se of this war--the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I
may say? Deliver me that, Ranald."

"We had been pushed at by the M'Aulays, and other western tribes," said
Ranald, "till our possessions became unsafe for us."

"Ah ha!" said Dalgetty; "I have faint remembrance of having heard of
that matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man's mouth, when
he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?"

"You have heard, then," said Ranald, "the tale of our revenge on the
haughty forester?"

"I bethink me that I have," said Dalgetty, "and that not of an old date.
It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man's
mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation,
besides wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a
leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald,
for that crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow."

"We were attacked by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my brother
was slain--his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled--I
vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken."

"It may be so," said Dalgetty; "and every thorough-bred soldier will
confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story
will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move
him to intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from
hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or
wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death
by torture, surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be
for miskenning Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly
by suffocation, like your ancestors before you."

"Yet hearken, stranger," said the Highlander. "Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr
had four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives;
and more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which
remains, than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost
indulgence of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his
day of humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing,
and breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the
child Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than
ten sons who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of
the air."

"I presume, Ranald," continued Dalgetty, "that the three pretty fellows
whom I saw yonder in