"What is it ye will be saying, man?" he demanded harshly. Weaver Jimmie looked encouraged, and avoiding Callum's eye, he gave further details. Tom Caldwell had lately been the means of organising an Orange lodge in the Flats, and at their last meeting the brethren had decreed that, upon the coming 12th of July, they must have a celebration. It was to be no ordinary affair either, Pete Nash himself told him; but such a magnificent spectacle as the pioneers had never yet witnessed. Pete had received orders to prepare dinner for fifty guests and whiskey for twice as many. There was to be a grand rally early in the morning at the home of Tom Caldwell, who was to personate the great Protestant monarch, and at high noon a triumphal march up over the hills and down into the Glen to the feast,--with fifes and drums and a greater display in crossing the Oro than King William himself had had in crossing the historic Boyne. Big Malcolm sat silent, his fists clenched. He was a Glencoe MacDonald, and, like all his clan, had an abhorrence of the name of Orange running fiercely in his veins. But he was saying to himself over and over that he who had repented of all his strife, who had set his face firmly against the evils of the day and become a leader of the new movement that was bringing the community into a higher and better life, he certainly must not be the one to stir up dissension. And yet, to have a celebration in their own glen in honour of the MacDonalds' betrayer! "It will be a low, scandalous, Irish trick!" he vehemently burst forth. Weaver Jimmie's eyes brightened. "They would be needing to learn a lesson, whatever," he suggested tentatively. "Malcolm," Mrs. MacDonald's voice came in gently, "we will surely not be forgetting that Tom Caldwell would be joining us at the meetings these last winters, and indeed we would jist all be praying together that the Father would be putting away all strife from our hearts." Callum cast his mother a look of gratitude; for, though generally the first to scent the battle from afar and hasten its approach, for very good reasons of his own he was on this occasion strongly inclined for peace. Big Malcolm looked at the gentle face of his wife and the fire died out of his eyes. "Hoh!" he exclaimed disdainfully, "I will not be caring; let them have their childish foolishness if it will be doing them any good, whatever!" Weaver Jimmie looked disappointed, but, seeing no encouragement in the faces about him, he reluctantly dropped the subject. The conversation soon turned from war to a topic even nearer Jimmie's heart, for Rory had brought out his fiddle and now struck up gaily the song of the cruel Jinny and the hapless weaver.