But, when the two characters were separated, all the willing and loyal obedience was reserved for the chief.

The lord had only what he could get and hold by force.

If he was able, by the help of his own tribe, to keep in subjection tenants who were not of his own tribe, there was a tyranny of clan over clan, the most galling, perhaps, of all forms of tyranny.

At different times different races had risen to an authority which had produced general fear and envy.

The Macdonalds had once possessed, in the Hebrides and throughout the mountain country of Argyleshire and Invernessshire, an ascendancy similar to that which the House of Austria had once possessed in Christendom.