“My Lord of Argile,” he said, “you’re my cousin-ger-man, and you’re in a despondent key, and small blame to you with your lands smoking about you from Cruachan to Kilmartin; but if you were King Tearlach himself, I would take no insult from you. Do you charge me with any of your misfortunes?” “I charge you with nothing, John,” said Argile, wearily. “I’m only saying that at a time of stress, when there’s a conflict in a man’s mind between ease and exertion, you’re not the best of consciences. Are we two going to quarrel about a phrase while our clansmen’s blood is crying from the sod? Sit down, sir; sit down, if it please you,” he said more sternly, the scowl that gave him the _gruamach_ reputation coming on his face; “sit down, if it please you, and instead of ruffling up like the bubbly-jock over words, tell me, if you can, how to save a reputation from the gutter. If it was not that I know I have your love, do you think I should be laying my heart bare here and now? You have known me some time now, M’Iver--did you ever find me without some reserve in my most intimate speech? Did you ever hear me say two words that I had not a third in the background to bring forward if the policy of the moment called for it?” M’Iver laughed slyly, and hesitated to make any answer. “It’s a simple question,” said the Marquis; “am I to think it needs too straightforward an answer for John Splendid to give it?” “I’m as frank as my neighbours,” said M’Iver. “Well, sir, do not check the current of my candour by any picking and choosing of words. I ask if you have ever found me with the babbling and unbridled tongue of a fool in my mouth, giving my bottom-most thought to the wind and the street?” “You were no Gael if you did, my lord. That’s the sin of the shallow wit. I aye kept a bit thought of my own in the corner of my vest.” MacCailein sighed, and the stem of the beaker he was fingering broke in his nervous fingers. He threw the fragments with an impatient cry into the fireplace. “It’s the only weakness of our religion (God pardon the sin of hinting at any want in that same!) that we have no chance of laying the heart bare to mortal man. Many a time I could wish for the salving influence of the confessional, even without the absolution to follow.” “I think,” said John Splendid, “it would be a strange day when MacCailein Mor, Marquis of Argile, would ask or need shriving from anything or any one. There was never a priest or vicar in the shire you couldn’t twist the head off!” The Marquis turned to me with a vexed toss of his shoulder. “It’s a hopeless task to look for a pagan’s backbone,” said he. “Come, I’ll confess. I dare not hint at my truant thought to Auchinbreac or before any of these fiery officers of mine, who fear perhaps more than they love me. At the black tale of my weakness they would make no allowance for my courage as the same was shown before.”