There was one they called Niall Mor a Chamais (Big Neil of Karnes), who in his day won the applause of courts by slaying the Italian bully who bragged Scotland for power of thew, and I liked Niall Mor's word to us as we proceeded on our way to Inneraora.
"Don't think," said he, "that MacCailein's beat yet, or that the boar's tusks are reaped from his jaw. I am of an older clan than Campbell, and closer on Diarmaid than Argile himself; but we are all under the one banner now, and I'll tell you two gentlemen something. They may tear Castle Inneraora out at the roots, stable their horses in the yard of Kilmalieu, and tread real Argile in the clay, but well be even with them yet. I have an arm here" (and he held up a bloody-looking limb, hashed at Inverlochy); "I'll build my home when this is mended, and i'll challenge MacDonald till my mouth is gagged with the clod."
"And they tell me your son is dead yonder," I said, pitying the old man who had now no wife nor child.
"So they tell me," said he; "that's the will of God, and better a fast death on the field than a decline on the feather-bed. I'll be weeping for my boy when I have bigged my house again and paid a call to some of his enemies."
Niall Mot's philosophy was very much that of all the people of the glen, such of them as were left. They busily built their homes and pondered, as they wrought, on the score to pay.
"That's just like me," M'Iver would say after speeches like that of Niall Mor. He was ever one who found of a sudden all another person's traits in his own bosom when their existence was first manifested to him. "That's just like me myself; we are a beaten clan (in a fashion), but we have our chief and many a thousand swords to the fore yet I declare to you I am quite cheery thinking we will be coming back again to those glens and mounts we have found so cruel because of our loneliness, and giving the MacDonalds and the rest of the duddy crew the sword in a double dose."
"Ay, John," said I, "it's easy for you to be light-hearted in the matter. You may readily build your bachelor's house at Barbreck, and I may set up again the barn at Elrigmore; but where husband or son is gone it's a different story. For love is a passion stronger than hate. Are you not wondering that those good folk on either hand of us should not be so stricken that they would be sitting in ashes, weeping like Rachel?"