dissensions which often arose among other clans in his neighbourhood, so that he became a frequent umpire in their quarrels.  His own patriarchal power he strengthened at every expense which his fortune would permit, and indeed stretched his means to the uttermost, to maintain the rude and plentiful hospitality, which was the most valued attribute of a chieftain.  For the same reason, he crowded his estate with a tenantry, hardy indeed, and fit for the purposes of war, but greatly outnumbering what the soil was calculated to maintain.  These consisted chiefly of his own clan, not one of whom he suffered to quit his lands if he could possibly prevent it.  But he maintained, besides, many adventurers from the mother sept, who deserted a less warlike, though more wealthy chief, to do homage to Fergus Mac-Ivor.  Other individuals, too, who had not even that apology, were nevertheless received into his allegiance, which indeed was refused to none who were, like Poins, proper men of their hands, and were willing to assume the name of Mac-Ivor.

He was enabled to discipline these forces, from having obtained command of one of the independent companies raised by Government to preserve the peace of the Highlands.  While in this capacity he acted with vigour and spirit, and preserved great order in the country under his charge.  He caused his vassals to enter by rotation into his company, and serve for a certain space of time, which gave them all in turn a general notion of military discipline.  In his campaigns against the banditti, it was observed that he assumed and exercised to the utmost the discretionary power, which, while the law had no free course in the Highlands, was conceived to belong to the military parties who were called in to support it.  He acted, for example, with great and suspicious lenity to those freebooters who made restitution on his summons, and offered personal submission to himself, while he rigorously pursued, apprehended, and sacrificed to justice, all such interlopers as dared to despise his admonitions or commands.  On the other hand, if any officers of justice, military parties, or others, presumed to pursue thieves or marauders through his territories, and without applying for his consent and concurrence, nothing was more certain than that they would meet with some notable foil or defeat; upon which occasions Fergus Mac-Ivor was the first to condole with them, and, after gently blaming their rashness, never failed deeply to lament the lawless state of the country.  These lamentations did not exclude suspicion, and matters were so represented to Government, that our Chieftain was deprived of his military command. [15]