These two had now drawn close up and were gazing at me, while the two followers had halted about a stonecast in the rear.
“And what seek ye in Aucharn?” said Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure; him they called the Red Fox; for he it was that I had stopped.
“The man that lives there,” said I.
“James of the Glens,” says Glenure musingly; and then to the lawyer: “Is he gathering his people, think ye?”
“Anyway,” says the lawyer, “we shall do better to bide where we are, and let the soldiers rally us.”
“If you are concerned for me,” said I, “I am neither of his people nor yours, but an honest subject of King George, owing no man and fearing no man.”
“Why, very well said,” replies the factor. “But if I may make so bold as ask, what does this honest man so far from his country? and why does he come seeking the brother of Ardshiel? I have power here, I must tell you. I am King’s factor upon several of these estates, and have twelve flies of soldiers at my back.”
“I have heard a waif word in the country,” said I, a little nettled, “that you were a hard man to drive.”
He still kept looking at me, as if in doubt.
“Well,” said he, at last, “your tongue is bold; but I am no unfriend to plainness. If ye had asked me the way to the door of James Stewart on any other day but this, I would have set ye right and bidden ye God-speed. But to-day—eh, Mungo?” And he turned again to look at the lawyer.