as that he would travel alone, a fit thing,
having regard to his mission at the Dower House, Corgarff.

Tired and hungry, I looked about for a rock which would shield me from
the wind, and got out my fodder. It consisted only of "whisky bukky,"
oatmeal rolled with whisky, not delicate stuff to eat, but easily
carried and sustaining. Haggis is better food for the march, because
it is tastier and still harder to digest, so even more lasting, as the
Highlanders, for whose war sustenance it was, perhaps, invented, knew,
but on leaving Corgarff Castle I had just taken what I could lay my
hand upon.

While I ate I half-marvelled at the splendour of the scene about me,
half-rehearsed my catechism with the Black Colonel, when he should
appear. I would put it to him as a gentleman that he must not intrude
upon the Forbes ladies, and, indeed, must frankly abandon his designs
there. If reason failed, then we might be driven to solve the knot by
a single combat, as the custom of the Highlands permitted, and, indeed,
sometimes ordered, very much like the duel in the land of France. Why
not such a combat, because the test was an honest if barbaric tribute
to plain manliness? Give me that rather than the snivel, the chicane,
the shake-you-by-the-hand and stab-you-in-the-gloaming, which passes by
the name of diplomacy, high diplomacy, I believe.

The tradition of single combat went back into the very mists of time in
the Highlands; and merely the form varied. There was Cam-Ruadh, the
early red-haired man of tradition, who, fallen prisoner among a batch
of hostile "kern," or outlaws, was offered his liberty if he could make
so many good arrow-shots. He drew and drew, with much seeming
innocence, on the arrows of his captors, and wove a circle of stabs in
the ground about the target, but never did he hit it; oh, no!

They jeered at him when he came to the last arrow possessed by the
company, saying he had better reserve it for himself and save them the
trouble of making an end to him. Instead, he sent it, as he could have
sent the others, straight into the middle of the target, and flew there
almost with it. Before the outlaws could realize the logic of events
he had gathered all the arrows under his arm, put one to the string of
the bow and cried, "I am Cam-Ruadh, who never misses, never before
until now, and you who are without arrows had better take leg-bail,"
which they quickly did.

Nearer in time was the duel of vali