ian though it was, do to compel anybody to his schemes
and ambitions? That was to forget his place of notoriety, which gave
its own power, among the people of the Aberdeenshire Highlands.
Whenever, in going about the hills and the valleys, I met a simple man
of the soil he would touch his bonnet in salute to me, never to my
uniform, and, after a little, remark in his soft Gaelic, "So the Black
Colonel is still defying you all--a tremendous lad, isn't he?" This
would be said with a gleam in the eye, to give it delicacy, a bearing
of personal courtesy which I did not miss because I was liked for
myself, and we all like to be liked for ourselves.

You will apprehend by now, perhaps, that I knew my Highland men,
whether I found them digging peats in the moss, or gathering in their
skimp harvest of unopened corn, so that it should escape the hungry
grouse and the coming winter. They were wholly kindly, as follows from
simple living, generous in their narrow outlook, and yet strongly
individual. They had, as a people, character, which is the noblest
gift of the gods, for everything else depends on it, and hardly
anything can be achieved without it.

They took a pride in the Black Colonel, as one of themselves, and in
his deeds as a fighter who, on many occasions, had reversed the saying
about being willing to wound but afraid to strike. He had, they
admitted, wrong ways at times, and if these could not openly be
defended, still they were almost forgiven a man with his back to the
wall where a shot, or a stab, might find him any day or any night.

Withal, too, he bore about him a touch of romance, a gallant
atmosphere, and your Highlander, loving to sit on a stile and look at
the sun, will pardon much for that. Thus there was a general sympathy
with the Black Colonel, which he could draw upon either as a veil to
conceal his doings, or for active help, and it was this knowledge which
caused me to be apprehensive.

For, though thirty years had passed since his lordship of Mar
peremptorily wrote to the chief of Inverernan, our Highland life had
not changed vitally. The same rude passion ran through it, as like
mists hung over the Slock of Morvan and the gaping chasm in the side of
Lochnagar. Civilization remained primitive, love and hatred could run
high on the ebbing Jacobite tide, and the common round was still very
much what a strong hand could do and a weak one could not do.
Affections and hatreds bloom even more