“Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it’s not a name to be ashamed of,” answered Alan.
“I did not know ye were in my country, sir,” says Robin.
“It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the Maclarens,” says Alan.
“That’s a kittle point,” returned the other. “There may be two words to say to that. But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your sword?”
“Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will have heard a good deal more than that,” says Alan. “I am not the only man that can draw steel in Appin; and when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I could never hear that the Macgregor had the best of it.”
“Do ye mean my father, sir?” says Robin.
“Well, I wouldna wonder,” said Alan. “The gentleman I have in my mind had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name.”
“My father was an old man,” returned Robin. “The match was unequal. You and me would make a better pair, sir.”
“I was thinking that,” said Alan.
I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these fighting-cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never; and Duncan, with something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself between.