Lochinvar: A Novel

by S. R. Crockett

And Lochiell listened to all with a gravely smiling face, like a man well pleased.

At Keppoch there was one day a muster and a show of weapons, after which came sword-play and fighting with the Lochaber axe, assault with targe and without targe—all of which Wat and Scarlett watched with infinite zest and unwearied amusement.

When it was well over, and all the champions from the glens had performed before the chief and Lochiell (who were then in great amity), Keppoch invited Wat to try a bout with him. Wat professed his inexperience with the heavier blade of the claymore, but asked to be permitted to retain his own lighter and finer "Andrea"—which, indeed, had scarcely ever left his side since he recovered it in the locker of the boat from which he had been cast ashore on the isle of Fiara.

So before long, weapon in hand, the huge black chieftain faced Lochinvar, towering over him like a son of Anak, his very sword casting a shadow like a weaver's beam.

They saluted in form and fell-to.

Clash! The blades met, and almost immediately Keppoch swept his sword in a full cut at Wat's shoulder. The young man measured his distance, stepped aside, and the next moment his Andrea pricked Keppoch's side below the arm. It was a mere touch with the point, but had the blade stood a handbreadth in the giant's body, as it might have done, the sons of Ian would have needed another chief.

Coll o' the Cows was more than a little astonished; but thinking the matter some accidental chance which could not be repeated, he professed his readiness to proceed.

"Man," cried Lochiell, who had been attentively watching the combat, "not Coll o' the Cows, but Coll o' the Corbies ye would have been if that laddie had liked. For oh, man, ye would hae been deid as Dugald More, and the clan looking for a tree to hang the young man on by this time."

With this most disabling thought in his mind to warn him from a too complete victory, Wat once more guarded, and for a long time contented himself with keeping off the furious strokes of the chief's assault, as easily, to all appearance, as a roof turns aside the pelting of a summer shower. Then, as Keppoch took breath a moment, his first fury having worn itself out, Wat attacked in his turn, and, puzzling his opponent, as was his wont, with the lightning swiftness of his thrust and recovery, caught his claymore deftly near the hilt, and in a moment it was flying out of his fingers.

Keppoch gazed after his weapon with as much surprise as if a hand had been reached out of the blue sky to snatch it from his grasp.