hat he would have had her called a man, but he thought
that _girl_ would have been more suitable--angel, perhaps, the most
appropriate term of all.

"Come, captain, I think I will join you in a pipe," said the lieutenant,
pulling out a tin case, in which he kept the blackest of little cutty
pipes. "In days of old our ancestors loved to fight--now we degenerate
souls love to smoke the pipe of peace."

"I did not know that your ancestors were enemies," said Minnie to the
captain.

"Enemies, lass! ay, that they were. What! have ye never heard tell o'
the great fight between the Ogilvys and Lindsays?"

"Never," said Minnie.

"Then, my girl, your education has been neglected, but I'll do what I
can to remedy that defect."

Here the captain rekindled his pipe (which was in the habit of going
out, and requiring to be relighted), and, clearing his throat with the
emphasis of one who is about to communicate something of importance,
held forth as follows.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE BATTLE OF ARBROATH, AND OTHER WARLIKE MATTERS.

"It was in the year 1445--that's not far short o' four hundred years
ago--ah! _tempus fugit_, which is a Latin quotation, my girl, from
Horace Walpole, I believe, an' signifies time and tide waits for no man;
that's what they calls a free translation, you must know; well, it was
in the winter o' 1445 that a certain Alexander Ogilvy of Inverquharity,
was chosen to act as Chief Justiciar in these parts--I suppose that
means a kind of upper bailiff, a sort o' bo's'n's mate, to compare great
things with small. He was set up in place of one o' the Lindsay family,
who, it seems, was rather extravagant, though whether his extravagance
lay in wearin' a beard (for he was called Earl Beardie), or in spendin'
too much cash, I can't take upon me for to say. Anyhow, Beardie refused
to haul down his colours, so the Ogilvys mustered their men and friends,
and the Lindsays did the same, and they went at it, hammer and tongs,
and fowt what ye may call the Battle of Arbroath, for it was close to
the old town where they fell to.

"It was a most bloody affair. The two families were connected with many
o' the richest and greatest people in the land, and these went to lend a
hand when they beat to quarters, and there was no end o' barbed horses,
as they call them--which means critters with steel spikes in their
noses, I'm told--and lots of embroidered banners and flags, though I
never heard that anyone hoist