“Who is he, this bold fellow?” I asked one of my friends, pausing with a foot on the door-step, a little surprised at the want of reverence to MacCailein in the man’s bearing. “Iain Aluinn--John Splendid,” said my friend. We were talking in the Gaelic, and he made a jocular remark there is no English for. Then he added, “A poor cousin of the Marquis, a M’Iver Campbell (_on the wrong side_), with little schooling, but some wit and gentlemanly parts. He has gone through two fortunes in black cattle, fought some fighting here and there, and now he manages the silver-mines so adroitly that Gillesbeg Gruamach is ever on the brink of getting a big fortune, but never done launching out a little one instead to keep the place going. A decent soul the Splendid! throughither a bit, and better at promise than performance, but at the core as good as gold, and a fellow you would never weary of though you tramped with him in a thousand glens. We call him Splendid, not for his looks but for his style.” The object of my friend’s description was speaking into the ear of MacCailein Mor by this time, and the Marquis’s face showed his tale was interesting, to say the least of it. We waited no more, but went out into the street I was barely two closes off from the Tolbooth when a messenger came running after me, sent by the Marquis, who asked if I would oblige greatly by waiting till he made up on me. I went back, and met his lordship with his kinsman and mine-manager coming out of the court-room together into the lobby that divided the place from the street. “Oh, Elrigmore!” said the Marquis, in an offhand jovial and equal way; “I thought you would like to meet my cousin here--M’Iver of the Barbreck; something of a soldier like yourself, who has seen service in Lowland wars.” “In the Scots Brigade, sir?” I asked M’lver, eyeing him with greater interest than ever. He was my senior by about a dozen years seemingly, a neat, well-built fellow, clean-shaven, a little over the middle height, carrying a rattan in his hand, though he had a small sword tucked under the skirt of his coat. “With Lumsden’s regiment,” he said. “His lordship here has been telling me you have just come home from the field.” “But last night. I took the liberty while Inneraora was snoring. You were before my day in foreign service, and yet I thought I knew by repute every Campbell that ever fought for the hard-won dollars of Gustavus even before my day. There were not so many of them from the West Country.”