the onset,' said Auchinbreac, who had a wily
old tongue; 'but you are disabled against using sword or pistol; you are
the mainstay of a great national movement, depending for its success on
your life, freedom, and continued exertion.' Argile took to the galley
again, and Auchinbreac looked after him with a shamed and dubious eye.
Well, well, Sir Duncan has paid for his temporising; he's in his place
appointed. I passed the knowe where he lay writhing to a terrible end,
with a pike at his vitals, and he was moaning for the chief he had
helped to a shabby flight."

"A shabby flight!" said M'Iver, with a voice that was new to me, so
harsh was it and so high-set.

"You can pick the word for yourself," said the minister; "if by heaven's
grace I was out of this, in Inneraora I should have my own way of
putting it to Argile, whom I love and blame."

"Oh you Lowland dog!" cried John Splendid, more high-keyed than ever,
"_you_ to blame Argile!" And he stepped up to the cleric, who was
standing by the chimney-jambs, glowered hellishly in his face, then with
a fury caught his throat in his fingers, and pinned him up against the
wall.

CHAPTER XXVI.--TRAPPED.

I caught M'Iver by the coat-lapels, and took him off the gasping cleric.

"Oh man!" I cried, "is this the Highland brigadier to be throttling an
old soldier of Christ?"

"Let me get at him and I'll set him in the way of putting the last truth
of his trade to its only test," said he, still with a face corp-white,
tugging at my hold and eyeing Master Gordon with a very uplifted and
ferocious demeanour.

I suppose he must, in the midst of his fury, have got just a glisk of
the true thing before him--not a worthy and fair opponent for a man of
his own years, but an old wearied man of peace, with a flabby neck,
and his countenance blotched, and his wig ajee upon his head so that
it showed the bald pate below, for he came to himself as it were with a
start. Then he was ashamed most bitterly. He hung his head and scraped
with an unconscious foot upon the floor. The minister recovered his
wind, looked with contempt in every line at the man who had abused him,
and sat down without a word before the fire.

"I'm sorry about this," said M'Iver, fumbling about his waist-belt with
nervous ringers; "I'm sorry about this, Master Gordon. A Highlander
cannot be aye keeping God's gift of a temper in leash, and yet it's my
disgrace to have laid a hand on a gentleman of your age