"Hold!" he said, as if it had been dogs. "What's the name of ye, black fellow?" Murdo cursed in his beard. "My name's honest man, but I have not time to prove it."
"Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the _caüleach_ with you, you must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend me your sword, _'ille!_''
"Squint-mouth!" cried Murdo, "your greedy clan took too much off me this day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back it goes, it's not with my will."
"Then it's the better man must have it," said the red fellow, and, Lord, he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel.
The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat with sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who had died in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far in Kintail; and her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the strange foreign wars, where the pay was not hide and horn but round gold.
A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter and became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are born, coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, but never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the ground was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two men pulled themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, and the brogues made no error on the soil.
First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, and youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes that never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. "Splank, sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank--_siod e_!" said the blades, and the Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got inside the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a snap of the teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in the basket like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went to rain that fell solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the feet, a scatter of crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, and Aora gobbled like swine in a baron's trough.