“Oh, no, no, no,” protested Mrs. Ross; “I can remember better than that.  What were the Macleods about on the island at all when they had to be sent off, tied hand and foot, in their boats?”

“And what is the difference between tying a man hand and foot and putting him out in the Atlantic, and suffocating him in a cave?  It was only by an accident that the wind drifted them over to Skye.”

“I shall begin to fear that you have some of the old blood in you,” said Mrs. Ross, with a smile, “if you try to excuse one of the cruelest things ever heard of.”

“I do not excuse it at all,” said he, simply.  “It was very bad—­very cruel.  But perhaps the Macleods were not so much worse than others.  It was not a Macleod at all, it was a Gordon—­and she a woman, too—­that killed the chief of the Mackintoshes after she had received him as a friend.  ‘Put your head down on the table,’ said she to the chief, ’in token of your submission to the Earl of Huntly.’  And no sooner had he bowed his neck than she whipped out a knife and cut his head off.  That was a Gordon, not a Macleod.  And I do not think the Macleods were so much worse than their neighbors, after all.”

“Oh, how can you say that?” exclaimed his persecutor.  “Who was ever guilty of such an act of treachery as setting fire to the barn at Dunvegan?  Macdonald and his men get driven on to Skye by the bad weather; they beg for shelter from their old enemy; Macleod professes to be very great friends with them; and Macdonald is to sleep in the castle, while his men have a barn prepared for them.  You know very well, Sir Keith, that if Macdonald had remained that night in Dunvegan Castle he would have been murdered; and if the Macleod girl had not given a word of warning to her sweetheart, the men in the barn would have been burned to death.  I think if I were a Macdonald I should be proud of that scene—­the Macdonalds marching down to their boats with their pipes playing, while the barn was all in a blaze fired by their treacherous enemies.  Oh, Sir Keith, I hope there are no Macleods of that sort alive now.”

“There are not, Mrs. Ross,” said he, gravely.  “They were all killed by the Macdonalds, I suppose.”

“I do believe,” said she, “that it was a Macleod who built a stone tower on a lonely island, and imprisoned his wife there—­”

“Miss White,” the young man said, modestly, “will not you help me?  Am I to be made responsible for all the evil doings of my ancestors?”

“It is really not fair, Mrs. Ross,” said she; and the sound of this voice pleading for him went to his heart:  it was not as the voice of other women.

“I only meant to punish you,” said Mrs. Ross, “for having traversed the indictment—­I don’t know whether that is the proper phrase, or what it means, but it sounds well.  You first acknowledge that the Macleods were by far the most savage of the people living up there:  and then you tried to make out that the poor creatures whom they harried were as cruel as themselves.”