“That is very true,” replied MacDonald, “but you must not forget that no one has any suspicion who you are. Everyone is a friend of James Stuart of the Lowlands, but I hear nobody say a good word for the king.”
“What have they against him?” asked the Guidman of Ballengeich with a frown, for it was not complimentary to hear that in a part of his own dominion he was thought little of.
“The strangers were most hospitably entertained, and entered thoroughly into the spirit of the festivities.”
“It isn’t exactly that they have anything against the king,” said MacDonald, perhaps not slow to prick the self-esteem of his comrade, “but they consider him merely a boy, of small weight in their affairs one way or another. They neither fear him nor respect him. The real monarch of these regions is the humpback in Dunvegan Castle; and even if they knew you were the king, your sternest command would have no effect against his slightest wish, unless you had irresistible force at the back of you.”
“Ah, Jamie, you are simply trying to justify the bringing of the fleet round Scotland.”
“Indeed and I am not. The only use to which you can put your fleet will be to get you away from here in case of trouble. As far as its force is concerned, these islanders would simply take to the hills and defy it.”
“Ah, well,” said the king, “I’ll make them think better of me before I am done with them.”