More and more chiefs were announced, the least of whom would have
accounted it derogatory to his dignity to stir without a retinue of six
or seven persons. To every new annunciation, Angus M'Aulay answered
by naming some place of accommodation,--the stables, the loft, the
cow-house, the sheds, every domestic office, were destined for the night
to some hospitable purpose or other. At length the arrival of M'Dougal
of Lorn, after all his means of accommodation were exhausted, reduced
him to some perplexity. "What the devil is to be done, Donald?" said
he; "the great barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads
and thraws; but there would be drawn dirks amang them which should lie
upper-most, and so we should have bloody puddings before morning!"

"What needs all this?" said Allan, starting up, and coming forward with
the stern abruptness of his usual manner; "are the Gael to-day of softer
flesh or whiter blood than their fathers were? Knock the head out of
a cask of usquebae; let that be their night-gear--their plaids
their bed-clothes--the blue sky their canopy, and the heather their
couch.--Come a thousand more, and they would not quarrel on the broad
heath for want of room!"

"Allan is right," said his brother; "it is very odd how Allan, who,
between ourselves," said he to Musgrave, "is a little wowf, [WOWF, i.e.
crazed.] seems at times to have more sense than us all put together.
Observe him now."

"Yes," continued Allan, fixing his eyes with a ghastly stare upon the
opposite side of the hall, "they may well begin as they are to end; many
a man will sleep this night upon the heath, that when the Martinmas wind
shalt blow shall lie there stark enough, and reck little of cold or lack