'Ewen Oig, bring our targets and hang one over the battlement of the tower,' said I to the young piper, who was the son of Gillespie Ruadh, and was lithe, nimble, and active. He took one of the small white targets we had brought with us from Glen Ora, and which measured about three feet square, and bore, in black line upon it, the figure of a cross. With this he scrambled to the summit of the ruined tower, a daring feat, as it was more than seventy feet in height, and there he fixed it firmly by means of a hammer, nails, and holdfasts. We now approached within two hundred yards, and challenged the competitors two and two, to put seven bullets successively into the lines of the cross which measured two feet one way by one the other.
The impatient Mr. Snobleigh fired and missed. 'You keep your head too high, sir,' said Callum; 'thus, in firing, your line of vision does not follow the line of the barrel, and yours is rather more than thirty-six inches in length.'
Clavering fired twice, and twice splintered the edge of the target. All their other bullets were flattened like lichens on the castle wall, and he and Snobleigh drew back, muttering something about the unusual height and range.
Fanny now came forward with her smart rifle, which was decorated by ribbons, and which Snobleigh had loaded for her; she, and some one else, fired seven bullets between them, and one only struck the lower verge of the little target.
'Now, sirs,' said she to Callum and me; 'it is your turn'—but Callum lowered his rifle and drew back, 'What is the matter, sir?'
'I cannot contend with a lady,' said he, doffing his bonnet, 'and more than all, with one who is among the fairest in the land.'
'Shoot, shoot, I command you!' said Fanny, while her dark eyes flashed with girlish triumph at Callum's honest admiration of her great beauty.
'Your will is a law to me, madam. My chief and I will fire by turn—he, four balls, and I, three; and here I must give place to him. Had your hand been as powerful as your eye, Miss Clavering, we had but little chance of victory to-day.'
'I told you he was a love of a man, Laura,' whispered Fanny to her friend, the charm of whose presence was for ever in my mind, and I was fired by an ambition to outshine the perfumed Snobleigh—he who owned a park and hall in Yorkshire, a house "in town," another in Paris; a stud at Tattersall's, a yacht at Cowes, a shooting-box on the Grampians, and a commission in the Foot Guards—while I—what did I own? only my father's name, with the poor inheritance of Highland pride, and the dreams of other days.
'We shall see if these boasting Celts can perform this fine feat themselves,' sneered Mr. Snaggs, as he adjusted his spectacles and came fussily forward.