It had arisen out of a point of spiritual belief.

It had been six generations agone at a Highland banquet, in the
days when the unrestrained temper of the time gave way to wild
orgies, during which theological discussions raged with unrestrained
fury. Shamus McShamus, an embittered Calvinist, half crazed perhaps
with liquor, had maintained that damnation could be achieved only by
faith. Whimper McWhinus had held that damnation could be achieved
also by good works. Inflamed with drink, McShamus had struck
McWhinus across the temple with an oatcake and killed him. McShamus
had been brought to trial. Although defended by some of the most
skilled lawyers of Aucherlocherty, he had been acquitted. On the
very night of his acquittal, Whangus McWhinus, the son of the
murdered man, had lain in wait for Shamus McShamus, in the hollow of
the Glen road where it rises to the cliff, and had shot him through
the bagpipes. Since then the feud had raged with unquenched
bitterness for a century and a half.

With each generation the difference between the two families became
more acute. They differed on every possible point. They wore
different tartans, sat under different ministers, drank different
brands of whisky, and upheld different doctrines in regard to
eternal punishment.

To add to the feud the McWhinuses had grown rich, while the
McShamuses had become poor.

At least once in every generation a McWhinus or a McShamus had been
shot, and always at the turn of the Glen road where it rose to the