The summer night was clear and warm, and every star shone brightly amid the blue ether; all was stillness and deep silence, save where a mountain stream, a tributary of Loch Arkeig, swept down, now over falls and stony rapids, or among bold impending rocks spotted with lichens and tufted with broom, and now among pale hazel groves and black clumps of red-stemmed pine. The MacGregors had scarcely been here two hours, and, weary with their march and lulled by the hum of the hurrying stream, most of them were fast asleep, when Rob heard his sentinels in violent altercation with a stranger; and as the Gaelic language is deficient neither in expletives nor maledictions, they were plentifully used on this occasion. On sending Greumoch to ascertain the cause of all this, he soon returned, with his drawn dirk gleaming in one hand, while by the other he dragged forward a harper, in whom, by the firelight, Rob immediately recognized Gillian Ross the Islesman, who had acted as their guide to Glensheil. He was a man well up in years; his hair and flowing beard were snowy white; but his cheek was ruddy, and his eyes had a merry twinkle which showed that as a son of song he had led a jovial life and a roving one, though among turbulent clans, in a wild country and in perilous times. His kilt and plaid were of the Ross tartan, which is gaily striped with red, green, and blue; and his clairsach or little Scottish harp was slung on his back by a belt, and covered with a case of tarpaulin or tarred canvas--probably a piece of a boat-sail. He carried a blackthorn stick, and as his occupation was a peaceful one, he had no weapon save a dirk, which, like the mouth-piece of his sporan, was gaily adorned with silver. "A spy, a spy!" cried the MacGregors, starting up and crowding about him with ominous expressions in their weatherbeaten faces. "What is the meaning of this, thou son of the son of Alpine?" he boldly demanded of Rob, in his figurative Gaelic; "the children of the Gael should not draw their swords on each other, and still less on a son of song." "Yet, son of song," replied Rob, drily, "you played those Rosses and Munroes, and the men of Morar Chattu, into battle against us near Dounan Diarmed* in Glenshiel--the tomb of one whom Ossian loved. Eh, what say you to that?" * A warrior of Fingal, whose grave lies near the manse of Glensheil. Morar Chattu is the Celtic name of the Earls of Sutherland. "There have been cold steel and hot blood between our people," began the harper in a gentler tone. "True; but that was in the times of old; and now the righteous cause of our king should make even the false Whigs true, and every clan unite in one." "Even the Grahames with the Clan Alpine?" said the harper, with a cunning smile. "Yes--even the Grahames with the Clan Alpine!" repeated Rob, stamping his foot on the heather. "I could find in my heart forgiveness for them all, would they but join the king."