“Craggan-an-Fhithick!” shouted the clansmen.
“Tell him to whom you owe service, that Craggan-an-Fhithick shall once more rend the air,” said Angus; “and that the young chief of Glengarry shall lead a raid against the MacKenzies, of the fame of which senachies and bards shall have to speak for ages to come.”
“I shall surely bear your message to him to whom I owe service,” said the man in the green plaid, after rising slowly, and making a dignified but respectful bow. And then putting on his bonnet, and gathering his plaid tightly about him, he paced solemnly and silently out of the hall, and departed.
“Methinks you have been somewhat rash and hasty in this matter, Angus,” said the chief, with a cloud on his brow. “I have as yet given no consent. What think you of this affair, Allan of Lundy?”
“Much as I am wearying to wreak my vengeance on the MacKenzies,” replied Allan of Lundy, “I do think that my young cousin has been somewhat precipitate in this matter. A year or two more over his head would have confirmed his strength, and made him fitter for enduring the fatigue of such an enterprise. He is too young and unripe as yet to be gathered by death in the bloody harvest of the battlefield. The loss of one of so great promise would be a severe blow to our clan.”
“The loss of me, indeed?” cried Angus, with a lip full of a contempt which it had never before borne towards Allan of Lundy, and which Allan of Lundy could not believe had any reference to him. “If you did lose me you would only thereby be the nearer to my father’s seat.”
“Speak not so, Angus!” said Allan with a depth of feeling to which he was but little accustomed. “Speak not so, even in jest.”
“Come then, MacDonells,” cried Angus again, “let our gathering be for the tenth day of the new moon, and let the dastard MacKenzies once more quail before our triumphant war-cry of Craggan-an-Fhithick!”
“Craggan-an-Fhithick!” re-echoed the clansmen, with a shout that might have rent the rafters; and deep pledges instantly went round to the success of the expedition.
At this moment Ronald MacDonald, the chief’s younger son, a shrewd boy of some eight or ten years of age, entered the hall,—