounded in the ears of Rose and Ruth:
“Rob Roy is frae the Hielands come,
Down to the Lowland border....”
The music faded, the sun dropped, Di’s bright loveliness wavered—