‘Friend, that would not be right; no man has a right to maim himself,’ said the gauger, as he pulled out of an enormous pocket of his greatcoat a box that looked like a large flute case, which he opened, and, to the admiration of Eachainn, took out of it, first the stock and then the tube of a short single-barrelled fowling-piece, which, after duly joining together, he went through the process of priming and loading. These preparations were apparently caused by a curlew alighting at a little distance, but which, as if aware that evil was not far away, resumed its flight, and soon disappeared.
‘She’s a very pretty gun, indeed, sir,’ began Eachainn, anxious to renew the conversation on a more agreeable topic than the last. ‘By your leave, may I ask where you got her?’
‘Got her,’ said the other, ‘why, I made it, man. In my country we think nothing of making a gun before breakfast.’ As this was said with the utmost gravity, Eachainn was considerably staggered by it, for the Highlander, naturally credulous, intending none, he suspected no deception; but if a hoax was being played upon him, and he found it out, he was sure to repay it with interest, and the biter would be keenly bit.
‘One before breakfast, sir! a gun like her made before breakfast!’ he repeated, looking anxiously into the other’s face, ‘surely the thing is just impossible?’
‘No, friend,’ replied the other, internally chuckling at finding the youth so ductile, ‘I tell you, I frequently make one of a morning.’
‘Then,’ said the guide, ‘I suppose, sir, you’ll be come to the Highlands to make a big pusness with them!’
‘May be, may be, friend. I daresay there are not many such in this country; but what would still more surprise you is to hear by whom I was taught the art of making them.’
‘Who she’ll be, sir?’
‘Why, Luno, the son of Leven, who made Fingal’s famous sword, which went by his name, and every stroke of which was mortal.’
‘Och! yes, sir,’ exclaimed Eachainn, his eyes sparkling, ‘ye mean Mac-an-Luinn,’ and in his excitement he forgot the little English he had, and continued in his own expressive vernacular, ‘that was the sword of swords, and they say that the sound of his anvils is still heard in the silence of midnight by the wanderer of Lochlin; and his well-known giant form is at times seen crossing the heath, clad in its dark mantle of hide, with apron of the same, and the face of the apparition as dark as the mantle, and frowning fiercely, while, with staff in hand, he bounds along on one leg, with the fleetness of a roe, his black mantle flap, flapping for an instant, and then vanishing, as, with a few bounds, black Luno enters his unapproachable cave.’