“Right,” she said, “the right mind of a man! Only you must learn arms; I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will not have been with the sword that you killed these two?”
“Indeed, no,” said I, “but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever with the pistols as I am with the sword.”
So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I had omitted in my first account of my affairs.
“Yes,” said she, “you are brave. And your friend, I admire and love him.”
“Well, and I think any one would!” said I. “He has his faults, like other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That will be a strange day when I forget Alan.” And the thought of him, and that it was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome me.
“And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!” she cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might visit him to-morrow in the castle, whither he was now transferred, and that his affairs were mending. “You do not like to hear it,” said she. “Will you judge my father and not know him?”
“I am a thousand miles from judging,” I replied. “And I give you my word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be compounding with. I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach still.”
“Ah!” she cried, “you will not be evening these two; and you should bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the one blood.”
“I never heard tell of that,” said I.
“It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with,” said she. “One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I think, our country has its name.”