“MacLeod!” cried a voice in reply, and immediately a tall and bulky figure, completely enveloped in an ample plaid, advanced, and after having given some secret directions to his followers, to which the impatient boatmen neither cared nor tried to listen, he stepped solemnly and silently alone into the boat, and was speedily rowed across.
The hall of Eilean Donan was that night crowded beyond all former precedent. The feast was already over, and Lord Kintail was then presiding over the long board, where flowing goblets were circulating among the numerous guests, who were all his friends or allies, or who at least feared to declare themselves to be otherwise. But fully aware of the uncertain materials of which this great assemblage was composed, the chief of the MacKenzies had most prudently intermingled the stoutest and bravest individuals of his own clan among these strangers; and, as was customary in these rude times, each man sat with his drawn dirk sticking upright in the board before him, ready for immediate use, in case of its services being required; and this precaution was the more naturally adopted upon the present occasion, because every one at that table was jealous and doubtful of those sitting to right and left of him.
On a sudden the door of the hall was thrown open, and a huge man strode slowly and erectly into the middle of it. He was muffled up in a large dark plaid, of some nameless tartan; and it was so folded over the under part of his face as completely to conceal it; whilst the upper part of his features was shrouded by the extreme breadth of the bonnet he wore. His appearance produced a sudden lull in the loud talk that was then arising from every mouth, the din of which had been making the vaulted roof to ring again. The name of “MacLeod” ran in whispers around, and Lord Kintail himself having for a moment taken up the notion that had at first so generally seized the company, he signed to his seneschal to usher the stranger towards the upper end of the table where he himself sat, and where a vacant chair on his right hand had been left for the chief of Dunvegan.
The stranger obeyed the invitation, indeed; but he sat not down. He stood erect and motionless for a moment, with all eyes fixed upon him.
“MacLeod!” said the Lord Kintail, half rising to acknowledge his presence by a bow, “thou art late. We tarried for thee till our stomachs overmatched our courtesy. But stay, am I right? art thou MacLeod or not? Come, if thou art MacLeod, why standest thou with thy face concealed? Unfold thyself and be seated; for there are none but friends here.”
“I am not MacLeod!” said the stranger, speaking distinctly and deliberately, but in a hollow tone from within the folds of his plaid.
“Who art thou, then, in God’s name?” demanded Kintail, with some degree of confusion of manner.
“I am an outlawed MacDonell,” replied the stranger.
“A MacDonell!” cried Kintail, with manifest agitation. “What wouldst thou under this roof?”
“I am come to throw myself on thy good faith, Lord Kintail, with the hope that thou mayest be the means of procuring a reversal of the hard sentence which hath been so unjustly passed upon me and my clan.”