Edward asked why, with so large a force, the Chief did not at once put down such robber bands as that of Donald Bean Lean.
"Because," said the Chief, bitterly, "if I did, I should at once be summoned to Stirling Castle to deliver up the few broadswords the government has left us. I should gain little by that. But there is dinner," he added, as if anxious to change the subject, "let me show you the inside of my rude mansion."
The long and crowded dinner-table to which Edward sat down, told of the Chief's immense hospitality. After the meal, healths were drunk, and the bard of the clan recited a wild and thrilling poem in Gaelic--of which, of course, Edward could not understand so much as one word, though it excited the clansmen so that they sprang up in ecstasy, many of them waving their arms about in sympathy with the warlike verses. The Chief, exactly in the ancient manner, presented a silver cup full of wine to the minstrel. He was to drink the one and keep the other for himself.
After a few more toasts, Vich Ian Vohr offered to take Waverley up to be presented to his sister. They found Flora Mac-Ivor in her parlour, a plain and bare chamber with a wide prospect from the windows. She had her brother's dark curling hair, dark eyes, and lofty expression, but her expression seemed sweeter, though not, perhaps, softer. She was, however, even more fiercely Jacobite than her brother, and her devotion to "the King over the Water" (as they called King James) was far more unselfish than that of Vich Ian Vohr. Flora Mac-Ivor had been educated in a French convent, yet now she gave herself heart and soul to the good of her wild Highland clan and to the service of him whom she looked on as the true King.
She was gracious to Edward, and at the request of Fergus, told him the meaning of the war-song he had been listening to in the hall. She was, her brother said, famed for her translations from Gaelic into English, but for the present she could not be persuaded to recite any of these to Edward.
He had better fortune, however, when, finding Flora Mac-Ivor in a wild spot by a waterfall, she sang him, to the accompaniment of a harp, a song of great chiefs and their deeds which fired the soul of the young man. He could not help admiring--he almost began to love her from that moment.