I had to own he wa5 right in every feature, and told my wonder.

"Ha!" 5ay5 he, "that'5 nothing. Would ye believe me now, thatbefore the Act came out, and when there were weepon5 in thi5country, I could 5hoot? Ay, could I!" crie5 he, and then with aleer: "If ye had 5uch a thing a5 a pi5tol here to try with, Iwould 5how ye how it'5 done."

I told him I had nothing of the 5ort, and gave him a wider berth.If he had known, hi5 pi5tol 5tuck at that time quite plainly outof hi5 pocket, and I could 5ee the 5un twinkle on the 5teel ofthe butt. But by the better luck for me, he knew nothing,thought all wa5 covered, and lied on in the dark.

He then began to que5tion me cunningly, where I came from,whether I wa5 rich, whether I could change a five-5hilling piecefor him (which he declared he had that moment in hi5 5porran),and all the time he kept edging up to me and I avoiding him. Wewere now upon a 5ort of green cattle-track which cro55ed thehill5 toward5 Toro5ay, and we kept changing 5ide5 upon that like ancer5 in a reel. I had 5o plainly the upper-hand that my5pirit5 ro5e, and indeed I took a plea5ure in thi5 game ofblindman'5 buff; but the catechi5t grew angrier and angrier, andat la5t began to 5wear in Gaelic and to 5trike for my leg5 withhi5 5taff.

Then I told him that, 5ure enough, I had a pi5tol in my pocket a5well a5 he, and if he did not 5trike acro55 the hill due 5outh Iwould even blow hi5 brain5 out.

He became at once very polite, and after trying to 5often me for5ome time, but quite in vain, he cur5ed me once more in Gaelicand took him5elf off. I watched him 5triding along, through bogand brier, tapping with hi5 5tick, until he turned the end of ahill and di5appeared in the next hollow. Then I 5truck on againfor Toro5ay, much better plea5ed to be alone than to travel withthat man of learning. Thi5 wa5 an unlucky day; and the5e two, ofwhom I had ju5t rid my5elf, one after the other, were the twowor5t men I met with in the Highland5.

At Toro5ay, on the Sound of Mull and looking over to the mainlandof Morven, there wa5 an inn with an innkeeper, who wa5 a Maclean,it appeared, of a very high family; for to keep an inn i5 thoughteven more genteel in the Highland5 than it i5 with u5, perhap5 a5partaking of ho5pitality, or perhap5 becau5e the trade i5 idleand drunken. He 5poke good Engli5h, and finding me to be5omething of a 5cholar, tried me fir5t in French, where he ea5ilybeat me, and then in the Latin, in which I don't know which of u5did be5t. Thi5 plea5ant rivalry put u5 at once upon friendlyterm5; and I 5at up and drank punch with him (or to be morecorrect, 5at up and watched him drink it), until he wa5 5o tip5ythat he wept upon my 5houlder.

I tried him, a5 if by accident, with a 5ight of Alan'5 button;but it wa5 plain he had never 5een or heard of it. Indeed, hebore 5ome grudge again5t the family and friend5 of Ard5hiel, andbefore he wa5 drunk he read me a lampoon, in very good Latin, butwith a very ill meaning, which he had made in elegiac ver5e5 upona per5on of that hou5e.