“Macdonald o’ Glencoe!”
Lady Breadalbane’s green eyes flashed: “Ay,” she said. “He’d been thieving an’ murdering—burning one of my lord’s houses, he said. He showed me Campbells rotting on the trees and—”
She checked herself abruptly; her keen glance roved round the grim Campbell faces. “I think we’ve taken enough from these Macdonalds of Glencoe,” she said slowly.
There was a little deadly pause; it was not easy for a Campbell to voice his feelings for a Macdonald.
It was the Countess who spoke first: “They’re vera simple, these savages; I told him I was a Fraser.”
“It was wise,” remarked her cousin dryly. “If he had kenned ye were Breadalbane’s wife, weel, ye wouldna’ be here noo.”
“Indeed, they do hate my lord,” she answered. “I had to listen to some miscalling of Jock Campbell—as they name him.” Her thin lips curled into a bitter smile. “I tried to sound him about this conference—ye ken—this matter my lord has on hand for quieting the Hielands—‘we’ll never take the oaths’—he says—‘Jock Campbell’s got the money in his coffers for himsel’—we may come,’ he says, ‘but we’ll enter into no treaty with a Campbell.’”
“Puir fules,” said one of the company. “They think we want them to be taking the oaths to King William?”
“They’re no’ so simple as that,” answered another. “But they consider the new government’ll need something for its money—an’ if a Campbell can’t quiet the Hielands—some one else can try—it’s plain they’re bent on ruining the negotiations out of spite to Breadalbane.”
The Countess Peggy set her wine-glass down fiercely: “Weel,” she said, “’tis the end of October noo, an’ they must take the oaths by January—they’ve been dallying for two years—but I’m no’ thinking either we or the government will be taking any more.”