On being summoned to the great dining-hall that night, they found a company awaiting dinner numbering perhaps a score, all men. A piper was marching up and down the room making the timbers ring with his martial music. The MacLeod stood at the head of his table, a stalwart man whose massive head seemed sunk rather deep between his broad shoulders, but otherwise, perhaps because his costume was cunningly arranged, there was slight indication of the deformity with which he was afflicted. He greeted his guests with no great show of affability, and indicated the bench at his right hand as the seat of MacDonald. The young Highlander hesitated to take the place of preference, and glanced uneasily at his comrade.
“I am slightly deaf in my right ear,” said the king good naturedly, “and as I should be grieved to miss any observations you may make, I will, with your permission, occupy the place you would bestow upon my friend.”
MacLeod looked sternly at the speaker for a moment, but seeing that MacDonald, without protest moved speedily round to the left, he said at last,—
“Settle it as pleases you, but I should have thought a Highland chieftain took precedence of a Lowland huckster.”
“Not a huckster exactly,” explained the king with a smile. “My patrimony of Ballengeich may be small, but such as it is, I am the undisputed laird of it, while at best MacDonald is but the son of a laird, so because of my deaf ear, and according to your own rules of precedence, I think I may claim the place of honour at your right.” And as the MacLeod, with an angry growl sat down, the king and MacDonald followed his example. The others took their places in some haste, and with more or less of disorder. It was plain that MacLeod preferred the silent Highlander to the more loquacious farmer of Ballengeich, for during the meal he addressed most of his remarks to the man on his left, although his advances were not as cordially received as perhaps they might have been. The king showed no resentment at this neglect, but concentrated his attention on the business at hand.
When the eating was done with, the servants placed three large flagons before their master and the two who sat on either side of him. These they filled to the brim with wine.
“Gentlemen,” said MacLeod, “it is a custom in this castle that our guests, to show they are good men and true, each empty one of these flagons at a draught, and without drawing breath. Will you then accompany me to any toast you may care to name?”
“The wine I have already consumed at your hospitable board,” said the king, “is the best that ever ran down a thirsty man’s throat; but if I supplement it with so generous and instant an addition, I fear my legs will refuse their service, even if my head retain sense enough to give the command.”
“That need not trouble you,” said MacLeod, “for in the last hundred years no man has insulted this vintage by leaving the hall on his own feet. There stand your legs against the wall, Guidman of Ballengeich.”