ptain Hugh MacKay Providence, and in that case
it'll be true what some folks say, that the devil rules the world.
From all I can gather, and I keep my ears open when you are concerned,
laird, I am as sure as you are Laird of Claverhouse that Scourie,
confoond his smooth face, has been plottin' aginst ye ever since ye
sat that nicht afore the Battle of Sineffe roond the camp-fire. I saw
how he looked, and I said to mysel', 'You're up to some mischief.' His
party hangit the noble Marquis and plagued him wi' their prayers on
the scaffold, and it is as natural for a Covenanter to hate a Graham
as to eat his breakfast. MacKay saw we were dangerous, and ye'll be
more dangerous yet, Claverhouse, to the black crew. He has been up the
back stairs tellin' lies aboot ye, and sayin' that though many trust
ye, for a' that ye are an enemy to Presbytery. Ye'll have your chance
yet, laird, and avenge the murder o' the Marquis, but there'll be no
place for ye here so long as MacKay is pourin' the poison o' asps, as
auld David has it, into the Prince's ear."

"Na, na, Mr. John," concluded Grimond when his master had remonstrated
with him for speaking against the Prince and an officer of the army,
and warned him to be careful of his tongue, "ye needna be feart that a
word o' this will be heard ootside. I mind the word in the Good Book,
'Speak not against the King, lest a bird of the air carry the matter.'
There's plenty o' birds in this camp that would be glad enough to work
us wrang. Gin onybody speaks to me aboot Captain MacKay being made a
colonel, I'll give him to understand that my master was offered the
post and declined to take it for special reasons o' his own; maybe
because ye wanted to stay wi' the gentlemen volunteers, and maybe
because there was a grand position waitin' for ye in Scotland. Let me
alone, laird, for makin' the most o' the situation: but dinna forget
MacKay."

Claverhouse was of another breed from Grimond, and had the chivalrous
instincts of his house, but as the time wore on and Graham went with
the Prince's guards after the surrender of Grave to The Hague, where
Colonel MacKay and the Scots Brigade were also stationed, the constant
spray of insinuations of MacKay's cunning and the Prince's prejudice
began to tell upon his mind. He was conscious of a growing dislike
towards MacKay, beyond that coolness which must always exist between
men of such different religious and political creeds. It was a
tradition amon