If there were as many revilers in the Midlands as there are slates on Auld Reekie, I can do no other. I was apprenticed to fiction, which is a school of truth in dealing with human nature. Let my critics write books of their own, setting forth the facts as they would have them. Let them declare that Charles Edward ended his days as a worthy citizen of Rome, a model husband, a diligent student of Anglican divinity, and an office-bearer of its Diocesan Temperance Society. Let them assert that Free Church pastors have exhorted youths and maidens to skip upon the Highland hills like young rams. Let them maintain that the Jewish Sabbath has _semper et ubique_ been a characteristic observance of the Christian Church, and that this doctrine flourishes as much as ever in its last sanctuary. I, for one, do not love Scotland, or its idols, better than the truth; and in such a cause can play the advocate without suppressing or glossing over the evidence. There is a quotation with which a Priest of the Church of England must be familiar, as much aired at clerical Congresses--_Haud tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis!_ Of all the charges made against me, the one by which I am most concerned is a reproach that I have spoken lightly of serious matters concerning the Clan Macgregor. Miss Murray Macgregor, the historian of her race, writes courteously but firmly to remonstrate with me on apparent libels against it in _The Highlands and Islands_. My most crying offence here, it seems, is one that would offend only a Highlander. In my haste I spoke of the modern Macgregors as “new-made,” when the law finally allowed them to wear their own patronymic, and I called their chief “Murray,” whereas I ought to have precisely defined him as for certain reasons bearing the name of Murray. Miss Murray Macgregor must accept my apologies for having heedlessly omitted to style her grandfather Sir John Macgregor Murray. In this contention, she seems to be unwittingly reviving old Nominalist and Realist controversies, for her part holding Macgregorism to be a principle with a real existence apart from its phenomena, whereas I use the name merely as a notion that casually labels certain sons of Adam. But hereby I recant, disavow, and seek absolution for any words of mine seeming to imply that a Murray and a Macgregor be not distinct entities _in rerum natura_, and _in saecula saeculorum_. Another offence against the Macgregors laid to my charge is one in which I have many fellow-sinners. In [Illustration: THE MACGREGOR COUNTRY]