�y��vlog

He was met instead by the savage thrust of a Highlander's skene dhu, delivered through the scarcely opened door, and was questioned, not in the familiar drawl of his compatriots, but in such broad Scotch dialect as unaccustomed ears could scarcely comprehend.

"Ow, ay!" assented Malcolm, indifferently,—"Gien ye wad luik in, my leddy, I wad lat ye see his claymore, an' his dirk, an' his skene dhu, an' a'."

On Sundays, however, he made the best of himself, and came out like a belated and aged butterfly—with his father's sporran, or tasselled goatskin purse, in front of him, his grandfather's dirk at his side, his great grandfather's skene dhu, or little black hafted knife, stuck in the stocking of his right leg, and a huge round brooch of brass—nearly half a foot in diameter, and, Mr Graham said, as old as the battle of Harlaw—on his left shoulder.

"He has his skene dhu yet, an' in grips that's warst ava."

His dirk was lying not far off, and his skene dhu close by his hand.