'Aw—the fellow seems so strong that he might squeeze the wataw out of a whinstone; and aw—aw, as for tossing that fwightful cabaw—goodness gwacious!' yawned the languid A. F. Snobleigh, surveying the six feet and odd inches of Callum through his eyeglass.
'He is quite a model of a man, Laura,' said Fanny Clavering; 'I would marry him in a moment if he would have me. He looks so like——'
'What we read of in romances.'
'A bandit—a wild mountain robber—and I have always thought it would be so exciting, so delightful to marry a real robber, and be the bride of a real bandit or corsair—oh, I should love a corsair of all things, especially if his bark were a fine steam yacht, we should have such delightful pic-nics among the Greek Isles, and trips to the garrison balls at Corfu!'
'You perceive, Miss Everingham,' said Captain Clavering, laughing, while he smoothed his unparalleled white kid gloves, 'our noisy Fanny has a strong love for the charms of nature in an unsophisticated state. Hence her rapture at the long whiskers and bare legs of these Highlandmen.'
The cold, artificial, and aristocratic Sir Horace, whom the gold of his father, who died a wealthy Manchester millionaire and docile ministerialist, had made a baronet and king of our Highland glen, received all who approached his carriage with the same bow, the same smile, the same welcome, and nearly the same set of stereotyped phrases, good wishes and warm inquiries; and thus he graciously received his facile and obnoxious factor and factotum, Mr. Snaggs, who had been delayed by the ceremony of founding a new dissenting chapel, and who now galloped up on his barrel-bellied and knock-kneed pony, which he rode with a huge crupper and creaking saddle. A dark, almost savage scowl flitted for a moment across the usually placid and affectedly benign visage of 'the moralist,' and admirer of Blair, as our piper Ewen Oig passed and repassed him, playing the march of Black Donald; and then he smiled with malicious triumph, as if anticipating that day now so near at hand, when the war-pipe of Mac Innon would be hushed for ever by the shores of the Western Sea.
I exchanged a glance full of deep and bitter import, with the calm, stern, and stately Callum Dhu; then we withdrew a little way, for the vicinity of this man's presence was hateful to us, and now, amid a buzz of tongues began the great business of the gathering—a gathering summoned to foster the nationality of a people, whom the grasping aristocracy are leaving nothing undone to exterminate and destroy.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE STONE OF STRENGTH.
Having many of my own adventures to relate, I will confine my narrative chiefly to the achievements of those in whom I am most interested—the men of Glen Ora; and even in that I must be brief. In all those athletic sports, which in time of peace were of old, and are still the principal amusements of the Gael, there were many stout and hardy competitors; but Callum's known fame for strength and agility, together with his cool and confident air and graceful bearing, made them all dubious of victory, yet there were on the ground the flower of that poor remnant, who now represent the once powerful clans of the West.