M’Iver started in a new alarm. “No, no. You’re very good,” said he; “but I never take it myself in the morning, and--good day, mistress--and my friend Elrigmore, who’s left with me here, is perhaps too free with it sometimes; and indeed maybe I’m that way myself too--it’s a thing that grows on you. Good-bye, mistress.” She put out her hand, facing us with uplifted eyes. I felt a push at my shoulder, and the minister, who had left the four others down the brae, stepped softly into the room. M’Iver was in a high perplexity. He dare not shake the woman’s hand, and still he dare not hurt her feelings. “My thong’s loose,” said he, stooping to fumble with a brogue that needed no such attention. He rose with the minister at his shoulder. “And good day to you again, mistress,” said M’Iver, turning about to go, without heeding the outstretched hand. Master Gordon saw the whole play at a glance. He took the woman’s hand in his without a word, wrung it with great warmth, and, seized as it seemed by a sudden whim, lifted the fingers to his lips, softly kissed them, and turned away. “O,” cried the woman, with tears welling to her poor eyes--“O Clan Campbell, I’ll never call ye down! Ye may have the guile they claim for ye, but ye have the way with a widow’s heart!” I did it with some repugnance, let me own; but I, too, shook her hand, and followed the minister out at the door. M’Iver was hot with annoyance and shame, and ready to find fault with us for what we had done; but the cleric carded him like wool in his feelings. “Oh, valour, valour!” he said in the midst of his sermon, “did I not say you knew your duty in hate better than in affection?” John Splendid kept a dour-set jaw, said never a word, and the seven of us proceeded on our way. It was well on in the morning, the land sounding with a new key of troubled and loosening waters. Mists clogged the mountain-tops, and Glencoe far off to its westward streamed with a dun vapour pricked with the tip of fir and ash. A moist feel was in the air; it relapsed anon to a smirr of rain. “This is a shade better than clear airs and frost and level snow for quarries on a hunting,” said I. “I’m glad it suits you,” said M’Iver. “I’ve seen the like before, and I’m not so sure about the advantage of it.” CHAPTER XXIV.--A NIGHT’S SHELTER.