are true to their chief; and
what with love and a bit of pressure, and maybe a threat or two, the
poor folk scrape up a second rent for Ardshiel. Well, David, I'm the
hand that carries it." And he struck the belt about his body, so that
the guineas rang.

"Do they pay both?" cried I.

"Ay, David, both," says he.

"What! two rents?" I repeated.

"Ay, David," says he. "I told a different tale to yon captain man; but
this is the truth of it. And it's wonderful to me how little pressure is
needed. But that's the handiwork of my good kinsman and my father's
friend, James of the Glens; James Stewart that is: Ardshiel's
half-brother. He it is that gets the money in, and does the management."

This was the first time I heard the name of that James Stewart, who was
afterwards so famous at the time of his hanging. But I took little heed
at the moment, for all my mind was occupied with the generosity of these
poor Highlanders.

"I call it noble," I cried. "I'm a Whig, or little better; but I call it
noble."

"Ay," said he, "ye're a Whig, but ye're a gentleman; and that's what
does it. Now, if ye were one of the cursed race of Campbell, ye would
gnash your teeth to hear tell of it. If ye were the Red Fox".... And at
that name his teeth shut together, and he ceased speaking. I have seen
many a grim face, but never a grimmer than Alan's when he had named the
Red Fox.

"And who is the Red Fox?" I asked, daunted, but still curious.

"Who is he?" cried Alan. "Well, and I'll tell you that. When the men of
the clans were broken at Culloden, and the good cause went down, and the
horses rode over the fetlocks in the best blood of the north, Ardshiel
had to flee like a poor deer upon the mountains--he and his lady and his
bairns. A sair job we had of it before we got him shipped; and while he
still lay in the heather, the English rogues, that couldna come at his
life, were striking at his rights. They stripped him of his powers; they
stripped him of his lands; they plucked the weapons from the hands of
his clansmen, that had borne arms for thirty centuries; ay, and the
very clothes off their backs--so that it's now a sin to wear a tartan
plaid, and a man may be cast into a gaol if he has but a kilt about his
legs. One thing they couldna kill. That was the love the clansmen bore
their chief. These guineas are the proof of it. And now, in there steps
a man, a Campbell, red-headed Colin of Glenure----"

"Is that him you call the R