And I am proud to see ye , and to present to ye my friend the Laird of Shaws , Mr. David Balfour . '' Alan never referred to my estate without a touch of a sneer , when we were alone ; but with strangers , he rang the words out like a herald . `` Step in by , the both of ye , gentlemen , '' says Cluny . `` I make ye welcome to my house , which is a queer , rude place for certain , but one where I have entertained a royal personage , Mr. Stewart -- ye doubtless ken the personage I have in my eye . We 'll take a dram for luck , and as soon as this handless man of mine has the collops ready , we 'll dine and take a hand at the cartes as gentlemen should . My life is a bit driegh , '' says he , pouring out the brandy ; `` I see little company , and sit and twirl my thumbs , and mind upon a great day that is gone by , and weary for another great day that we all hope will be upon the road . And so here 's a toast to ye : The Restoration ! '' Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank . I am sure I wished no ill to King George ; and if he had been there himself in proper person , it 's like he would have done as I did . No sooner had I taken out the drain than I felt hugely better , and could look on and listen , still a little mistily perhaps , but no longer with the same groundless horror and distress of mind . It was certainly a strange place , and we had a strange host . In his long hiding , Cluny had grown to have all manner of precise habits , like those of an old maid . He had a particular place , where no one else must sit ; the Cage was arranged in a particular way , which none must disturb ; cookery was one of his chief fancies , and even while he was greeting us in , he kept an eye to the collops . It appears , he sometimes visited or received visits from his wife and one or two of his nearest friends , under the cover of night ; but for the more part lived quite alone , and communicated only with his sentinels and the gillies that waited on him in the Cage . The first thing in the morning , one of them , who was a barber , came and shaved him , and gave him the news of the country , of which he was immoderately greedy . There was no end to his questions ; he put them as earnestly as a child ; and at some of the answers , laughed out of all bounds of reason , and would break out again laughing at the mere memory , hours after the barber was gone . To be sure , there might have been a purpose in his questions ; for though he was thus sequestered , and like the other landed gentlemen of Scotland , stripped by the late Act of Parliament of legal powers , he still exercised a patriarchal justice in his clan . Disputes were brought to him in his hiding-hole to be decided ; and the men of his country , who would have snapped their fingers at the Court of Session , laid aside revenge and paid down money at the bare word of this forfeited and hunted outlaw . When he was angered , which was often enough , he gave his commands and breathed threats of punishment like any king ; and his gillies trembled and crouched away from him like children before a hasty father . With each of them , as he entered , he ceremoniously shook hands , both parties touching their bonnets at the same time in a military manner .
Altogether , I had a fair chance to XXXXX some of the inner workings of a Highland clan ; and this with a proscribed , fugitive chief ; his country conquered ; the troops riding upon all sides in quest of him , sometimes within a mile of where he lay ; and when the least of the ragged fellows whom he rated and threatened , could have made a fortune by betraying him .
decided disturb gave hunted listen paid see shaved taken touched