A tall handsome dark man, whom he had thus addressed, then moved a little way apart with him, and a conversation ensued between them in Gaelic, the sound of which could only be heard, whilst ever and anon the leader’s eyes glanced towards one or other of his people; and his voice and gestures indicated anything but satisfaction. At last he returned towards the group.
“Mr. Russel,” said he, “you may make your mind easy about the dun quey. On the word of a gentleman, she shall be on your pasture before daylight to-morrow morning.”
The treaty being thus happily concluded, and the cattle taken possession of by those who were wont to have the charge of them, Mr. Russel and the Highland leader shook hands and parted, and each took his own way, attended by his followers.
Clifford, interrupting the narrative, Ah! I have a shrewd suspicion that the cheese-shaped lump of tallow you spoke of will turn out, after all, to have been the produce of poor Dunny.
Author.—Have patience, and you shall hear.
We shall leave Mr. Russel and his people to return down the glen with the rescued herd, that we may inquire a little into the motions of the reaver and his men. They had no sooner threaded the mazes of the brake which shut in the upper end of the dell that was the scene of the strange negotiation I have described, than the leader halted them, in order to hold a conference.
“Ewan,” said he to him who seemed to act as his second in command, “this is an awkward affair, and you have been much to blame. You had charge of the rear, and not a beast should have strayed. But your carelessness has brought my honour into pledge; and, by all that is good, you must redeem it. I have said that the dun quey shall be on Mr. Russel’s pasture in the morning; and, dead or alive, she must be there, for a gentleman’s word must be kept.”
“I own I have not been so sharp as I should have been,” said Ewan, with a mortified air; “but I think I have enough of cleverness in me to enable me to promise you, on the word of a gentleman, that your word shall be made good.”
“See that it be so, then,” said the leader somewhat sternly, as he walked slowly away up the glen. “Take what strength you please with you, but see that you save both my honour and your own.”
His comrades crowded around Ewan, proffering him their friendly aid to enable him to search for and recover the quey. But he courteously declined all their kind offers; and tightening his plaid over his body with the utmost composure, he sprang up the almost perpendicular face of the southern mountain with the agility of a deer, and disappeared over the brow of it, without permitting his breath to come much quicker there than it had done whilst he was in talk with his companions in the deep glen below.