`` It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the Maclarens , '' says Alan . `` That 's a kittle point , '' returned the other . `` There may be two words to say to that . But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your sword ? '' `` Unless ye were born deaf , Mr. Macgregor , ye will have heard a good deal more than that , '' says Alan . `` I am not the only man that can draw steel in Appin ; and when my kinsman and captain , Ardshiel , had a talk with a gentleman of your name , not so many years back , I could never hear that the Macgregor had the best of it . '' `` Do ye mean my father , sir ? '' says Robin . `` Well , I wouldnae wonder , '' said Alan . `` The gentleman I have in my mind had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name . '' `` My father was an old man , '' returned Robin . `` The match was unequal . You and me would make a better pair , sir . '' `` I was thinking that , '' said Alan . I was half out of bed , and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these fighting cocks , ready to intervene upon the least occasion . But when that word was uttered , it was a case of now or never ; and Duncan , with something of a white face to be sure , thrust himself between . `` Gentlemen , '' said he , `` I will have been thinking of a very different matter , whateffer . Here are my pipes , and here are you two gentlemen who are baith acclaimed pipers . It 's an auld dispute which one of ye 's the best . Here will be a braw chance to settle it . ''
`` Why , sir , '' said Alan , still addressing XXXXX , from whom indeed he had not so much as shifted his eyes , nor yet Robin from him , `` why , sir , '' says Alan , `` I think I will have heard some sough * of the sort .
Alan Appin Campbell Maclarens Robin braw cocks kittle whateffer years