"Simple fare it is, indeed," replied the major. "’Tis very well: the Senor Raphael’s tocino is excellent, being cured probably for his own use; but his eggs are not so fresh as I used to get from my own roosts at Craigfianteoch, near Inverary." "A deuced hard name your estate has, major. A little more ham, if you please." "Few can pronounce it so well as myself, Bevan. Craig’fi’anteoch,—_that_ is the proper accent." "Meaning the rock of the house of Fingal, when translated?" observed Ronald. "Right, Stuart, my boy; the rock of the king of Selma." "It has been long in your family, I suppose." "Since the year 400. You may laugh, Bevan, being but a Lowlander, yet it is not the less true. Since the days of the old Dabriadic kings, when the great clan Campbell, the race of Diarmid, first became lords of Argyle," replied the major with conscious pride, as he pushed away his plate and stretched himself back in his chair,—"Ardgile, or Argathelia, as it was then called. My fathers are descended in a direct line from Diarmid, the first lord of Lochow." "A long and noble pedigree, certainly," observed Macdonald with a proud smile, becoming interested in the conversation. "It out-herods mine, though I come of the line of Donald, the lord of the Western Isles." "Come, come, gentlemen, never mind descents: none can trace further up than Adam. Let us broach some of these sherry bottles," said Bevan impatiently. "Pedigrees are too frequently a subject for discussion at Highland messes, and were introduced often enough at ours, when we had one. Yesterday at Niza, at the _scuttle_ there, which we called a dinner, the colonel and old Macdonald nearly came to loggerheads about the comparative antiquity of the Camerons of Fassifern and Locheil." "D—n all pedigrees!" cried Kennedy, uncorking the sherry. "I am not indebted to my forbears the value of a herring-scale!" "These are matters only for pipers and seanachies to discuss," said Ronald, affecting a carelessness which he was very far from feeling. Few indeed cherished with a truer feeling of Highland satisfaction the idea that he came of a royal and long-descended line. "Let the subject be dropped, gentlemen. Fill your glasses: let us drink to the downfall of Ciudad Rodrigo!’ "Well said, Stuart," echoed Kennedy; "push the Malaga this way." "I’ll drink it with all my heart," said the major, filling up his glass; "let it be a bumper, a brimming bumper, gentlemen,—the downfall of Ciudad Rodrigo!" "Pretty fair sherry this, major." "But it has all the greasy taste of the confounded pig-skin." "Why the deuce don’t the lazy dogs learn to blow decent glass bottles?" "Try the Malaga. Fill up, and drink to the hearts we have left behind us!" "Right, Macdonald,—an old Scottish toast," answered Campbell, emptying his horn. "But for Ciudad Rodrigo, I almost wish that the place may hold out until we encounter old Marmont, and thrash his legions to our hearts’ content, eh! Bevan?"