"I was not in their ranks!"
"You played them into battle."
"But I fought not—nor was I even girded with a sword."
"By my father's soul, that mattered little! A minstrel—a harper—should not play the traitor like a glaiket gilly."
"I went but to sing of the fight, that the story of it might go down to future times, even as the battles of our forefathers have come down by the songs of the bards to us. I went but as Ian Lom went with Montrose to Inverlochy. Had he fought there and fallen, who would have told us how he,
The bard of their battles, ascended the height
Where dark Inverlochy o'ershadowed the fight,
And saw the clan Donnell resistless in might!"
"Have you so committed to song our victory at Glensheil?" asked MacGregor, with a sharp glance; but the harper hung his head. "Ha! then what sought you here to-night?"
"Was it to spy upon us?" added several MacGregors, with scowling brows; "answer, Islesman, while your skin is whole!"
"By the Black Stones of Iona, I swear that I knew not you were in the land of Lochiel!" said the harper, earnestly; "and beware how you spill my blood, for my mother was one of the Camerons, the sons of the Soldier of Ovi. I was peacefully pursuing my way to the fair of Kill-chuimin."
"It may be so," said Rob Roy; "for that fair is almost at hand. Tie him to a tree; in the morning, I will speak with him again."