I sat by the fire-end and quaffed my ale, no one saying more to me for a little than “There you are!” Well enough they knew my side in the issue--my tartan would tell them that--but wandering bodies have no politics beyond the conviction that the world owes them as easy a living as they can cheat it out of, and they never mentioned war. The landlord’s dram was on, and ‘twas it I had shared in, and when it was over I pulled out a crown and bought the heartiest goodwill of a score of rogues with some flagons of ale. A beetle-browed chamber, long, narrow, stifling with the heat of a great fire, its flagged floor at intervals would slap with bare or bauchled feet dancing to a short reel. First one gangrel would sing a verse or two of a Lowland ballant, not very much put out in its sentiment by the presence of the random ladies; then another would pluck a tune upon the Jew’s-trump, a chorus would rise like a sudden gust of wind, a jig would shake upon the fiddle. I never saw a more happy crew, nor yet one that--judging from the doctrine that thrift and sobriety have their just reward--deserved it less. I thought of poor Master Gordon somewhere dead or alive in or about Dalness, a very pupil of Christ, and yet with a share of His sorrows, with nowhere to lay his head, but it did not bitter me to my company. By-and-by the landlord came cannily up to me and whispered in my ear a sort of apology for the rabble of his house. “You ken, sir,” said he in very good English--“you ken yourself what the country’s like just now, given over to unending brawl, and I am glad to see good-humoured people about me, even if they are penniless gangrels.” “My own business is war,” I acknowledged; “I’ll be frank enough to tell you I’m just now making my way to Inneraora as well as the weather and the MacDonalds will let me.” He was pleased at my candour, I could see; confidence is a quality that rarely fails of its purpose. He pushed the bottle towards me with the friendliest of gestures, and took the line of the fellow-conspirator. “Keep your thumb on that,” said he; “I’m not supposed to precognosce every lodger in Tynree upon his politics. I’m off Clan Chattan myself, and not very keen on this quarrel--that’s to say, I’ll take no side in it, for my trade is feeding folk and not fighting them. Might I be asking if you were of the band of Campbells a corps of MacDonalds were chasing down the way last night?” I admitted I was. “I have nothing to do with it,” said he; “and I’ll do a landlord’s duty by any clan coming my way. As for my guests here, they’re so pleased to see good order broken in the land and hamlets half-harried that they’ll favour any man whose trade is the sword, especially if he’s a gentleman,” he added. “I’m one myself, though I keep a sort of poor hostel here. I’m a young son.”