"Ye're a man of small contrivance, David." Thereupon he fell in a muse, looking in the embers of the fire; and presently, getting a piece of wood, he fashioned it in a cross, the four ends of which he blackened on the coals.

Then he looked at me a little shyly.
"Could ye lend me my button ?" says he.

"It seems a strange thing to ask a gift again, but I own I am laith to cut another." I gave him the button; whereupon he strung it on a strip of his great-coat which he had used to bind the cross; and tying in a little sprig of birch and another of fir, he looked upon his work with satisfaction.
"Now," said he, "there is a little clachan" (what is called a hamlet in the English) "not very far from Corrynakiegh, and it has the name of Koalisnacoan.

There there are living many friends of mine whom I could trust with my life, and some that I am no just so sure of.

Ye see, David, there will be money set upon our heads; James himsel' is to set money on them; and as for the Campbells, they would never spare siller where there was a Stewart to be hurt.