chiefly natives of the shire of Fife, that they might colonize and settle there.  The enterprise was at first successful, but the natives of the island, MacLeods and MacKenzies, rose on the Lowland adventurers, and put most of them to the sword.] “And yet,” he continued, addressing Allan, “it is for the purpose of giving despotic authority to the monarch by whom these designs have been nursed, that so many Highland Chiefs are upon the point of quarrelling with, and drawing the sword against, their neighbours, allies, and ancient confederates.”  “It is to my brother,” said Allan, “it is to the eldest son of my father’s house, that the Knight of Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances.  I am, indeed, the brother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his clansmen, and bound to show an example to the others by my cheerful and ready obedience to his commands.”

“The cause also,” said Lord Menteith, interposing, “is far more general than Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it.  It is neither limited to Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath, to Highlands nor to Lowlands.  The question is, if we will continue to be governed by the unlimited authority assumed by a set of persons in no respect superior to ourselves, instead of returning to the natural government of the Prince against whom they have rebelled.  And respecting the interest of the Highlands in particular,” he added, “I crave Sir Duncan Campbell’s pardon for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the only effect produced by the present usurpation, will be the aggrandisement of one overgrown clan at the expense of every independent Chief in the Highlands.”

“I will not reply to you, my lord,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “because I know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed; yet you will pardon my saying, that being at the head of a rival branch of the House of Graham, I have both read of and known an Earl of Menteith, who would have disdained to have been tutored in politics, or to have been commanded in war, by an Earl of Montrose.”

“You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan,” said Lord Menteith, haughtily, “to set my vanity in arms against my principles.  The King gave my ancestors their title and rank; and these shall never prevent my acting, in the royal cause, under any one who is better qualified than myself to be a commander-in-chief.  Least of all, shall any miserable jealousy prevent me from placing my hand and sword under the guidance of the bravest, the most loyal, the most heroic spirit among our Scottish nobility.”

“Pity,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “that you cannot add to this panegyric the farther epithets of the most steady, and the most consistent.  But I have no purpose of debating these points with you, my lord,” waving his hand, as if to avoid farther discussion; “the die is cast with you; allow me only to express my sorrow for the disastrous fate to which Angus M’Aulay’s natural rashness, and your lordship’s influence, are dragging my gallant friend Allan here, with his father’s clan, and many a brave man besides.”