such a pleasure! It would cost him nothing! It would even bring him
a little amusement! The chief of Clanruadh carrying his game-bag for
a Sasunnach fellow to earn a shilling! the idea had a touch of
humorous consolation in it. I will not assert the consolation strong
enough to cast quite out a certain feeling of shame that mingled
with his amusement--a shame which--is it not odd!--he would not have
felt had his sporan been full of sovereigns. But the shame was not
altogether a shameful one; a fanciful fear of degrading the
chieftainship, and a vague sense of the thing being an imposition,
had each a part in it. There could be nothing dishonest, however, in
thus earning a shilling for poor mistress Conal!

"I will carry your bag," he said, "but I must have the shilling
first, if you please."

"Oh!" rejoined Valentine Palmer. "You do not trust me! How then am I
to trust you?"

"Sir!" exclaimed Alister--and, again finding himself on the point of
being foolish, laughed.

"I will pay you when the job is done," said Valentine.

"That is quite fair, but it does not suit my purpose," returned
Alister.

They were walking along the road side by side, but each could
scarcely see anything of the other. The sportsman was searching his
pockets to find a shilling. He succeeded, and, groping, put it in
Alister's hand, with the words--