"Montrose," said the latter, sternly; "those whom you stigmatize as landless reivers and broken sorners are better men than ever inherited your blood, duke now though you be! And if this is the way you mean to treat me, by the Grey Stone in Glenfruin, and by the souls of those who died there, I shall not consider it my interest to pay your interest, nor my interest either to pay even the principal!"
"Dare you say this to me?" exclaimed the duke, flushing with real anger; "to me, under my own roof-tree?"
MacGregor laughed, and patted the basket-hilt of his sword, put on his bonnet, and arose. Saying, "I would say something more if you stood on the open heather, under the canopy of heaven. But now let us understand each other; big words never scared MacGregor, and they are not likely to do so now. I have but £200 to offer you, and yours it should have been had you acted justly or generously; but now——"
"You will keep it, of course?"
"Ay, every God's-penny, and lay it out in the king's service."
"What king?"
"Can you ask?" exclaimed Rob, with a glance of surprise, that was blended almost with ferocity. "I mean King James VIII. of Scotland. Queen Anne is ill, so men told me in the south; the day is not far distant when the flag will hang half-hoisted on the walls of Carlisle; and the first news that the Hanoverian Elector has landed in England will make the Highland hills bristle with broadswords—yea, bristle like a stubble-field! The heather will be on fire from Strathspey to Inverary, and this £200, Montrose, the sum exactly for which, as men say, you sold your country, when bribed to make the Union, I shall lay out in the service of him who has sworn to break it. Ochon! the ills that are coming upon us are a pregnant example of the folly of a people allowing their fatherland to be the property of kings! Thus, ours succeeded to the kingdom of England, just as they might have done to a farm or a barony; but England being the richer and the greater, they soon forgot the old house in which their good forefathers lived and died. And now, Montrose, learn from this hour that MacGregor is your enemy!"
The duke, who was too high-spirited to brook being bearded in his own house, raised his hand to the bell to summon his servants, but paused on seeing the stern frown that gathered on MacGregor's face, and that his right hand was on the pistol in his girdle.
With a mock reverence Rob left his presence, reached the barbican, mounted his horse, and was soon galloping down Strathblane towards the banks of the Enrich.
The duke's first intention was to have him overtaken by a mounted party and made prisoner; but he speedily dismissed the idea, for to waylay one who had just left his own threshold would cover his name with disgrace and reprobation throughout the north; and, moreover, the castle of Mugdock was uncomfortably near the Highland frontier.