Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/253

  and who had been pledged to say nothing of it, she learned more about the fight.

"It was Aleck's fault, mother," he said, anxious to screen his hero. "He said something about Maimie, that Don wouldn't tell me, at the blacksmith shop in the Sixteenth, and Ranald struck him and knocked him flat, and he could not get up for a long time. Yankee has been showing him how. I am going to learn, mother," interjected Hughie. "And then Angus McGregor took Ranald's part, and it was all arranged after church, and Ranald was bound to be in it, and said he would stop the whole thing if not allowed. Don said he was just terrible. It was an awful fight. Angus McGregor fought Peter McRae, Aleck's brother, you know and—"

"Never mind, Hughie," said his mother. "I don't want to hear of it. It is too disgusting. Was Ranald much hurt?"

"Oh, he was hurt awful bad, "and he was going to be licked, too. He wouldn't keep cool enough, and he wouldn't use his legs."

"Use his legs?" said his mother; "what do you mean?"

"That's what Don says, and Yankee made him. Yankee kept calling to him, 'Now get away, get away from him! Use your legs! Get away from him!' and whenever Ranald began to do as he was told, then he got the better of Aleck, and he gave Aleck a terrible hammering, and Don said if Macdonald Bhain had not stopped them Aleck McRae would not have been able to walk home. He said Ranald was awful. He said