“Jamie, my man, you understand the Gaelic, so it is possible you understand those who speak it.”
“If your majesty means the Highlanders, they are easily enough understood. They are plain, simple, honest bodies who speak what’s on their minds, and who are always willing, in an argument, to exchange the wag of the tongue for a swoop of the black knife.”
“I admit,” said the king with a smile, “that they are a guileless pastoral people, easy to get on with if you comprehend them, but that is where I’m at a loss, and I thought your head might supplement my own.”
“I am delighted to hear you want my head for no other purpose but that of giving advice,” returned the Highlander candidly.
“Truth to tell, Jamie, your head would be of little use to me were it not on your shoulders. If the head were that of a winsome lassie I might be tempted to take it on my own shoulder, but otherwise I am well content to let heads remain where Providence places them.”
Whether intentional or not, the king had touched a sore spot when he referred to the laying of a winsome lassie’s head on his shoulder, and MacDonald drew himself up rather stiffly.
“In any ploy with the ladies,” he said, “your majesty has the weight of an ermine cloak in your favour, and we all know how the lassies like millinery.”
“Then, Jamie, in a fair field, you think you would have the advantage of me, as for example if our carpet were the heather instead of the weaving of an Eastern loom?”
“I just think that,” said MacDonald stoutly.
The king threw back his head and laughed the generous laugh of the all-conquering man.