"Read that stane. I'm no' a bawkin."
"BLENHEIM. BAMILLIES. OUDENARDE. MALPLAQUET."
"Thayse the battles; read the man's name.
"MAJOR EWAN McBRIDE."
"Ay, ay; come oot," and I was pulled out of the window, and an enormous man stood before me, looking at me with a queer smile, and scratching his neck till I could hear the hairs of his whiskers crickle and snap like breaking twigs.
"D'ye ken who Major Ewan McBride was?"
"No."
"Well—Dan's faither; he was kilt; he's no in there at a'—it's a peety, for things wid hiv been different.
"Eat ye your pease-brose and keep clear o' the weemen, and ye'll be as great a man as him, but never say a word tae Dan. Says you, when ye go home and see him wi' nobody aboot, says you: 'Jock McGilp was saying the turf's in and the gull's a bonny bird.' Mind it noo; 'The turfs in' and 'the gull's a bonny bird.'"
And that night so long ago, when Dan and I kneeled on the stone-flagged floor beside one another and listened to my uncle pray and pray and pray in Gaelic, I whispered—