"Pardon me, friend," said I, "long hiding on the mountains has made me ignorant. But who are the Seven Thousand?"
"Have ye indeed hidden on the mountains and ken not that? Did ye never hear of them that wait for the time appointed?"
I told him no.
"Then," said he, "who may you be that kens so little?"
I said that I was William Gordon, younger son of the persecuted house of the Gordons of Earlstoun.
"O, the Bull's brother!" said he, shortly, and turned him about to go away. But Spitfire Wat was at his side, and, taking the dark man by the elbow, presently halted him and span him round so that he faced us.
"And who are you that speaks so lightly of my cousin of Earlstoun?" he asked.
I think Wat had forgotten that he was not now among his Cavalier blades—who, to do them justice, are ready to put every pot-house quarrel to the arbitrament of the sword, which is after all a better way than disputation and the strife of tongues.
The dark man smiled. "Ye are hot, young sir," he said bitterly. "These manners better befit the guard-room of Rob Grier of Lag than a gathering of the Seven Thousand. But since ye ask my name, I am poor unworthy Robin Hamilton, on whom the Lord hath set His hand."
Then we knew that this dark-browed man was Sir Robert Hamilton, who with my brother Sandy had been the Societies' Commissioner to the Low Counties, and who was here at Shalloch-on-Minnoch to defend his action. He was also brother of Jean Hamilton, Sandy's wife, and of a yet more sombre piety.