"'Done!' said the duke. 'Your bet is a fatal one, as you will find to your cost, ere many minutes pass away. Your very words savour of Jacobitism and treason; and your commission shall certainly be lost, if your rebel beats not a champion of my choosing. My friend, Major Von Thunderbotham, of Bligh's, may consider your command as his already.'
"'By Heaven! your highness, no dog of a Hessian that ever wore a head, shall command the men of Macallummore's race!' replied Campbell bluntly, and regardless of the consequences.
"A gigantic dragoon of Cobham's horse offered himself readily as the duke's champion; and on his colonel bearing testimony of his strength, activity, and expertness with his weapon, he was accepted. In his broken English, the ungenerous duke now addressed the prisoners in a style at once savage and insulting, offering freedom to any one of them who, in an encounter with the broad-sword, could foil the trooper. The words had scarcely fallen from his lips, before my father strode forward and claimed the combat.
"'Strike well, Cameron, for the honour of the Highlands!' said Campbell, as my father flung aside his fetters as he would have done a coil of adders.
"'Had you and others of your race struck for the right this day, the Prince would not have been a fugitive in the land of his fathers!' replied the other with an indignant scowl.
"'Oich! you are somewhat insolent for a cock laird or upstart gilly,' said the abashed Campbell. 'But remember that freedom is before you if you conquer; and if not, the hemp is grown—ay, man, and twisted too,—that will hang you like a dog from the walls of Carlisle some day to come.'
"'Better a thousand times to die on the scaffold with the white cockade on my brow, than eat the bread of a foreign oppressor and usurper,' replied my father heedlessly. 'But am I to encounter the sidier roy with my hands, after the base manner of his people?"
"'No: take my claymore,' answered Campbell; 'its temper and metal are matchless. Luno of Lochlin never forged a better: and if you are brave as you are impudent, I have no fears for you.'
"'But a dirk; what shall I do for a dirk?'
"'Take mine, Evan of Tor-a-muilt,' said an aged Highlander stepping forward, wearing red tartans and the bramble-berry badge in his bonnet. He placed a dirk,—this very weapon with which I slew the wolves to-night,—in the hand of my father, who started back with awe at the sight of the giver. The Highlanders around shrunk back likewise. His height was superhuman; his hair was white as snow, and a beard of the same hue descended to the square buckle at his girdle. His eyes had that keen and bright expression in them which seemed to harrow up the soul, and read the inmost thoughts of those he looked upon. In his bonnet he still wore that badge which all others had discarded for safety,—the white rose of the Stuarts.