"Can so strong a body have a mean and cowardly spirit?
Come, and make in to the combat." "You as good as called me hireling but now," replied Henry.

"If I am such," pointing to the headless corpse, "I have done enough for my day's wage." "He that serves me without counting his hours," replied the chief, "I reward him without reckoning wages." "Then," said the smith, "I fight as a volunteer, and in the post which best likes me." "All that is at your own discretion," replied MacGillis Chattanach, who saw the prudence of humouring an auxiliary of such promise.
"It is enough," said Henry; and, shouldering his heavy weapon, he joined the rest of the combatants with alacrity, and placed himself opposite to the chief of the Clan Quhele.
It was then, for the first time, that Eachin showed some uncertainty.
He had long looked up to Henry as the best combatant which Perth and its neighbourhood could bring into the lists.

His hatred to him as a rival was mingled with recollection of the ease with which he had once, though unarmed, foiled his own sudden and desperate attack; and when he beheld him with his eyes fixed in his direction, the dripping sword in his hand, and obviously meditating an attack on him individually, his courage fell, and he gave symptoms of wavering, which did not escape his foster father.
It was lucky for Eachin that Torquil was incapable, from the formation of his own temper, and that of those with whom he had lived, to conceive the idea of one of his own tribe, much less of his chief and foster son, being deficient in animal courage.

Could he have imagined this, his grief and rage might have driven him to the fierce extremity of taking Eachin's life, to save him from staining his honour.

But his mind rejected the idea that his dault was a personal coward, as something which was monstrous and unnatural.