"Do you think I am good at running away when there is any kind of danger, Hamish. Have you got into the English way. Would you call me a coward too? Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, Hamish! I—why, I am going to drink a glass of the coal-black wine, and have done with it. I will drink it to the health of my sweetheart, Hamish!"
"Sir Keith," said the old man, beginning to tremble, though he but half understood the meaning of the scornful mirth, "I have had charge of you since you were a young lad."
"Very well!"
"And Lady Macleod will ask of me, 'Such and such a thing happened: what did you do for my son?' Then I will say, 'Your ladyship, we were afraid of the equinoctials; and we got Sir Keith to go ashore; and the next day we went ashore for him; and now we have brought him back to Castle Dare!'"
"Hamish, Hamish, you are laughing at me! Or you want to call me a coward? Don't you know I should be afraid of the ghost of the shepherd who killed himself? Don't you know that the English people call me a coward?"
"May their souls dwell in the downmost hall of perdition!" said Hamish, with his cheeks becoming a gray-white; "and every woman that ever came of the accursed race!"
He looked at the old man for a second, and he gripped his hand.
"Do not say that, Hamish—that is folly. But you have been my friend. My mother will not forget you—it's not the way of a Macleod to forget—whatever happens to me."
"Sir Keith!" Hamish cried, "I do not know what you mean! But you will go ashore before the night?"
"Go ashore," Macleod answered, with a return to this wild, bantering tone, "when I am going to see my sweetheart? Oh no! Tell Christina, now! Tell Christina to ask the young English lady to come into the saloon, for I have something to say to her. Be quick, Hamish!"