"Who are you to say which is the stranger's, and which the Macruadh's? Neither my father nor I have ever seen the faces of you in the country! Will you pretend to know the marches better than my father, who was born and bred in the heather, and knows every stone on the face of the hills?" "We can't help where he was born or what he knows! he was on our land!" "He is the Macruadh's keeper, and was on his own land. You will get yourselves into trouble!" "We'll take our chance!" "Take your man then!" "If he try to escape, I swear by the bones of my grandfather," said the more inimical of the two, inheritor of a clan-feud with the Macruadhs, "I will shoot him." Bob of the Angels burst into a scornful laugh. "You will! will you?" "I will not kill him; I don't want to be hanged for him! but I will empty my shot-barrel into the legs of him! So take your chance; you are warned!" They had Hector's gun, and Rob had no weapon but his knife. Nor was he inclined to use either now he had cooled a little. He turned to his father. The old man understood perfectly what had passed between them, and signed to Rob that he would go on to the New House, and Rob might run and let the chief know what had happened. The same thing was in Rob's mind, for he saw how it would favour the desires of his chief, bringing them all naturally about the place. But he must first go with his father on the chance of learning something. "We will go with you," he said. "We don't want YOU!" "But I mean to go!--My father is not able to speak for himself!" "You know nothing." "I know what he knows. The lie does not grow in our strath." "You crow high, my cock!" "No higher than I strike," answered Rob. In the eyes of the men Rob was small and weak; but there was something in him notwithstanding that looked dangerous, and, though far from cowards, they thought it as well to leave him alone. Mercy at her window, where was her usual seat now, saw them coming, and instinctively connected their appearance with her father's new measures of protection; and when the men turned toward the kitchen, she ran down to learn what she could. Rob greeted her with a smile as he entered. "I am going to fetch the Macruadh," he whispered, and turning went out again. He told the chief that at the word her face lighted up as with the rise of the moon. One of the maids went and told her master that they had got a poacher in the kitchen. Mr. Palmer's eyes lightened under his black brows when he saw the captive, whom he knew by sight and by report. His men told him the story their own way, never hinting a doubt as to whose was the land on which the deer had been killed. "Where is the nearest magistrate?" he inquired with grand severity. "The nearest is the Macruadh, sir!" answered a highlander who had come from work in the garden to see what was going on. "I cannot apply to him; the fellow is one of his own men!" "The Macruadh does what is just!" rejoined the man.