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 and maybe, if a tenant-body was to hang back he would get a dirk in his wame.”

“You make a poor story of it all, Mr. Henderland,” said I. “If it is all fear upon both sides, I care to hear no more of it.”

“Na,” said Mr. Henderland, “but there’s love too, and self-denial that should put the like of you and me to shame. There’s something fine about it; no perhaps Christian, but humanly fine. Even Alan Breck, by all that I hear, is a chield to be respected. There’s many a lying sneck-draw sits close in kirk in our own part of the country, and stands well in the world’s eye, and maybe is a far worse man, Mr. Balfour, than yon misguided shedder of man’s blood. Ay, ay, we might take a lesson by them.—Ye’ll perhaps think I’ve been too long in the Hielands?” he added, smiling to me.

I told him not at all; that I had seen much to admire among the Highlanders; and if he came to that, Mr. Campbell himself was a Highlander.

“Ay,” said he, “that’s true. It’s a fine blood.”

“And what is the King’s agent about?” I asked.

“Colin Campbell?” says Henderland. “Putting his head in a bees’ byke!”

“He is to turn the tenants out by force, I hear?” said I.

“Yes,” says he, “but the business has gone back and forth, as folk say. First, James of the Glens