initial commit of ebook 1461HEADmain

25 files changed, 52015 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/1461-0.txt b/old/1461-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f53071
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9734 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Legend of Montrose
+
+Author: Sir Walter Scott
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2006 [EBook #1461]
+Last Updated: August 30, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF MONTROSE
+
+by
+
+Sir Walter Scott
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+     I.      Introduction to A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+     II.     Introduction (Supplement).  Sergeant More M’Alpin.
+     III.    Main text of A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+     IV.     Appendix    No. I       Clan Alpin’s Vow.
+     No. II      The Children of the Mist.
+     V.      Notes       Note I      Fides et Fiducia sunt relativa.
+     Note II     Wraiths.
+
+     Note: Footnotes in the printed book have been inserted in the
+     etext in square brackets (“[]”) close to the place where
+     they were referenced by a suffix in the original text.
+
+
+
+I. INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+
+The Legend of Montrose was written chiefly with a view to place before
+the reader the melancholy fate of John Lord Kilpont, eldest son of
+William Earl of Airth and Menteith, and the singular circumstances
+attending the birth and history of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, by
+whose hand the unfortunate nobleman fell.
+
+Our subject leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin with
+one still more ancient than that to which our story relates. During
+the reign of James IV., a great feud between the powerful families
+of Drummond and Murray divided Perthshire. The former, being the most
+numerous and powerful, cooped up eight score of the Murrays in the kirk
+of Monivaird, and set fire to it. The wives and the children of the
+ill-fated men, who had also found shelter in the church, perished by the
+same conflagration. One man, named David Murray, escaped by the humanity
+of one of the Drummonds, who received him in his arms as he leaped from
+amongst the flames. As King James IV. ruled with more activity than most
+of his predecessors, this cruel deed was severely revenged, and several
+of the perpetrators were beheaded at Stirling. In consequence of the
+prosecution against his clan, the Drummond by whose assistance David
+Murray had escaped, fled to Ireland, until, by means of the person whose
+life he had saved, he was permitted to return to Scotland, where he and
+his descendants were distinguished by the name of Drummond-Eirinich, or
+Ernoch, that is, Drummond of Ireland; and the same title was bestowed on
+their estate.
+
+The Drummond-ernoch of James the Sixth’s time was a king’s forester in
+the forest of Glenartney, and chanced to be employed there in search of
+venison about the year 1588, or early in 1589. This forest was adjacent
+to the chief haunts of the MacGregors, or a particular race of them,
+known by the title of MacEagh, or Children of the Mist. They considered
+the forester’s hunting in their vicinity as an aggression, or perhaps
+they had him at feud, for the apprehension or slaughter of some of their
+own name, or for some similar reason. This tribe of MacGregors were
+outlawed and persecuted, as the reader may see in the Introduction to
+ROB ROY; and every man’s hand being against them, their hand was of
+course directed against every man. In short, they surprised and slew
+Drummond-ernoch, cut off his head, and carried it with them, wrapt in
+the corner of one of their plaids.
+
+In the full exultation of vengeance, they stopped at the house of
+Ardvoirlich and demanded refreshment, which the lady, a sister of the
+murdered Drummond-ernoch (her husband being absent), was afraid or
+unwilling to refuse. She caused bread and cheese to be placed before
+them, and gave directions for more substantial refreshments to be
+prepared. While she was absent with this hospitable intention, the
+barbarians placed the head of her brother on the table, filling the
+mouth with bread and cheese, and bidding him eat, for many a merry meal
+he had eaten in that house.
+
+The poor woman returning, and beholding this dreadful sight, shrieked
+aloud, and fled into the woods, where, as described in the romance,
+she roamed a raving maniac, and for some time secreted herself from all
+living society. Some remaining instinctive feeling brought her at length
+to steal a glance from a distance at the maidens while they milked the
+cows, which being observed, her husband, Ardvoirlich, had her conveyed
+back to her home, and detained her there till she gave birth to a child,
+of whom she had been pregnant; after which she was observed gradually to
+recover her mental faculties.
+
+Meanwhile the outlaws had carried to the utmost their insults against
+the regal authority, which indeed, as exercised, they had little reason
+for respecting. They bore the same bloody trophy, which they had so
+savagely exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich, into the old church of
+Balquidder, nearly in the centre of their country, where the Laird of
+MacGregor and all his clan being convened for the purpose, laid their
+hands successively on the dead man’s head, and swore, in heathenish
+and barbarous manner, to defend the author of the deed. This fierce and
+vindictive combination gave the author’s late and lamented friend,
+Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart., subject for a spirited poem, entitled
+“Clan-Alpin’s Vow,” which was printed, but not, I believe, published, in
+1811 [See Appendix No. I].
+
+The fact is ascertained by a proclamation from the Privy Council, dated
+4th February, 1589, directing letters of fire and sword against the
+MacGregors [See Appendix No. II]. This fearful commission was executed
+with uncommon fury. The late excellent John Buchanan of Cambusmore
+showed the author some correspondence between his ancestor, the Laird of
+Buchanan, and Lord Drummond, about sweeping certain valleys with their
+followers, on a fixed time and rendezvous, and “taking sweet revenge for
+the death of their cousin, Drummond-ernoch.” In spite of all, however,
+that could be done, the devoted tribe of MacGregor still bred up
+survivors to sustain and to inflict new cruelties and injuries.
+
+[I embrace the opportunity given me by a second mention of this tribe,
+to notice an error, which imputes to an individual named Ciar Mohr
+MacGregor, the slaughter of the students at the battle of Glenfruin.
+I am informed from the authority of John Gregorson, Esq., that the
+chieftain so named was dead nearly a century before the battle
+in question, and could not, therefore, have done the cruel action
+mentioned. The mistake does not rest with me, as I disclaimed being
+responsible for the tradition while I quoted it, but with vulgar fame,
+which is always disposed to ascribe remarkable actions to a remarkable
+name.--See the erroneous passage, ROB ROY, Introduction; and so soft
+sleep the offended phantom of Dugald Ciar Mohr.
+
+It is with mingled pleasure and shame that I record the more important
+error, of having announced as deceased my learned acquaintance, the Rev.
+Dr. Grahame, minister of Aberfoil.--See ROB ROY, p.360. I cannot now
+recollect the precise ground of my depriving my learned and excellent
+friend of his existence, unless, like Mr. Kirke, his predecessor in the
+parish, the excellent Doctor had made a short trip to Fairyland, with
+whose wonders he is so well acquainted. But however I may have been
+misled, my regret is most sincere for having spread such a rumour; and
+no one can be more gratified than I that the report, however I have been
+induced to credit and give it currency, is a false one, and that Dr.
+Grahame is still the living pastor of Aberfoil, for the delight and
+instruction of his brother antiquaries.]
+
+Meanwhile Young James Stewart of Ardvoirlich grew up to manhood
+uncommonly tall, strong, and active, with such power in the grasp of his
+hand in particular, as could force the blood from beneath the nails of
+the persons who contended with him in this feat of strength. His temper
+was moody, fierce, and irascible; yet he must have had some ostensible
+good qualities, as he was greatly beloved by Lord Kilpont, the eldest
+son of the Earl of Airth and Menteith.
+
+This gallant young nobleman joined Montrose in the setting up his
+standard in 1644, just before the decisive battle at Tippermuir, on the
+1st September in that year. At that time, Stewart of Ardvoirlich shared
+the confidence of the young Lord by day, and his bed by night, when,
+about four or five days after the battle, Ardvoirlich, either from a fit
+of sudden fury or deep malice long entertained against his unsuspecting
+friend, stabbed Lord Kilpont to the heart, and escaped from the camp of
+Montrose, having killed a sentinel who attempted to detain him. Bishop
+Guthrie gives us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont
+had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to assassinate
+Montrose. But it does not appear that there is any authority for this
+charge, which rests on mere suspicion. Ardvoirlich, the assassin,
+certainly did fly to the Covenanters, and was employed and promoted by
+them. He obtained a pardon for the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, confirmed
+by Parliament in 1634, and was made Major of Argyle’s regiment in 1648.
+Such are the facts of the tale here given as a Legend of Montrose’s
+wars. The reader will find they are considerably altered in the
+fictitious narrative.
+
+The author has endeavoured to enliven the tragedy of the tale by the
+introduction of a personage proper to the time and country. In this
+he has been held by excellent judges to have been in some degree
+successful. The contempt of commerce entertained by young men having
+some pretence to gentility, the poverty of the country of Scotland, the
+national disposition to wandering and to adventure, all conduced to lead
+the Scots abroad into the military service of countries which were at
+war with each other. They were distinguished on the Continent by
+their bravery; but in adopting the trade of mercenary soldiers, they
+necessarily injured their national character. The tincture of learning,
+which most of them possessed, degenerated into pedantry; their good
+breeding became mere ceremonial; their fear of dishonour no longer kept
+them aloof from that which was really unworthy, but was made to depend
+on certain punctilious observances totally apart from that which was
+in itself deserving of praise. A cavalier of honour, in search of his
+fortune, might, for example, change his service as he would his shirt,
+fight, like the doughty Captain Dalgetty, in one cause after another,
+without regard to the justice of the quarrel, and might plunder the
+peasantry subjected to him by the fate of war with the most unrelenting
+rapacity; but he must beware how he sustained the slightest reproach,
+even from a clergyman, if it had regard to neglect on the score of duty.
+The following occurrence will prove the truth of what I mean:--
+
+“Here I must not forget the memory of one preacher, Master William
+Forbesse, a preacher for souldiers, yea, and a captaine in neede
+to leade souldiers on a good occasion, being full of courage, with
+discretion and good conduct, beyond some captaines I have knowne, that
+were not so capable as he. At this time he not onely prayed for us, but
+went on with us, to remarke, as I thinke, men’s carriage; and having
+found a sergeant neglecting his dutie and his honour at such a time
+(whose name I will not expresse), having chidden him, did promise to
+reveale him unto me, as he did after their service. The sergeant being
+called before me, and accused, did deny his accusation, alleaging, if he
+were no pasteur that had alleaged it, he would not lie under the injury,
+The preacher offered to fight with him, [in proof] that it was truth
+he had spoken of him; whereupon I cashiered the sergeant, and gave his
+place to a worthier, called Mungo Gray, a gentleman of good worth,
+and of much courage. The sergeant being cashiered, never called Master
+William to account, for which he was evill thought of; so that he
+retired home, and quit the warres.”
+
+The above quotation is taken from a work which the author repeatedly
+consulted while composing the following sheets, and which is in great
+measure written in the humour of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. It bears the
+following formidable title:--“MONRO his Expedition with the worthy
+Scots Regiment, called MacKeye’s Regiment, levied in August 1626, by Sir
+Donald MacKeye Lord Rees Colonel, for his Majestie’s service of Denmark,
+and reduced after the battle of Nerling, in September 1634, at Wormes,
+in the Palz: Discharged in several duties and observations of service,
+first, under the magnanimous King of Denmark, during his wars against
+the Empire; afterwards under the invincible King of Sweden, during
+his Majestie’s lifetime; and since under the Director-General, the
+Rex-Chancellor Oxensterne, and his Generals: collected and gathered
+together, at spare hours, by Colonel Robert Monro, as First Lieutenant
+under the said Regiment, to the noble and worthy Captain Thomas
+MacKenzie of Kildon, brother to the noble Lord, the Lord Earl of
+Seaforth, for the use of all noble Cavaliers favouring the laudable
+profession of arms. To which is annexed, the Abridgement of Exercise,
+and divers Practical Observations for the Younger Officer, his
+consideration. Ending with the Soldier’s Meditations on going on
+Service.”--London, 1637.
+
+Another worthy of the same school, and nearly the same views of the
+military character, is Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, who
+rose to considerable rank in the reign of Charles II., had a command in
+Galloway and Dumfries-shire, for the suppression of conventicles, and
+was made prisoner by the insurgent Covenanters in that rising which
+was followed by the battle of Pentland. Sir James is a person even
+of superior pretensions to Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, having written
+a Military Treatise on the Pike-Exercise, called “Pallas Armata.”
+ Moreover, he was educated at Glasgow College, though he escaped to
+become an Ensign in the German wars, instead of taking his degree of
+Master of Arts at that learned seminary.
+
+In latter times, he was author of several discourses on historical and
+literary subjects, from which the Bannatyne Club have extracted and
+printed such passages as concern his Life and Times, under the title
+of SIR JAMES TURNER’S MEMOIRS. From this curious book I extract the
+following passage, as an example of how Captain Dalgetty might have
+recorded such an incident had he kept a journal, or, to give it a more
+just character, it is such as the genius of De Foe would have devised,
+to give the minute and distinguishing features of truth to a fictitious
+narrative:--
+
+“Heere I will set doun ane accident befell me; for thogh it was not
+a very strange one, yet it was a very od one in all its parts. My tuo
+brigads lay in a village within halfe a mile of Applebie; my own quarter
+was in a gentleman’s house, ho was a Ritmaster, and at that time with
+Sir Marmaduke; his wife keepd her chamber readie to be brought to bed.
+The castle being over, and Lambert farre enough, I resolved to goe to
+bed everie night, haveing had fatigue enough before. ‘The first night
+I sleepd well enough; and riseing nixt morning, I misd one linnen
+stockine, one halfe silke one, and one boothose, the accoustrement under
+a boote for one leg; neither could they be found for any search. Being
+provided of more of the same kind, I made myselfe reddie, and rode to
+the head-quarters. At my returne, I could heare no news of my stockins.
+That night I went to bed, and nixt morning found myselfe just so used;
+missing the three stockins for one leg onlie, the other three being left
+intire as they were the day before. A narrower search then the first
+was made, bot without successe. I had yet in reserve one paire of whole
+stockings, and a paire of boothose, greater then the former. These I put
+on my legs. The third morning I found the same usage, the stockins for
+one leg onlie left me. It was time for me then, and my servants too, to
+imagine it must be rats that had shard my stockins so inequallie with
+me; and this the mistress of the house knew well enough, but would not
+tell it me. The roome, which was a low parlour, being well searched with
+candles, the top of my great boothose was found at a hole, in which
+they had drawne all the rest. I went abroad and ordered the boards to be
+raised, to see how the rats had disposed of my moveables. The mistress
+sent a servant of her oune to be present at this action, which she knew
+concerned her. One board being bot a litle opend, a litle boy of mine
+thrust in his hand, and fetchd with him foure and tuentie old peeces of
+gold, and one angell. The servant of the house affirmed it appertained
+to his mistres. The boy bringing the gold to me, I went immediatlie to
+the gentlewomans chamber, and told her, it was probable Lambert haveing
+quarterd in that house, as indeed he had, some of his servants might
+have hid that gold; and if so, it was lawfullie mine; bot if she could
+make it appeare it belongd to her, I should immediatlie give it her. The
+poore gentlewoman told me with many teares, that her husband being none
+of the frugallest men (and indeed he was a spendthrift), she had hid
+that gold without his, knowledge, to make use of it as she had occasion,
+especiallie when she lay in; and conjured me, as I lovd the King (for
+whom her husband and she had suffered much), not to detaine her gold.
+She said, if there was either more or lesse then foure and tuentie whole
+peeces, and two halfe ones, it sould be none of hers; and that they were
+put by her in a red velvet purse. After I had given her assureance of
+her gold, a new search is made, the other angell is found, the velvet
+purse all gnawd in bits, as my stockins were, and the gold instantlie
+restord to the gentlewoman. I have often heard that the eating or
+gnawing of cloths by rats is ominous, and portends some mischance
+to fall on those to whom the cloths belong. I thank God I was never
+addicted to such divinations, or heeded them. It is true, that more
+misfortunes then one fell on me shortlie after; bot I am sure I could
+have better forseene them myselfe then rats or any such vermine, and yet
+did it not. I have heard indeed many fine stories told of rats, how they
+abandon houses and ships, when the first are to be burnt and the second
+dround. Naturalists say they are very sagacious creatures, and I beleeve
+they are so; bot I shall never be of the opinion they can forsee future
+contingencies, which I suppose the divell himselfe can neither forknow
+nor fortell; these being things which the Almightie hath keepd hidden
+in the bosome of his divine prescience. And whither the great God hath
+preordained or predestinated these things, which to us are contingent,
+to fall out by ane uncontrollable and unavoidable necessitie, is a
+question not yet decided.” [SIR JAMES TURNER’S MEMOIRS, Bannatyne
+edition, p. 59.]
+
+In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more modern
+sketch of a Scottish soldier of the old fashion, by a masterhand, in
+the character of Lesmahagow, since the existence of that doughty
+Captain alone must deprive the present author of all claim to absolute
+originality. Still Dalgetty, as the production of his own fancy, has
+been so far a favourite with its parent, that he has fallen into the
+error of assigning to the Captain too prominent a part in the story.
+This is the opinion of a critic who encamps on the highest pinnacles of
+literature; and the author is so far fortunate in having incurred his
+censure, that it gives his modesty a decent apology for quoting the
+praise, which it would have ill-befited him to bring forward in an
+unmingled state. The passage occurs in the EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 55,
+containing a criticism on IVANHOE:--
+
+“There is too much, perhaps, of Dalgetty,--or, rather, he engrosses
+too great a proportion of the work,--for, in himself, we think he is
+uniformly entertaining;--and the author has nowhere shown more affinity
+to that matchless spirit who could bring out his Falstaffs and his
+Pistols, in act after act, and play after play, and exercise them every
+time with scenes of unbounded loquacity, without either exhausting their
+humour, or varying a note from its characteristic tone, than in his
+large and reiterated specimens of the eloquence of the redoubted
+Ritt-master. The general idea of the character is familiar to our comic
+dramatists after the Restoration--and may be said in some measure to
+be compounded of Captain Fluellen and Bobadil;--but the
+ludicrous combination of the SOLDADO with the Divinity student of
+Mareschal-College, is entirely original; and the mixture of talent,
+selfishness, courage, coarseness, and conceit, was never so happily
+exemplified. Numerous as his speeches are, there is not one that is not
+characteristic--and, to our taste, divertingly ludicrous.”
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+While these pages were passing through the press, the author received
+a letter from the present Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich, favouring him
+with the account of the unhappy slaughter of Lord Kilpont, differing
+from, and more probable than, that given by Bishop Wishart, whose
+narrative infers either insanity or the blackest treachery on the part
+of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, the ancestor of the present family of
+that name. It is but fair to give the entire communication as received
+from my respected correspondent, which is more minute than the histories
+of the period.
+
+“Although I have not the honour of being personally known to you, I hope
+you will excuse the liberty I now take, in addressing you on the subject
+of a transaction more than once alluded to by you, in which an ancestor
+of mine was unhappily concerned. I allude to the slaughter of Lord
+Kilpont, son of the Earl of Airth and Monteith, in 1644, by James
+Stewart of Ardvoirlich. As the cause of this unhappy event, and the
+quarrel which led to it, have never been correctly stated in any history
+of the period in which it took place, I am induced, in consequence of
+your having, in the second series of your admirable Tales on the History
+of Scotland, adopted Wishart’s version of the transaction, and being
+aware that your having done so will stamp it with an authenticity which
+it does not merit, and with a view, as far as possible, to do justice to
+the memory of my unfortunate ancestor, to send you the account of this
+affair as it has been handed down in the family.
+
+“James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who lived in the early part of the 17th
+century, and who was the unlucky cause of the slaughter of Lord Kilpont,
+as before mentioned, was appointed to the command of one of several
+independent companies raised in the Highlands at the commencement of
+the troubles in the reign of Charles I.; another of these companies was
+under the command of Lord Kilpont, and a strong intimacy, strengthened
+by a distant relationship, subsisted between them. When Montrose raised
+the royal standard, Ardvoirlich was one of the first to declare for him,
+and is said to have been a principal means of bringing over Lord Kilpont
+to the same cause; and they accordingly, along with Sir John Drummond
+and their respective followers, joined Montrose, as recorded by Wishart,
+at Buchanty. While they served together, so strong was their intimacy,
+that they lived and slept in the same tent.
+
+“In the meantime, Montrose had been joined by the Irish under the
+command of Alexander Macdonald; these, on their march to join Montrose,
+had committed some excesses on lands belonging to Ardvoirlich, which
+lay in the line of their march from the west coast. Of this Ardvoirlich
+complained to Montrose, who, probably wishing as much as possible to
+conciliate his new allies, treated it in rather an evasive manner.
+Ardvoirlich, who was a man of violent passions, having failed to receive
+such satisfaction as he required, challenged Macdonald to single combat.
+Before they met, however, Montrose, on the information and by advice,
+as it is said, of Kilpont, laid them both under arrest. Montrose, seeing
+the evils of such a feud at such a critical time, effected a sort of
+reconciliation between them, and forced them to shake hands in his
+presence; when, it was said, that Ardvoirlich, who was a very powerful
+man, took such a hold of Macdonald’s hand as to make the blood start
+from his fingers. Still, it would appear, Ardvoirlich was by no means
+reconciled.
+
+“A few days after the battle of Tippermuir, when Montrose with his
+army was encamped at Collace, an entertainment was given by him to his
+officers, in honour of the victory he had obtained, and Kilpont and
+his comrade Ardvoirlich were of the party. After returning to their
+quarters, Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to brood over his quarrel with
+Macdonald, and being heated with drink, began to blame Lord Kilpont
+for the part he had taken in preventing his obtaining redress, and
+reflecting against Montrose for not allowing him what he considered
+proper reparation. Kilpont of course defended the conduct of himself
+and his relative Montrose, till their argument came to high words; and
+finally, from the state they were both in, by an easy transition, to
+blows, when Ardvoirlich, with his dirk, struck Kilpont dead on the
+spot. He immediately fled, and under the cover of a thick mist escaped
+pursuit, leaving his eldest son Henry, who had been mortally wounded at
+Tippermuir, on his deathbed.
+
+“His followers immediately withdrew from Montrose, and no course
+remained for him but to throw himself into the arms of the opposite
+faction, by whom he was well received. His name is frequently mentioned
+in Leslie’s campaigns, and on more than one occasion he is mentioned as
+having afforded protection to several of his former friends through his
+interest with Leslie, when the King’s cause became desperate.
+
+“The foregoing account of this unfortunate transaction, I am well aware,
+differs materially from the account given by Wishart, who alleges that
+Stewart had laid a plot for the assassination of Montrose, and that he
+murdered Lord Kilpont in consequence of his refusal to participate in
+his design. Now, I may be allowed to remark, that besides Wishart having
+always been regarded as a partial historian, and very questionable
+authority on any subject connected with the motives or conduct of those
+who differed from him in opinion, that even had Stewart formed such a
+design, Kilpont, from his name and connexions, was likely to be the
+very last man of whom Stewart would choose to make a confidant and
+accomplice. On the other hand, the above account, though never, that I
+am aware, before hinted at, has been a constant tradition in the family;
+and, from the comparative recent date of the transaction, and the
+sources from which the tradition has been derived, I have no reason to
+doubt its perfect authenticity. It was most circumstantially detailed as
+above, given to my father, Mr. Stewart, now of Ardvoirlich, many years
+ago, by a man nearly connected with the family, who lived to the age of
+100. This man was a great-grandson of James Stewart, by a natural son
+John, of whom many stories are still current in this country, under his
+appellation of JOHN DHU MHOR. This John was with his father at the time,
+and of course was a witness of the whole transaction; he lived till
+a considerable time after the Revolution, and it was from him that
+my father’s informant, who was a man before his grandfather, John dhu
+Mhor’s death, received the information as above stated.
+
+“I have many apologies to offer for trespassing so long on your
+patience; but I felt a natural desire, if possible, to correct what I
+conceive to be a groundless imputation on the memory of my ancestor,
+before it shall come to be considered as a matter of History. That he
+was a man of violent passions and singular temper, I do not pretend to
+deny, as many traditions still current in this country amply verify;
+but that he was capable of forming a design to assassinate Montrose, the
+whole tenor of his former conduct and principles contradict. That he was
+obliged to join the opposite party, was merely a matter of safety, while
+Kilpont had so many powerful friends and connexions able and ready to
+avenge his death.
+
+“I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make what use
+of this communication you please, and either to reject it altogether, or
+allow it such credit as you think it deserves; and I shall be ready at
+all times to furnish you with any further information on this subject
+which you may require, and which it may be in my power to afford.
+
+“ARDVOIRLICH, 15TH JANUARY, 1830.”
+
+The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so correct,
+is a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the victim, it would
+seem, of his own violent passions, but perhaps incapable of an act of
+premeditated treachery.
+
+ABBOTSFORD, 1ST AUGUST, 1830.
+
+
+
+
+II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement).
+
+Sergeant More M’Alpin was, during his residence among us, one of the
+most honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh. No one thought of disputing
+his title to the great leathern chair on the “cosiest side of the
+chimney,” in the common room of the Wallace Arms, on a Saturday evening.
+No less would our sexton, John Duirward, have held it an unlicensed
+intrusion, to suffer any one to induct himself into the corner of
+the left-hand pew nearest to the pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly
+occupied on Sundays. There he sat, his blue invalid uniform brushed
+with the most scrupulous accuracy. Two medals of merit displayed at his
+button-hole, as well as the empty sleeve which should have been occupied
+by his right arm, bore evidence of his hard and honourable service.
+His weatherbeaten features, his grey hair tied in a thin queue in the
+military fashion of former days, and the right side of his head a little
+turned up, the better to catch the sound of the clergyman’s voice, were
+all marks of his profession and infirmities. Beside him sat his sister
+Janet, a little neat old woman, with a Highland curch and tartan plaid,
+watching the very looks of her brother, to her the greatest man upon
+earth, and actively looking out for him, in his silver-clasped Bible,
+the texts which the minister quoted or expounded.
+
+I believe it was the respect that was universally paid to this worthy
+veteran by all ranks in Gandercleugh which induced him to choose
+our village for his residence, for such was by no means his original
+intention.
+
+He had risen to the rank of sergeant-major of artillery, by hard service
+in various quarters of the world, and was reckoned one of the most tried
+and trusty men of the Scotch Train. A ball, which shattered his arm in
+a peninsular campaign, at length procured him an honourable discharge.
+with an allowance from Chelsea, and a handsome gratuity from the
+patriotic fund. Moreover, Sergeant More M’Alpin had been prudent as well
+as valiant; and, from prize-money and savings, had become master of a
+small sum in the three per cent consols.
+
+He retired with the purpose of enjoying this income in the wild Highland
+glen, in which, when a boy, he had herded black cattle and goats, ere
+the roll of the drum had made him cock his bonnet an inch higher, and
+follow its music for nearly forty years. To his recollection, this
+retired spot was unparalleled in beauty by the richest scenes he had
+visited in his wanderings. Even the Happy Valley of Rasselas would have
+sunk into nothing upon the comparison. He came--he revisited the loved
+scene; it was but a sterile glen, surrounded with rude crags, and
+traversed by a northern torrent. This was not the worst. The fires had
+been quenched upon thirty hearths--of the cottage of his fathers
+he could but distinguish a few rude stones--the language was almost
+extinguished--the ancient race from which he boasted his descent
+had found a refuge beyond the Atlantic. One southland farmer, three
+grey-plaided shepherds, and six dogs, now tenanted the whole glen, which
+in his youth had maintained, in content, if not in competence, upwards
+of two hundred inhabitants.
+
+In the house of the new tenant, Sergeant M’Alpin found, however, an
+unexpected source of pleasure, and a means of employing his social
+affections. His sister Janet had fortunately entertained so strong a
+persuasion that her brother would one day return, that she had refused
+to accompany her kinsfolk upon their emigration. Nay, she had consented,
+though not without a feeling of degradation, to take service with the
+intruding Lowlander, who, though a Saxon, she said, had proved a kind
+man to her. This unexpected meeting with his sister seemed a cure
+for all the disappointments which it had been Sergeant More’s lot to
+encounter, although it was not without a reluctant tear that he
+heard told, as a Highland woman alone could ten it, the story of the
+expatriation of his kinsmen.
+
+She narrated at great length the vain offers they had made of advanced
+rent, the payment of which must have reduced them to the extremity of
+poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for permission to live
+and die on their native soil. Nor did Janet forget the portents which
+had announced the departure of the Celtic race, and the arrival of the
+strangers. For two years previous to the emigration, when the night wind
+howled dawn the pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled
+to the tune of “HA TIL MI TULIDH” (we return no more), with which the
+emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores. The uncouth cries
+of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of their dogs, were often
+heard in the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival.
+A bard, the last of his race, had commemorated the expulsion of the
+natives of the glen in a tune, which brought tears into the aged eyes of
+the veteran, and of which the first stanza may be thus rendered:--
+
+     Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander,
+     Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border?
+     Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander,
+     Wasting the glen that was once in fair order?
+
+What added to Sergeant More M’Alpin’s distress upon the occasion was,
+that the chief by whom this change had been effected, was, by tradition
+and common opinion, held to represent the ancient leaders and fathers of
+the expelled fugitives; and it had hitherto been one of Sergeant More’s
+principal subjects of pride to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what
+degree of kindred he stood to this personage. A woful change was now
+wrought in his sentiments towards him.
+
+“I cannot curse him,” he said, as he rose and strode through the room,
+when Janet’s narrative was finished--“I will not curse him; he is the
+descendant and representative of my fathers. But never shall mortal man
+hear me name his name again.” And he kept his word; for, until his dying
+day, no man heard him mention his selfish and hard-hearted chieftain.
+
+After giving a day to sad recollections, the hardy spirit which had
+carried him through so many dangers, manned the Sergeant’s bosom against
+this cruel disappointment. “He would go,” he said, “to Canada to his
+kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic valley after the glen of
+their fathers. Janet,” he said, “should kilt her coats like a leaguer
+lady; d--n the distance! it was a flea’s leap to the voyages and marches
+he had made on a slighter occasion.”
+
+With this purpose he left the Highlands, and came with his sister as far
+as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage to Canada.
+But winter was now set in, and as he thought it advisable to wait for a
+spring passage, when the St. Lawrence should be open, he settled among
+us for the few months of his stay in Britain. As we said before, the
+respectable old man met with deference and attention from all ranks
+of society; and when spring returned, he was so satisfied with his
+quarters, that he did not renew the purpose of his voyage. Janet was
+afraid of the sea, and he himself felt the infirmities of age and hard
+service more than he had at first expected. And, as he confessed to the
+clergyman, and my worthy principal, Mr. Cleishbotham, “it was better
+staying with kend friends, than going farther, and faring worse.”
+
+He therefore established himself and his domicile at Gandercleugh, to
+the great satisfaction, as we have already said, of all its inhabitants,
+to whom he became, in respect of military intelligence, and able
+commentaries upon the newspapers, gazettes, and bulletins, a very
+oracle, explanatory of all martial events, past, present, or to come.
+
+It is true, the Sergeant had his inconsistencies. He was a steady
+jacobite, his father and his four uncles having been out in the
+forty-five; but he was a no less steady adherent of King George, in
+whose service he had made his little fortune, and lost three brothers;
+so that you were in equal danger to displease him, in terming Prince
+Charles, the Pretender, or by saying anything derogatory to the dignity
+of King George. Further, it must not be denied, that when the day of
+receiving his dividends came round, the Sergeant was apt to tarry longer
+at the Wallace Arms of an evening, than was consistent with strict
+temperance, or indeed with his worldly interest; for upon these
+occasions, his compotators sometimes contrived to flatter his
+partialities by singing jacobite songs, and drinking confusion to
+Bonaparte, and the health of the Duke of Wellington, until the Sergeant
+was not only flattered into paying the whole reckoning, but occasionally
+induced to lend small sums to his interested companions. After such
+sprays, as he called them, were over, and his temper once more cool, he
+seldom failed to thank God, and the Duke of York, who had made it much
+more difficult for an old soldier to ruin himself by his folly, than had
+been the case in his younger days.
+
+It was not on such occasions that I made a part of Sergeant More
+M’Alpin’s society. But often, when my leisure would permit, I used to
+seek him, on what he called his morning and evening parade, on which,
+when the weather was fair, he appeared as regularly as if summoned by
+tuck of drum. His morning walk was beneath the elms in the churchyard;
+“for death,” he said, “had been his next-door neighbour for so many
+years, that he had no apology for dropping the acquaintance.” His
+evening promenade was on the bleaching-green by the river-side, where
+he was sometimes to be seen on an open bench, with spectacles on
+nose, conning over the newspapers to a circle of village politicians,
+explaining military terms, and aiding the comprehension of his hearers
+by lines drawn on the ground with the end of his rattan. On other
+occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of school-boys, whom he sometimes
+drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with less approbation on the part
+of their parents, instructed in the mystery of artificial fire-works;
+for in the case of public rejoicings, the Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as
+the Encyclopedia calls it) to the village of Gandercleugh.
+
+It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the veteran.
+And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath, overshadowed by
+the row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his upright form advancing
+towards me with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me
+the military salute--but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
+under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
+corner of the churchyard.
+
+The delight which I had in Sergeant M’Alpin’s conversation, related
+not only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the
+course of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous
+Highland traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his
+parents, and of which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of
+heresy to question the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars
+of Montrose, in which some of the Sergeant’s ancestry had, it seems,
+taken a distinguished part. It has happened, that, although these civil
+commotions reflect the highest honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed
+the first occasion upon which they showed themselves superior, or even
+equal to their Low-country neighbours in military encounters, they have
+been less commemorated among them than any one would have expected,
+judging from the abundance of traditions which they have preserved upon
+less interesting subjects. It was, therefore, with great pleasure, that
+I extracted from my military friend some curious particulars respecting
+that time; they are mixed with that measure of the wild and wonderful
+which belongs to the period and the narrator, but which I do not in the
+least object to the reader’s treating with disbelief, providing he
+will be so good as to give implicit credit to the natural events of the
+story, which, like all those which I have had the honour to put under
+his notice, actually rest upon a basis of truth.
+
+
+
+
+III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     Such as do build their faith upon
+     The holy text of pike and gun,
+     Decide all controversies by
+     Infallible artillery,
+     And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+     By apostolic blows and knocks.--BUTLER.
+
+It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which
+agitated Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale has its
+commencement. Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of
+intestine war, although its inhabitants were much divided in political
+opinions; and many of them, tired of the control of the Estates of
+Parliament, and disapproving of the bold measure which they had
+adopted, by sending into England a large army to the assistance of
+the Parliament, were determined on their part to embrace the earliest
+opportunity of declaring for the King, and making such a diversion
+as should at least compel the recall of General Leslie’s army out of
+England, if it did not recover a great part of Scotland to the King’s
+allegiance. This plan was chiefly adopted by the northern nobility, who
+had resisted with great obstinacy the adoption of the Solemn League and
+Covenant, and by many of the chiefs of the Highland clans, who conceived
+their interest and authority to be connected with royalty, who had,
+besides, a decided aversion to the Presbyterian form of religion, and
+who, finally, were in that half savage state of society, in which war is
+always more welcome than peace.
+
+Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these concurrent
+causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation, which the Scotch
+Highlanders at all times exercised upon the Lowlands, began to assume a
+more steady, avowed, and systematic form, as part of a general military
+system.
+
+Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of the
+moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel it. They
+considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader or name of
+consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of royalists,
+or even to direct the efforts of those desultory bands, whom love of
+plunder, perhaps, as much as political principle, had hurried into
+measures of hostility. It was generally hoped that the quartering a
+sufficient number of troops in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland
+line, would have the effect of restraining the mountain chieftains;
+while the power of various barons in the north, who had espoused the
+Covenant, as, for example, the Earl Mareschal, the great families of
+Forbes, Leslie, and Irvine, the Grants, and other Presbyterian clans,
+might counterbalance and bridle, not only the strength of the Ogilvies
+and other cavaliers of Angus and Kincardine, but even the potent family
+of the Gordons, whose extensive authority was only equalled by their
+extreme dislike to the Presbyterian model.
+
+In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but the
+power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken, and the
+spirit of their chieftains intimidated, by the predominating influence
+of the Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the confidence of the Convention
+of Estates was reposed with the utmost security; and whose power in
+the Highlands, already exorbitant, had been still farther increased
+by concessions extorted from the King at the last pacification. It was
+indeed well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise
+than personal courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue
+of state, than to control the tribes of hostile mountaineers; yet the
+numbers of his clan, and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it
+was led, might, it was supposed, atone for the personal deficiencies of
+their chief; and as the Campbells had already severely humbled several
+of the neighbouring tribes, it was supposed these would not readily
+again provoke an encounter with a body so powerful.
+
+Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,
+indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,--Fifeshire being in a
+peculiar manner their own, and possessing many and powerful friends even
+north of the Forth and Tay,--the Scottish Convention of Estates saw no
+danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had
+adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the
+English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means
+of which accession of strength, the King’s party had been reduced to the
+defensive, when in full career of triumph and success.
+
+The causes which moved the Convention of Estates at this time to take
+such an immediate and active interest in the civil war of England, are
+detailed in our historians, but may be here shortly recapitulated. They
+had indeed no new injury or aggression to complain of at the hand of the
+King, and the peace which had been made between Charles and his subjects
+of Scotland had been carefully observed; but the Scottish rulers were
+well aware that this peace had been extorted from the King, as well by
+the influence of the parliamentary party in England, as by the terror
+of their own arms. It is true, King Charles had since then visited the
+capital of his ancient kingdom, had assented to the new organization of
+the church, and had distributed honours and rewards among the leaders of
+the party which had shown themselves most hostile to his interests; but
+it was suspected that distinctions so unwillingly conferred would be
+resumed as soon as opportunity offered. The low state of the English
+Parliament was seen in Scotland with deep apprehension; and it was
+concluded, that should Charles triumph by force of arms against his
+insurgent subjects of England, he would not be long in exacting from the
+Scotch the vengeance which he might suppose due to those who had set
+the example of taking up arms against him. Such was the policy of the
+measure which dictated the sending the auxiliary army into England; and
+it was avowed in a manifesto explanatory of their reasons for giving
+this timely and important aid to the English Parliament. The English
+Parliament, they said, had been already friendly to them, and might
+be so again; whereas the King, although he had so lately established
+religion among them according to their desires, had given them no ground
+to confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had found his promises
+and actions inconsistent with each other. “Our conscience,” they
+concluded, “and God, who is greater than our conscience, beareth us
+record, that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of both
+nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing in a legal
+way, those who are the troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell, the
+Korahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs,
+the Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither
+have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean for
+compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which we could
+think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us, ULTIMUM ET
+UNICUM REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy.”
+
+Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party is
+justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion that, in
+certain future contingencies, it might be infringed by the other, we
+shall proceed to mention two other circumstances that had at least equal
+influence with the Scottish rulers and nation, with any doubts which
+they entertained of the King’s good faith.
+
+The first of these was the nature and condition of their army; headed by
+a poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was officered chiefly
+by Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served in the German wars until
+they had lost almost all distinction of political principle, and even
+of country, in the adoption of the mercenary faith, that a soldier’s
+principal duty was fidelity to the state or sovereign from whom he
+received his pay, without respect either to the justice of the quarrel,
+or to their own connexion with either of the contending parties. To men
+of this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character--NULLUM VITAE GENUS
+ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE CONDUCTI,
+MILITANT. To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to the needy gentry
+with whom they were mixed in command, and who easily imbibed the same
+opinions, the success of the late short invasion of England in 1641 was
+a sufficient reason for renewing so profitable an experiment. The good
+pay and free quarters of England had made a feeling impression upon the
+recollection of these military adventurers, and the prospect of again
+levying eight hundred and fifty pounds a-day, came in place of all
+arguments, whether of state or of morality.
+
+Another cause inflamed the minds of the nation at large, no less than
+the tempting prospect of the wealth of England animated the soldiery.
+So much had been written and said on either side concerning the form
+of church government, that it had become a matter of infinitely more
+consequence in the eyes of the multitude than the doctrines of
+that gospel which both churches had embraced. The Prelatists and
+Presbyterians of the more violent kind became as illiberal as the
+Papists, and would scarcely allow the possibility of salvation beyond
+the pale of their respective churches. It was in vain remarked to
+these zealots, that had the Author of our holy religion considered any
+peculiar form of church government as essential to salvation, it would
+have been revealed with the same precision as under the Old Testament
+dispensation. Both parties continued as violent as if they could have
+pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to justify their intolerance,
+Laud, in the days of his domination, had fired the train, by attempting
+to impose upon the Scottish people church ceremonies foreign to their
+habits and opinions. The success with which this had been resisted, and
+the Presbyterian model substituted in its place, had endeared the latter
+to the nation, as the cause in which they had triumphed. The Solemn
+League and Covenant, adopted with such zeal by the greater part of the
+kingdom, and by them forced, at the sword’s point, upon the others, bore
+in its bosom, as its principal object, the establishing the doctrine and
+discipline of the Presbyterian church, and the putting down all error
+and heresy; and having attained for their own country an establishment
+of this golden candlestick, the Scots became liberally and fraternally
+anxious to erect the same in England. This they conceived might be
+easily attained by lending to the Parliament the effectual assistance of
+the Scottish forces. The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in
+the English Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the
+King; while the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards, under
+Cromwell, resumed the power of the sword, and overset the Presbyterian
+model both in Scotland and England, were as yet contented to lurk under
+the shelter of the wealthier and more powerful party. The prospect
+of bringing to a uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in
+discipline and worship, seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.
+
+The celebrated Sir Henry Vane, one of the commissioners who negotiated
+the alliance betwixt England and Scotland, saw the influence which this
+bait had upon the spirits of those with whom he dealt; and although
+himself a violent Independent, he contrived at once to gratify and
+to elude the eager desires of the Presbyterians, by qualifying the
+obligation to reform the Church of England, as a change to be executed
+“according to the word of God, and the best reformed churches.” Deceived
+by their own eagerness, themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS
+DIVINUM of their own ecclesiastical establishments, and not holding
+it possible such doubts could be adopted by others, the Convention
+of Estates and the Kirk of Scotland conceived, that such expressions
+necessarily inferred the establishment of Presbytery; nor were they
+undeceived, until, when their help was no longer needful, the sectaries
+gave them to understand, that the phrase might be as well applied to
+Independency, or any other mode of worship, which those who were at the
+head of affairs at the time might consider as agreeable “to the word
+of God, and the practice of the reformed churches.” Neither were the
+outwitted Scottish less astonished to find, that the designs of the
+English sectaries struck against the monarchial constitution of Britain,
+it having been their intention to reduce the power of the King, but by
+no means to abrogate the office. They fared, however, in this respect,
+like rash physicians, who commence by over-physicking a patient, until
+he is reduced to a state of weakness, from which cordials are afterwards
+unable to recover him.
+
+But these events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the Scottish
+Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice,
+prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to
+their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax
+and Manchester, enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to
+fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert
+and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated. The Scottish auxiliaries,
+indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen
+could desire. David Leslie, with their cavalry, fought bravely, and to
+them, as well as to Cromwell’s brigade of Independents, the honour of
+the day belonged; but the old Earl of Leven, the covenanting general,
+was driven out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert,
+and was thirty miles distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he
+was overtaken by the news that his party had gained a complete victory.
+
+The absence of these auxiliary troops, upon this crusade for the
+establishment of Presbyterianism in England, had considerably diminished
+the power of the Convention of Estates in Scotland, and had given rise
+to those agitations among the anti-covenanters, which we have noticed at
+the beginning of this chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     His mother could for him as cradle set
+     Her husband’s rusty iron corselet;
+     Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,
+     That never plain’d of his uneasy nest;
+     Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,
+     And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.--HALL’S SATIRES
+
+It was towards the close of a summer’s evening, during the anxious
+period which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman of quality,
+well mounted and armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom led
+a sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep passes, by which the
+Highlands are accessible from the Lowlands of Perthshire. [The beautiful
+pass of Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects,
+answer this description.] Their course had lain for some time along the
+banks of a lake, whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the
+western sun. The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty,
+was in some places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees, and in
+others overhung by fragments of huge rock. Elsewhere, the hill, which
+formed the northern side of this beautiful sheet of water, arose in
+steep, but less precipitous acclivity, and was arrayed in heath of the
+darkest purple. In the present times, a scene so romantic would have
+been judged to possess the highest charms for the traveller; but
+those who journey in days of doubt and dread, pay little attention to
+picturesque scenery.
+
+The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one or both
+of his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with them, probably
+because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who
+are made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions of the leading
+men who inhabit this wild country, and the probability of their taking
+part in the political convulsions that were soon expected, were the
+subjects of their conversation.
+
+They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young
+gentleman was pointing to his attendants the spot where their intended
+road turned northwards, and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a
+ravine to the right hand, when they discovered a single horseman coming
+down the shore, as if to meet them. The gleam of the sunbeams upon his
+head-piece and corslet showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of
+the other travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned.
+“We must know who he is,” said the young gentleman, “and whither he is
+going.” And putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the
+rugged state of the road would permit, followed by his two attendants,
+until he reached the point where the pass along the side of the lake
+was intersected by that which descended from the ravine, securing thus
+against the possibility of the stranger eluding them, by turning into
+the latter road before they came up with him.
+
+The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed the
+three riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw them halt and
+form a front, which completely occupied the path, he checked his
+horse, and advanced with great deliberation; so that each party had an
+opportunity to take a full survey of the other. The solitary stranger
+was mounted upon an able horse, fit for military service, and for
+the great weight which he had to carry, and his rider occupied his
+demipique, or war-saddle, with an air that showed it was his familiar
+seat. He had a bright burnished head-piece, with a plume of feathers,
+together with a cuirass, thick enough to resist a musket-ball, and a
+back-piece of lighter materials. These defensive arms he wore over a
+buff jerkin, along with a pair of gauntlets, or steel gloves, the
+tops of which reached up to his elbow, and which, like the rest of his
+armour, were of bright steel. At the front of his military saddle hung
+a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size, nearly two feet in
+length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the pound. A buff belt, with a
+broad silver buckle, sustained on one side a long straight double-edged
+broadsword, with a strong guard, and a blade calculated either to strike
+or push. On the right side hung a dagger of about eighteen inches
+in length; a shoulder-belt sustained at his back a musketoon or
+blunderbuss, and was crossed by a bandelier containing his charges of
+ammunition. Thigh-pieces of steel, then termed taslets, met the tops of
+his huge jack-boots, and completed the equipage of a well-armed trooper
+of the period.
+
+The appearance of the horseman himself corresponded well with his
+military equipage, to which he had the air of having been long inured.
+He was above the middle size, and of strength sufficient to bear with
+ease the weight of his weapons, offensive and defensive. His age
+might be forty and upwards, and his countenance was that of a resolute
+weather-beaten veteran, who had seen many fields, and brought away
+in token more than one scar. At the distance of about thirty yards
+he halted and stood fast, raised himself on his stirrups, as if to
+reconnoitre and ascertain the purpose of the opposite party, and brought
+his musketoon under his right arm, ready for use, if occasion should
+require it. In everything but numbers, he had the advantage of those who
+seemed inclined to interrupt his passage.
+
+The leader of the party was, indeed, well mounted and clad in a buff
+coat, richly embroidered, the half-military dress of the period; but his
+domestics had only coarse jackets of thick felt, which could scarce be
+expected to turn the edge of a sword, if wielded by a strong man; and
+none of them had any weapons, save swords and pistols, without which
+gentlemen, or their attendants, during those disturbed times, seldom
+stirred abroad.
+
+When they had stood at gaze for about a minute, the younger gentleman
+gave the challenge which was then common in the mouth of all strangers
+who met in such circumstances--“For whom are you?”
+
+“Tell me first,” answered the soldier, “for whom are you?--the strongest
+party should speak first.”
+
+“We are for God and King Charles,” answered the first speaker.--“Now
+tell your faction, you know ours.”
+
+“I am for God and my standard,” answered the single horseman.
+
+“And for which standard?” replied the chief of the other
+party--“Cavalier or Roundhead, King or Convention?”
+
+“By my troth, sir,” answered the soldier, “I would be loath to reply to
+you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of fortune and
+a soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming veracity, it
+is necessary I should myself have resolved to whilk of the present
+divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately adhere, being a matter
+whereon my mind is not as yet preceesely ascertained.”
+
+“I should have thought,” answered the gentleman, “that, when loyalty and
+religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be long in
+choosing his party.”
+
+“Truly, sir,” replied the trooper, “if ye speak this in the way of
+vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would
+blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my single
+person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of logical
+ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the Mareschal-College
+of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye LOGICE, that my resolution
+to defer, for a certain season, the taking upon me either of these
+quarrels, not only becometh me as a gentleman and a man of honour, but
+also as a person of sense and prudence, one imbued with humane letters
+in his early youth, and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars
+under the banner of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and
+under many other heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist, Papist and
+Arminian.”
+
+After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger gentleman
+replied, “I should be glad, sir, to have some conversation with you upon
+so interesting a question, and should be proud if I can determine you
+in favour of the cause I have myself espoused. I ride this evening to
+a friend’s house not three miles distant, whither, if you choose to
+accompany me, you shall have good quarters for the night, and free
+permission to take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no
+inclination to join with us.”
+
+“Whose word am I to take for this?” answered the cautious soldier--“A
+man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade.”
+
+“I am called,” answered the younger stranger, “the Earl of Menteith,
+and, I trust, you will receive my honour as a sufficient security.”
+
+“A worthy nobleman,” answered the soldier, “whose parole is not to be
+doubted.” With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his back,
+and with another made his military salute to the young nobleman, and
+continuing to talk as he rode forward to join him--“And, I trust,” said
+he, “my own assurance, that I will be BON CAMARADO to your lordship in
+peace or in peril, during the time we shall abide together, will not
+be altogether vilipended in these doubtful times, when, as they say, a
+man’s head is safer in a steel-cap than in a marble palace.”
+
+“I assure you, sir,” said Lord Menteith, “that to judge from your
+appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort; but, I
+trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of valour, as I expect
+to conduct you to good and friendly quarters.”
+
+“Good quarters, my lord,” replied the soldier, “are always acceptable,
+and are only to be postponed to good pay or good booty,--not to mention
+the honour of a cavalier, or the needful points of commanded duty. And
+truly, my lord, your noble proffer is not the less welcome, in that I
+knew not preceesely this night where I and my poor companion” (patting
+his horse), “were to find lodgments.”
+
+“May I be permitted to ask, then,” said Lord Menteith, “to whom I have
+the good fortune to stand quarter-master?”
+
+“Truly, my lord,” said the trooper, “my name is Dalgetty--Dugald
+Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your
+honourable service to command. It is a name you may have seen in GALLO
+BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High Dutch, in the
+FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord, having by unthrifty
+courses reduced a fair patrimony to a nonentity, I had no better shift,
+when I was eighteen years auld, than to carry the learning whilk I
+had acquired at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and
+designation of Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and
+legs conform, to the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier of
+fortune. My lord, my legs and arms stood me in more stead than either
+my gentle kin or my book-lear, and I found myself trailing a pike as
+a private gentleman under old Sir Ludovick Leslie, where I learned the
+rules of service so tightly, that I will not forget them in a hurry.
+Sir, I have been made to stand guard eight hours, being from twelve at
+noon to eight o’clock of the night, at the palace, armed with back and
+breast, head-piece and bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter
+frost, and the ice was as hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping
+an instant to speak to my landlady, when I should have gone to
+roll-call.”
+
+“And, doubtless, sir,” replied Lord Menteith, “you have gone through
+some hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk of?”
+
+“Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that hath seen
+the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to have seen pitched
+battles. And one who hath witnessed the intaking of Frankfort, and
+Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth, should know somewhat about
+leaguers, storms, onslaughts and outfalls.”
+
+“But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
+promotion?”
+
+“It came slow, my lord, dooms slow,” replied Dalgetty; “but as my
+Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of those
+valorous Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany, began to
+fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with the sword, why
+we, their children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir, I was six years
+first private gentleman of the company, and three years lance speisade;
+disdaining to receive a halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I
+was ultimately promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call
+it (which signifies an ancient), in the King’s Leif Regiment of
+Black-Horse, and thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master,
+under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the
+Lion of the North, the terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious.”
+
+“And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,--I think that rank
+corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master--”
+
+“The same grade preceesely,” answered Dalgetty; “ritt-master signifying
+literally file-leader.”
+
+“I was observing,” continued Lord Menteith, “that, if I understood you
+right, you had left the service of this great Prince.”
+
+“It was after his death--it was after his death, sir,” said Dalgetty,
+“when I was in no shape bound to continue mine adherence. There are
+things, my lord, in that service, that cannot but go against the stomach
+of any cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of
+the most superabundant, being only about sixty dollars a-month to a
+ritt-master, yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of
+that sum, whilk was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when
+justly considered, it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of
+the additional two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I have seen
+some whole regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on the field of
+battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt, signifying their
+desire of pay, instead of falling to blows like our noble Scottish
+blades, who ever disdained, my lord, postponing of honour to filthy
+lucre.”
+
+“But were not these arrears,” said Lord Menteith, “paid to the soldiery
+at some stated period?”
+
+“My lord,” said Dalgetty, “I take it on my conscience, that at no
+period, and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever be
+recovered. I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the time I
+served the invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the chance of a storm
+or victory, or the fetching in some town or doorp, when a cavalier of
+fortune, who knows the usage of wars, seldom faileth to make some small
+profit.”
+
+“I begin rather to wonder, sir,” said Lord Menteith, “that you should
+have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should have
+ultimately withdrawn from it.”
+
+“Neither I should,” answered the Ritt-master; “but that great leader,
+captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
+Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking towns,
+over-running countries, and levying contributions, whilk made his
+service irresistibly delectable to all true-bred cavaliers who follow
+the noble profession of arms. Simple as I ride here, my lord, I have
+myself commanded the whole stift of Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine,
+occupying the Palsgrave’s palace, consuming his choice wines with my
+comrades, calling in contributions, requisitions, and caduacs, and not
+failing to lick my fingers, as became a good cook. But truly all this
+glory hastened to decay, after our great master had been shot with three
+bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore, finding that Fortune had
+changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings went on as before out of
+our pay, while the caduacs and casualties were all cut off, I e’en gave
+up my commission, and took service with Wallenstein, in Walter Butler’s
+Irish regiment.”
+
+“And may I beg to know of you,” said Lord Menteith, apparently
+interested in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, “how you liked
+this change of masters?”
+
+“Indifferent well,” said the Captain--“very indifferent well. I cannot
+say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For
+hard knocks, we had plenty of them. I was often obliged to run my head
+against my old acquaintances, the Swedish feathers, whilk your honour
+must conceive to be double-pointed stakes, shod with iron at each
+end, and planted before the squad of pikes to prevent an onfall of the
+cavalry. The whilk Swedish feathers, although they look gay to the eye,
+resembling the shrubs or lesser trees of ane forest, as the puissant
+pikes, arranged in battalia behind them, correspond to the tall pines
+thereof, yet, nevertheless, are not altogether so soft to encounter as
+the plumage of a goose. Howbeit, in despite of heavy blows and light
+pay, a cavalier of fortune may thrive indifferently well in the Imperial
+service, in respect his private casualties are nothing so closely looked
+to as by the Swede; and so that an officer did his duty on the field,
+neither Wallenstein nor Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before them, would
+likely listen to the objurgations of boors or burghers against any
+commander or soldado, by whom they chanced to be somewhat closely shorn.
+So that an experienced cavalier, knowing how to lay, as our Scottish
+phrase runs, ‘the head of the sow to the tail of the grice,’ might get
+out of the country the pay whilk he could not obtain from the Emperor.”
+
+“With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest,” said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+“Indubitably, my lord,” answered Dalgetty, composedly; “for it would be
+doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his name called in
+question for any petty delinquency.”
+
+“And pray, Sir,” continued Lord Menteith, “what made you leave so
+gainful a service?”
+
+“Why, truly, sir,” answered the soldier, “an Irish cavalier, called
+O’Quilligan, being major of our regiment, and I having had words with
+him the night before, respecting the worth and precedence of our several
+nations, it pleased him the next day to deliver his orders to me with
+the point of his batoon advanced and held aloof, instead of declining
+and trailing the same, as is the fashion from a courteous commanding
+officer towards his equal in rank, though, it may be, his inferior in
+military grade. Upon this quarrel, sir, we fought in private rencontre;
+and as, in the perquisitions which followed, it pleased Walter
+Butler, our oberst, or colonel, to give the lighter punishment to
+his countryman, and the heavier to me, whereupon, ill-stomaching such
+partiality, I exchanged my commission for one under the Spaniard.”
+
+“I hope you found yourself better off by the change?” said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+“In good sooth,” answered the Ritt-master, “I had but little to complain
+of. The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by the rich Flemings
+and Waloons of the Low Country. The quarters were excellent; the good
+wheaten loaves of the Flemings were better than the Provant rye-bread of
+the Swede, and Rhenish wine was more plenty with us than ever I saw the
+black-beer of Rostock in Gustavus’s camp. Service there was none, duty
+there was little; and that little we might do, or leave undone, at our
+pleasure; an excellent retirement for a cavalier somewhat weary of field
+and leaguer, who had purchased with his blood as much honour as might
+serve his turn, and was desirous of a little ease and good living.”
+
+“And may I ask,” said Lord Menteith, “why you, Captain, being, as I
+suppose, in the situation you describe, retired from the Spanish service
+also?”
+
+“You are to consider, my lord, that your Spaniard,” replied Captain
+Dalgetty, “is a person altogether unparalleled in his own conceit,
+where-through he maketh not fit account of such foreign cavaliers of
+valour as are pleased to take service with him. And a galling thing
+it is to every honourable soldado, to be put aside, and postponed, and
+obliged to yield preference to every puffing signor, who, were it the
+question which should first mount a breach at push of pike, might be
+apt to yield willing place to a Scottish cavalier. Moreover, sir, I was
+pricked in conscience respecting a matter of religion.”
+
+“I should not have thought, Captain Dalgetty,” said the young nobleman,
+“that an old soldier, who had changed service so often, would have been
+too scrupulous on that head.”
+
+“No more I am, my lord,” said the Captain, “since I hold it to be the
+duty of the chaplain of the regiment to settle those matters for me, and
+every other brave cavalier, inasmuch as he does nothing else that I know
+of for his pay and allowances. But this was a particular case, my lord,
+a CASUS IMPROVISUS, as I may say, in whilk I had no chaplain of my own
+persuasion to act as my adviser. I found, in short, that although my
+being a Protestant might be winked at, in respect that I was a man of
+action, and had more experience than all the Dons in our TERTIA put
+together, yet, when in garrison, it was expected I should go to mass
+with the regiment. Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated at
+the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the mass to be
+an act of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I was altogether
+unwilling to homologate by my presence. True it is, that I consulted on
+the point with a worthy countryman of my own, one Father Fatsides, of
+the Scottish Covenant in Wurtzburg--”
+
+“And I hope,” observed Lord Menteith, “you obtained a clear opinion from
+this same ghostly father?”
+
+“As clear as it could be,” replied Captain Dalgetty, “considering we had
+drunk six flasks of Rhenish, and about two mutchkins of Kirchenwasser.
+Father Fatsides informed me, that, as nearly as he could judge for a
+heretic like myself, it signified not much whether I went to mass or
+not, seeing my eternal perdition was signed and sealed at any rate,
+in respect of my impenitent and obdurate perseverance in my damnable
+heresy. Being discouraged by this response, I applied to a Dutch pastor
+of the reformed church, who told me, he thought I might lawfully go
+to mass, in respect that the prophet permitted Naaman, a mighty man of
+valour, and an honourable cavalier of Syria, to follow his master into
+the house of Rimmon, a false god, or idol, to whom he had vowed service,
+and to bow down when the king was leaning upon his hand. But neither
+was this answer satisfactory to me, both because there was an unco
+difference between an anointed King of Syria and our Spanish colonel,
+whom I could have blown away like the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly
+because I could not find the thing was required of me by any of the
+articles of war; neither was I proffered any consideration, either in
+perquisite or pay, for the wrong I might thereby do to my conscience.”
+
+“So you again changed your service?” said Lord Menteith.
+
+“In troth did I, my lord; and after trying for a short while two
+or three other powers, I even took on for a time with their High
+Mightinesses the States of Holland.”
+
+“And how did their service jump with your humour?” again demanded his
+companion.
+
+“O! my lord,” said the soldier, in a sort of enthusiasm, “their
+behaviour on pay-day might be a pattern to all Europe--no borrowings, no
+lendings, no offsets no arrears--all balanced and paid like a
+banker’s book. The quarters, too, are excellent, and the allowances
+unchallengeable; but then, sir, they are a preceese, scrupulous people,
+and will allow nothing for peccadilloes. So that if a boor complains of
+a broken head, or a beer-seller of a broken can, or a daft wench does
+but squeak loud enough to be heard above her breath, a soldier of honour
+shall be dragged, not before his own court-martial, who can best judge
+of and punish his demerits, but before a base mechanical burgo-master,
+who shall menace him with the rasp-house, the cord, and what not, as if
+he were one of their own mean, amphibious, twenty-breeched boors. So
+not being able to dwell longer among those ungrateful plebeians, who,
+although unable to defend themselves by their proper strength, will
+nevertheless allow the noble foreign cavalier who engages with them
+nothing beyond his dry wages, which no honourable spirit will put
+in competition with a liberal license and honourable countenance, I
+resolved to leave the service of the Mynheers. And hearing at this time,
+to my exceeding satisfaction, that there is something to be doing this
+summer in my way in this my dear native country, I am come hither,
+as they say, like a beggar to a bridal, in order to give my loving
+countrymen the advantage of that experience which I have acquired
+in foreign parts. So your lordship has an outline of my brief story,
+excepting my deportment in those passages of action in the field, in
+leaguers, storms, and onslaughts, whilk would be wearisome to narrate,
+and might, peradventure, better befit any other tongue than mine own.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     For pleas of right let statesmen vex their head,
+     Battle’s my business, and my guerdon bread;
+     And, with the sworded Switzer, I can say,
+     The best of causes is the best of pay.--DONNE.
+
+The difficulty and narrowness of the road had by this time become such
+as to interrupt the conversation of the travellers, and Lord Menteith,
+reining back his horse, held a moment’s private conversation with his
+domestics. The Captain, who now led the van of the party, after about
+a quarter of a mile’s slow and toilsome advance up a broken and rugged
+ascent, emerged into an upland valley, to which a mountain stream acted
+as a drain, and afforded sufficient room upon its greensward banks for
+the travellers to pursue their journey in a more social manner.
+
+Lord Menteith accordingly resumed the conversation, which had been
+interrupted by the difficulties of the way. “I should have thought,”
+ said he to Captain Dalgetty, “that a cavalier of your honourable mark,
+who hath so long followed the valiant King of Sweden, and entertains
+such a suitable contempt for the base mechanical States of Holland,
+would not have hesitated to embrace the cause of King Charles, in
+preference to that of the low-born, roundheaded, canting knaves, who are
+in rebellion against his authority?”
+
+“Ye speak reasonably, my lord,” said Dalgetty, “and, CAETERIS PARIBUS,
+I might be induced to see the matter in the same light. But, my lord,
+there is a southern proverb, fine words butter no parsnips. I have heard
+enough since I came here, to satisfy me that a cavalier of honour is
+free to take any part in this civil embroilment whilk he may find
+most convenient for his own peculiar. Loyalty is your pass-word,
+my lord--Liberty, roars another chield from the other side of
+the strath--the King, shouts one war-cry--the Parliament, roars
+another--Montrose, for ever, cries Donald, waving his bonnet--Argyle
+and Leven, cries a south-country Saunders, vapouring with his hat
+and feather. Fight for the bishops, says a priest, with his gown and
+rochet--Stand stout for the Kirk, cries a minister, in a Geneva cap and
+band.--Good watchwords all--excellent watchwords. Whilk cause is the
+best I cannot say. But sure am I, that I have fought knee-deep in blood
+many a day for one that was ten degrees worse than the worst of them
+all.”
+
+“And pray, Captain Dalgetty,” said his lordship, “since the pretensions
+of both parties seem to you so equal, will you please to inform us by
+what circumstances your preference will be determined?”
+
+“Simply upon two considerations, my lord,” answered the soldier.
+“Being, first, on which side my services would be in most honourable
+request;--And, secondly, whilk is a corollary of the first, by whilk
+party they are likely to be most gratefully requited. And, to deal
+plainly with you, my lord, my opinion at present doth on both points
+rather incline to the side of the Parliament.”
+
+“Your reasons, if you please,” said Lord Menteith, “and perhaps I may be
+able to meet them with some others which are more powerful.”
+
+“Sir, I shall be amenable to reason,” said Captain Dalgetty, “supposing
+it addresses itself to my honour and my interest. Well, then, my lord,
+here is a sort of Highland host assembled, or expected to assemble, in
+these wild hills, in the King’s behalf. Now, sir, you know the nature of
+our Highlanders. I will not deny them to be a people stout in body
+and valiant in heart, and courageous enough in their own wild way of
+fighting, which is as remote from the usages and discipline of war as
+ever was that of the ancient Scythians, or of the salvage Indians of
+America that now is, They havena sae mickle as a German whistle, or a
+drum, to beat a march, an alarm, a charge, a retreat, a reveille, or the
+tattoo, or any other point of war; and their damnable skirlin’ pipes,
+whilk they themselves pretend to understand, are unintelligible to the
+ears of any cavaliero accustomed to civilised warfare. So that, were I
+undertaking to discipline such a breechless mob, it were impossible for
+me to be understood; and if I were understood, judge ye, my lord, what
+chance I had of being obeyed among a band of half salvages, who are
+accustomed to pay to their own lairds and chiefs, allenarly, that
+respect and obedience whilk ought to be paid to commissionate officers.
+If I were teaching them to form battalia by extracting the square root,
+that is, by forming your square battalion of equal number of men of rank
+and file, corresponding to the square root of the full number present,
+what return could I expect for communicating this golden secret of
+military tactic, except it may be a dirk in my wame, on placing some
+M’Alister More M’Shemei or Capperfae, in the flank or rear, when he
+claimed to be in the van?--Truly, well saith holy writ, ‘if ye cast
+pearls before swine, they will turn again and rend ye.’”
+
+“I believe, Anderson,” said Lord Menteith, looking back to one of
+his servants, for both were close behind him, “you can assure this
+gentleman, we shall have more occasion for experienced officers, and be
+more disposed to profit by their instructions, than he seems to be aware
+of.”
+
+“With your honour’s permission,” said Anderson, respectfully raising his
+cap, “when we are joined by the Irish infantry, who are expected, and
+who should be landed in the West Highlands before now, we shall have
+need of good soldiers to discipline our levies.”
+
+“And I should like well--very well, to be employed in such service,”
+ said Dalgetty; “the Irish are pretty fellows--very pretty fellows--I
+desire to see none better in the field. I once saw a brigade of Irish,
+at the taking of Frankfort upon the Oder, stand to it with sword and
+pike until they beat off the blue and yellow Swedish brigades, esteemed
+as stout as any that fought under the immortal Gustavus. And although
+stout Hepburn, valiant Lumsdale, courageous Monroe, with myself and
+other cavaliers, made entry elsewhere at point of pike, yet, had we all
+met with such opposition, we had returned with great loss and little
+profit. Wherefore these valiant Irishes, being all put to the sword,
+as is usual in such cases, did nevertheless gain immortal praise and
+honour; so that, for their sakes, I have always loved and honoured those
+of that nation next to my own country of Scotland.”
+
+“A command of Irish,” said Menteith, “I think I could almost promise
+you, should you be disposed to embrace the royal cause.”
+
+“And yet,” said Captain Dalgetty, “my second and greatest difficulty
+remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and sordid thing for a
+soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay and gelt, like the base
+cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I mentioned before; and although
+I will maintain it with my sword, that honour is to be preferred before
+pay, free quarters, and arrears, yet, EX CONTRARIO, a soldier’s pay
+being the counterpart of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise
+and considerate cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive
+for his service, and from what funds it is to be paid. And truly,
+my lord, from what I can see and hear, the Convention are the
+purse-masters. The Highlanders, indeed, may be kept in humour, by
+allowing them to steal cattle; and for the Irishes, your lordship and
+your noble associates may, according to the practice of the wars in
+such cases, pay them as seldom or as little as may suit your pleasure or
+convenience; but the same mode of treatment doth not apply to a cavalier
+like me, who must keep up his horses, servants, arms, and equipage, and
+who neither can, nor will, go to warfare upon his own charges.”
+
+Anderson, the domestic who had before spoken now respectfully addressed
+his master.--“I think, my lord,” he said, “that, under your lordship’s
+favour, I could say something to remove Captain Dalgetty’s second
+objection also. He asks us where we are to collect our pay; now, in my
+poor mind, the resources are as open to us as to the Covenanters. They
+tax the country according to their pleasure, and dilapidate the estates
+of the King’s friends; now, were we once in the Lowlands, with our
+Highlanders and our Irish at our backs, and our swords in our hands,
+we can find many a fat traitor, whose ill-gotten wealth shall fill our
+military chest and satisfy our soldiery. Besides, confiscations will
+fall in thick; and, in giving donations of forfeited lands to every
+adventurous cavalier who joins his standard, the King will at once
+reward his friends and punish his enemies. In short, he that joins these
+Roundhead dogs may get some miserable pittance of pay--he that joins our
+standard has a chance to be knight, lord, or earl, if luck serve him.”
+
+“Have you ever served, my good friend?” said the Captain to the
+spokesman.
+
+“A little, sir, in these our domestic quarrels,” answered the man,
+modestly.
+
+“But never in Germany or the Low Countries?” said Dalgetty.
+
+“I never had the honour,” answered Anderson.
+
+“I profess,” said Dalgetty, addressing Lord Menteith, “your lordship’s
+servant has a sensible, natural, pretty idea of military matters;
+somewhat irregular, though, and smells a little too much of selling the
+bear’s skin before he has hunted him.--I will take the matter, however,
+into my consideration.”
+
+“Do so, Captain,” said Lord Menteith; “you will have the night to think
+of it, for we are now near the house, where I hope to ensure you a
+hospitable reception.”
+
+“And that is what will be very welcome,” said the Captain, “for I have
+tasted no food since daybreak but a farl of oatcake, which I divided
+with my horse. So I have been fain to draw my sword-belt three bores
+tighter for very extenuation, lest hunger and heavy iron should make the
+gird slip.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Once on a time, no matter when,
+     Some Glunimies met in a glen;
+     As deft and tight as ever wore
+     A durk, a targe, and a claymore,
+     Short hose, and belted plaid or trews,
+     In Uist, Lochaber, Skye, or Lewes,
+     Or cover’d hard head with his bonnet;
+     Had you but known them, you would own it.--MESTON.
+
+A hill was now before the travellers, covered with an ancient forest
+of Scottish firs, the topmost of which, flinging their scathed branches
+across the western horizon, gleamed ruddy in the setting sun. In the
+centre of this wood rose the towers, or rather the chimneys, of the
+house, or castle, as it was called, destined for the end of their
+journey.
+
+As usual at that period, one or two high-ridged narrow buildings,
+intersecting and crossing each other, formed the CORPS DE LOGIS. A
+protecting bartizan or two, with the addition of small turrets at the
+angles, much resembling pepper-boxes, had procured for Darnlinvarach the
+dignified appellation of a castle. It was surrounded by a low court-yard
+wall, within which were the usual offices.
+
+As the travellers approached more nearly, they discovered marks of
+recent additions to the defences of the place, which had been suggested,
+doubtless, by the insecurity of those troublesome times. Additional
+loop-holes for musketry were struck out in different parts of the
+building, and of its surrounding wall. The windows had just been
+carefully secured by stancheons of iron, crossing each other athwart and
+end-long, like the grates of a prison. The door of the court-yard was
+shut; and it was only after cautious challenge that one of its leaves
+was opened by two domestics, both strong Highlanders, and both under
+arms, like Bitias and Pandarus in the AEneid, ready to defend the
+entrance if aught hostile had ventured an intrusion.
+
+When the travellers were admitted into the court, they found additional
+preparations for defence. The walls were scaffolded for the use of
+fire-arms, and one or two of the small guns, called sackers, or falcons,
+were mounted at the angles and flanking turrets.
+
+More domestics, both in the Highland and Lowland dress, instantly rushed
+from the anterior of the mansion, and some hastened to take the horses
+of the strangers, while others waited to marshal them a way into the
+dwelling-house. But Captain Dalgetty refused the proffered assistance
+of those who wished to relieve him of the charge of his horse. “It is my
+custom, my friends, to see Gustavus (for so I have called him, after
+my invincible master) accommodated myself; we are old friends and
+fellow-travellers, and as I often need the use of his legs, I always
+lend him in my turn the service of my tongue, to call for whatever he
+has occasion for;” and accordingly he strode into the stable after his
+steed without farther apology.
+
+Neither Lord Menteith nor his attendants paid the same attention to
+their horses, but, leaving them to the proffered care of the servants of
+the place, walked forward into the house, where a sort of dark vaulted
+vestibule displayed, among other miscellaneous articles, a huge barrel
+of two-penny ale, beside which were ranged two or three wooden queichs,
+or bickers, ready, it would appear, for the service of whoever thought
+proper to employ them. Lord Menteith applied himself to the spigot,
+drank without ceremony, and then handed the stoup to Anderson, who
+followed his master’s example, but not until he had flung out the drop
+of ale which remained, and slightly rinsed the wooden cup.
+
+“What the deil, man,” said an old Highland servant belonging to the
+family, “can she no drink after her ain master without washing the cup
+and spilling the ale, and be tamned to her!”
+
+“I was bred in France,” answered Anderson, “where nobody drinks after
+another out of the same cup, unless it be after a young lady.”
+
+“The teil’s in their nicety!” said Donald; “and if the ale be gude, fat
+the waur is’t that another man’s beard’s been in the queich before ye?”
+
+Anderson’s companion drank without observing the ceremony which had
+given Donald so much offence, and both of them followed their master
+into the low-arched stone hall, which was the common rendezvous of a
+Highland family. A large fire of peats in the huge chimney at the upper
+end shed a dim light through the apartment, and was rendered necessary
+by the damp, by which, even during the summer, the apartment was
+rendered uncomfortable. Twenty or thirty targets, as many claymores,
+with dirks, and plaids, and guns, both match-lock and fire-lock, and
+long-bows, and cross-bows, and Lochaber axes, and coats of plate armour,
+and steel bonnets, and headpieces, and the more ancient haborgeons, or
+shirts of reticulated mail, with hood and sleeves corresponding to it,
+all hung in confusion about the walls, and would have formed a month’s
+amusement to a member of a modern antiquarian society. But such things
+were too familiar, to attract much observation on the part of the
+present spectators.
+
+There was a large clumsy oaken table, which the hasty hospitality of the
+domestic who had before spoken, immediately spread with milk, butter,
+goat-milk cheese, a flagon of beer, and a flask of usquebae, designed
+for the refreshment of Lord Menteith; while an inferior servant made
+similar preparations at the bottom of the table for the benefit of his
+attendants. The space which intervened between them was, according to
+the manners of the times, sufficient distinction between master and
+servant, even though the former was, as in the present instance, of high
+rank. Meanwhile the guests stood by the fire--the young nobleman under
+the chimney, and his servants at some little distance.
+
+“What do you think, Anderson,” said the former, “of our
+fellow-traveller?”
+
+“A stout fellow,” replied Anderson, “if all be good that is upcome.
+I wish we had twenty such, to put our Teagues into some sort of
+discipline.”
+
+“I differ from you, Anderson,” said Lord Menteith; “I think this fellow
+Dalgetty is one of those horse-leeches, whose appetite for blood being
+only sharpened by what he has sucked in foreign countries, he is now
+returned to batten upon that of his own. Shame on the pack of these
+mercenary swordmen! they have made the name of Scot through all Europe
+equivalent to that of a pitiful mercenary, who knows neither honour
+nor principle but his month’s pay, who transfers his allegiance from
+standard to standard, at the pleasure of fortune or the highest bidder;
+and to whose insatiable thirst for plunder and warm quarters we owe much
+of that civil dissension which is now turning our swords against our own
+bowels. I had scarce patience with the hired gladiator, and yet could
+hardly help laughing at the extremity of his impudence.”
+
+“Your lordship will forgive me,” said Anderson, “if I recommend to
+you, in the present circumstances, to conceal at least a part of this
+generous indignation; we cannot, unfortunately, do our work without the
+assistance of those who act on baser motives than our own. We cannot
+spare the assistance of such fellows as our friend the soldado. To use
+the canting phrase of the saints in the English Parliament, the sons of
+Zeruiah are still too many for us.”
+
+“I must dissemble, then, as well as I can,” said Lord Menteith, “as I
+have hitherto done, upon your hint. But I wish the fellow at the devil
+with all my heart.”
+
+“Ay, but still you must remember, my lord,” resumed Anderson, “that
+to cure the bite of a scorpion, you must crush another scorpion on the
+wound--But stop, we shall be overheard.”
+
+From a side-door in the hall glided a Highlander into the apartment,
+whose lofty stature and complete equipment, as well as the eagle’s
+feather in his bonnet, and the confidence of his demeanour, announced to
+be a person of superior rank. He walked slowly up to the table, and made
+no answer to Lord Menteith, who, addressing him by the name of Allan,
+asked him how he did.
+
+“Ye manna speak to her e’en now,” whispered the old attendant.
+
+The tall Highlander, sinking down upon the empty settle next the fire,
+fixed his eyes upon the red embers and the huge heap of turf, and seemed
+buried in profound abstraction. His dark eyes, and wild and enthusiastic
+features, bore the air of one who, deeply impressed with his own
+subjects of meditation, pays little attention to exterior objects.
+An air of gloomy severity, the fruit perhaps of ascetic and solitary
+habits, might, in a Lowlander, have been ascribed to religious
+fanaticism; but by that disease of the mind, then so common both in
+England and the Lowlands of Scotland, the Highlanders of this
+period were rarely infected. They had, however, their own peculiar
+superstitions, which overclouded the mind with thick-coming fancies, as
+completely as the puritanism of their neighbours.
+
+“His lordship’s honour,” said the Highland servant sideling up to Lord
+Menteith, and speaking in a very low tone, “his lordship manna speak to
+Allan even now, for the cloud is upon his mind.”
+
+Lord Menteith nodded, and took no farther notice of the reserved
+mountaineer.
+
+“Said I not,” asked the latter, suddenly raising his stately person
+upright, and looking at the domestic--“said I not that four were to
+come, and here stand but three on the hall floor?”
+
+“In troth did ye say sae, Allan,” said the old Highlander, “and here’s
+the fourth man coming clinking in at the yett e’en now from the stable,
+for he’s shelled like a partan, wi’ airn on back and breast, haunch and
+shanks. And am I to set her chair up near the Menteith’s, or down wi’
+the honest gentlemen at the foot of the table?”
+
+Lord Menteith himself answered the enquiry, by pointing to a seat beside
+his own.
+
+“And here she comes,” said Donald, as Captain Dalgetty entered the hall;
+“and I hope gentlemens will all take bread and cheese, as we say in the
+glens, until better meat be ready, until the Tiernach comes back frae
+the hill wi’ the southern gentlefolk, and then Dugald Cook will show
+himself wi’ his kid and hill venison.”
+
+In the meantime, Captain Dalgetty had entered the apartment, and walking
+up to the seat placed next Lord Menteith, was leaning on the back of it
+with his arms folded. Anderson and his companion waited at the bottom
+of the table, in a respectful attitude, until they should receive
+permission to seat themselves; while three or four Highlanders, under
+the direction of old Donald, ran hither and thither to bring additional
+articles of food, or stood still to give attendance upon the guests.
+
+In the midst of these preparations, Allan suddenly started up, and
+snatching a lamp from the hand of an attendant, held it close to
+Dalgetty’s face, while he perused his features with the most heedful and
+grave attention.
+
+“By my honour,” said Dalgetty, half displeased, as, mysteriously shaking
+his head, Allan gave up the scrutiny--“I trow that lad and I will ken
+each other when we meet again.”
+
+Meanwhile Allan strode to the bottom of the table, and having, by
+the aid of his lamp, subjected Anderson and his companion to the same
+investigation, stood a moment as if in deep reflection; then, touching
+his forehead, suddenly seized Anderson by the arm, and before he could
+offer any effectual resistance, half led and half dragged him to the
+vacant seat at the upper end, and having made a mute intimation that
+he should there place himself, he hurried the soldado with the same
+unceremonious precipitation to the bottom of the table. The Captain,
+exceedingly incensed at this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from
+him with violence; but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle
+inferior to the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such
+violence, that after reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and
+the vaulted hall rang with the clash of his armour. When he arose, his
+first action was to draw his sword and to fly at Allan, who, with folded
+arms, seemed to await his onset with the most scornful indifference.
+Lord Menteith and his attendants interposed to preserve peace, while the
+Highlanders, snatching weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase
+the broil.
+
+“He is mad,” whispered Lord Menteith, “he is perfectly mad; there is no
+purpose in quarrelling with him.”
+
+“If your lordship is assured that he is NON COMPOS MENTIS,” said Captain
+Dalgetty, “the whilk his breeding and behaviour seem to testify, the
+matter must end here, seeing that a madman can neither give an affront,
+nor render honourable satisfaction. But, by my saul, if I had my
+provstnt and a bottle of Rhenish under my belt, I should hive stood
+otherways up to him. And yet it’s a pity he should be sae weak in the
+intellectuals, being a strong proper man of body, fit to handle pike,
+morgenstern, or any other military implement whatsoever.” [This was
+a sort of club or mace, used in the earlier part of the seventeenth
+century in the defence of breaches and walls. When the Germans insulted
+a Scotch regiment then besieged in Trailsund, saying they heard there
+was a ship come from Denmark to them laden with tobacco pipes, “One of
+our soldiers,” says Colonel Robert Munro, “showing them over the work a
+morgenstern, made of a large stock banded with iron, like the shaft of
+a halberd, with a round globe at the end with cross iron pikes, saith,
+‘Here is one of the tobacco pipes, wherewith we will beat out your
+brains when you intend to storm us.’”]
+
+Peace was thus restored, and the party seated themselves agreeably to
+their former arrangement, with which Allan, who had now returned to his
+settle by the fire, and seemed once more immersed in meditation, did
+not again interfere. Lord Menteith, addressing the principal domestic,
+hastened to start some theme of conversation which might obliterate all
+recollection of the fray that had taken place. “The laird is at the hill
+then, Donald, I understand, and some English strangers with him?”
+
+“At the hill he is, an it like your honour, and two Saxon calabaleros
+are with him sure eneugh; and that is Sir Miles Musgrave and Christopher
+Hall, both from the Cumraik, as I think they call their country.”
+
+“Hall and Musgrave?” said Lord Menteith, looking at his attendants, “the
+very men that we wished to see.”
+
+“Troth,” said Donald, “an’ I wish I had never seen them between the een,
+for they’re come to herry us out o’ house and ha’.”
+
+“Why, Donald,” said Lord Menteith, “you did not use to be so churlish of
+your beef and ale; southland though they be, they’ll scarce eat up all
+the cattle that’s going on the castle mains.”
+
+“Teil care an they did,” said Donald, “an that were the warst o’t, for
+we have a wheen canny trewsmen here that wadna let us want if there was
+a horned beast atween this and Perth. But this is a warse job--it’s nae
+less than a wager.”
+
+“A wager!” repeated Lord Menteith, with some surprise.
+
+“Troth,” continued Donald, to the full as eager to tell his news as Lord
+Menteith was curious to hear them, “as your lordship is a friend and
+kinsman o’ the house, an’ as ye’ll hear eneugh o’t in less than an hour,
+I may as weel tell ye mysell. Ye sall be pleased then to know, that when
+our Laird was up in England where he gangs oftener than his friends can
+wish, he was biding at the house o’ this Sir Miles Musgrave, an’ there
+was putten on the table six candlesticks, that they tell me were twice
+as muckle as the candlesticks in Dunblane kirk, and neither airn, brass,
+nor tin, but a’ solid silver, nae less;--up wi’ their English pride, has
+sae muckle, and kens sae little how to guide it! Sae they began to jeer
+the Laird, that he saw nae sic graith in his ain poor country; and
+the Laird, scorning to hae his country put down without a word for its
+credit, swore, like a gude Scotsman, that he had mair candlesticks, and
+better candlesticks, in his ain castle at hame, than were ever lighted
+in a hall in Cumberland, an Cumberland be the name o’ the country.”
+
+“That was patriotically said,” observed Lord Menteith.
+
+“Fary true,” said Donald; “but her honour had better hae hauden her
+tongue: for if ye say ony thing amang the Saxons that’s a wee by
+ordinar, they clink ye down for a wager as fast as a Lowland smith would
+hammer shoon on a Highland shelty. An’ so the Laird behoved either to
+gae back o’ his word, or wager twa hunder merks; and sa he e’en tock the
+wager, rather than be shamed wi’ the like o’ them. And now he’s like to
+get it to pay, and I’m thinking that’s what makes him sae swear to come
+hame at e’en.”
+
+“Indeed,” said Lord Menteith, “from my idea of your family plate,
+Donald, your master is certain to lose such a wager.”
+
+“Your honour may swear that; an’ where he’s to get the siller I kenna,
+although he borrowed out o’ twenty purses. I advised him to pit the twa
+Saxon gentlemen and their servants cannily into the pit o’ the tower
+till they gae up the bagain o’ free gude-will, but the Laird winna hear
+reason.”
+
+Allan here started up, strode forward, and interrupted the conversation,
+saying to the domestic in a voice like thunder, “And how dared you to
+give my brother such dishonourable advice? or how dare you to say he
+will lose this or any other wager which it is his pleasure to lay?”
+
+“Troth, Allan M’Aulay,” answered the old man, “it’s no for my father’s
+son to gainsay what your father’s son thinks fit to say, an’ so the
+Laird may no doubt win his wager. A’ that I ken against it is, that the
+teil a candlestick, or ony thing like it, is in the house, except the
+auld airn branches that has been here since Laird Kenneth’s time, and
+the tin sconces that your father gard be made by auld Willie Winkie the
+tinkler, mair be token that deil an unce of siller plate is about the
+house at a’, forby the lady’s auld posset dish, that wants the cover and
+ane o’ the lugs.”
+
+“Peace, old man!” said Allan, fiercely; “and do you, gentlemen, if your
+refection is finished, leave this apartment clear; I must prepare it for
+the reception of these southern guests.”
+
+“Come away,” said the domestic, pulling Lord Menteith by the sleeve;
+“his hour is on him,” said he, looking towards Allan, “and he will not
+be controlled.”
+
+They left the hall accordingly, Lord Menteith and the Captain being
+ushered one way by old Donald, and the two attendants conducted
+elsewhere by another Highlander. The former had scarcely reached a
+sort of withdrawing apartment ere they were joined by the lord of the
+mansion, Angus M’Aulay by name, and his English guests. Great joy was
+expressed by all parties, for Lord Menteith and the English gentlemen
+were well known to each other; and on Lord Menteith’s introduction,
+Captain Dalgetty was well received by the Laird. But after the first
+burst of hospitable congratulation was over, Lord Menteith could observe
+that there was a shade of sadness on the brow of his Highland friend.
+
+“You must have heard,” said Sir Christopher Hall, “that our fine
+undertaking in Cumberland is all blown up. The militia would not march
+into Scotland, and your prick-ear’d Covenanters have been too hard for
+our friends in the southern shires. And so, understanding there is some
+stirring work here, Musgrave and I, rather than sit idle at home, are
+come to have a campaign among your kilts and plaids.”
+
+“I hope you have brought arms, men, and money with you,” said Lord
+Menteith, smiling.
+
+“Only some dozen or two of troopers, whom we left at the last Lowland
+village,” said Musgrave, “and trouble enough we had to get them so far.”
+
+“As for money,” said his companion, “We expect a small supply from our
+friend and host here.”
+
+The Laird now, colouring highly, took Menteith a little apart, and
+expressed to him his regret that he had fallen into a foolish blunder.
+
+“I heard it from Donald,” said Lord Menteith, scarce able to suppress a
+smile.
+
+“Devil take that old man,” said M’Aulay, “he would tell every thing,
+were it to cost one’s life; but it’s no jesting matter to you neither,
+my lord, for I reckon on your friendly and fraternal benevolence, as a
+near kinsman of our house, to help me out with the money due to these
+pock-puddings; or else, to be plain wi’ ye, the deil a M’Aulay will
+there be at the muster, for curse me if I do not turn Covenanter rather
+than face these fellows without paying them; and, at the best, I shall
+be ill enough off, getting both the scaith and the scorn.”
+
+“You may suppose, cousin,” said Lord Menteith, “I am not too well equipt
+just now; but you may be assured I shall endeavour to help you as well
+as I can, for the sake of old kindred, neighbourhood, and alliance.”
+
+“Thank ye--thank ye--thank ye,” reiterated M’Aulay; “and as they are to
+spend the money in the King’s service, what signifies whether you, they,
+or I pay it?--we are a’ one man’s bairns, I hope? But you must help me
+out too with some reasonable excuse, or else I shall be for taking to
+Andrew Ferrara; for I like not to be treated like a liar or a braggart
+at my own board-end, when, God knows, I only meant to support my honour,
+and that of my family and country.”
+
+Donald, as they were speaking, entered, with rather a blither face than
+he might have been expected to wear, considering the impending fate of
+his master’s purse and credit. “Gentlemens, her dinner is ready, and HER
+CANDLES ARE LIGHTED TOO,” said Donald, with a strong guttural emphasis
+on the last clause of his speech.
+
+“What the devil can he mean?” said Musgrave, looking to his countryman.
+
+Lord Menteith put the same question with his eyes to the Laird, which
+M’Aulay answered by shaking his head.
+
+A short dispute about precedence somewhat delayed their leaving the
+apartment. Lord Menteith insisted upon yielding up that which belonged
+to his rank, on consideration of his being in his own country, and of
+his near connexion with the family in which they found themselves. The
+two English strangers, therefore, were first ushered into the hall,
+where an unexpected display awaited them. The large oaken table was
+spread with substantial joints of meat, and seats were placed in
+order for the guests. Behind every seat stood a gigantic Highlander,
+completely dressed and armed after the fashion of his country, holding
+in his right hand his drawn sword, with the point turned downwards, and
+in the left a blazing torch made of the bog-pine. This wood, found in
+the morasses, is so full of turpentine, that, when split and dried, it
+is frequently used in the Highlands instead of candles. The unexpected
+and somewhat startling apparition was seen by the red glare of
+the torches, which displayed the wild features, unusual dress, and
+glittering arms of those who bore them, while the smoke, eddying up to
+the roof of the hall, over-canopied them with a volume of vapour. Ere
+the strangers had recovered from their surprise, Allan stept forward,
+and pointing with his sheathed broadsword to the torch-bearers, said,
+in a deep and stern tone of voice, “Behold, gentlemen cavaliers, the
+chandeliers of my brother’s house, the ancient fashion of our ancient
+name; not one of these men knows any law but their Chiefs command--Would
+you dare to compare to THEM in value the richest ore that ever was dug
+out of the mine? How say you, cavaliers?--is your wager won or lost?”
+
+“Lost; lost,” said Musgrave, gaily--“my own silver candlesticks are all
+melted and riding on horseback by this time, and I wish the fellows
+that enlisted were half as trusty as these.--Here, sir,” he added to the
+Chief, “is your money; it impairs Hall’s finances and mine somewhat, but
+debts of honour must be settled.”
+
+“My father’s curse upon my father’s son,” said Allan, interrupting him,
+“if he receive from you one penny! It is enough that you claim no right
+to exact from him what is his own.”
+
+Lord Menteith eagerly supported Allan’s opinion, and the elder M’Aulay
+readily joined, declaring the whole to be a fool’s business, and
+not worth speaking more about. The Englishmen, after some courteous
+opposition, were persuaded to regard the whole as a joke.
+
+“And now, Allan,” said the Laird, “please to remove your candles; for,
+since the Saxon gentlemen have seen them, they will eat their dinner
+as comfortably by the light of the old tin sconces, without scomfishing
+them with so much smoke.”
+
+Accordingly, at a sign from Allan, the living chandeliers, recovering
+their broadswords, and holding the point erect, marched out of the hall,
+and left the guests to enjoy their refreshment. [Such a bet as that
+mentioned in the text is said to have been taken by MacDonald of
+Keppoch, who extricated himself in the manner there narrated.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     Thareby so fearlesse and so fell he grew,
+     That his own syre and maister of his guise
+     Did often tremble at his horrid view;
+     And if for dread of hurt would him advise,
+     The angry beastes not rashly to despise,
+     Nor too much to provoke; for he would learne
+     The lion stoup to him in lowly wise,
+     (A lesson hard,) and make the libbard sterne
+     Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did earne.--SPENSER.
+
+Notwithstanding the proverbial epicurism of the English,--proverbial,
+that is to say, in Scotland at the period,--the English visitors made
+no figure whatever at the entertainment, compared with the portentous
+voracity of Captain Dalgetty, although that gallant soldier had already
+displayed much steadiness and pertinacity in his attack upon the lighter
+refreshment set before them at their entrance, by way of forlorn hope.
+He spoke to no one during the time of his meal; and it was not until
+the victuals were nearly withdrawn from the table, that he gratified
+the rest of the company, who had watched him with some surprise, with an
+account of the reasons why he ate so very fast and so very long.
+
+“The former quality,” he said, “he had acquired, while he filled a place
+at the bursar’s table at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen; when,” said
+he; “if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets, you
+were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them. And as for the
+quantity of my food, be it known to this honourable company,” continued
+the Captain, “that it’s the duty of every commander of a fortress, on
+all occasions which offer, to secure as much munition and vivers as
+their magazines can possibly hold, not knowing when they may have to
+sustain a siege or a blockade. Upon which principle, gentlemen,” said
+he, “when a cavalier finds that provant is good and abundant, he will,
+in my estimation, do wisely to victual himself for at least three days,
+as there is no knowing when he may come by another meal.”
+
+The Laird expressed his acquiescence in the prudence of this principle,
+and recommended to the veteran to add a tass of brandy and a flagon of
+claret to the substantial provisions he had already laid in, to which
+proposal the Captain readily agreed.
+
+When dinner was removed, and the servants had withdrawn, excepting the
+Laird’s page, or henchman, who remained in the apartment to call for or
+bring whatever was wanted, or, in a word, to answer the purposes of a
+modern bell-wire, the conversation began to turn upon politics, and
+the state of the country; and Lord Menteith enquired anxiously and
+particularly what clans were expected to join the proposed muster of the
+King’s friends.
+
+“That depends much, my lord, on the person who lifts the banner,” said
+the Laird; “for you know we Highlanders, when a few clans are assembled,
+are not easily commanded by one of our own Chiefs, or, to say the truth,
+by any other body. We have heard a rumour, indeed, that Colkitto--that
+is, young Colkitto, or Alaster M’Donald, is come over the Kyle from
+Ireland, with a body of the Earl of Antrim’s people, and that they had
+got as far as Ardnamurchan. They might have been here before now, but, I
+suppose, they loitered to plunder the country as they came along.”
+
+“Will Colkitto not serve you for a leader, then?” said Lord Menteith.
+
+“Colkitto?” said Allan M’Aulay, scornfully; “who talks of
+Colkitto?--There lives but one man whom we will follow, and that is
+Montrose.”
+
+“But Montrose, sir,” said Sir Christopher Hall, “has not been heard of
+since our ineffectual attempt to rise in the north of England. It is
+thought he has returned to the King at Oxford for farther instructions.”
+
+“Returned!” said Allan, with a scornful laugh; “I could tell ye, but it
+is not worth my while; ye will know soon enough.”
+
+“By my honour, Allan,” said Lord Menteith, “you will weary out your
+friends with this intolerable, froward, and sullen humour--But I know
+the reason,” added he, laughing; “you have not seen Annot Lyle to-day.”
+
+“Whom did you say I had not seen?” said Allan, sternly.
+
+“Annot Lyle, the fairy queen of song and minstrelsy,” said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+“Would to God I were never to see her again,” said Allan, sighing, “On
+condition the same weird were laid on you!”
+
+“And why on me?” said Lord Menteith, carelessly.
+
+“Because,” said Allan, “it is written on your forehead, that you are to
+be the ruin of each other.” So saying, he rose up and left the room.
+
+“Has he been long in this way?” asked Lord Menteith, addressing his
+brother.
+
+“About three days,” answered Angus; “the fit is wellnigh over, he will
+be better to-morrow.--But come, gentlemen, don’t let the tappit-hen
+scraugh to be emptied. The King’s health, King Charles’s health! and
+may the covenanting dog that refuses it, go to Heaven by the road of the
+Grassmarket!”
+
+The health was quickly pledged, and as fast succeeded by another, and
+another, and another, all of a party cast, and enforced in an earnest
+manner. Captain Dalgetty, however, thought it necessary to enter a
+protest.
+
+“Gentlemen cavaliers,” he said, “I drink these healths, PRIMO, both out
+of respect to this honourable and hospitable roof-tree, and, SECUNDO,
+because I hold it not good to be preceese in such matters, INTER POCULA;
+but I protest, agreeable to the warrandice granted by this honourable
+lord, that it shall be free to me, notwithstanding my present
+complaisance, to take service with the Covenanters to-morrow, providing
+I shall be so minded.”
+
+M’Aulay and his English guests stared at this declaration, which would
+have certainly bred new disturbance, if Lord Menteith had not taken up
+the affair, and explained the circumstances and conditions. “I trust,”
+ he concluded, “we shall be able to secure Captain Dalgetty’s assistance
+to our own party.”
+
+“And if not,” said the Laird, “I protest, as the Captain says, that
+nothing that has passed this evening, not even his having eaten my bread
+and salt, and pledged me in brandy, Bourdeaux, or usquebaugh, shall
+prejudice my cleaving him to the neck-bone.”
+
+“You shall be heartily welcome,” said the Captain, “providing my sword
+cannot keep my head, which it has done in worse dangers than your fend
+is likely to make for me.”
+
+Here Lord Menteith again interposed, and the concord of the company
+being with no small difficulty restored, was cemented by some deep
+carouses. Lord Menteith, however, contrived to break up the party
+earlier than was the usage of the Castle, under pretence of fatigue and
+indisposition. This was somewhat to the disappointment of the valiant
+Captain, who, among other habits acquired in the Low countries, had
+acquired both a disposition to drink, and a capacity to bear, an
+exorbitant quantity of strong liquors.
+
+Their landlord ushered them in person to a sort of sleeping gallery, in
+which there was a four-post bed, with tartan curtains, and a number
+of cribs, or long hampers, placed along the wall, three of which,
+well stuffed with blooming heather, were prepared for the reception of
+guests.
+
+“I need not tell your lordship,” said M’Aulay to Lord Menteith, a little
+apart, “our Highland mode of quartering. Only that, not liking you
+should sleep in the room alone with this German land-louper, I have
+caused your servants’ beds to be made here in the gallery. By G--d, my
+lord, these are times when men go to bed with a throat hale and sound as
+ever swallowed brandy, and before next morning it may be gaping like an
+oyster-shell.”
+
+Lord Menteith thanked him sincerely, saying, “It was just the
+arrangement he would have requested; for, although he had not the least
+apprehension of violence from Captain Dalgetty, yet Anderson was a
+better kind of person, a sort of gentleman, whom he always liked to have
+near his person.”
+
+“I have not seen this Anderson,” said M’Aulay; “did you hire him in
+England?”
+
+“I did so,” said Lord Menteith; “you will see the man to-morrow; in the
+meantime I wish you good-night.”
+
+His host left the apartment after the evening salutation, and was about
+to pay the same compliment to Captain Dalgetty, but observing him deeply
+engaged in the discussion of a huge pitcher filled with brandy posset,
+he thought it a pity to disturb him in so laudable an employment, and
+took his leave without farther ceremony.
+
+Lord Menteith’s two attendants entered the apartment almost immediately
+after his departure. The good Captain, who was now somewhat encumbered
+with his good cheer, began to find the undoing of the clasps of his
+armour a task somewhat difficult, and addressed Anderson in these words,
+interrupted by a slight hiccup,--“Anderson, my good friend, you may
+read in Scripture, that he that putteth off his armour should not boast
+himself like he that putteth it on--I believe that is not the right
+word of command; but the plain truth of it is, I am like to sleep in my
+corslet, like many an honest fellow that never waked again, unless you
+unloose this buckle.”
+
+“Undo his armour, Sibbald,” said Anderson to the other servant.
+
+“By St. Andrew!” exclaimed the Captain, turning round in great
+astonishment, “here’s a common fellow--a stipendiary with four pounds
+a-year and a livery cloak, thinks himself too good to serve Ritt-master
+Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who has studied humanity at the
+Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, and served half the princes of Europe!”
+
+“Captain Dalgetty,” said Lord Menteith, whose lot it was to stand
+peacemaker throughout the evening, “please to understand that Anderson
+waits upon no one but myself; but I will help Sibbald to undo your
+corslet with much pleasure.”
+
+“Too much trouble for you, my lord,” said Dalgetty; “and yet it would do
+you no harm to practise how a handsome harness is put on and put off.
+I can step in and out of mine like a glove; only to-night, although not
+EBRIUS, I am, in the classic phrase, VINO CIBOQUE GRAVATUS.”
+
+By this time he was unshelled, and stood before the fire musing with a
+face of drunken wisdom on the events of the evening. What seemed chiefly
+to interest him, was the character of Allan M’Aulay. “To come over
+the Englishmen so cleverly with his Highland torch-bearers--eight
+bare-breeched Rories for six silver candlesticks!--it was a
+master-piece--a TOUR DE PASSE--it was perfect legerdemain--and to be a
+madman after all!--I doubt greatly, my lord” (shaking his head), “that
+I must allow him, notwithstanding his relationship to your lordship, the
+privileges of a rational person, and either batoon him sufficiently to
+expiate the violence offered to my person, or else bring it to a matter
+of mortal arbitrement, as becometh an insulted cavalier.”
+
+“If you care to hear a long story,” said Lord Menteith, “at this time of
+night, I can tell you how the circumstances of Allan’s birth account so
+well for his singular character, as to put such satisfaction entirely
+out of the question.”
+
+“A long story, my lord,” said Captain Dalgetty, “is, next to a good
+evening draught and a warm nightcap, the best shoeinghorn for drawing on
+a sound sleep. And since your lordship is pleased to take the trouble to
+tell it, I shall rest your patient and obliged auditor.”
+
+“Anderson,” said Lord Menteith, “and you, Sibbald, are dying to hear,
+I suppose, of this strange man too! and I believe I must indulge your
+curiosity, that you may know how to behave to him in time of need. You
+had better step to the fire then.”
+
+Having thus assembled an audience about him, Lord Menteith sat down upon
+the edge of the four-post bed, while Captain Dalgetty, wiping the relics
+of the posset from his beard and mustachoes, and repeating the first
+verse of the Lutheran psalm, ALLE GUTER GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, etc.
+rolled himself into one of the places of repose, and thrusting his shock
+pate from between the blankets, listened to Lord Menteith’s relation in
+a most luxurious state, between sleeping and waking.
+
+“The father,” said Lord Menteith, “of the two brothers, Angus and Allan
+M’Aulay, was a gentleman of consideration and family, being the chief
+of a Highland clan, of good account, though not numerous; his lady, the
+mother of these young men, was a gentlewoman of good family, if I may be
+permitted to say so of one nearly connected with my own. Her brother, an
+honourable and spirited young man, obtained from James the Sixth a grant
+of forestry, and other privileges, over a royal chase adjacent to
+this castle; and, in exercising and defending these rights, he was so
+unfortunate as to involve himself in a quarrel with some of our Highland
+freebooters or caterans, of whom I think, Captain Dalgetty, you must
+have heard.”
+
+“And that I have,” said the Captain, exerting himself to answer the
+appeal. “Before I left the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, Dugald Garr
+was playing the devil in the Garioch, and the Farquharsons on Dee-side,
+and the Clan Chattan on the Gordons’ lands, and the Grants and Camerons
+in Moray-land. And since that, I have seen the Cravats and Pandours in
+Pannonia and Transylvania, and the Cossacks from the Polish frontier,
+and robbers, banditti, and barbarians of all countries besides, so that
+I have a distinct idea of your broken Highlandmen.”
+
+“The clan,” said Lord Menteith, “with whom the maternal uncle of the
+M’Aulays had been placed in feud, was a small sept of banditti, called,
+from their houseless state, and their incessantly wandering among the
+mountains and glens, the Children of the Mist. They are a fierce and
+hardy people, with all the irritability, and wild and vengeful passions,
+proper to men who have never known the restraint of civilized society.
+A party of them lay in wait for the unfortunate Warden of the Forest,
+surprised him while hunting alone and unattended, and slew him with
+every circumstance of inventive cruelty. They cut off his head,
+and resolved, in a bravado, to exhibit it at the castle of his
+brother-in-law. The laird was absent, and the lady reluctantly received
+as guests, men against whom, perhaps, she was afraid to shut her gates.
+Refreshments were placed before the Children of the Mist, who took an
+opportunity to take the head of their victim from the plaid in which
+it was wrapt, placed it on the table, put a piece of bread between the
+lifeless jaws, bidding them do their office now, since many a good meal
+they had eaten at that table. The lady, who had been absent for some
+household purpose, entered at this moment, and, upon beholding her
+brother’s head, fled like an arrow out of the house into the woods,
+uttering shriek upon shriek. The ruffians, satisfied with this savage
+triumph, withdrew. The terrified menials, after overcoming the alarm
+to which they had been subjected, sought their unfortunate mistress in
+every direction, but she was nowhere to be found. The miserable husband
+returned next day, and, with the assistance of his people, undertook a
+more anxious and distant search, but to equally little purpose. It
+was believed universally, that, in the ecstasy of her terror, she must
+either have thrown herself over one of the numerous precipices which
+overhang the river, or into a deep lake about a mile from the castle.
+Her loss was the more lamented, as she was six months advanced in
+her pregnancy; Angus M’Aulay, her eldest son, having been born about
+eighteen months before.--But I tire you, Captain Dalgetty, and you seem
+inclined to sleep.”
+
+“By no means,” answered the soldier; “I am no whit somnolent; I always
+hear best with my eyes shut. It is a fashion I learned when I stood
+sentinel.”
+
+“And I daresay,” said Lord Menteith, aside to Anderson, “the weight of
+the halberd of the sergeant of the rounds often made him open them.”
+
+Being apparently, however, in the humour of story-telling, the young
+nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his servants, without
+minding the slumbering veteran.
+
+“Every baron in the country,” said he, “now swore revenge for this
+dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and brother-in-law of
+the murdered person, and the Children of the Mist were hunted down,
+I believe, with as little mercy as they had themselves manifested.
+Seventeen heads, the bloody trophies of their vengeance, were
+distributed among the allies, and fed the crows upon the gates of their
+castles. The survivors sought out more distant wildernesses, to which
+they retreated.”
+
+“To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former ground,”
+ said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having produced the
+correspondent word of command; and then starting up, professed he had
+been profoundly atttentive to every word that had been spoken.
+
+“It is the custom in summer,” said Lord Menteith, without attending
+to his apology, “to send the cows to the upland pastures to have the
+benefit of the grass; and the maids of the village, and of the family,
+go there to milk them in the morning and evening. While thus employed,
+the females of this family, to their great terror, perceived that their
+motions were watched at a distance by a pale, thin, meagre figure,
+bearing a strong resemblance to their deceased mistress, and passing,
+of course, for her apparition. When some of the boldest resolved to
+approach this faded form, it fled from them into the woods with a wild
+shriek. The husband, informed of this circumstance, came up to the glen
+with some attendants, and took his measures so well as to intercept
+the retreat of the unhappy fugitive, and to secure the person of his
+unfortunate lady, though her intellect proved to be totally deranged.
+How she supported herself during her wandering in the woods could not be
+known--some supposed she lived upon roots and wild-berries, with which
+the woods at that season abounded; but the greater part of the vulgar
+were satisfied that she must have subsisted upon the milk of the wild
+does, or been nourished by the fairies, or supported in some manner
+equally marvellous. Her re-appearance was more easily accounted for. She
+had seen from the thicket the milking of the cows, to superintend which
+had been her favourite domestic employment, and the habit had prevailed
+even in her deranged state of mind.
+
+“In due season the unfortunate lady was delivered of a boy, who not only
+showed no appearance of having suffered from his mother’s calamities,
+but appeared to be an infant of uncommon health and strength. The
+unhappy mother, after her confinement, recovered her reason--at least
+in a great measure, but never her health and spirits. Allan was her only
+joy. Her attention to him was unremitting; and unquestionably she must
+have impressed upon his early mind many of those superstitious ideas to
+which his moody and enthusiastic temper gave so ready a reception. She
+died when he was about ten years old. Her last words were spoken to him
+in private; but there is little doubt that they conveyed an injunction
+of vengeance upon the Children of the Mist, with which he has since
+amply complied.
+
+“From this moment, the habits of Allan M’Aulay were totally changed.
+He had hitherto been his mother’s constant companion, listening to
+her dreams, and repeating his own, and feeding his imagination,
+which, probably from the circumstances preceding his birth, was
+constitutionally deranged, with all the wild and terrible superstitions
+so common to the mountaineers, to which his unfortunate mother had
+become much addicted since her brother’s death. By living in this
+manner, the boy had gotten a timid, wild, startled look, loved to seek
+out solitary places in the woods, and was never so much terrified, as
+by the approach of children of the same age. I remember, although some
+years younger, being brought up here by my father upon a visit, nor can
+I forget the astonishment with which I saw this infant-hermit shun every
+attempt I made to engage him in the sports natural to our age. I can
+remember his father bewailing his disposition to mine, and alleging, at
+the same time, that it was impossible for him to take from his wife
+the company of the boy, as he seemed to be the only consolation that
+remained to her in this world, and as the amusement which Allan’s
+society afforded her seemed to prevent the recurrence, at least in its
+full force, of that fearful malady by which she had been visited. But,
+after the death of his mother, the habits and manners of the boy seemed
+at once to change. It is true he remained as thoughtful and serious as
+before; and long fits of silence and abstraction showed plainly that
+his disposition, in this respect, was in no degree altered. But at other
+times, he sought out the rendezvous of the youth of the clan, which
+he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid. He took share in all their
+exercises; and, from his very extraordinary personal strength, soon
+excelled his brother and other youths, whose age considerably exceeded
+his own. They who had hitherto held him in contempt, now feared, if they
+did not love him; and, instead of Allan’s being esteemed a dreaming,
+womanish, and feeble-minded boy, those who encountered him in sports or
+military exercise, now complained that, when heated by the strife, he
+was too apt to turn game into earnest, and to forget that he was only
+engaged in a friendly trial of strength.--But I speak to regardless
+ears,” said Lord Menteith, interrupting himself, for the Captain’s nose
+now gave the most indisputable signs that he was fast locked in the arms
+of oblivion.
+
+“If you mean the ears of that snorting swine, my lord,” said Anderson,
+“they are, indeed, shut to anything that you can say; nevertheless, this
+place being unfit for more private conference, I hope you will have the
+goodness to proceed, for Sibbald’s benefit and for mine. The history of
+this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it.”
+
+“You must know, then,” proceeded Lord Menteith, “that Allan continued to
+increase in strength and activity, till his fifteenth year, about which
+time he assumed a total independence of character, and impatience of
+control, which much alarmed his surviving parent. He was absent in the
+woods for whole days and nights, under pretence of hunting, though he
+did not always bring home game. His father was the more alarmed, because
+several of the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing
+troubles of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did
+he think it altogether safe to renew any attack upon them. The risk
+of Allan, in his wanderings, sustaining injury from these vindictive
+freebooters, was a perpetual source of apprehension.
+
+“I was myself upon a visit to the castle when this matter was brought
+to a crisis. Allan had been absent since day-break in the woods, where
+I had sought for him in vain; it was a dark stormy night, and he did not
+return. His father expressed the utmost anxiety, and spoke of detaching
+a party at the dawn of morning in quest of him; when, as we were sitting
+at the supper-table, the door suddenly opened, and Allan entered the
+room with a proud, firm, and confident air. His intractability of
+temper, as well as the unsettled state of his mind, had such an
+influence over his father, that he suppressed all other tokens of
+displeasure, excepting the observation that I had killed a fat buck, and
+had returned before sunset, while he supposed Allan, who had been on
+the hill till midnight, had returned with empty hands. ‘Are you sure of
+that?’ said Allan, fiercely; ‘here is something will tell you another
+tale.’
+
+“We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots of
+blood on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when suddenly,
+undoing the corner of his plaid, he rolled down on the table a human
+head, bloody and new severed, saying at the same time, ‘Lie thou where
+the head of a better man lay before ye.’ From the haggard features,
+and matted red hair and beard, partly grizzled with age, his father and
+others present recognised the head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known
+leader among the outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had
+been active in the murder of the unfortunate Forester, uncle to Allan,
+and had escaped by a desperate defence and extraordinary agility,
+when so many of his companions were destroyed. We were all, it may
+be believed, struck with surprise, but Allan refused to gratify our
+curiosity; and we only conjectured that he must have overcome the outlaw
+after a desperate struggle, because we discovered that he had sustained
+several wounds from the contest. All measures were now taken to ensure
+him against the vengeance of the freebooters; but neither his wounds,
+nor the positive command of his father, nor even the locking of the
+gates of the castle and the doors of his apartment, were precautions
+adequate to prevent Allan from seeking out the very persons to whom he
+was peculiarly obnoxious. He made his escape by night from the window of
+the apartment, and laughing at his father’s vain care, produced on one
+occasion the head of one, and upon another those of two, of the Children
+of the Mist. At length these men, fierce as they were, became appalled
+by the inveterate animosity and audacity with which Allan sought out
+their recesses. As he never hesitated to encounter any odds, they
+concluded that he must bear a charmed life, or fight under the
+guardianship of some supernatural influence. Neither gun, dirk, nor
+dourlach [DOURLACH--quiver; literally, satchel--of arrows.], they
+said, availed aught against him. They imputed this to the remarkable
+circumstances under which he was born; and at length five or six of the
+stoutest caterans of the Highlands would have fled at Allan’s halloo, or
+the blast of his horn.
+
+“In the meanwhile, however, the Children of the Mist carried on their
+old trade, and did the M’Aulays, as well as their kinsmen and allies,
+as much mischief as they could. This provoked another expedition against
+the tribe, in which I had my share; we surprised them effectually, by
+besetting at once the upper and under passes of the country, and made
+such clean work as is usual on these occasions, burning and slaying
+right before us. In this terrible species of war, even the females and
+the helpless do not always escape. One little maiden alone, who smiled
+upon Allan’s drawn dirk, escaped his vengeance upon my earnest entreaty.
+She was brought to the castle, and here bred up under the name of Annot
+Lyle, the most beautiful little fairy certainly that ever danced upon a
+heath by moonlight. It was long ere Allan could endure the presence
+of the child, until it occurred to his imagination, from her features
+perhaps, that she did not belong to the hated blood of his enemies, but
+had become their captive in some of their incursions; a circumstance
+not in itself impossible, but in which he believes as firmly as in holy
+writ. He is particularly delighted by her skill in music, which is so
+exquisite, that she far exceeds the best performers in this country in
+playing on the clairshach, or harp. It was discovered that this produced
+upon the disturbed spirits of Allan, in his gloomiest moods, beneficial
+effects, similar to those experienced by the Jewish monarch of old; and
+so engaging is the temper of Annot Lyle, so fascinating the innocence
+and gaiety of her disposition, that she is considered and treated in the
+castle rather as the sister of the proprietor, than as a dependent upon
+his charity. Indeed, it is impossible for any one to see her without
+being deeply interested by the ingenuity, liveliness, and sweetness of
+her disposition.”
+
+“Take care, my lord,” said Anderson, smiling; “there is danger in such
+violent commendations. Allan M’Aulay, as your lordship describes him,
+would prove no very safe rival.”
+
+“Pooh! pooh!” said Lord Menteith, laughing, yet blushing at the same
+time; “Allan is not accessible to the passion of love; and for myself,”
+ said he, more gravely; “Annot’s unknown birth is a sufficient reason
+against serious designs, and her unprotected state precludes every
+other.”
+
+“It is spoken like yourself, my lord,” said Anderson.--“But I trust you
+will proceed with your interesting story.”
+
+“It is wellnigh finished,” said Lord Menteith; “I have only to add, that
+from the great strength and courage of Allan M’Aulay, from his
+energetic and uncontrollable disposition, and from an opinion generally
+entertained and encouraged by himself that he holds communion with
+supernatural beings, and can predict future events, the clan pay a much
+greater degree of deference to him than even to his brother, who is a
+bold-hearted rattling Highlander, but with nothing which can possibly
+rival the extraordinary character of his younger brother.”
+
+“Such a character,” said Anderson, “cannot but have the deepest effect
+on the minds of a Highland host. We must secure Allan, my lord, at all
+events. What between his bravery and his second sight--”
+
+“Hush!” said Lord Menteith, “that owl is awaking.”
+
+“Do you talk of the second sight, or DEUTERO-SCOPIA?” said the soldier;
+“I remember memorable Major Munro telling me how Murdoch Mackenzie,
+born in Assint, a private gentleman in a company, and a pretty soldier,
+foretold the death of Donald Tough, a Lochaber man, and certain other
+persons, as well as the hurt of the major himself at a sudden onfall at
+the siege of Trailsund.”
+
+“I have often heard of this faculty,” observed Anderson, “but I have
+always thought those pretending to it were either enthusiasts or
+impostors.”
+
+“I should be loath,” said Lord Menteith, “to apply either character
+to my kinsman, Allan M’Aulay. He has shown on many occasions too much
+acuteness and sense, of which you this night had an instance, for the
+character of an enthusiast; and his high sense of honour, and manliness
+of disposition, free him from the charge of imposture.”
+
+“Your lordship, then,” said Anderson, “is a believer in his supernatural
+attributes?”
+
+“By no means,” said the young nobleman; “I think that he persuades
+himself that the predictions which are, in reality, the result of
+judgment and reflection, are supernatural impressions on his mind, just
+as fanatics conceive the workings of their own imagination to be divine
+inspiration--at least, if this will not serve you, Anderson, I have no
+better explanation to give; and it is time we were all asleep after the
+toilsome journey of the day.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     Coming events cast their shadows before.--CAMPBELL.
+
+At an early hour in the morning the guests of the castle sprung from
+their repose; and, after a moment’s private conversation with his
+attendants, Lord Menteith addressed the soldier, who was seated in a
+corner burnishing his corslet with rot-stone and chamois-leather, while
+he hummed the old song in honour of the victorious Gustavus Adolphus:--
+
+     When cannons are roaring, and bullets are flying,
+     The lad that would have honour, boys, must never fear dying.
+
+“Captain Dalgetty,” said Lord Menteith, “the time is come that we must
+part, or become comrades in service.”
+
+“Not before breakfast, I hope?” said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+“I should have thought,” replied his lordship, “that your garrison was
+victualled for three days at least.”
+
+“I have still some stowage left for beef and bannocks,” said the
+Captain; “and I never miss a favourable opportunity of renewing my
+supplies.”
+
+“But,” said Lord Menteith, “no judicious commander allows either flags
+of truce or neutrals to remain in his camp longer than is prudent; and
+therefore we must know your mind exactly, according to which you shall
+either have a safe-conduct to depart in peace, or be welcome to remain
+with us.”
+
+“Truly,” said the Captain, “that being the case, I will not attempt
+to protract the capitulation by a counterfeited parley, (a thing
+excellently practised by Sir James Ramsay at the siege of Hannau, in the
+year of God 1636,) but I will frankly own, that if I like your pay as
+well as your provant and your company, I care not how soon I take the
+oath to your colours.”
+
+“Our pay,” said Lord Menteith, “must at present be small, since it
+is paid out of the common stock raised by the few amongst us who can
+command some funds--As major and adjutant, I dare not promise Captain
+Dalgetty more than half a dollar a-day.”
+
+“The devil take all halves and quarters!” said the Captain; “were it in
+my option, I could no more consent to the halving of that dollar, than
+the woman in the Judgment of Solomon to the disseverment of the child of
+her bowels.”
+
+“The parallel will scarce hold, Captain Dalgetty, for I think you would
+rather consent to the dividing of the dollar, than give it up entire to
+your competitor. However, in the way of arrears, I may promise you the
+other half-dollar at the end of the campaign.”
+
+“Ah! these arrearages!” said Captain Dalgetty, “that are always
+promised, and always go for nothing! Spain, Austria, and Sweden,
+all sing one song. Oh! long life to the Hoganmogans! if they were no
+officers of soldiers, they were good paymasters.--And yet, my lord, if
+I could but be made certiorate that my natural hereditament of
+Drumthwacket had fallen into possession of any of these loons of
+Covenanters, who could be, in the event of our success, conveniently
+made a traitor of, I have so much value for that fertile and pleasant
+spot, that I would e’en take on with you for the campaign.”
+
+“I can resolve Captain Dalgetty’s question,” said Sibbald, Lord
+Menteith’s second attendant; “for if his estate of Drumthwacket be, as
+I conceive, the long waste moor so called, that lies five miles south of
+Aberdeen, I can tell him it was lately purchased by Elias Strachan, as
+rank a rebel as ever swore the Covenant.”
+
+“The crop-eared hound!” said Captain Dalgetty, in a rage; “What the
+devil gave him the assurance to purchase the inheritance of a family of
+four hundred years standing?--CYNTHIUS AUREM VELLET, as we used to say
+at Mareschal-College; that is to say, I will pull him out of my father’s
+house by the ears. And so, my Lord Menteith, I am yours, hand and
+sword, body and soul, till death do us part, or to the end of the next
+campaign, whichever event shall first come to pass.”
+
+“And I,” said the young nobleman, “rivet the bargain with a month’s pay
+in advance.”
+
+“That is more than necessary,” said Dalgetty, pocketing the money
+however. “But now I must go down, look after my war-saddle and
+abuilziements, and see that Gustavus has his morning, and tell him we
+have taken new service.”
+
+“There goes your precious recruit,” said Lord Menteith to Anderson, as
+the Captain left the room; “I fear we shall have little credit of him.”
+
+“He is a man of the times, however,” said Anderson; “and without such we
+should hardly be able to carry on our enterprise.”
+
+“Let us go down,” answered Lord Menteith, “and see how our muster is
+likely to thrive, for I hear a good deal of bustle in the castle.”
+
+When they entered the hall, the domestics keeping modestly in the
+background, morning greetings passed between Lord Menteith, Angus
+M’Aulay, and his English guests, while Allan, occupying the same settle
+which he had filled the preceding evening, paid no attention whatever to
+any one. Old Donald hastily rushed into the apartment. “A message from
+Vich Alister More; [The patronymic of MacDonell of Glengarry.] he is
+coming up in the evening.”
+
+“With how many attendants?” said M’Aulay.
+
+“Some five-and-twenty or thirty,” said Donald, “his ordinary retinue.”
+
+“Shake down plenty of straw in the great barn,” said the Laird.
+
+Another servant here stumbled hastily in, announcing the expected
+approach of Sir Hector M’Lean, “who is arriving with a large following.”
+
+“Put them in the malt-kiln,” said M’Aulay; “and keep the breadth of the
+middenstead between them and the M’Donalds; they are but unfriends to
+each other.”
+
+Donald now re-entered, his visage considerably lengthened--“The tell’s
+i’ the folk,” he said; “the haill Hielands are asteer, I think. Evan
+Dhu, of Lochiel, will be here in an hour, with Lord kens how many
+gillies.”
+
+“Into the great barn with them beside the M’Donalds,” said the Laird.
+
+More and more chiefs were announced, the least of whom would have
+accounted it derogatory to his dignity to stir without a retinue of six
+or seven persons. To every new annunciation, Angus M’Aulay answered
+by naming some place of accommodation,--the stables, the loft, the
+cow-house, the sheds, every domestic office, were destined for the night
+to some hospitable purpose or other. At length the arrival of M’Dougal
+of Lorn, after all his means of accommodation were exhausted, reduced
+him to some perplexity. “What the devil is to be done, Donald?” said
+he; “the great barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads
+and thraws; but there would be drawn dirks amang them which should lie
+upper-most, and so we should have bloody puddings before morning!”
+
+“What needs all this?” said Allan, starting up, and coming forward with
+the stern abruptness of his usual manner; “are the Gael to-day of softer
+flesh or whiter blood than their fathers were? Knock the head out of
+a cask of usquebae; let that be their night-gear--their plaids
+their bed-clothes--the blue sky their canopy, and the heather their
+couch.--Come a thousand more, and they would not quarrel on the broad
+heath for want of room!”
+
+“Allan is right,” said his brother; “it is very odd how Allan, who,
+between ourselves,” said he to Musgrave, “is a little wowf, [WOWF, i.e.
+crazed.] seems at times to have more sense than us all put together.
+Observe him now.”
+
+“Yes,” continued Allan, fixing his eyes with a ghastly stare upon the
+opposite side of the hall, “they may well begin as they are to end; many
+a man will sleep this night upon the heath, that when the Martinmas wind
+shalt blow shall lie there stark enough, and reck little of cold or lack
+of covering.”
+
+“Do not forespeak us, brother,” said Angus; “that is not lucky.”
+
+“And what luck is it then that you expect?” said Allan; and straining
+his eyes until they almost started from their sockets, he fell with a
+convulsive shudder into the arms of Donald and his brother, who, knowing
+the nature of his fits, had come near to prevent his fall. They seated
+him upon a bench, and supported him until he came to himself, and was
+about to speak.
+
+“For God’s sake, Allan,” said his brother, who knew the impression his
+mystical words were likely to make on many of the guests, “say nothing
+to discourage us.”
+
+“Am I he who discourages you?” said Allan; “let every man face his world
+as I shall face mine. That which must come, will come; and we shall
+stride gallantly over many a field of victory, ere we reach yon fatal
+slaughter-place, or tread yon sable scaffolds.”
+
+“What slaughter-place? what scaffolds?” exclaimed several voices; for
+Allan’s renown as a seer was generally established in the Highlands.
+
+“You will know that but too soon,” answered Allan. “Speak to me no more,
+I am weary of your questions.” He then pressed his hand against his
+brow, rested his elbow upon his knee, and sunk into a deep reverie.
+
+“Send for Annot Lyle, and the harp,” said Angus, in a whisper, to his
+servant; “and let those gentlemen follow me who do not fear a Highland
+breakfast.”
+
+All accompanied their hospitable landlord excepting only Lord Menteith,
+who lingered in one of the deep embrasures formed by the windows of the
+hall. Annot Lyle shortly after glided into the room, not ill described
+by Lord Menteith as being the lightest and most fairy figure that ever
+trode the turf by moonlight. Her stature, considerably less than the
+ordinary size of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth,
+insomuch, that although she was near eighteen, she might have passed
+for four years younger. Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed upon a
+model of exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of her
+person, so that Titania herself could scarce have found a more fitting
+representative. Her hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed
+flaxen, whose clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair
+complexion, and with the playful, yet simple, expression of her
+features. When we add to these charms, that Annot, in her orphan state,
+seemed the gayest and happiest of maidens, the reader must allow us to
+claim for her the interest of almost all who looked on her. In fact, it
+was impossible to find a more universal favourite, and she often
+came among the rude inhabitants of the castle, as Allan himself, in
+a poetical mood, expressed it, “like a sunbeam on a sullen sea,”
+ communicating to all others the cheerfulness that filled her own mind.
+
+Annot, such as we have described her, smiled and blushed, when, on
+entering the apartment, Lord Menteith came from his place of retirement,
+and kindly wished her good-morning.
+
+“And good-morning to you, my lord,” returned she, extending her hand to
+her friend; “we have seldom seen you of late at the castle, and now I
+fear it is with no peaceful purpose.”
+
+“At least, let me not interrupt your harmony, Annot,” said Lord
+Menteith, “though my arrival may breed discord elsewhere. My cousin
+Allan needs the assistance of your voice and music.”
+
+“My preserver,” said Annot Lyle, “has a right to my poor exertions; and
+you, too, my lord,--you, too, are my preserver, and were the most
+active to save a life that is worthless enough, unless it can benefit my
+protectors.”
+
+So saying, she sate down at a little distance upon the bench on which
+Allan M’Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about
+thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice. The air was
+an ancient Gaelic melody, and the words, which were supposed to be very
+old, were in the same language; but we subjoin a translation of them,
+by Secundus Macpherson, Esq. of Glenforgen, which, although submitted to
+the fetters of English rhythm, we trust will be found nearly as genuine
+as the version of Ossian by his celebrated namesake.
+
+     “Birds of omen dark and foul,
+     Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
+     Leave the sick man to his dream--
+     All night long he heard your scream--
+     Haste to cave and ruin’d tower,
+     Ivy, tod, or dingled bower,
+     There to wink and mope, for, hark!
+     In the mid air sings the lark.
+
+     “Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
+     Prowling wolf and wily fox,--
+     Hie you fast, nor turn your view,
+     Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
+     Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
+     Safety parts with parting night;
+     And on distant echo borne,
+     Comes the hunter’s early horn.
+
+     “The moon’s wan crescent scarcely gleams,
+     Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
+     Hie hence each peevish imp and fay,
+     That scare the pilgrim on his way:--
+     Quench, kelpy!  quench, in bog and fen,
+     Thy torch that cheats benighted men;
+     Thy dance is o’er, thy reign is done,
+     For Benyieglo hath seen the sun.
+
+     “Wild thoughts, that, sinful, dark, and deep,
+     O’erpower the passive mind in sleep,
+     Pass from the slumberer’s soul away,
+     Like night-mists from the brow of day:
+     Foul hag, whose blasted visage grim
+     Smothers the pulse, unnerves the limb,
+     Spur thy dark palfrey, and begone!
+     Thou darest not face the godlike sun.”
+
+As the strain proceeded, Allan M’Aulay gradually gave signs of
+recovering his presence of mind, and attention to the objects around
+him. The deep-knit furrows of his brow relaxed and smoothed themselves;
+and the rest of his features, which had seemed contorted with internal
+agony, relapsed into a more natural state. When he raised his head
+and sat upright, his countenance, though still deeply melancholy,
+was divested of its wildness and ferocity; and in its composed state,
+although by no means handsome, the expression of his features was
+striking, manly, and even noble. His thick, brown eyebrows, which had
+hitherto been drawn close together, were now slightly separated, as in
+the natural state; and his grey eyes, which had rolled and flashed
+from under them with an unnatural and portentous gleam, now recovered a
+steady and determined expression.
+
+“Thank God!” he said, after sitting silent for about a minute, until
+the very last sounds of the harp had ceased to vibrate, “my soul is no
+longer darkened--the mist hath passed from my spirit.”
+
+“You owe thanks, cousin Allan,” said Lord Menteith, coming forward,
+“to Annot Lyle, as well as to heaven, for this happy change in your
+melancholy mood.”
+
+“My noble cousin Menteith,” said Allan, rising and greeting him very
+respectfully, as well as kindly, “has known my unhappy circumstances so
+long, that his goodness will require no excuse for my being thus late in
+bidding him welcome to the castle.”
+
+“We are too old acquaintances, Allan,” said Lord Menteith, “and too good
+friends, to stand on the ceremonial of outward greeting; but half the
+Highlands will be here to-day, and you know, with our mountain Chiefs,
+ceremony must not be neglected. What will you give little Annot for
+making you fit company to meet Evan Dhu, and I know not how many bonnets
+and feathers?”
+
+“What will he give me?” said Annot, smiling; “nothing less, I hope, than
+the best ribbon at the Fair of Doune.”
+
+“The Fair of Doune, Annot?” said Allan sadly; “there will be bloody work
+before that day, and I may never see it; but you have well reminded me
+of what I have long intended to do.”
+
+Having said this, he left the room.
+
+“Should he talk long in this manner,” said Lord Menteith, “you must keep
+your harp in tune, my dear Annot.”
+
+“I hope not,” said Annot, anxiously; “this fit has been a long one, and
+probably will not soon return. It is fearful to see a mind, naturally
+generous and affectionate, afflicted by this constitutional malady.”
+
+As she spoke in a low and confidential tone, Lord Menteith naturally
+drew close, and stooped forward, that he might the better catch the
+sense of what she said. When Allan suddenly entered the apartment,
+they as naturally drew back from each other with a manner expressive of
+consciousness, as if surprised in a conversation which they wished to
+keep secret from him. This did not escape Allan’s observation; he stopt
+short at the door of the apartment--his brows were contracted--his eyes
+rolled; but it was only the paroxysm of a moment. He passed his broad
+sinewy hand across his brow, as if to obliterate these signs of emotion,
+and advanced towards Annot, holding in his hand a very small box made
+of oakwood, curiously inlaid. “I take you to witness,” he said, “cousin
+Menteith, that I give this box and its contents to Annot Lyle. It
+contains a few ornaments that belonged to my poor mother--of trifling
+value, you may guess, for the wife of a Highland laird has seldom a rich
+jewel-casket.”
+
+“But these ornaments,” said Annot Lyle, gently and timidly refusing the
+box, “belong to the family--I cannot accept--”
+
+“They belong to me alone, Annot,” said Allan, interrupting her; “they
+were my mother’s dying bequest. They are all I can call my own, except
+my plaid and my claymore. Take them, therefore--they are to me valueless
+trinkets--and keep them for my sake--should I never return from these
+wars.”
+
+So saying, he opened the case, and presented it to Annot. “If,” said he,
+“they are of any value, dispose of them for your own support, when this
+house has been consumed with hostile fire, and can no longer afford
+you protection. But keep one ring in memory of Allan, who has done, to
+requite your kindness, if not all he wished, at least all he could.”
+
+Annot Lyle endeavoured in vain to restrain the gathering tears, when
+she said, “ONE ring, Allan, I will accept from you as a memorial of
+your goodness to a poor orphan, but do not press me to take more; for I
+cannot, and will not, accept a gift of such disproportioned value.”
+
+“Make your choice, then,” said Allan; “your delicacy may be well
+founded; the others will assume a shape in which they may be more useful
+to you.”
+
+“Think not of it,” said Annot, choosing from the contents of the casket
+a ring, apparently the most trifling in value which it contained; “keep
+them for your own, or your brother’s bride.--But, good heavens!” she
+said, interrupting herself, and looking at the ring, “what is this that
+I have chosen?”
+
+Allan hastened to look upon it, with eyes of gloomy apprehension; it
+bore, in enamel, a death’s head above two crossed daggers. When Allan
+recognised the device, he uttered a sigh so deep, that she dropped the
+ring from her hand, which rolled upon the floor. Lord Menteith picked it
+up, and returned it to the terrified Annot.
+
+“I take God to witness,” said Allan, in a solemn tone, “that your hand,
+young lord, and not mine, has again delivered to her this ill-omened
+gift. It was the mourning ring worn by my mother in memorial of her
+murdered brother.”
+
+“I fear no omens,” said Annot, smiling through her tears; “and nothing
+coming through the hands of my two patrons,” so she was wont to call
+Lord Menteith and Allan, “can bring bad luck to the poor orphan.”
+
+She put the ring on her finger, and, turning to her harp, sung, to a
+lively air, the following verses of one of the fashionable songs of
+the period, which had found its way, marked as it was with the quaint
+hyperbolical taste of King Charles’s time, from some court masque to the
+wilds of Perthshire:--
+
+     “Gaze not upon the stars, fond sage,
+     In them no influence lies;
+     To read the fate of youth or age,
+     Look on my Helen’s eyes.
+
+     “Yet, rash astrologer, refrain!
+     Too dearly would be won
+     The prescience of another’s pain,
+     If purchased by thine own.”
+
+“She is right, Allan,” said Lord Menteith; “and this end of an old song
+is worth all we shall gain by our attempt to look into futurity.”
+
+“She is WRONG, my lord,” said Allan, sternly, “though you, who treat
+with lightness the warnings I have given you, may not live to see the
+event of the omen.--laugh not so scornfully,” he added, interrupting
+himself “or rather laugh on as loud and as long as you will; your term
+of laughter will find a pause ere long.”
+
+“I care not for your visions, Allan,” said Lord Menteith; “however short
+my span of life, the eye of no Highland seer can see its termination.”
+
+“For heaven’s sake,” said Annot Lyle, interrupting him, “you know his
+nature, and how little he can endure--”
+
+“Fear me not,” said Allan, interrupting her,--“my mind is now constant
+and calm.--But for you, young lord,” said he, turning to Lord Menteith,
+“my eye has sought you through fields of battle, where Highlanders and
+Lowlanders lay strewed as thick as ever the rooks sat on those ancient
+trees,” pointing to a rookery which was seen from the window--“my eye
+sought you, but your corpse was not there--my eye sought you among a
+train of unresisting and disarmed captives, drawn up within the bounding
+walls of an ancient and rugged fortress;--flash after flash--platoon
+after platoon--the hostile shot fell amongst them, They dropped like
+the dry leaves in autumn, but you were not among their ranks;--scaffolds
+were prepared--blocks were arranged, saw-dust was spread--the priest was
+ready with his book, the headsman with his axe--but there, too, mine eye
+found you not.”
+
+“The gibbet, then, I suppose, must be my doom?” said Lord Menteith. “Yet
+I wish they had spared me the halter, were it but for the dignity of the
+peerage.”
+
+He spoke this scornfully, yet not without a sort of curiosity, and
+a wish to receive an answer; for the desire of prying into futurity
+frequently has some influence even on the minds of those who disavow all
+belief in the possibility of such predictions.
+
+“Your rank, my lord, will suffer no dishonour in your person, or by the
+manner of your death. Three times have I seen a Highlander plant his
+dirk in your bosom--and such will be your fate.”
+
+“I wish you would describe him to me,” said Lord Menteith, “and I
+shall save him the trouble of fulfilling your prophecy, if his plaid be
+passible to sword or pistol.”
+
+“Your weapons,” said Allan, “would avail you little; nor can I give you
+the information you desire. The face of the vision has been ever averted
+from me.”
+
+“So be it then,” said Lord Menteith, “and let it rest in the uncertainty
+in which your augury has placed it. I shall dine not the less merrily
+among plaids, and dirks, and kilts to-day.”
+
+“It may be so,” said Allan; “and, it may be, you do well to enjoy these
+moments, which to me are poisoned by auguries of future evil. But I,” he
+continued--“I repeat to you, that this weapon--that is, such a weapon as
+this,” touching the hilt of the dirk which he wore, “carries your fate.”
+ “In the meanwhile,” said Lord Menteith, “you, Allan, have frightened
+the blood from the cheeks of Annot Lyle--let us leave this discourse,
+my friend, and go to see what we both understand,--the progress of our
+military preparations.”
+
+They joined Angus M’Aulay and his English guests, and, in the military
+discussions which immediately took place, Allan showed a clearness
+of mind, strength of judgment, and precision of thought, totally
+inconsistent with the mystical light in which his character has been
+hitherto exhibited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     When Albin her claymore indignantly draws,
+     When her bonneted chieftains around her shall crowd,
+     Clan-Ranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
+     All plaided and plumed in their tartan array--LOCHEIL’S WARNING.
+
+Whoever saw that morning, the Castle of Darnlinvarach, beheld a busy and
+a gallant sight.
+
+The various Chiefs, arriving with their different retinues, which,
+notwithstanding their numbers, formed no more than their usual equipage
+and body-guard upon occasions of solemnity, saluted the lord of the
+castle and each other with overflowing kindness, or with haughty and
+distant politeness, according to the circumstances of friendship or
+hostility in which their clans had recently stood to each other.
+Each Chief, however small his comparative importance, showed the full
+disposition to exact from the rest the deference due to a separate and
+independent prince; while the stronger and more powerful, divided among
+themselves by recent contentions or ancient feuds, were constrained in
+policy to use great deference to the feelings of their less powerful
+brethren, in order, in case of need, to attach as many well-wishers as
+might be to their own interest and standard. Thus the meeting of Chiefs
+resembled not a little those ancient Diets of the Empire, where the
+smallest FREY-GRAF, who possessed a castle perched upon a barren crag,
+with a few hundred acres around it, claimed the state and honours of a
+sovereign prince, and a seat according to his rank among the dignitaries
+of the Empire.
+
+The followers of the different leaders were separately arranged and
+accommodated, as room and circumstances best permitted, each retaining
+however his henchman, who waited, close as the shadow, upon his person,
+to execute whatever might be required by his patron.
+
+The exterior of the castle afforded a singular scene. The Highlanders,
+from different islands, glens, and straths, eyed each other at a
+distance with looks of emulation, inquisitive curiosity, or hostile
+malevolence; but the most astounding part of the assembly, at least to
+a Lowland ear, was the rival performance of the bagpipers. These warlike
+minstrels, who had the highest opinion, each, of the superiority of
+his own tribe, joined to the most overweening idea of the importance
+connected with his profession, at first, performed their various
+pibrochs in front each of his own clan. At length, however, as the
+black-cocks towards the end of the season, when, in sportsman’s
+language, they are said to flock or crowd, attracted together by the
+sound of each others’ triumphant crow, even so did the pipers, swelling
+their plaids and tartans in the same triumphant manner in which the
+birds ruffle up their feathers, begin to approach each other within
+such distance as might give to their brethren a sample of their skill.
+Walking within a short interval, and eyeing each other with looks in
+which self-importance and defiance might be traced, they strutted,
+puffed, and plied their screaming instruments, each playing his own
+favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had lain
+buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the dead to run
+out of hearing.
+
+The Chieftains meanwhile had assembled in close conclave in the
+great hall of the castle. Among them were the persons of the greatest
+consequence in the Highlands, some of them attracted by zeal for the
+royal cause, and many by aversion to that severe and general domination
+which the Marquis of Argyle, since his rising to such influence in
+the state, had exercised over his Highland neighbours. That statesman,
+indeed, though possessed of considerable abilities, and great power, had
+failings, which rendered him unpopular among the Highland chiefs. The
+devotion which he professed was of a morose and fanatical character; his
+ambition appeared to be insatiable, and inferior chiefs complained
+of his want of bounty and liberality. Add to this, that although a
+Highlander, and of a family distinguished for valour before and since,
+Gillespie Grumach [GRUMACH--ill-favored.] (which, from an obliquity in
+his eyes, was the personal distinction he bore in the Highlands, where
+titles of rank are unknown) was suspected of being a better man in the
+cabinet than in the field. He and his tribe were particularly obnoxious
+to the M’Donalds and the M’Leans, two numerous septs, who, though
+disunited by ancient feuds, agreed in an intense dislike to the
+Campbells, or, as they were called, the Children of Diarmid.
+
+For some time the assembled Chiefs remained silent, until some one
+should open the business of the meeting. At length one of the most
+powerful of them commenced the diet by saying,--“We have been summoned
+hither, M’Aulay, to consult of weighty matters concerning the King’s
+affairs, and those of the state; and we crave to know by whom they are
+to be explained to us?”
+
+M’Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his wish
+that Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great
+modesty, and at the same time with spirit, that young lord said, “he
+wished what he was about to propose had come from some person of better
+known and more established character. Since, however, it lay with him
+to be spokesman, he had to state to the Chiefs assembled, that those who
+wished to throw off the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to
+wreath round their necks, had not a moment to lose. ‘The Covenanters,’”
+ he said, “after having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having
+extorted from him every request, reasonable or unreasonable, which
+they thought proper to demand--after their Chiefs had been loaded with
+dignities and favours--after having publicly declared, when his Majesty,
+after a gracious visit to the land of his nativity, was upon his
+return to England, that he returned a contented king from a contented
+people,--after all this, and without even the pretext for a national
+grievance, the same men have, upon doubts and suspicions, equally
+dishonourable to the King, and groundless in themselves, detached a
+strong army to assist his rebels in England, in a quarrel with which
+Scotland had no more to do than she has with the wars in Germany. It was
+well,” he said, “that the eagerness with which this treasonable purpose
+was pursued, had blinded the junta who now usurped the government of
+Scotland to the risk which they were about to incur. The army which they
+had dispatched to England under old Leven comprehended their veteran
+soldiers, the strength of those armies which had been levied in Scotland
+during the two former wars--”
+
+Here Captain Dalgetty endeavoured to rise, for the purpose of explaining
+how many veteran officers, trained in the German wars, were, to his
+certain knowledge, in the army of the Earl of Leven. But Allan M’Aulay
+holding him down in his seat with one hand, pressed the fore-finger of
+the other upon his own lips, and, though with some difficulty, prevented
+his interference. Captain Dalgetty looked upon him with a very scornful
+and indignant air, by which the other’s gravity was in no way moved, and
+Lord Menteith proceeded without farther interruption.
+
+“The moment,” he said, “was most favourable for all true-hearted and
+loyal Scotchmen to show, that the reproach their country had lately
+undergone arose from the selfish ambition of a few turbulent and
+seditious men, joined to the absurd fanaticism which, disseminated from
+five hundred pulpits, had spread like a land-flood over the Lowlands of
+Scotland. He had letters from the Marquis of Huntly in the north, which
+he should show to the Chiefs separately. That nobleman, equally loyal
+and powerful was determined to exert his utmost energy in the common
+cause, and the powerful Earl of Seaforth was prepared to join the same
+standard. From the Earl of Airly, and the Ogilvies in Angusshire, he had
+had communications equally decided; and there was no doubt that these,
+who, with the Hays, Leiths, Burnets, and other loyal gentlemen, would be
+soon on horseback, would form a body far more than sufficient to overawe
+the northern Covenanters, who had already experienced their valour in
+the well-known rout which was popularly termed the Trot of Turiff. South
+of Forth and Tay,” he said, “the King had many friends, who, oppressed
+by enforced oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy taxes, unjustly imposed
+and unequally levied, by the tyranny of the Committee of Estates, and
+the inquisitorial insolence of the Presbyterian divines, waited but the
+waving of the royal banner to take up arms. Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh,
+Hume, all friendly to the royal cause, would counterbalance,” he said,
+“the covenanting interest in the south; and two gentlemen, of name and
+quality, here present, from the north of England, would answer for the
+zeal of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland. Against so many
+gallant gentlemen the southern Covenanters could but arm raw levies; the
+Whigamores of the western shires, and the ploughmen and mechanics of
+the Low-country. For the West Highlands, he knew no interest which the
+Covenanters possessed there, except that of one individual, as well
+known as he was odious. But was there a single man, who, on casting his
+eye round this hall, and recognising the power, the gallantry, and the
+dignity of the chiefs assembled, could entertain a moment’s doubt of
+their success against the utmost force which Gillespie Grumach could
+collect against them? He had only farther to add, that considerable
+funds, both of money and ammunition, had been provided for the
+army”--(Here Dalgetty pricked up his ears)--“that officers of ability
+and experience in the foreign wars, one of whom was now present,” (the
+Captain drew himself up, and looked round,) “had engaged to train such
+levies as might require to be disciplined;--and that a numerous body
+of auxiliary forces from Ireland, having been detached from the Earl of
+Antrim, from Ulster, had successfully accomplished their descent upon
+the main land, and, with the assistance of Clanranald’s people, having
+taken and fortified the Castle of Mingarry, in spite of Argyle’s
+attempts to intercept them, were in full march to this place of
+rendezvous. It only remained,” he said, “that the noble Chiefs
+assembled, laying aside every lesser consideration, should unite, heart
+and hand, in the common cause; send the fiery cross through their clans,
+in order to collect their utmost force, and form their junction with
+such celerity as to leave the enemy no time, either for preparation, or
+recovery from the panic which would spread at the first sound of their
+pibroch. He himself,” he said, “though neither among the richest nor the
+most powerful of the Scottish nobility, felt that he had to support
+the dignity of an ancient and honourable house, the independence of an
+ancient and honourable nation, and to that cause he was determined
+to devote both life and fortune. If those who were more powerful were
+equally prompt, he trusted they would deserve the thanks of their King,
+and the gratitude of posterity.”
+
+Loud applause followed this speech of Lord Menteith, and testified
+the general acquiescence of all present in the sentiments which he
+had expressed; but when the shout had died away, the assembled Chiefs
+continued to gaze upon each other as if something yet remained to be
+settled. After some whispers among themselves, an aged man, whom his grey
+hairs rendered respectable, although he was not of the highest order of
+Chiefs, replied to what had been said.
+
+“Thane of Menteith,” he said, “you have well spoken; nor is there one of
+us in whose bosom the same sentiments do not burn like fire. But it is
+not strength alone that wins the fight; it is the head of the commander,
+as well as the arm of the soldier, that brings victory. I ask of you who
+is to raise and sustain the banner under which we are invited to rise
+and muster ourselves? Will it be expected that we should risk our
+children, and the flower of our kinsmen, ere we know to whose guidance
+they are to be intrusted? This were leading those to slaughter, whom, by
+the laws of God and man, it is our duty to protect. Where is the royal
+commission, under which the lieges are to be convocated in arms? Simple
+and rude as we may be deemed, we know something of the established rules
+of war, as well as of the laws of our country; nor will we arm ourselves
+against the general peace of Scotland, unless by the express commands
+of the King, and under a leader fit to command such men as are here
+assembled.”
+
+“Where would you find such a leader,” said another Chief, starting up,
+“saving the representative of the Lord of the Isles, entitled by birth
+and hereditary descent to lead forth the array of every clan of the
+Highlands; and where is that dignity lodged, save in the house of Vich
+Alister More?”
+
+“I acknowledge,” said another Chief, eagerly interrupting the speaker,
+“the truth in what has been first said, but not the inference. If Vich
+Alister More desires to be held representative of the Lord of the Isles,
+let him first show his blood is redder than mine.”
+
+“That is soon tried,” said Vich Alister More, laying his hand upon the
+basket hilt of his claymore. Lord Menteith threw himself between
+them, entreating and imploring each to remember that the interests of
+Scotland, the liberty of their country, and the cause of their King,
+ought to be superior in their eyes to any personal disputes respecting
+descent, rank, and precedence. Several of the Highland Chiefs, who had
+no desire to admit the claims of either chieftain, interfered to the
+same purpose, and none with more emphasis than the celebrated Evan Dhu.
+
+“I have come from my lakes,” he said, “as a stream descends from the
+hills, not to turn again, but to accomplish my course. It is not by
+looking back to our own pretensions that we shall serve Scotland or King
+Charles. My voice shall be for that general whom the King shall name,
+who will doubtless possess those qualities which are necessary to
+command men like us. High-born he must be, or we shall lose our rank in
+obeying him--wise and skilful, or we shall endanger the safety of
+our people--bravest among the brave, or we shall peril our own
+honour--temperate, firm, and manly, to keep us united. Such is the man
+that must command us. Are you prepared, Thane of Menteith, to say where
+such a general is to be found?”
+
+“There is but ONE,” said Allan M’Aulay; “and here,” he said, laying
+his hand upon the shoulder of Anderson, who stood behind Lord Menteith,
+“here he stands!”
+
+The general surprise of the meeting was expressed by an impatient
+murmur; when Anderson, throwing back the cloak in which his face was
+muffled, and stepping forward, spoke thus:--“I did not long intend to be
+a silent spectator of this interesting scene, although my hasty friend
+has obliged me to disclose myself somewhat sooner than was my intention.
+Whether I deserve the honour reposed in me by this parchment will best
+appear from what I shall be able to do for the King’s service. It is a
+commission under the great seal, to James Graham, Earl of Montrose, to
+command those forces which are to be assembled for the service of his
+Majesty in this kingdom.”
+
+A loud shout of approbation burst from the assembly. There was, in fact,
+no other person to whom, in point of rank, these proud mountaineers
+would have been disposed to submit. His inveterate and hereditary
+hostility to the Marquis of Argyle insured his engaging in the war with
+sufficient energy, while his well-known military talents, and his
+tried valour, afforded every hope of his bringing it to a favourable
+conclusion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
+     constant:  a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation:
+     an excellent plot, very good friends.--HENRY IV Part I.
+
+No sooner had the general acclamation of joyful surprise subsided, than
+silence was eagerly demanded for reading the royal commission; and the
+bonnets, which hitherto each Chief had worn, probably because unwilling
+to be the first to uncover, were now at once vailed in honour of
+the royal warrant. It was couched in the most full and ample terms,
+authorizing the Earl of Montrose to assemble the subjects in arms,
+for the putting down the present rebellion, which divers traitors
+and seditious persons had levied against the King, to the manifest
+forfaulture, as it stated, of their allegiance, and to the breach of
+the pacification between the two kingdoms. It enjoined all subordinate
+authorities to be obedient and assisting to Montrose in his enterprise;
+gave him the power of making ordinances and proclamations, punishing
+misdemeanours, pardoning criminals, placing and displacing governors and
+commanders. In fine, it was as large and full a commission as any with
+which a prince could intrust a subject. As soon as it was finished,
+a shout burst from the assembled Chiefs, in testimony of their ready
+submission to the will of their sovereign. Not contented with generally
+thanking them for a reception so favourable, Montrose hastened to
+address himself to individuals, The most important Chiefs had already
+been long personally known to him, but even to those of inferior
+consequence he now introduced himself and by the acquaintance he
+displayed with their peculiar designations, and the circumstances and
+history of their clans, he showed how long he must have studied the
+character of the mountaineers, and prepared himself for such a situation
+as he now held.
+
+While he was engaged in these acts of courtesy, his graceful manner,
+expressive features, and dignity of deportment, made a singular contrast
+with the coarseness and meanness of his dress. Montrose possessed that
+sort of form and face, in which the beholder, at the first glance, sees
+nothing extraordinary, but of which the interest becomes more impressive
+the longer we gaze upon them. His stature was very little above the
+middle size, but in person he was uncommonly well-built, and capable
+both of exerting great force, and enduring much fatigue. In fact,
+he enjoyed a constitution of iron, without which he could not have
+sustained the trials of his extraordinary campaigns, through all of
+which he subjected himself to the hardships of the meanest soldier.
+He was perfect in all exercises, whether peaceful or martial, and
+possessed, of course, that graceful ease of deportment proper to those
+to whom habit has rendered all postures easy.
+
+His long brown hair, according to the custom of men of quality among the
+Royalists, was parted on the top of his head, and trained to hang down
+on each side in curled locks, one of which, descending two or three
+inches lower than the others, intimated Montrose’s compliance with that
+fashion against which it pleased Mr. Prynne, the puritan, to write a
+treatise, entitled, THE UNLOVELINESS OF LOVE-LOCKS. The features which
+these tresses enclosed, were of that kind which derive their interest
+from the character of the man, rather than from the regularity of their
+form. But a high nose, a full, decided, well-opened, quick grey eye, and
+a sanguine complexion, made amends for some coarseness and irregularity
+in the subordinate parts of the face; so that, altogether, Montrose
+might be termed rather a handsome, than a hard-featured man. But those
+who saw him when his soul looked through those eyes with all the energy
+and fire of genius--those who heard him speak with the authority of
+talent, and the eloquence of nature, were impressed with an opinion
+even of his external form, more enthusiastically favourable than the
+portraits which still survive would entitle us to ascribe to it. Such,
+at least, was the impression he made upon the assembled Chiefs of the
+mountaineers, over whom, as upon all persons in their state of society,
+personal appearance has no small influence.
+
+In the discussions which followed his discovering himself, Montrose
+explained the various risks which he had run in his present undertaking.
+His first attempt had been to assemble a body of loyalists in the north
+of England, who, in obedience to the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle,
+he expected would have marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of
+the English to cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim,
+who was to have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army,
+prevented his executing this design. Other plans having in like manner
+failed, he stated that he found himself under the necessity of assuming
+a disguise to render his passage secure through the Lowlands, in which
+he had been kindly assisted by his kinsman of Menteith. By what means
+Allan M’Aulay had come to know him, he could not pretend to explain.
+Those who knew Allan’s prophetic pretensions, smiled mysteriously;
+but he himself only replied, that “the Earl of Montrose need not be
+surprised if he was known to thousands, of whom he himself could retain
+no memory.”
+
+“By the honour of a cavalier,” said Captain Dalgetty, finding at length
+an opportunity to thrust in his word, “I am proud and happy in having an
+opportunity of drawing a sword under your lordship’s command; and I do
+forgive all grudge, malecontent, and malice of my heart, to Mr. Allan
+M’Aulay, for having thrust me down to the lowest seat of the board
+yestreen. Certes, he hath this day spoken so like a man having full
+command of his senses, that I had resolved in my secret purpose that he
+was no way entitled to claim the privilege of insanity. But since I
+was only postponed to a noble earl, my future commander-in-chief, I do,
+before you all, recognise the justice of the preference, and heartily
+salute Allan as one who is to be his BON-CAMARADO.”
+
+Having made this speech, which was little understood or attended to,
+without putting off his military glove, he seized on Allan’s hand,
+and began to shake it with violence, which Allan, with a gripe like a
+smith’s vice, returned with such force, as to drive the iron splents of
+the gauntlet into the hand of the wearer.
+
+Captain Dalgetty might have construed this into a new affront, had not
+his attention, as he stood blowing and shaking the injured member, been
+suddenly called by Montrose himself.
+
+“Hear this news,” he said, “Captain Dalgetty--I should say Major
+Dalgetty,--the Irish, who are to profit by your military experience, are
+now within a few leagues of us.”
+
+“Our deer-stalkers,” said Angus M’Aulay, “who were abroad to bring in
+venison for this honourable party, have heard of a band of strangers,
+speaking neither Saxon nor pure Gaelic, and with difficulty making
+themselves understood by the people of the country, who are marching
+this way in arms, under the leading, it is said, of Alaster M’Donald,
+who is commonly called Young Colkitto.”
+
+“These must be our men,” said Montrose; “we must hasten to send
+messengers forward, both to act as guides and to relieve their wants.”
+
+“The last,” said Angus M’Aulay, “will be no easy matter; for I am
+informed, that, excepting muskets and a very little ammunition, they
+want everything that soldiers should have; and they are particularly
+deficient in money, in shoes, and in raiment.”
+
+“There is at least no use in saying so,” said Montrose, “in so loud
+a tone. The puritan weavers of Glasgow shall provide them plenty of
+broad-cloth, when we make a descent from the Highlands; and if the
+ministers could formerly preach the old women of the Scottish boroughs
+out of their webs of napery, to make tents to the fellows on Dunse Law,
+[The Covenanters encamped on Dunse Law, during the troubles of 1639.] I
+will try whether I have not a little interest both to make these godly
+dames renew their patriotic gift, and the prick-eared knaves, their
+husbands, open their purses.”
+
+“And respecting arms,” said Captain Dalgetty, “if your lordship will
+permit an old cavalier to speak his mind, so that the one-third have
+muskets, my darling weapon would be the pike for the remainder, whether
+for resisting a charge of horse, or for breaking the infantry. A common
+smith will make a hundred pike-heads in a day; here is plenty of wood
+for shafts; and I will uphold, that, according to the best usages of
+war, a strong battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of
+the North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx,
+of which I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied in the
+ancient town of Bon-accord; and further, I will venture to predicate--”
+
+The Captain’s lecture upon tactics was here suddenly interrupted by
+Allan M’Aulay, who said, hastily,--“Room for an unexpected and unwelcome
+guest!”
+
+At the same moment, the door of the hall opened, and a grey-haired man,
+of a very stately appearance, presented himself to the assembly. There
+was much dignity, and even authority, in his manner. His stature was
+above the common size, and his looks such as were used to command. He
+cast a severe, and almost stern glance upon the assembly of Chiefs.
+Those of the higher rank among them returned it with scornful
+indifference; but some of the western gentlemen of inferior power,
+looked as if they wished themselves elsewhere.
+
+“To which of this assembly,” said the stranger, “am I to address myself
+as leader? or have you not fixed upon the person who is to hold an
+office at least as perilous as it is honourable?”
+
+“Address yourself to me, Sir Duncan Campbell,” said Montrose, stepping
+forward.
+
+“To you!” said Sir Duncan Campbell, with some scorn.
+
+“Yes,--to me,” repeated Montrose,--“to the Earl of Montrose, if you have
+forgot him.”
+
+“I should now, at least,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “have had some
+difficulty in recognising him in the disguise of a groom.--and yet I
+might have guessed that no evil influence inferior to your lordship’s,
+distinguished as one who troubles Israel, could have collected together
+this rash assembly of misguided persons.”
+
+“I will answer unto you,” said Montrose, “in the manner of your own
+Puritans. I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house.
+But let us leave an altercation, which is of little consequence but
+to ourselves, and hear the tidings you have brought from your Chief of
+Argyle; for I must conclude that it is in his name that you have come to
+this meeting.”
+
+“It is in the name of the Marquis of Argyle,” said Sir Duncan
+Campbell,--“in the name of the Scottish Convention of Estates, that
+I demand to know the meaning of this singular convocation. If it is
+designed to disturb the peace of the country, it were but acting like
+neighbours, and men of honour, to give us some intimation to stand upon
+our guard.”
+
+“It is a singular, and new state of affairs in Scotland,” said Montrose,
+turning from Sir Duncan Campbell to the assembly, “when Scottish men of
+rank and family cannot meet in the house of a common friend without an
+inquisitorial visit and demand, on the part of our rulers, to know the
+subject of our conference. Methinks our ancestors were accustomed to
+hold Highland huntings, or other purposes of meeting, without asking
+the leave either of the great M’Callum More himself, or any of his
+emissaries or dependents.”
+
+“The times have been such in Scotland,” answered one of the Western
+Chiefs, “and such they will again be, when the intruders on our
+ancient possessions are again reduced to be Lairds of Lochow instead of
+overspreading us like a band of devouring locusts.”
+
+“Am I to understand, then,” said Sir Duncan, “that it is against my name
+alone that these preparations are directed? or are the race of Diarmid
+only to be sufferers in common with the whole of the peaceful and
+orderly inhabitants of Scotland?”
+
+“I would ask,” said a wild-looking Chief, starting hastily up, “one
+question of the Knight of Ardenvohr, ere he proceeds farther in his
+daring catechism.--Has he brought more than one life to this castle,
+that he ventures to intrude among us for the purposes of insult?”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Montrose, “let me implore your patience; a messenger
+who comes among us for the purpose of embassy, is entitled to freedom of
+speech and safe-conduct. And since Sir Duncan Campbell is so pressing, I
+care not if I inform him, for his guidance, that he is in an assembly
+of the King’s loyal subjects, convoked by me, in his Majesty’s name and
+authority, and as empowered by his Majesty’s royal commission.”
+
+“We are to have, then, I presume,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “a civil
+war in all its forms? I have been too long a soldier to view its
+approach with anxiety; but it would have been for my Lord of Montrose’s
+honour, if, in this matter, he had consulted his own ambition less, and
+the peace of the country more.”
+
+“Those consulted their own ambition and self-interest, Sir Duncan,”
+ answered Montrose, “who brought the country to the pass in which it
+now stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies which we are now
+reluctantly about to use.”
+
+“And what rank among these self-seekers,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “we
+shall assign to a noble Earl, so violently attached to the Covenant,
+that he was the first, in 1639, to cross the Tyne, wading middle deep at
+the head of his regiment, to charge the royal forces? It was the same,
+I think, who imposed the Covenant upon the burgesses and colleges of
+Aberdeen, at the point of sword and pike.”
+
+“I understand your sneer, Sir Duncan,” said Montrose, temperately; “and
+I can only add, that if sincere repentance can make amends for youthful
+error, and for yielding to the artful representation of ambitious
+hypocrites, I shall be pardoned for the crimes with which you taunt me.
+I will at least endeavour to deserve forgiveness, for I am here, with
+my sword in my hand, willing to spend the best blood of my body to make
+amends for my error; and mortal man can do no more.”
+
+“Well, my lord,” said Sir Duncan, “I shall be sorry to carry back this
+language to the Marquis of Argyle. I had it in farther charge from the
+Marquis, that, to prevent the bloody feuds which must necessarily follow
+a Highland war, his lordship will be contented if terms of truce could
+be arranged to the north of the Highland line, as there is ground enough
+in Scotland to fight upon, without neighbours destroying each other’s
+families and inheritances.”
+
+“It is a peaceful proposal,” said Montrose, smiling, “such as it
+should be, coming from one whose personal actions have always been more
+peaceful than his measures. Yet, if the terms of such a truce could be
+equally fixed, and if we can obtain security, for that, Sir Duncan, is
+indispensable,--that your Marquis will observe these terms with strict
+fidelity, I, for my part, should be content to leave peace behind us,
+since we must needs carry war before us. But, Sir Duncan, you are too
+old and experienced a soldier for us to permit you to remain in our
+leaguer, and witness our proceedings; we shall therefore, when you have
+refreshed yourself, recommend your speedy return to Inverary, and we
+shall send with you a gentleman on our part to adjust the terms of
+the Highland armistice, in case the Marquis shall be found serious in
+proposing such a measure.” Sir Duncan Campbell assented by a bow.
+
+“My Lord of Menteith,” continued Montrose, “will you have the goodness
+to attend Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, while we determine who shall
+return with him to his Chief? M’Aulay will permit us to request that he
+be entertained with suitable hospitality.”
+
+“I will give orders for that,” said Allan M’Aulay, rising and coming
+forward. “I love Sir Duncan Campbell; we have been joint sufferers in
+former days, and I do not forget it now.”
+
+“My Lord of Menteith,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “I am grieved to
+see you, at your early age, engaged in such desperate and rebellious
+courses.”
+
+“I am young,” answered Menteith, “yet old enough to distinguish between
+right and wrong, between loyalty and rebellion; and the sooner a good
+course is begun, the longer and the better have I a chance of running
+it.”
+
+“And you too, my friend, Allan M’Aulay,” said Sir Duncan, taking his
+hand, “must we also call each other enemies, that have been so often
+allied against a common foe?” Then turning round to the meeting, he
+said, “Farewell, gentlemen; there are so many of you to whom I wish
+well, that your rejection of all terms of mediation gives me deep
+affliction. May Heaven,” he said, looking upwards, “judge between our
+motives, and those of the movers of this civil commotion!”
+
+“Amen,” said Montrose; “to that tribunal we all submit us.”
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell left the hall, accompanied by Allan M’Aulay and Lord
+Menteith. “There goes a true-bred Campbell,” said Montrose, as the envoy
+departed, “for they are ever fair and false.”
+
+“Pardon me, my lord,” said Evan Dhu; “hereditary enemy as I am to their
+name, I have ever found the Knight of Ardenvohr brave in war, honest in
+peace, and true in council.”
+
+“Of his own disposition,” said Montrose, “such he is undoubtedly; but
+he now acts as the organ or mouth-piece of his Chief, the Marquis, the
+falsest man that ever drew breath. And, M’Aulay,” he continued in a
+whisper to his host, “lest he should make some impression upon the
+inexperience of Menteith, or the singular disposition of your brother,
+you had better send music into their chamber, to prevent his inveigling
+them into any private conference.”
+
+“The devil a musician have I,” answered M’Aulay, “excepting the piper,
+who has nearly broke his wind by an ambitious contention for superiority
+with three of his own craft; but I can send Annot Lyle and her harp.”
+ And he left the apartment to give orders accordingly.
+
+Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the
+perilous task of returning with Sir Duncan to Inverary. To the higher
+dignitaries, accustomed to consider themselves upon an equality even
+with M’Callum More, this was an office not to be proposed; unto others
+who could not plead the same excuse, it was altogether unacceptable. One
+would have thought Inverary had been the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
+the inferior chiefs showed such reluctance to approach it. After a
+considerable hesitation, the plain reason was at length spoken
+out, namely, that whatever Highlander should undertake an office so
+distasteful to M’Callum More, he would be sure to treasure the offence
+in his remembrance, and one day or other to make him bitterly repent of
+it.
+
+In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice as
+a mere stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not ventured
+bluntly to reject it in presence of those whom it concerned so nearly,
+resolved to impose the danger and dignity upon Captain Dalgetty, who had
+neither clan nor estate in the Highlands upon which the wrath of Argyle
+could wreak itself.
+
+“But I have a neck though,” said Dalgetty, bluntly; “and what if he
+chooses to avenge himself upon that? I have known a case where an
+honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before now. Neither did
+the Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully at the siege of Capua,
+although I read that they only cut off their hands and noses, put out
+their eyes, and suffered them to depart in peace.”
+
+“By my honour Captain Dalgetty,” said Montrose, “should the Marquis,
+contrary to the rules of war, dare to practise any atrocity against you,
+you may depend upon my taking such signal vengeance that all Scotland
+shall ring of it.”
+
+“That will do but little for Dalgetty,” returned the Captain; “but
+corragio! as the Spaniard says. With the Land of Promise full in
+view, the Moor of Drumthwacket, MEA PAUPERA REGNA, as we said at
+Mareschal-College, I will not refuse your Excellency’s commission,
+being conscious it becomes a cavalier of honour to obey his commander’s
+orders, in defiance both of gibbet and sword.”
+
+“Gallantly resolved,” said Montrose; “and if you will come apart with
+me, I will furnish you with the conditions to be laid before M’Callum
+More, upon which we are willing to grant him a truce for his Highland
+dominions.”
+
+With these we need not trouble our readers. They were of an evasive
+nature, calculated to meet a proposal which Montrose considered to have
+been made only for the purpose of gaining time. When he had put Captain
+Dalgetty in complete possession of his instructions, and when that
+worthy, making his military obeisance, was near the door of his
+apartment, Montrose made him a sign to return.
+
+“I presume,” said he, “I need not remind an officer who has served under
+the great Gustavus, that a little more is required of a person sent with
+a flag of truce than mere discharge of his instructions, and that his
+general will expect from him, on his return, some account of the state
+of the enemy’s affairs, as far as they come under his observation. In
+short, Captain Dalgetty, you must be UN PEU CLAIR-VOYANT.”
+
+“Ah ha! your Excellency,” said the Captain, twisting his hard features
+into an inimitable expression of cunning and intelligence, “if they do
+not put my head in a poke, which I have known practised upon honourable
+soldados who have been suspected to come upon such errands as the
+present, your Excellency may rely on a preceese narration of whatever
+Dugald Dalgetty shall hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune
+there are in M’Callum More’s pibroch, or how many checks in the sett of
+his plaid and trews.”
+
+“Enough,” answered Montrose; “farewell, Captain Dalgetty: and as they
+say that a lady’s mind is always expressed in her postscript, so I would
+have you think that the most important part of your commission lies in
+what I have last said to you.”
+
+Dalgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual his
+charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching mission.
+
+At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first
+care,--he met Angus M’Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been looking
+at his horse; and, after praising his points and carriage, both united
+in strongly dissuading the Captain from taking an animal of such value
+with him upon his present very fatiguing journey.
+
+Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather
+wild tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into
+Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bothies where he would be
+condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be procured for
+his horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old heather. In short,
+he pronounced it absolutely impossible, that, after undertaking such a
+pilgrimage, the animal could be in any case for military service. The
+Englishman strongly confirmed all that Angus had said, and gave himself,
+body and soul, to the devil, if he thought it was not an act little
+short of absolute murder to carry a horse worth a farthing into such a
+waste and inhospitable desert. Captain Dalgetty for an instant looked
+steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and next at the other, and then
+asked them, as if in a state of indecision, what they would advise him
+to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.
+
+“By the hand of my father, my dear friend,” answered M’Aulay, “if you
+leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed and sorted
+according to his worth and quality, and that upon your happy return, you
+will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in butter.”
+
+“Or,” said Sir Miles Musgrave, “if this worthy cavalier chooses to part
+with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part of the silver
+candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse, which I shall be very
+willing to transfer to his.”
+
+“In brief, mine honourable friends,” said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing
+them both with an air of comic penetration, “I find it would not be
+altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember
+the old soldier by, in case it shall please M’Callum More to hang him
+up at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small
+satisfaction to me, in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier
+like Sir Miles Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our
+excellent landlord, should act as my executor.”
+
+Both hastened to protest that they had no such object, and insisted
+again upon the impassable character of the Highland paths. Angus
+M’Aulay mumbled over a number of hard Gaellic names, descriptive of the
+difficult passes, precipices, corries, and beals, through which he
+said the road lay to Inverary, when old Donald, who had now entered,
+sanctioned his master’s account of these difficulties, by holding up his
+hands, and elevating his eyes, and shaking his head, at every gruttural
+which M’Aulay pronounced. But all this did not move the inflexible
+Captain.
+
+“My worthy friends,” said he, “Gustavus is not new to the dangers of
+travelling, and the mountains of Bohemia; and (no disparagement to the
+beals and corries Mr. Angus is pleased to mention, and of which Sir
+Miles, who never saw them, confirms the horrors,) these mountains may
+compete with the vilest roads in Europe. In fact, my horse hath a most
+excellent and social quality; for although he cannot pledge in my cup,
+yet we share our loaf between us, and it will be hard if he suffers
+famine where cakes or bannocks are to be found. And, to cut this matter
+short, I beseech you, my good friends, to observe the state of Sir
+Duncan Campbell’s palfrey, which stands in that stall before us, fat
+and fair; and, in return for your anxiety an my account, I give you
+my honest asseveration, that while we travel the same road, both that
+palfrey and his rider shall lack for food before either Gustavus or I.”
+
+Having said this he filled a large measure with corn, and walked up with
+it to his charger, who, by his low whinnying neigh, his pricked ears,
+and his pawing, showed how close the alliance was betwixt him and his
+rider. Nor did he taste his corn until he had returned his master’s
+caresses, by licking his hands and face. After this interchange of
+greeting, the steed began to his provender with an eager dispatch, which
+showed old military habits; and the master, after looking on the animal
+with great complacency for about five minutes, said,--“Much good may it
+do your honest heart, Gustavus;--now must I go and lay in provant myself
+for the campaign.”
+
+He then departed, having first saluted the Englishman and Angus M’Aulay,
+who remained looking at each other for some time in silence, and then
+burst out into a fit of laughter.
+
+“That fellow,” said Sir Miles Musgrave, “is formed to go through the
+world.”
+
+“I shall think so too,” said M’Aulay, “if he can slip through M’Callum
+More’s fingers as easily as he has done through ours.”
+
+“Do you think,” said the Englishman, “that the Marquis will not respect,
+in Captain Dalgetty’s person, the laws of civilized war?”
+
+“No more than I would respect a Lowland proclamation,” said Angus
+M’Aulay.--“But come along, it is time I were returning to my guests.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     . . . . In a rebellion,
+     When what’s not meet, but what must be, was law,
+     Then were they chosen, in a better hour,
+     Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
+     And throw their power i’ the dust.--CORIOLANUS.
+In a small apartment, remote from the rest of the guests assembled at
+the castle, Sir Duncan Campbell was presented with every species of
+refreshment, and respectfully attended by Lord Menteith, and by Allan
+M’Aulay. His discourse with the latter turned upon a sort of hunting
+campaign, in which they had been engaged together against the Children
+of the Mist, with whom the Knight of Ardenvohr, as well as the M’Aulays,
+had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. Sir Duncan, however, speedily
+endeavoured to lead back the conversation to the subject of his present
+errand to the castle of Darnlinvarach.
+
+“It grieved him to the very heart,” he said, “to see that friends and
+neighbours, who should stand shoulder to shoulder, were likely to be
+engaged hand to hand in a cause which so little concerned them. What
+signifies it,” he said, “to the Highland Chiefs, whether King or
+Parliament got uppermost? Were it not better to let them settle their
+own differences without interference, while the Chiefs, in the meantime,
+took the opportunity of establishing their own authority in a manner
+not to be called in question hereafter by either King or Parliament?”
+ He reminded Allan M’Aulay that the measures taken in the last reign
+to settle the peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in fact
+levelled at the patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentioned
+the celebrated settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they were
+called, in the Lewis, as part of a deliberate plan, formed to introduce
+strangers among the Celtic tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancient
+customs and mode of government, and to despoil them of the inheritance
+of their fathers. [In the reign of James VI., an attempt of rather an
+extraordinary kind was made to civilize the extreme northern part of the
+Hebridean Archipelago. That monarch granted the property of the Island
+of Lewis, as if it had been an unknown and savage country, to a number
+of Lowland gentlemen, called undertakers, chiefly natives of the shire
+of Fife, that they might colonize and settle there. The enterprise
+was at first successful, but the natives of the island, MacLeods and
+MacKenzies, rose on the Lowland adventurers, and put most of them to
+the sword.] “And yet,” he continued, addressing Allan, “it is for
+the purpose of giving despotic authority to the monarch by whom these
+designs have been nursed, that so many Highland Chiefs are upon
+the point of quarrelling with, and drawing the sword against, their
+neighbours, allies, and ancient confederates.” “It is to my brother,”
+ said Allan, “it is to the eldest son of my father’s house, that the
+Knight of Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances. I am, indeed, the
+brother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his clansmen,
+and bound to show an example to the others by my cheerful and ready
+obedience to his commands.”
+
+“The cause also,” said Lord Menteith, interposing, “is far more general
+than Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it. It is neither limited
+to Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath, to Highlands nor to
+Lowlands. The question is, if we will continue to be governed by the
+unlimited authority assumed by a set of persons in no respect superior
+to ourselves, instead of returning to the natural government of the
+Prince against whom they have rebelled. And respecting the interest of
+the Highlands in particular,” he added, “I crave Sir Duncan Campbell’s
+pardon for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the only
+effect produced by the present usurpation, will be the aggrandisement
+of one overgrown clan at the expense of every independent Chief in the
+Highlands.”
+
+“I will not reply to you, my lord,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “because
+I know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed; yet you will
+pardon my saying, that being at the head of a rival branch of the House
+of Graham, I have both read of and known an Earl of Menteith, who
+would have disdained to have been tutored in politics, or to have been
+commanded in war, by an Earl of Montrose.”
+
+“You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan,” said Lord Menteith, haughtily,
+“to set my vanity in arms against my principles. The King gave my
+ancestors their title and rank; and these shall never prevent my acting,
+in the royal cause, under any one who is better qualified than myself
+to be a commander-in-chief. Least of all, shall any miserable jealousy
+prevent me from placing my hand and sword under the guidance of the
+bravest, the most loyal, the most heroic spirit among our Scottish
+nobility.”
+
+“Pity,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “that you cannot add to this panegyric
+the farther epithets of the most steady, and the most consistent. But I
+have no purpose of debating these points with you, my lord,” waving
+his hand, as if to avoid farther discussion; “the die is cast with you;
+allow me only to express my sorrow for the disastrous fate to which
+Angus M’Aulay’s natural rashness, and your lordship’s influence, are
+dragging my gallant friend Allan here, with his father’s clan, and many
+a brave man besides.”
+
+“The die is cast for us all, Sir Duncan,” replied Allan, looking gloomy,
+and arguing on his own hypochondriac feelings; “the iron hand of destiny
+branded our fate upon our forehead long ere we could form a wish, or
+raise a finger in our own behalf. Were this otherwise, by what means
+does the Seer ascertain the future from those shadowy presages which
+haunt his waking and his sleeping eye? Nought can be foreseen but that
+which is certain to happen.”
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell was about to reply, and the darkest and most
+contested point of metaphysics might have been brought into discussion
+betwixt two Highland disputants, when the door opened, and Annot Lyle,
+with her clairshach in her hand, entered the apartment. The freedom of
+a Highland maiden was in her step and in her eye; for, bred up in the
+closest intimacy with the Laird of M’Aulay and his brother, with
+Lord Menteith, and other young men who frequented Darnlinvarach, she
+possessed none of that timidity which a female, educated chiefly among
+her own sex, would either have felt, or thought necessary to assume, on
+an occasion like the present.
+
+Her dress partook of the antique, for new fashions seldom penetrated
+into the Highlands, nor would they easily have found their way to a
+castle inhabited chiefly by men, whose sole occupation was war and the
+chase. Yet Annot’s garments were not only becoming, but even rich. Her
+open jacket, with a high collar, was composed of blue cloth, richly
+embroidered, and had silver clasps to fasten, when it pleased the
+wearer. Its sleeves, which were wide, came no lower than the elbow, and
+terminated in a golden fringe; under this upper coat, if it can be so
+termed, she wore an under dress of blue satin, also richly embroidered,
+but which was several shades lighter in colour than the upper garment.
+The petticoat was formed of tartan silk, in the sett, or pattern, of
+which the colour of blue greatly predominated, so as to remove the
+tawdry effect too frequently produced in tartan, by the mixture and
+strong opposition of colours. An antique silver chain hung round
+her neck, and supported the WREST, or key, with which she turned her
+instrument. A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured by a
+brooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith. Her profusion
+of light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while, with a smile and a
+blush, she mentioned that she had M’Aulay’s directions to ask them if
+they chose music. Sir Duncan Campbell gazed with considerable surprise
+and interest at the lovely apparition, which thus interrupted his debate
+with Allan M’Aulay.
+
+“Can this,” he said to him in a whisper, “a creature so beautiful and so
+elegant, be a domestic musician of your brother’s establishment?”
+
+“By no means,” answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation; “she
+is a--a--near relation of our family--and treated,” he added, more
+firmly, “as an adopted daughter of our father’s house.”
+
+As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of courtesy
+which every Highlander can assume when it suits him to practise it, he
+resigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the same time, whatever
+refreshments the table afforded, with an assiduity which was probably
+designed to give Sir Duncan an impression of her rank and consequence.
+If such was Allan’s purpose, however, it was unnecessary. Sir Duncan
+kept his eyes fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeper
+interest than could have arisen from any impression that she was
+a person of consequence. Annot even felt embarrassed under the old
+knight’s steady gaze; and it was not without considerable hesitation,
+that, tuning her instrument, and receiving an assenting look from Lord
+Menteith and Allan, she executed the following ballad, which our friend,
+Mr. Secundus M’Pherson, whose goodness we had before to acknowledge, has
+thus translated into the English tongue:
+
+THE ORPHAN MAID.
+
+     November’s hail-cloud drifts away,
+     November’s sunbeam wan
+     Looks coldly on the castle grey,
+     When forth comes Lady Anne.
+
+     The orphan by the oak was set,
+     Her arms, her feet, were bare,
+     The hail-drops had not melted yet,
+     Amid her raven hair.
+
+     “And, Dame,” she said, “by all the ties
+     That child and mother know,
+     Aid one who never knew these joys,
+     Relieve an orphan’s woe.”
+
+     The Lady said, “An orphan’s state
+     Is hard and sad to bear;
+     Yet worse the widow’d mother’s fate,
+     Who mourns both lord and heir.
+
+     “Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
+     Since, when from vengeance wild
+     Of fierce Strathallan’s Chief I fled,
+     Forth’s eddies whelm’d my child.”
+
+     “Twelve times the year its course has born,”
+      The wandering maid replied,
+     “Since fishers on St. Bridget’s morn
+     Drew nets on Campsie side.
+
+     “St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;--
+     An infant, wellnigh dead,
+     They saved, and rear’d in want and toil,
+     To beg from you her bread.”
+
+     That orphan maid the lady kiss’d--
+     “My husband’s looks you bear;
+     St. Bridget and her morn be bless’d!
+     You are his widow’s heir.”
+
+     They’ve robed that maid, so poor and pale,
+     In silk and sandals rare;
+     And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
+     Are glistening in her hair.
+
+The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the elegance of
+the above translation, may be desirous to see a literal version from the
+original Gaelic, which we therefore subjoin; and have only to add, that
+the original is deposited with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.
+
+LITERAL TRANSLATION.
+
+     The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale
+     of autumn.  The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as
+     the wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when
+     the roar of battle hath passed over him.
+
+     Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her
+     maidens pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].
+
+     There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of
+     appointment.  The withered leaves fell around her, and her
+     heart was more withered than they.
+
+     The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost]
+     still congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like
+     the specks of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the
+     blackened and half-consumed oak that blazes in the hall.
+
+     And the maiden said, “Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan
+     child.”  And the Lady replied, “How can I give that which I
+     have not?  I am the widow of a slain lord,--the mother of a
+     perished child.  When I fled in my fear from the vengeance
+     of my husband’s foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide,
+     and my infant perished.  This was on St. Bridget’s morn,
+     near the strong Lyns of Campsie.  May ill luck light upon
+     the day.”  And the maiden answered, “It was on St. Bridget’s
+     morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the
+     fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor
+     salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in
+     misery, and must die, unless she is now aided.” And the Lady
+     answered, “Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these
+     are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and
+     thine shall be the inheritance of his widow.”  And she
+     called for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe
+     that maiden in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which
+     they wove among her black tresses, were whiter than the
+     frozen hail-drops.
+
+While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some surprise,
+that it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon the mind of Sir
+Duncan Campbell, than he could possibly have anticipated from his
+age and character. He well knew that the Highlanders of that period
+possessed a much greater sensibility both for tale and song than was
+found among their Lowland neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardly
+accounted for the embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyes
+from the songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an object
+so interesting. Still less was it to be expected, that features which
+expressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit of authority,
+should have been so much agitated by so trivial a circumstance. As the
+Chief’s brow became clouded, he drooped his large shaggy grey eyebrows
+until they almost concealed his eyes, on the lids of which something
+like a tear might be seen to glisten. He remained silent and fixed in
+the same posture for a minute or two, after the last note had ceased to
+vibrate. He then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as if
+purposing to speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose, and was
+about to address Allan, when the door opened, and the Lord of the Castle
+made his appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Dark on their journey lour’d the gloomy day,
+     Wild were the hills, and doubtful grew the way;
+     More dark, more gloomy, and more doubtful, show’d
+     The mansion, which received them from the road.
+     --THE TRAVELLERS, A ROMANCE.
+
+Angus M’Aulay was charged with a message which he seemed to find some
+difficulty in communicating; for it was not till after he had framed his
+speech several different ways, and blundered them all, that he succeeded
+in letting Sir Duncan Campbell know, that the cavalier who was to
+accompany him was waiting in readiness, and that all was prepared for
+his return to Inverary. Sir Duncan Campbell rose up very indignantly;
+the affront which this message implied immediately driving out of his
+recollection the sensibility which had been awakened by the music.
+
+“I little expected this,” he said, looking indignantly at Angus M’Aulay.
+“I little thought that there was a Chief in the West Highlands, who, at
+the pleasure of a Saxon, would have bid the Knight of Ardenvohr leave
+his castle, when the sun was declining from the meridian, and ere the
+second cup had been filled. But farewell, sir, the food of a churl does
+not satisfy the appetite; when I next revisit Darnlinvarach, it shall be
+with a naked sword in one hand, and a firebrand in the other.”
+
+“And if you so come,” said Angus, “I pledge myself to meet you fairly,
+though you brought five hundred Campbells at your back, and to afford
+you and them such entertainment, that you shall not again complain of
+the hospitality of Darnlinvarach.”
+
+“Threatened men,” said Sir Duncan, “live long. Your turn for
+gasconading, Laird of M’Aulay, is too well known, that men of honour
+should regard your vaunts. To you, my lord, and to Allan, who have
+supplied the place of my churlish host, I leave my thanks.--And to you,
+pretty mistress,” he said, addressing Annot Lyle, “this little token,
+for having opened a fountain which hath been dry for many a year.”
+ So saying, he left the apartment, and commanded his attendants to be
+summoned. Angus M’Aulay, equally embarrassed and incensed at the
+charge of inhospitality, which was the greatest possible affront to a
+Highlander, did not follow Sir Duncan to the court-yard, where, mounting
+his palfrey, which was in readiness, followed by six mounted attendants,
+and accompanied by the noble Captain Dalgetty, who had also awaited him,
+holding Gustavus ready for action, though he did not draw his girths and
+mount till Sir Duncan appeared, the whole cavalcade left the castle.
+
+The journey was long and toilsome, but without any of the extreme
+privations which the Laird of M’Aulay had prophesied. In truth, Sir
+Duncan was very cautious to avoid those nearer and more secret paths,
+by means of which the county of Argyle was accessible from the eastward;
+for his relation and chief, the Marquis, was used to boast, that he
+would not for a hundred thousand crowns any mortal should know the
+passes by which an armed force could penetrate into his country.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell, therefore, rather shunned the Highlands, and
+falling into the Low-country, made for the nearest seaport in the
+vicinity, where he had several half-decked galleys, or birlings, as
+they were called, at his command. In one of these they embarked, with
+Gustavus in company, who was so seasoned to adventure, that land and sea
+seemed as indifferent to him as to his master.
+
+The wind being favourable, they pursued their way rapidly with sails and
+oars; and early the next morning it was announced to Captain Dalgetty,
+then in a small cabin beneath the hall-deck, that the galley was under
+the walls of Sir Duncan Campbell’s castle.
+
+Ardenvohr, accordingly, rose high above him, when he came upon the deck
+of the galley. It was a gloomy square tower, of considerable size and
+great height, situated upon a headland projecting into the salt-water
+lake, or arm of the sea, which they had entered on the preceding
+evening. A wall, with flanking towers at each angle, surrounded the
+castle to landward; but, towards the lake, it was built so near the
+brink of the precipice as only to leave room for a battery of seven
+guns, designed to protect the fortress from any insult from that side,
+although situated too high to be of any effectual use according to the
+modern system of warfare.
+
+The eastern sun, rising behind the old tower, flung its shadow far on
+the lake, darkening the deck of the galley, on which Captain Dalgetty
+now walked, waiting with some impatience the signal to land. Sir Duncan
+Campbell, as he was informed by his attendants, was already within the
+walls of the castle; but no one encouraged the Captain’s proposal of
+following him ashore, until, as they stated, they should receive the
+direct permission or order of the Knight of Ardenvohr.
+
+In a short time afterwards the mandate arrived, while a boat, with a
+piper in the bow, bearing the Knight of Ardenvohr’s crest in silver upon
+his left arm, and playing with all his might the family march, entitled
+“The Campbells are coming,” approached to conduct the envoy of Montrose
+to the castle of Ardenvohr. The distance between the galley and the
+beach was so short as scarce to require the assistance of the eight
+sturdy rowers, in bonnets, short coats, and trews, whose efforts sent
+the boat to the little creek in which they usually landed, before one
+could have conceived that it had left the side of the birling. Two of
+the boatmen, in spite of Dalgetty’s resistance, horsed the Captain on
+the back of a third Highlander, and, wading through the surf with him,
+landed him high and dry upon the beach beneath the castle rock. In
+the face of this rock there appeared something like the entrance of a
+low-browed cavern, towards which the assistants were preparing to hurry
+our friend Dalgetty, when, shaking himself loose from them with some
+difficulty, he insisted upon seeing Gustavus safely landed before he
+proceeded one step farther. The Highlanders could not comprehend what he
+meant, until one who had picked up a little English, or rather Lowland
+Scotch, exclaimed, “Houts! it’s a’ about her horse, ta useless baste.”
+ Farther remonstrance on the part of Captain Dalgetty was interrupted
+by the appearance of Sir Duncan Campbell himself, from the mouth of
+the cavern which we have described, for the purpose of inviting Captain
+Dalgetty to accept of the hospitality of Ardenvohr, pledging his honour,
+at the same time, that Gustavus should be treated as became the hero
+from whom he derived his name, not to mention the important person
+to whom he now belonged. Notwithstanding this satisfactory guarantee,
+Captain Dalgetty would still have hesitated, such was his anxiety to
+witness the fate of his companion Gustavus, had not two Highlanders
+seized him by the arms, two more pushed him on behind, while a fifth
+exclaimed, “Hout awa wi’ the daft Sassenach! does she no hear the Laird
+bidding her up to her ain castle, wi’ her special voice, and isna that
+very mickle honour for the like o’ her?”
+
+Thus impelled, Captain Dalgetty could only for a short space keep a
+reverted eye towards the galley in which he had left the partner of his
+military toils. In a few minutes afterwards he found himself involved in
+the total darkness of a staircase, which, entering from the low-browed
+cavern we have mentioned, winded upwards through the entrails of the
+living rock.
+
+“The cursed Highland salvages!” muttered the Captain, half aloud; “what
+is to become of me, if Gustavus, the namesake of the invincible Lion of
+the Protestant League, should be lamed among their untenty hands!”
+
+“Have no fear of that,” said the voice of Sir Duncan, who was nearer to
+him than he imagined; “my men are accustomed to handle horses, both in
+embarking and dressing them, and you will soon see Gustavus as safe as
+when you last dismounted from his back.”
+
+Captain Dalgetty knew the world too well to offer any farther
+remonstrance, whatever uneasiness he might suppress within his own
+bosom. A step or two higher up the stair showed light and a door, and
+an iron-grated wicket led him out upon a gallery cut in the open face
+of the rock, extending a space of about six or eight yards, until he
+reached a second door, where the path re-entered the rock, and which was
+also defended by an iron portcullis. “An admirable traverse,” observed
+the Captain; “and if commanded by a field-piece, or even a few muskets,
+quite sufficient to ensure the place against a storming party.”
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell made no answer at the time; but, the moment
+afterwards, when they had entered the second cavern, he struck with the
+stick which he had in his hand, first on the one side, and then on the
+other of the wicket, and the sullen ringing sound which replied to the
+blows, made Captain Dalgetty sensible that there was a gun placed on
+each side, for the purpose of raking the gallery through which they had
+passed, although the embrasures, through which they might be fired on
+occasion, were masked on the outside with sods and loose stones. Having
+ascended the second staircase, they found themselves again on an open
+platform and gallery, exposed to a fire both of musketry and wall-guns,
+if, being come with hostile intent, they had ventured farther. A third
+flight of steps, cut in the rock like the former, but not caverned over,
+led them finally into the battery at the foot of the tower. This last
+stair also was narrow and steep, and, not to mention the fire which
+might be directed on it from above, one or two resolute men, with pikes
+and battle-axes, could have made the pass good against hundreds; for the
+staircase would not admit two persons abreast, and was not secured by
+any sort of balustrade, or railing, from the sheer and abrupt precipice,
+on the foot of which the tide now rolled with a voice of thunder. So
+that, under the jealous precautions used to secure this ancient Celtic
+fortress, a person of weak nerves, and a brain liable to become dizzy,
+might have found it something difficult to have achieved the entrance to
+the castle, even supposing no resistance had been offered.
+
+Captain Dalgetty, too old a soldier to feel such tremors, had no sooner
+arrived in the court-yard, than he protested to God, the defences of Sir
+Duncan’s castle reminded him more of the notable fortress of Spandau,
+situated in the March of Brandenburg, than of any place whilk it had
+been his fortune to defend in the course of his travels. Nevertheless,
+he criticised considerably the mode of placing the guns on the battery
+we have noticed, observing, that “where cannon were perched, like to
+scarts or sea-gulls on the top of a rock, he had ever observed that
+they astonished more by their noise than they dismayed by the skaith or
+damage which they occasioned.”
+
+Sir Duncan, without replying, conducted the soldier into the tower; the
+defences of which were a portcullis and ironclenched oaken door, the
+thickness of the wall being the space between them. He had no sooner
+arrived in a hall hung with tapestry, than the Captain prosecuted his
+military criticism. It was indeed suspended by the sight of an excellent
+breakfast, of which he partook with great avidity; but no sooner had he
+secured this meal, than he made the tour of the apartment, examining the
+ground around the Castle very carefully from each window in the room.
+He then returned to his chair, and throwing himself back into it at his
+length, stretched out one manly leg, and tapping his jack-boot with the
+riding-rod which he carried in his hand, after the manner of a half-bred
+man who affects ease in the society of his betters, he delivered his
+unasked opinion as follows:--“This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan, is a
+very pretty defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such as
+a cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding out
+for many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your house
+is overcrowed, and slighted, or commanded, as we military men say, by
+yonder round hillock to the landward, whereon an enemy might stell
+such a battery of cannon as would make ye glad to beat a chamade within
+forty-eight hours, unless it pleased the Lord extraordinarily to show
+mercy.”
+
+“There is no road,” replied Sir Duncan, somewhat shortly, “by which
+cannon can be brought against Ardenvohr. The swamps and morasses around
+my house would scarce carry your horse and yourself, excepting by such
+paths as could be rendered impassable within a few hours.”
+
+“Sir Duncan,” said the Captain, “it is your pleasure to suppose so; and
+yet we martial men say, that where there is a sea-coast there is always
+a naked side, seeing that cannon and munition, where they cannot be
+transported by land, may be right easily brought by sea near to the
+place where they are to be put in action. Neither is a castle, however
+secure in its situation, to be accounted altogether invincible, or, as
+they say, impregnable; for I protest t’ye, Sir Duncan, that I have known
+twenty-five men, by the mere surprise and audacity of the attack, win,
+at point of pike, as strong a hold as this of Ardenvohr, and put to the
+sword, captivate, or hold to the ransom, the defenders, being ten times
+their own number.”
+
+Notwithstanding Sir Duncan Campbell’s knowledge of the world, and his
+power of concealing his internal emotion, he appeared piqued and hurt
+at these reflections, which the Captain made with the most unconscious
+gravity, having merely selected the subject of conversation as one upon
+which he thought himself capable of shining, and, as they say, of laying
+down the law, without exactly recollecting that the topic might not be
+equally agreeable to his landlord.
+
+“To cut this matter short,” said Sir Duncan, with an expression of voice
+and countenance somewhat agitated, “it is unnecessary for you to
+tell me, Captain Dalgetty, that a castle may be stormed if it is not
+valorously defended, or surprised if it is not heedfully watched.
+I trust this poor house of mine will not be found in any of these
+predicaments, should even Captain Dalgetty himself choose to beleaguer
+it.”
+
+“For all that, Sir Duncan,” answered the persevering commander, “I would
+premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce upon that round
+hill, with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be easily accomplished by
+compelling the labour of the boors in the vicinity; it being the custom
+of the valorous Gustavus Adolphus to fight as much by the spade and
+shovel, as by sword, pike, and musket. Also, I would advise you to
+fortify the said sconce, not only by a foussie, or graffe, but also by
+certain stackets, or palisades.”--(Here Sir Duncan, becoming impatient,
+left the apartment, the Captain following him to the door, and raising
+his voice as he retreated, until he was fairly out of hearing.)--“The
+whilk stackets, or palisades, should be artificially framed with
+re-entering angles and loop-holes, or crenelles, for musketry, whereof
+it shall arise that the foeman--The Highland brute! the old Highland
+brute! They are as proud as peacocks, and as obstinate as tups--and here
+he has missed an opportunity of making his house as pretty an irregular
+fortification as an invading army ever broke their teeth upon.--But I
+see,” he continued, looking own from the window upon the bottom of the
+precipice, “they have got Gustavus safe ashore--Proper fellow! I would
+know that toss of his head among a whole squadron. I must go to see what
+they are to make of him.”
+
+He had no sooner reached, however, the court to the seaward, and put
+himself in the act of descending the staircase, than two Highland
+sentinels, advancing their Lochaber axes, gave him to understand that
+this was a service of danger.
+
+“Diavolo!” said the soldier, “and I have got no pass-word. I could not
+speak a syllable of their salvage gibberish, an it were to save me from
+the provost-marshal.”
+
+“I will be your surety, Captain Dalgetty,” said Sir Duncan, who had
+again approached him without his observing from whence; “and we will go
+together, and see how your favourite charger is accommodated.”
+
+He conducted him accordingly down the staircase to the beach, and from
+thence by a short turn behind a large rock, which concealed the stables
+and other offices belonging to the castle, Captain Dalgetty became
+sensible, at the same time, that the side of the castle to the land was
+rendered totally inaccessible by a ravine, partly natural and partly
+scarped with great care and labour, so as to be only passed by a
+drawbridge. Still, however, the Captain insisted, not withstanding the
+triumphant air with which Sir Duncan pointed out his defences, that a
+sconce should be erected on Drumsnab, the round eminence to the east of
+the castle, in respect the house might be annoyed from thence by burning
+bullets full of fire, shot out of cannon, according to the curious
+invention of Stephen Bathian, King of Poland, whereby that prince
+utterly ruined the great Muscovite city of Moscow. This invention,
+Captain Dalgetty owned, he had not yet witnessed, but observed, “that
+it would give him particular delectation to witness the same put to
+the proof against Ardenvohr, or any other castle of similar strength;”
+ observing, “that so curious an experiment could not but afford the
+greatest delight to all admirers of the military art.”
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell diverted this conversation by carrying the soldier
+into his stables, and suffering him to arrange Gustavus according to
+his own will and pleasure. After this duty had been carefully performed,
+Captain Dalgetty proposed to return to the castle, observing, it was his
+intention to spend the time betwixt this and dinner, which, he presumed,
+would come upon the parade about noon, in burnishing his armour, which
+having sustained some injury from the sea-air, might, he was afraid,
+seem discreditable in the eyes of M’Callum More. Yet, while they were
+returning to the castle, he failed not to warn Sir Duncan Campbell
+against the great injury he might sustain by any sudden onfall of an
+enemy, whereby his horses, cattle, and granaries, might be cut off and
+consumed, to his great prejudice; wherefore he again strongly conjured
+him to construct a sconce upon the round hill called Drumsnab, and
+offered his own friendly services in lining out the same. To this
+disinterested advice Sir Duncan only replied by ushering his guest to
+his apartment, and informing him that the tolling of the castle bell
+would make him aware when dinner was ready.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+     Is this thy castle, Baldwin?  Melancholy
+     Displays her sable banner from the donjon,
+     Darkening the foam of the whole surge beneath.
+     Were I a habitant, to see this gloom
+     Pollute the face of nature, and to hear
+     The ceaseless sound of wave, and seabird’s scream,
+     I’d wish me in the hut that poorest peasant
+     E’er framed, to give him temporary shelter.--BROWN.
+
+The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed his leisure in
+studying the exterior of Sir Duncan’s castle, and verifying his own
+military ideas upon the nature of its defences. But a stout sentinel,
+who mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of his apartment, gave
+him to understand, by very significant signs, that he was in a sort of
+honourable captivity.
+
+It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself, how well these
+salvages understand the rules and practique of war. Who should have
+pre-supposed their acquaintance with the maxim of the great and godlike
+Gustavus Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half
+a spy?--And, having finished burnishing his arms, he sate down patiently
+to compute how much half a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of
+a six-months’ campaign; and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded
+to the more abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of
+two thousand men on the principle of extracting the square root.
+
+From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound of the dinner bell,
+on which the Highlander, lately his guard, became his gentleman-usher,
+and marshalled him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore
+ample proofs of Highland hospitality. Sir Duncan entered, conducting his
+lady, a tall, faded, melancholy female, dressed in deep mourning. They
+were followed by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and
+wearing a black silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that
+it could scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an
+undue predominance in the general aspect. This ungraceful fashion was
+universal at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of roundheads,
+prick-eared curs, and so forth, which the insolence of the cavaliers
+liberally bestowed on their political enemies.
+
+Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received his
+technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in which it
+could scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater
+share. The churchman, to whom he was next presented, eyed him with a
+glance of mingled dislike and curiosity.
+
+The Captain, well accustomed to worse looks from more dangerous persons,
+cared very little either for those of the lady or of the divine, but
+bent his whole soul upon assaulting a huge piece of beef, which smoked
+at the nether end of the table. But the onslaught, as he would have
+termed it, was delayed, until the conclusion of a very long grace,
+betwixt every section of which Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as
+he might have done his musket or pike when going upon action, and as
+often resigned them unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced
+another clause of his benediction. Sir Duncan listened with decency,
+though he was supposed rather to have joined the Covenanters out of
+devotion to his chief, than real respect for the cause either of liberty
+or of Presbytery. His lady alone attended to the blessing, with symptoms
+of deep acquiescence.
+
+The meal was performed almost in Carthusian silence; for it was none of
+Captain Dalgetty’s habits to employ his mouth in talking, while it could
+be more profitably occupied. Sir Duncan was absolutely silent, and the
+lady and churchman only occasionally exchanged a few words, spoken low,
+and indistinctly.
+
+But, when the dishes were removed, and their place supplied by liquors
+of various sorts, Captain Dalgetty no longer had, himself, the same
+weighty reasons for silence, and began to tire of that of the rest
+of the company. He commenced a new attack upon his landlord, upon the
+former ground.
+
+“Touching that round monticle, or hill, or eminence, termed Drumsnab, I
+would be proud to hold some dialogue with you, Sir Duncan, on the nature
+of the sconce to be there constructed; and whether the angles
+thereof should be acute or obtuse--anent whilk I have heard the great
+Velt-Mareschal Bannier hold a learned argument with General Tiefenbach
+during a still-stand of arms.”
+
+“Captain Dalgetty,” answered Sir Duncan very dryly, “it is not our
+Highland usage to debate military points with strangers. This castle
+is like to hold out against a stronger enemy than any force which the
+unfortunate gentlemen we left at Darnlinvarach are able to bring against
+it.”
+
+A deep sigh from the lady accompanied the conclusion of her husband’s
+speech, which seemed to remind her of some painful circumstance.
+
+“He who gave,” said the clergyman, addressing her in a solemn tone,
+“hath taken away. May you, honourable lady, be long enabled to say,
+Blessed be his name!”
+
+To this exhortation, which seemed intended for her sole behoof, the
+lady answered by an inclination of her head, more humble than Captain
+Dalgetty had yet observed her make. Supposing he should now find her in
+a more conversible humour, he proceeded to accost her.
+
+“It is indubitably very natural that your ladyship should be downcast
+at the mention of military preparations, whilk I have observed to spread
+perturbation among women of all nations, and almost all conditions.
+Nevertheless, Penthesilea, in ancient times, and also Joan of Arc,
+and others, were of a different kidney. And, as I have learned while
+I served the Spaniard, the Duke of Alva in former times had the
+leaguer-lasses who followed his camp marshalled into TERTIAS (whilk
+me call regiments), and officered and commanded by those of their own
+feminine gender, and regulated by a commander-in chief, called in German
+Hureweibler, or, as we would say vernacularly, Captain of the Queans.
+True it is, they were persons not to be named as parallel to your
+ladyship, being such QUAE QUAESTUM CORPORIBUS FACIEBANT, as we said
+of Jean Drochiels at Mareschal-College; the same whom the French term
+CURTISANNES, and we in Scottish--”
+
+“The lady will spare you the trouble of further exposition, Captain
+Dalgetty,” said his host, somewhat sternly; to which the clergyman
+added, “that such discourse better befitted a watch-tower guarded
+by profane soldiery than the board of an honourable person, and the
+presence of a lady of quality.”
+
+“Craving your pardon, Dominie, or Doctor, AUT QUOCUNQUE ALIO NOMINE
+GAUDES, for I would have you to know I have studied polite letters,”
+ said the unabashed envoy, filling a great cup of wine, “I see no ground
+for your reproof, seeing I did not speak of those TURPES PERSONAE, as if
+their occupation or character was a proper subject of conversation
+for this lady’s presence, but simply PAR ACCIDENS, as illustrating
+the matter in hand, namely, their natural courage and audacity, much
+enhanced, doubtless, by the desperate circumstances of their condition.”
+
+“Captain Dalgetty,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “to break short this
+discourse, I must acquaint you, that I have some business to dispatch
+to-night, in order to enable me to ride with you to-morrow towards
+Inverary; and therefore--”
+
+“To ride with this person to-morrow!” exclaimed his lady; “such cannot
+be your purpose, Sir Duncan, unless you have forgotten that the morrow
+is a sad anniversary, and dedicated to as sad a solemnity.”
+
+“I had not forgotten,” answered Sir Duncan; “how is it possible I can
+ever forget? but the necessity of the times requires I should send this
+officer onward to Inverary, without loss of time.”
+
+“Yet, surely, not that you should accompany him in person?” enquired the
+lady.
+
+“It were better I did,” said Sir Duncan; “yet I can write to the
+Marquis, and follow on the subsequent day.--Captain Dalgetty, I will
+dispatch a letter for you, explaining to the Marquis of Argyle your
+character and commission, with which you will please to prepare to
+travel to Inverary early to-morrow morning.”
+
+“Sir Duncan Campbell,” said Dalgetty, “I am doubtless at your
+discretionary disposal in this matter; not the less, I pray you to
+remember the blot which will fall upon your own escutcheon, if you do
+in any way suffer me, being a commissionate flag of truce, to be
+circumvented in this matter, whether CLAM, VI, VEL PRECARIO; I do not
+say by your assent to any wrong done to me, but even through absence of
+any due care on your part to prevent the same.”
+
+“You are under the safeguard of my honour, sir,” answered Sir Duncan
+Campbell, “and that is more than a sufficient security. And now,”
+ continued he, rising, “I must set the example of retiring.”
+
+Dalgetty saw himself under the necessity of following the hint, though
+the hour was early; but, like a skilful general, he availed himself of
+every instant of delay which circumstances permitted. “Trusting to
+your honourable parole,” said he, filling his cup, “I drink to you, Sir
+Duncan, and to the continuance of your honourable-house.” A sigh
+from Sir Duncan was the only reply. “Also, madam,” said the soldier,
+replenishing the quaigh with all possible dispatch, “I drink to your
+honourable health, and fulfilment of all your virtuous desires--and,
+reverend sir” (not forgetting to fit the action to the words), “I fill
+this cup to the drowning of all unkindness betwixt you and Captain
+Dalgetty--I should say Major--and, in respect the flagon contains but
+one cup more, I drink to the health of all honourable cavaliers and
+brave soldados--and, the flask being empty, I am ready, Sir Duncan, to
+attend your functionary or sentinel to my place of private repose.”
+
+He received a formal permission to retire, and an assurance, that as
+the wine seemed to be to his taste, another measure of the same vintage
+should attend him presently, in order to soothe the hours of his
+solitude.
+
+No sooner had the Captain reached the apartment than this promise was
+fulfilled; and, in a short time afterwards, the added comforts of a
+pasty of red-deer venison rendered him very tolerant both of confinement
+and want of society. The same domestic, a sort of chamberlain, who
+placed this good cheer in his apartment, delivered to Dalgetty a packet,
+sealed and tied up with a silken thread, according to the custom of
+the time, addressed with many forms of respect to the High and Mighty
+Prince, Archibald, Marquis of Argyle, Lord of Lorne, and so forth. The
+chamberlain at the same time apprized the Ritt-master, that he must
+take horse at an early hour for Inverary, where the packet of Sir Duncan
+would be at once his introduction and his passport. Not forgetting that
+it was his object to collect information as well as to act as an envoy,
+and desirous, for his own sake, to ascertain Sir Duncan’s reasons for
+sending him onward without his personal attendance, the Ritt-master
+enquired the domestic, with all the precaution that his experience
+suggested, what were the reasons which detained Sir Duncan at home on
+the succeeding day. The man, who was from the Lowlands, replied, “that
+it was the habit of Sir Duncan and his lady to observe as a day of
+solemn fast and humiliation the anniversary on which their castle had
+been taken by surprise, and their children, to the number of four,
+destroyed cruelly by a band of Highland freebooters during Sir Duncan’s
+absence upon an expedition which the Marquis of Argyle had undertaken
+against the Macleans of the Isle of Mull.”
+
+“Truly,” said the soldier, “your lord and lady have some cause for fast
+and humiliation. Nevertheless, I will venture to pronounce, that if he
+had taken the advice of any experienced soldier, having skill in the
+practiques of defending places of advantage, he would have built a
+sconce upon the small hill which is to the left of the draw-brigg. And
+this I can easily prove to you, mine honest friend; for, holding that
+pasty to be the castle--What’s your name, friend?”
+
+“Lorimer, sir,” replied the man.
+
+“Here is to your health, honest Lorimer.--I say, Lorimer--holding that
+pasty to be the main body or citadel of the place to be defended, and
+taking the marrow-bone for the sconce to be erected--”
+
+“I am sorry, sir,” said Lorimer, interrupting him, “that I cannot stay
+to hear the rest of your demonstration; but the bell will presently
+ring. As worthy Mr. Graneangowl, the Marquis’s own chaplain, does family
+worship, and only seven of our household out of sixty persons understand
+the Scottish tongue, it would misbecome any one of them to be absent,
+and greatly prejudice me in the opinion of my lady. There are pipes and
+tobacco, sir, if you please to drink a whiff of smoke, and if you want
+anything else, it shall be forthcoming two hours hence, when prayers are
+over.” So saying, he left the apartment.
+
+No sooner was he gone, than the heavy toll of the castle-bell summoned
+its inhabitants together; and was answered by the shrill clamour of the
+females, mixed with the deeper tones of the men, as, talking Earse at
+the top of their throats, they hurried from different quarters by a long
+but narrow gallery, which served as a communication to many rooms, and,
+among others, to that in which Captain Dalgetty was stationed. There
+they go as if they were beating to the roll-call, thought the soldier to
+himself; if they all attend the parade, I will look out, take a mouthful
+of fresh air, and make mine own observations on the practicabilities of
+this place.
+
+Accordingly, when all was quiet, he opened his chamber door, and
+prepared to leave it, when he saw his friend with the axe advancing
+towards him from the distant end of the gallery, half whistling, a
+Gaelic tune. To have shown any want of confidence, would have been at
+once impolitic, and unbecoming his military character; so the Captain,
+putting the best face upon his situation he could, whistled a Swedish
+retreat, in a tone still louder than the notes of his sentinel; and
+retreating pace by pace, with an air of indifference, as if his only
+purpose had been to breathe a little fresh air, he shut the door in the
+face of his guard, when the fellow had approached within a few paces of
+him.
+
+It is very well, thought the Ritt-master to himself; he annuls my parole
+by putting guards upon me, for, as we used to say at Mareschal-College,
+FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA [See Note I]; and if he does not trust my
+word, I do not see how I am bound to keep it, if any motive should occur
+for my desiring to depart from it. Surely the moral obligation of the
+parole is relaxed, in as far as physical force is substituted instead
+thereof.
+
+Thus comforting himself in the metaphysical immunities which he deduced
+from the vigilance of his sentinel, Ritt-master Dalgetty retired to his
+apartment, where, amid the theoretical calculations of tactics, and the
+occasional more practical attacks on the flask and pasty, he consumed
+the evening until it was time to go to repose. He was summoned by
+Lorimer at break of day, who gave him to understand, that, when he had
+broken his fast, for which he produced ample materials, his guide and
+horse were in attendance for his journey to Inverary. After complying
+with the hospitable hint of the chamberlain, the soldier proceeded
+to take horse. In passing through the apartments, he observed that
+domestics were busily employed in hanging the great hall with black
+cloth, a ceremony which, he said, he had seen practised when the
+immortal Gustavus Adolphus lay in state in the Castle of Wolgast, and
+which, therefore, he opined, was a testimonial of the strictest and
+deepest mourning.
+
+When Dalgetty mounted his steed, he found himself attended, or perhaps
+guarded, by five or six Campbells, well armed, commanded by one, who,
+from the target at his shoulder, and the short cock’s feather in his
+bonnet, as well as from the state which he took upon himself, claimed
+the rank of a Dunniewassel, or clansman of superior rank; and indeed,
+from his dignity of deportment, could not stand in a more distant degree
+of relationship to Sir Duncan, than that of tenth or twelfth cousin at
+farthest. But it was impossible to extract positive information on this
+or any other subject, inasmuch as neither this commander nor any of
+his party spoke English. The Captain rode, and his military attendants
+walked; but such was their activity, and so numerous the impediments
+which the nature of the road presented to the equestrian mode of
+travelling, that far from being retarded by the slowness of their pace,
+his difficulty was rather in keeping up with his guides. He observed
+that they occasionally watched him with a sharp eye, as if they were
+jealous of some effort to escape; and once, as he lingered behind at
+crossing a brook, one of the gillies began to blow the match of his
+piece, giving him to understand that he would run some risk in case of
+an attempt to part company. Dalgetty did not augur much good from the
+close watch thus maintained upon his person; but there was no remedy,
+for an attempt to escape from his attendants in an impervious and
+unknown country, would have been little short of insanity. He therefore
+plodded patiently on through a waste and savage wilderness, treading
+paths which were only known to the shepherds and cattle-drivers, and
+passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those
+sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from
+every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur, and
+mortify their palates upon Highland fare.
+
+At length they arrived on the southern verge of that noble lake upon
+which Inverary is situated; and a bugle, which the Dunniewassel winded
+till rock and greenwood rang, served as a signal to a well-manned
+galley, which, starting from a creek where it lay concealed, received
+the party on board, including Gustavus; which sagacious quadruped, an
+experienced traveller both by water and land, walked in and out of the
+boat with the discretion of a Christian.
+
+Embarked on the bosom of Loch Fine, Captain Dalgetty might have admired
+one of the grandest scenes which nature affords. He might have noticed
+the rival rivers Aray and Shiray, which pay tribute to the lake, each
+issuing from its own dark and wooded retreat. He might have marked, on
+the soft and gentle slope that ascends from the shores, the noble old
+Gothic castle, with its varied outline, embattled walls, towers, and
+outer and inner courts, which, so far as the picturesque is concerned,
+presented an aspect much more striking than the present massive and
+uniform mansion. He might have admired those dark woods which for many
+a mile surrounded this strong and princely dwelling, and his eye might
+have dwelt on the picturesque peak of Duniquoich, starting abruptly from
+the lake, and raising its scathed brow into the mists of middle sky,
+while a solitary watch-tower, perched on its top like an eagle’s nest,
+gave dignity to the scene by awakening a sense of possible danger.
+All these, and every other accompaniment of this noble scene, Captain
+Dalgetty might have marked, if he had been so minded. But, to confess
+the truth, the gallant Captain, who had eaten nothing since daybreak,
+was chiefly interested by the smoke which ascended from the castle
+chimneys, and the expectations which this seemed to warrant of his
+encountering an abundant stock of provant, as he was wont to call
+supplies of this nature.
+
+The boat soon approached the rugged pier, which abutted into the loch
+from the little town of Inverary, then a rude assemblage of huts, with a
+very few stone mansions interspersed, stretching upwards from the banks
+of Loch Fine to the principal gate of the castle, before which a scene
+presented itself that might easily have quelled a less stout heart,
+and turned a more delicate stomach, than those of Ritt-master Dugald
+Dalgetty, titular of Drumthwacket.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
+     Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
+     Restless, unfix’d in principle and place,
+     In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace.
+     --ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
+
+The village of Inverary, now a neat country town, then partook of the
+rudeness of the seventeenth century, in the miserable appearance of the
+houses, and the irregularity of the unpaved street. But a stronger and
+more terrible characteristic of the period appeared in the market-place,
+which was a space of irregular width, half way betwixt the harbour, or
+pier, and the frowning castle-gate, which terminated with its gloomy
+archway, portcullis, and flankers, the upper end of the vista. Midway
+this space was erected a rude gibbet, on which hung five dead bodies,
+two of which from their dress seemed to have been Lowlanders, and the
+other three corpses were muffled in their Highland plaids. Two or three
+women sate under the gallows, who seemed to be mourning, and singing
+the coronach of the deceased in a low voice. But the spectacle was
+apparently of too ordinary occurrence to have much interest for the
+inhabitants at large, who, while they thronged to look at the military
+figure, the horse of an unusual size, and the burnished panoply of
+Captain Dalgetty, seemed to bestow no attention whatever on the piteous
+spectacle which their own market-place afforded.
+
+The envoy of Montrose was not quite so indifferent; and, hearing a word
+or two of English escape from a Highlander of decent appearance, he
+immediately halted Gustavus and addressed him, “The Provost-Marshal has
+been busy here, my friend. May I crave of you what these delinquents
+have been justified for?”
+
+He looked towards the gibbet as he spoke; and the Gael, comprehending
+his meaning rather by his action than his words, immediately replied,
+“Three gentlemen caterans,--God sain them,” (crossing himself)--“twa
+Sassenach bits o’ bodies, that wadna do something that M’Callum More
+bade them;” and turning from Dalgetty with an air of indifference, away
+he walked, staying no farther question.
+
+Dalgetty shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, for Sir Duncan Campbell’s
+tenth or twelfth cousin had already shown some signs of impatience.
+
+At the gate of the castle another terrible spectacle of feudal power
+awaited him. Within a stockade or palisade, which seemed lately to have
+been added to the defences of the gate, and which was protected by two
+pieces of light artillery, was a small enclosure, where stood a huge
+block, on which lay an axe. Both were smeared with recent blood, and
+a quantity of saw-dust strewed around, partly retained and partly
+obliterated the marks of a very late execution.
+
+As Dalgetty looked on this new object of terror, his principal guide
+suddenly twitched him by the skirt of his jerkin, and having thus
+attracted his attention, winked and pointed with his finger to a
+pole fixed on the stockade, which supported a human head, being that,
+doubtless, of the late sufferer. There was a leer on the Highlander’s
+face, as he pointed to this ghastly spectacle, which seemed to his
+fellow-traveller ominous of nothing good.
+
+Dalgetty dismounted from his horse at the gateway, and Gustavus was
+taken from him without his being permitted to attend him to the stable,
+according to his custom.
+
+This gave the soldier a pang which the apparatus of death had not
+conveyed.--“Poor Gustavus!” said he to himself, “if anything but good
+happens to me, I had better have left him at Darnlinvarach than brought
+him here among these Highland salvages, who scarce know the head of
+a horse from his tail. But duty must part a man from his nearest and
+dearest--
+
+     “When the cannons are roaring, lads, and the colours are flying,
+     The lads that seek honour must never fear dying;
+     Then, stout cavaliers, let us toil our brave trade in,
+     And fight for the Gospel and the bold King of Sweden.”
+
+Thus silencing his apprehensions with the but-end of a military ballad,
+he followed his guide into a sort of guard-room filled with armed
+Highlanders. It was intimated to him that he must remain here until his
+arrival was communicated to the Marquis. To make this communication
+the more intelligible, the doughty Captain gave to the Dunniewassel Sir
+Duncan Campbell’s packet, desiring, as well as he could, by signs, that
+it should be delivered into the Marquis’s own hand. His guide nodded,
+and withdrew.
+
+The Captain was left about half an hour in this place, to endure with
+indifference, or return with scorn, the inquisitive, and, at the same
+time, the inimical glances of the armed Gael, to whom his exterior and
+equipage were as much subject of curiosity, as his person and country
+seemed matter of dislike. All this he bore with military nonchalance,
+until, at the expiration of the above period, a person dressed in black
+velvet, and wearing a gold chain like a modern magistrate of Edinburgh,
+but who was, in fact, steward of the household to the Marquis of Argyle,
+entered the apartment, and invited, with solemn gravity, the Captain to
+follow him to his master’s presence.
+
+The suite of apartments through which he passed, were filled with
+attendants or visitors of various descriptions, disposed, perhaps, with
+some ostentation, in order to impress the envoy of Montrose with an idea
+of the superior power and magnificence belonging to the rival house of
+Argyle. One ante-room was filled with lacqueys, arrayed in brown and
+yellow, the colours of the family, who, ranged in double file, gazed in
+silence upon Captain Dalgetty as he passed betwixt their ranks. Another
+was occupied by Highland gentlemen and chiefs of small branches, who
+were amusing themselves with chess, backgammon, and other games, which
+they scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger. A
+third was filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers, who seemed also
+in attendance; and, lastly, the presence-chamber of the Marquis himself
+showed him attended by a levee which marked his high importance.
+
+This apartment, the folding doors of which were opened for the reception
+of Captain Dalgetty, was a long gallery, decorated with tapestry and
+family portraits, and having a vaulted ceiling of open wood-work, the
+extreme projections of the beams being richly carved and gilded. The
+gallery was lighted by long lanceolated Gothic casements, divided
+by heavy shafts, and filled with painted glass, where the sunbeams
+glimmered dimly through boars’-heads, and galleys, and batons, and
+swords, armorial bearings of the powerful house of Argyle, and emblems
+of the high hereditary offices of Justiciary of Scotland, and Master of
+the Royal Household, which they long enjoyed. At the upper end of this
+magnificent gallery stood the Marquis himself, the centre of a splendid
+circle of Highland and Lowland gentlemen, all richly dressed, among whom
+were two or three of the clergy, called in, perhaps, to be witnesses of
+his lordship’s zeal for the Covenant.
+
+The Marquis himself was dressed in the fashion of the period, which
+Vandyke has so often painted, but his habit was sober and uniform
+in colour, and rather rich than gay. His dark complexion, furrowed
+forehead, and downcast look, gave him the appearance of one frequently
+engaged in the consideration of important affairs, and who has acquired,
+by long habit, an air of gravity and mystery, which he cannot shake off
+even where there is nothing to be concealed. The cast with his eyes,
+which had procured him in the Highlands the nickname of Gillespie
+Grumach (or the grim), was less perceptible when he looked downward,
+which perhaps was one cause of his having adopted that habit. In person,
+he was tall and thin, but not without that dignity of deportment and
+manners, which became his high rank. Something there was cold in his
+address, and sinister in his look, although he spoke and behaved with
+the usual grace of a man of such quality. He was adored by his own clan,
+whose advancement he had greatly studied, although he was in proportion
+disliked by the Highlanders of other septs, some of whom he had already
+stripped of their possessions, while others conceived themselves in
+danger from his future schemes, and all dreaded the height to which he
+was elevated.
+
+We have already noticed, that in displaying himself amidst his
+councillors, his officers of the household, and his train of vassals,
+allies, and dependents, the Marquis of Argyle probably wished to make
+an impression on the nervous system of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. But that
+doughty person had fought his way, in one department or another, through
+the greater part of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, a period when a
+brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes. The King of
+Sweden, and, after his example, even the haughty Princes of the Empire,
+had found themselves fain, frequently to compound with their dignity,
+and silence, when they could not satisfy the pecuniary claims of their
+soldiers, by admitting them to unusual privileges and familiarity.
+Captain Dugald Dalgetty had it to boast, that he had sate with princes
+at feasts made for monarchs, and therefore was not a person to be
+brow-beat even by the dignity which surrounded M’Callum More. Indeed, he
+was naturally by no means the most modest man in the world, but, on the
+contrary, had so good an opinion of himself, that into whatever company
+he chanced to be thrown, he was always proportionally elevated in his
+own conceit; so that he felt as much at ease in the most exalted society
+as among his own ordinary companions. In this high opinion of his own
+rank, he was greatly fortified by his ideas of the military profession,
+which, in his phrase, made a valiant cavalier a camarade to an emperor.
+
+When introduced, therefore, into the Marquis’s presence-chamber, he
+advanced to the upper end with an air of more confidence than grace, and
+would have gone close up to Argyle’s person before speaking, had not
+the latter waved his hand, as a signal to him to stop short. Captain
+Dalgetty did so accordingly, and having made his military congee with
+easy confidence, he thus accosted the Marquis: “Give you good morrow, my
+lord--or rather I should say, good even; BESO A USTED LOS MANOS, as the
+Spaniard says.”
+
+“Who are you, sir, and what is your business?” demanded the Marquis, in
+a tone which was intended to interrupt the offensive familiarity of the
+soldier.
+
+“That is a fair interrogative, my lord,” answered Dalgetty, “which I
+shall forthwith answer as becomes a cavalier, and that PEREMPTORIE, as
+we used to say at Mareschal-College.”
+
+“See who or what he is, Neal,” said the Marquis sternly, to a gentleman
+who stood near him.
+
+“I will save the honourable gentleman the labour of investigation,”
+ continued the Captain. “I am Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, that
+should be, late Ritt-master in various services, and now Major of I
+know not what or whose regiment of Irishes; and I am come with a flag of
+truce from a high and powerful lord, James Earl of Montrose, and
+other noble persons now in arms for his Majesty. And so, God save King
+Charles!”
+
+“Do you know where you are, and the danger of dallying with us, sir,”
+ again demanded the Marquis, “that you reply to me as if I were a child
+or a fool? The Earl of Montrose is with the English malignants; and I
+suspect you are one of those Irish runagates, who are come into this
+country to burn and slay, as they did under Sir Phelim O’Neale.”
+
+“My lord,” replied Captain Dalgetty, “I am no renegade, though a Major
+of Irishes, for which I might refer your lordship to the invincible
+Gustavus Adolphus the Lion of the North, to Bannier, to Oxenstiern, to
+the warlike Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Tilly, Wallenstein, Piccolomini, and
+other great captains, both dead and living; and touching the noble Earl
+of Montrose, I pray your lordship to peruse these my full powers for
+treating with you in the name of that right honourable commander.”
+
+The Marquis looked slightingly at the signed and sealed paper which
+Captain Dalgetty handed to him, and, throwing it with contempt upon a
+table, asked those around him what he deserved who came as the avowed
+envoy and agent of malignant traitors, in arms against the state?
+
+“A high gallows and a short shrift,” was the ready answer of one of the
+bystanders.
+
+“I will crave of that honourable cavalier who hath last spoken,” said
+Dalgetty, “to be less hasty in forming his conclusions, and also of your
+lordship to be cautelous in adopting the same, in respect such threats
+are to be held out only to base bisognos, and not to men of spirit and
+action, who are bound to peril themselves as freely in services of this
+nature, as upon sieges, battles, or onslaughts of any sort. And albeit I
+have not with me a trumpet, or a white flag, in respect our army is not
+yet equipped with its full appointments, yet the honourable cavaliers
+and your lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an envoy
+who cometh on matter of truth or parle, consisteth not in the fanfare of
+a trumpet, whilk is but a sound, or in the flap of a white flag, whilk
+is but an old rag in itself, but in the confidence reposed by the party
+sending, and the party sent, in the honour of those to whom the message
+is to be carried, and their full reliance that they will respect the
+JUS GENTIUM, as weel as the law of arms, in the person of the
+commissionate.”
+
+“You are not come hither to lecture us upon the law of arms, sir,” said
+the Marquis, “which neither does nor can apply to rebels and insurgents;
+but to suffer the penalty of your insolence and folly for bringing a
+traitorous message to the Lord Justice General of Scotland, whose duty
+calls upon him to punish such an offence with death.”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said the Captain, who began much to dislike the turn which
+his mission seemed about to take, “I pray you to remember, that the
+Earl of Montrose will hold you and your possessions liable for
+whatever injury my person, or my horse, shall sustain by these unseemly
+proceedings, and that he will be justified in executing retributive
+vengeance on your persons and possessions.”
+
+This menace was received with a scornful laugh, while one of the
+Campbells replied, “It is a far cry to Lochow;” proverbial expression of
+the tribe, meaning that their ancient hereditary domains lay beyond
+the reach of an invading enemy. “But, gentlemen,” further urged the
+unfortunate Captain, who was unwilling to be condemned, without at least
+the benefit of a full hearing, “although it is not for me to say how
+far it may be to Lochow, in respect I am a stranger to these parts,
+yet, what is more to the purpose, I trust you will admit that I have
+the guarantee of an honourable gentleman of your own name, Sir Duncan
+Campbell of Ardenvohr, for my safety on this mission; and I pray you
+to observe, that in breaking the truce towards me, you will highly
+prejudicate his honour and fair fame.”
+
+This seemed to be new information to many of the gentlemen, for they
+spoke aside with each other, and the Marquis’s face, notwithstanding
+his power of suppressing all external signs of his passions, showed
+impatience and vexation.
+
+“Does Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr pledge his honour for this person’s
+safety, my lord?” said one of the company, addressing the Marquis.
+
+“I do not believe it,” answered the Marquis; “but I have not yet had
+time to read his letter.”
+
+“We will pray your lordship to do so,” said another of the Campbells;
+“our name must not suffer discredit through the means of such a fellow
+as this.”
+
+“A dead fly,” said a clergyman, “maketh the ointment of the apothecary
+to stink.”
+
+“Reverend sir,” said Captain Dalgetty, “in respect of the use to be
+derived, I forgive you the unsavouriness of your comparison; and also
+remit to the gentleman in the red bonnet, the disparaging epithet of
+FELLOW, which he has discourteously applied to me, who am no way to
+be distinguished by the same, unless in so far as I have been called
+fellow-soldier by the great Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North,
+and other choice commanders, both in Germany and the Low Countries. But,
+touching Sir Duncan Campbell’s guarantee of my safety, I will gage my
+life upon his making my words good thereanent, when he comes hither
+to-morrow.”
+
+“If Sir Duncan be soon expected, my Lord,” said one of the intercessors,
+“it would be a pity to anticipate matters with this poor man.”
+
+“Besides that,” said another, “your lordship--I speak with
+reverence--should, at least, consult the Knight of Ardenvohr’s letter,
+and learn the terms on which this Major Dalgetty, as he calls himself,
+has been sent hither by him.”
+
+They closed around the Marquis, and conversed together in a low tone,
+both in Gaelic and English. The patriarchal power of the Chiefs was very
+great, and that of the Marquis of Argyle, armed with all his grants of
+hereditary jurisdiction, was particularly absolute. But there interferes
+some check of one kind or other even in the most despotic government.
+That which mitigated the power of the Celtic Chiefs, was the necessity
+which they lay under of conciliating the kinsmen who, under them, led
+out the lower orders to battle, and who formed a sort of council of the
+tribe in time of peace. The Marquis on this occasion thought himself
+under the necessity of attending to the remonstrances of this senate, or
+more properly COUROULTAI, of the name of Campbell, and, slipping out
+of the circle, gave orders for the prisoner to be removed to a place of
+security.
+
+“Prisoner!” exclaimed Dalgetty, exerting himself with such force as
+wellnigh to shake off two Highlanders, who for some minutes past had
+waited the signal to seize him, and kept for that purpose close at his
+back. Indeed the soldier had so nearly attained his liberty, that the
+Marquis of Argyle changed colour, and stepped back two paces, laying,
+however, his hand on his sword, while several of his clan, with ready
+devotion, threw themselves betwixt him and the apprehended vengeance of
+the prisoner. But the Highland guards were too strong to be shaken off,
+and the unlucky Captain, after having had his offensive weapons taken
+from him, was dragged off and conducted through several gloomy passages
+to a small side-door grated with iron, within which was another of wood.
+These were opened by a grim old Highlander with a long white beard, and
+displayed a very steep and narrow flight of steps leading downward. The
+Captain’s guards pushed him down two or three steps, then, unloosing his
+arms, left him to grope his way to the bottom as he could; a task
+which became difficult and even dangerous, when the two doors being
+successively locked left the prisoner in total darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Whatever stranger visits here,
+     We pity his sad case,
+     Unless to worship he draw near
+     The King of Kings--his Grace.
+     --BURNS’S  EPIGRAM ON A VISIT TO INVERARY.
+
+The Captain, finding himself deprived of light in the manner we have
+described, and placed in a very uncertain situation, proceeded to
+descend the narrow and broken stair with all the caution in his power,
+hoping that he might find at the bottom some place to repose himself.
+But with all his care he could not finally avoid making a false step,
+which brought him down the four or five last steps too hastily to
+preserve his equilibrium. At the bottom he stumbled over a bundle of
+something soft, which stirred and uttered a groan, so deranging the
+Captain’s descent, that he floundered forward, and finally fell upon his
+hands and knees on the floor of a damp and stone-paved dungeon.
+
+When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over whom he
+had stumbled.
+
+“He was a man a month since,” answered a hollow and broken voice.
+
+“And what is he now, then,” said Dalgetty, “that he thinks it fitting
+to lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew’d up like a hurchin,
+that honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their
+noses over him?”
+
+“What is he now?” replied the same voice; “he is a wretched trunk,
+from which the boughs have one by one been lopped away, and which cares
+little how soon it is torn up and hewed into billets for the furnace.”
+
+“Friend,” said Dalgetty, “I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as the
+Spaniard says. If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you call
+yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands and knees.”
+
+“You are a soldier,” replied his fellow-prisoner; “do you complain on
+account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan himself?”
+
+“A soldier?” said the Captain; “and how do you know, in this cursed dark
+cavern, that I am a soldier?”
+
+“I heard your armour clash as you fell,” replied the prisoner, “and now
+I see it glimmer. When you have remained as long as I in this darkness,
+your eyes will distinguish the smallest eft that crawls on the floor.”
+
+“I had rather the devil picked them out!” said Dalgetty; “if this be the
+case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a soldier’s prayer, and
+a leap from a ladder. But what sort of provant have you got here--what
+food, I mean, brother in affliction?”
+
+“Bread and water once a day,” replied the voice.
+
+“Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf,” said Dalgetty; “I hope we
+shall play good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable
+pit.”
+
+“The loaf and jar of water,” answered the other prisoner, “stand in
+the corner, two steps to your right hand. Take them, and welcome. With
+earthly food I have wellnigh done.”
+
+Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the
+provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much
+heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.
+
+“This bread,” he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time),
+“is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which
+we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus
+foiled all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero,
+who had driven two kings out of the field--namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia
+and Christian of Denmark. And anent this water, which is none of the
+most sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade,
+not forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or
+humming Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge.”
+
+While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue,
+and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or
+indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his
+voracity. When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his
+cloak, and seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could
+obtain a support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of
+elbow-chairs, he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to
+question his fellow-captive.
+
+“Mine honest friend,” said he, “you and I, being comrades at bed
+and board, should be better acquainted. I am Dugald Dalgetty of
+Drumthwacket, and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes,
+and Envoy Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of
+Montrose.--Pray, what may your name be?”
+
+“It will avail you little to know,” replied his more taciturn companion.
+
+“Let me judge of that matter,” answered the soldier.
+
+“Well, then--Ranald MacEagh is my name--that is, Ranald Son of the
+Mist.”
+
+“Son of the Mist!” ejaculated Dalgetty. “Son of utter darkness, say I.
+But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in possession of the
+provost’s court of guard? what the devil brought you here, that is to
+say?”
+
+“My misfortunes and my crimes,” answered Ranald. “Know ye the Knight of
+Ardenvohr?”
+
+“I do know that honourable person,” replied Dalgetty.
+
+“But know ye where he now is?” replied Ranald.
+
+“Fasting this day at Ardenvohr,” answered the Envoy, “that he may feast
+to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance to fail, my
+lease of human service will be something precarious.”
+
+“Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe
+and his best friend,” answered Ranald.
+
+“Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message,” answered
+Dalgetty, “Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading riddles with.”
+
+“Craven Saxon,” said the prisoner, “tell him I am the raven that,
+fifteen years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the pledges
+he had left there--I am the hunter that found out the wolfs den on the
+rock, and destroyed his offspring--I am the leader of the band which
+surprised Ardenvohr yesterday was fifteen years, and gave his four
+children to the sword.”
+
+“Truly, my honest friend,” said Dalgetty, “if that is your best
+recommendation to Sir Duncan’s favour, I would pretermit my pleading
+thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the animal creation are
+incensed against those who intromit with their offspring forcibly, much
+more any rational and Christian creatures, who have had violence done
+upon their small family. But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether
+you assailed the castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold
+to be the true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a
+sconce.”
+
+“We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings,” said the
+prisoner, “drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six
+months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance.
+The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide
+roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet
+no man’s heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes,
+where there had been peace and joy at the sunset.”
+
+“It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very
+sufficient onslaught, and not unworthily discharged. Nevertheless, I
+would have pressed the house from that little hillock called Drumsnab.
+But yours is a pretty irregular Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald,
+much resembling that of Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.--But
+the reason, my friend, the cause of this war--the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I
+may say? Deliver me that, Ranald.”
+
+“We had been pushed at by the M’Aulays, and other western tribes,” said
+Ranald, “till our possessions became unsafe for us.”
+
+“Ah ha!” said Dalgetty; “I have faint remembrance of having heard of
+that matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man’s mouth, when
+he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?”
+
+“You have heard, then,” said Ranald, “the tale of our revenge on the
+haughty forester?”
+
+“I bethink me that I have,” said Dalgetty, “and that not of an old date.
+It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man’s
+mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation,
+besides wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a
+leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald,
+for that crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow.”
+
+“We were attacked by Sir Duncan,” continued MacEagh, “and my brother
+was slain--his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled--I
+vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken.”
+
+“It may be so,” said Dalgetty; “and every thorough-bred soldier will
+confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story
+will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move
+him to intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from
+hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or
+wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death
+by torture, surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be
+for miskenning Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly
+by suffocation, like your ancestors before you.”
+
+“Yet hearken, stranger,” said the Highlander. “Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr
+had four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives;
+and more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which
+remains, than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost
+indulgence of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his
+day of humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing,
+and breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the
+child Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than
+ten sons who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of
+the air.”
+
+“I presume, Ranald,” continued Dalgetty, “that the three pretty fellows
+whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like
+rizzer’d haddocks, claimed some interest in you?”
+
+There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong
+emotion,--“They were my sons, stranger--they were my sons!--blood of my
+blood--bone of my bone!--fleet of foot--unerring in aim--unvanquished by
+foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers! Why do I wish
+to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the rending up of its
+roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs. But
+Kenneth must be trained to revenge--the young eagle must learn from the
+old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and
+my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr.”
+
+“You may attain your end more easily,” said a third voice, mingling in
+the conference, “by entrusting it to me.”
+
+All Highlanders are superstitious. “The Enemy of Mankind is among us!”
+ said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he
+rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the
+quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree
+communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort
+of polyglot gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without
+being able to remember more than a word or two of each.
+
+“IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College--SANTISSMA MADRE DI
+DIOS, as the Spaniard has it--ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, saith
+the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther’s translation--”
+
+“A truce with your exorcisms,” said the voice they had heard before;
+“though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my
+assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too
+proud to be counselled.”
+
+While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern,
+by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who
+had thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in
+their conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the
+Marquis. His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven
+foot which Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse’s
+hoof by which he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how
+the stranger had come among them?
+
+“For,” said he, “the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had
+the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly,
+sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a
+regiment of living men.”
+
+“I reserve my secret,” answered the stranger, “until you shall merit the
+discovery by communicating to me some of yours. It may be that I shall
+be moved to let you out where I myself came in.”
+
+“It cannot be through the keyhole, then,” said Captain Dalgetty, “for my
+corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece
+could get through. As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few
+appertaining to others. But impart to us what secrets you desire
+to know; or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the
+Mareschal-College, Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee.”
+
+“It is not with you I have first to do,” replied the stranger, turning
+his light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of
+the Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of
+the dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.
+
+“I have brought you something, my friend,” said the stranger, in a more
+soothing tone, “to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no
+reason wherefore you should not live to-night.”
+
+“None at all--no reason in the creation,” replied the ready Captain
+Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a small basket
+which the stranger had brought under his cloak, while the Highlander,
+either in suspicion or disdain, paid no attention to the good cheer.
+
+“Here’s to thee, my friend,” said the Captain, who, having already
+dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a pull at the
+wine-flask. “What is thy name, my good friend?”
+
+“Murdoch Campbell, sir,” answered the servant, “a lackey of the Marquis
+of Argyle, and occasionally acting as under-warden.”
+
+“Then here is to thee once more, Murdoch,” said Dalgetty, “drinking to
+you by your proper name for the better luck sake. This wine I take to be
+Calcavella. Well, honest Murdoch, I take it on me to say, thou deservest
+to be upper-warden, since thou showest thyself twenty times better
+acquainted with the way of victualling honest gentlemen that are under
+misfortune, than thy principal. Bread and water? out upon him! It was
+enough, Murdoch, to destroy the credit of the Marquis’s dungeon. But I
+see you would converse with my friend, Ranald MacEagh here. Never mind
+my presence; I’ll get me into this corner with the basket, and I will
+warrant my jaws make noise enough to prevent my ears from hearing you.”
+
+Notwithstanding this promise, however, the veteran listened with all
+the attention he could to gather their discourse, or, as he described it
+himself, “laid his ears back in his neck, like Gustavus, when he heard
+the key turn in the girnell-kist.” He could, therefore, owing to the
+narrowness of the dungeon, easily overhear the following dialogue.
+
+“Are you aware, Son of the Mist,” said the Campbell, “that you will
+never leave this place excepting for the gibbet?”
+
+“Those who are dearest to me,” answered MacEagh, “have trode that path
+before me.”
+
+“Then you would do nothing,” asked the visitor, “to shun following
+them?”
+
+The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an answer.
+
+“I would do much,” at length he said; “not for my own life, but for the
+sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven.”
+
+“And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?” again
+demanded Murdoch; “I care not for what cause ye mean to shun it.”
+
+“I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man.”
+
+“Do you call yourself a man,” said the interrogator, “who have done the
+deeds of a wolf?”
+
+“I do,” answered the outlaw; “I am a man like my forefathers--while
+wrapt in the mantle of peace, we were lambs--it was rent from us, and ye
+now call us wolves. Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom
+ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved--collect from the
+gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses, and whitened skulls of our
+kinsmen--bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and
+brothers--till then, let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a dark
+veil of division between us.”
+
+“You will then do nothing for your liberty,” said the Campbell.
+
+“Anything--but call myself the friend of your tribe,” answered MacEagh.
+
+“We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans,” retorted Murdoch,
+“and would not stoop to accept it.--What I demand to know from you, in
+exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the
+Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be found?”
+
+“That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master,”
+ said Ranald, “after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid! Does not
+the valley of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence
+offered to a helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the
+court of the Sovereign? Were not her escort compelled to hide her
+beneath a cauldron, round which they fought till not one remained to
+tell the tale? and was not the girl brought to this fatal castle, and
+afterwards wedded to the brother of M’Callum More, and all for the sake
+of her broad lands?” [Such a story is told of the heiress of the clan
+of Calder, who was made prisoner in the manner described, and afterwards
+wedded to Sir Duncan Campbell, from which union the Campbells of Cawdor
+have their descent.]
+
+“And if the tale be true,” said Murdoch, “she had a preferment beyond
+what the King of Scots would have conferred on her. But this is far
+from the purpose. The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own
+blood, not a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as
+M’Callum More, the chief of her clan?”
+
+“It is on his part, then, that you demand it!” said the outlaw. The
+domestic of the Marquis assented.
+
+“And you will practise no evil against the maiden?--I have done her
+wrong enough already.”
+
+“No evil, upon the word of a Christian man,” replied Murdoch.
+
+“And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?” said the Child of the Mist.
+
+“Such is our paction,” replied the Campbell.
+
+“Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the
+spoiling of her father’s tower of strength, was bred as an adopted
+daughter of our tribe, until we were worsted at the pass of
+Ballenduthil, by the fiend incarnate and mortal enemy of our tribe,
+Allan M’Aulay of the Bloody hand, and by the horsemen of Lennox, under
+the heir of Menteith.”
+
+“Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand,” said Murdoch,
+“and she a reputed daughter of thy tribe? Then her blood has gilded the
+dirk, and thou hast said nothing to rescue thine own forfeited life.”
+
+“If my life rest on hers,” answered the outlaw, “it is secure, for she
+still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance--the frail promise
+of a son of Diarmid.”
+
+“That promise shall not fail you,” said the Campbell, “if you can assure
+me that she survives, and where she is to be found.”
+
+“In the Castle of Darlinvarach,” said Ranald MacEagh, “under the name
+of Annot Lyle. I have often heard of her from my kinsmen, who have again
+approached their native woods, and it is not long since mine old eyes
+beheld her.”
+
+“You!” said Murdoch, in astonishment, “you, a chief among the Children
+of the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?”
+
+“Son of Diarmid, I did more,” replied the outlaw; “I was in the hall of
+the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianach. My
+purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the M’Aulay with the
+Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles, and to have taken thereafter
+what fate God should send me. But I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand
+was on the hilt of my dagger. She touched her clairshach [Harp] to
+a song of the Children of the Mist, which she had learned when her
+dwelling was amongst us. The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly,
+rustled their green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with
+the sound of all their waters. My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains
+of mine eyes were opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.--And now,
+Son of Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?”
+
+“Ay,” replied Murdoch, “if your tale be true; but what proof can you
+assign for it?”
+
+“Bear witness, heaven and earth,” exclaimed the outlaw, “he already
+looks how he may step over his word!”
+
+“Not so,” replied Murdoch; “every promise shall be kept to you when I am
+assured you have told me the truth.--But I must speak a few words with
+your companion in captivity.”
+
+“Fair and false--ever fair and false,” muttered the prisoner, as he
+threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.
+
+Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of this
+dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private. “What the HENKER
+can this sly fellow have to say to me? I have no child, either of my
+own, so far as I know, or of any other person, to tell him a tale about.
+But let him come on--he will have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank
+of the old soldier.”
+
+Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach, he
+waited with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the attack.
+
+“You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty,” said Murdoch
+Campbell, “and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-GAF,
+[In old English, KA ME KA THEE, i.e. mutually serving each other.] which
+goes through all nations and all services.”
+
+“Then I should know something of it,” said Dalgetty; “for, except the
+Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served; and I have
+sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem Gabor, or with
+the Janizaries.”
+
+“A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will understand
+me at once,” said Murdoch, “when I say, I mean that your freedom shall
+depend on your true and up right answer to a few trifling questions
+respecting the gentlemen you have left; their state of preparation; the
+number of their men, and nature of their appointments; and as much as
+you chance to know about their plan of operations.”
+
+“Just to satisfy your curiosity,” said Dalgetty, “and without any
+farther purpose?”
+
+“None in the world,” replied Murdoch; “what interest should a poor devil
+like me take in their operations?”
+
+“Make your interrogations, then,” said the Captain, “and I will answer
+them PREREMTORIE.”
+
+“How many Irish may be on their march to join James Graham the
+delinquent?”
+
+“Probably ten thousand,” said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+“Ten thousand!” replied Murdoch angrily; “we know that scarce two
+thousand landed at Ardnamurchan.”
+
+“Then you know more about them than I do,” answered Captain Dalgetty,
+with great composure. “I never saw them mustered yet, or even under
+arms.”
+
+“And how many men of the clans may be expected?” demanded Murdoch.
+
+“As many as they can make,” replied the Captain.
+
+“You are answering from the purpose, sir,” said Murdoch “speak plainly,
+will there be five thousand men?”
+
+“There and thereabouts,” answered Dalgetty.
+
+“You are playing with your life, sir, if you trifle with me,” replied
+the catechist; “one whistle of mine, and in less than ten minutes your
+head hangs on the drawbridge.”
+
+“But to speak candidly, Mr. Murdoch,” replied the Captain “do you think
+it is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our army, and I
+engaged to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat
+Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and chance of booty?”
+
+“I tell you,” said Campbell, “that if you be stubborn, your campaign
+shall begin and end in a march to the block at the castle-gate, which
+stands ready for such land-laufers; but if you answer my questions
+faithfully, I will receive you into my--into the service of M’Callum
+More.”
+
+“Does the service afford good pay?” said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+“He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act under his
+direction.”
+
+“I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him,” said Dalgetty,
+appearing to meditate.
+
+“On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now,” said
+the Campbell; “always supposing that you are faithful.”
+
+“Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose,” answered the
+Captain.
+
+“Faithful to the cause of religion and good order,” answered Murdoch,
+“which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve it.”
+
+“And the Marquis of Argyle--should I incline to enter his service, is he
+a kind master?” demanded Dalgetty.
+
+“Never man kinder,” quoth Campbell.
+
+“And bountiful to his officers?” pursued the Captain.
+
+“The most open hand in Scotland,” replied Murdoch.
+
+“True and faithful to his engagements?” continued Dalgetty.
+
+“As honourable a nobleman as breathes,” said the clansman.
+
+“I never heard so much good of him before,” said Dalgetty; “you must
+know the Marquis well,--or rather you must be the Marquis himself!--Lord
+of Argyle,” he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised
+nobleman, “I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If
+you venture to call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck.”
+
+The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle’s person was so sudden and
+unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon,
+and held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis’s
+throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for
+assistance.
+
+“Lord of Argyle,” he said, “it is now my turn to lay down the terms
+of capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you
+entered the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM
+TENENS, as we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits
+his prisoners. But if not, I will first strangle you--I learned the
+art from a Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman
+seraglio--and then seek out a mode of retreat.”
+
+“Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness,” murmured Argyle.
+
+“Not for your kindness, my lord,” replied Dalgetty: “but first, to teach
+your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under
+safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing
+dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to
+become false to his standard during the term of his service.”
+
+“Spare my life,” said Argyle, “and I will do as you require.”
+
+Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis’s throat, compressing it
+a little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him
+the power of answering them.
+
+“Where is the secret door into the dungeon?” he demanded.
+
+“Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern
+the iron which covers the spring,” replied the Marquis.
+
+“So far so good.--Where does the passage lead to?”
+
+“To my private apartment behind the tapestry,” answered the prostrate
+nobleman.
+
+“From thence how shall I reach the gateway?”
+
+“Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys’ waiting hall, the
+grand guardroom--”
+
+“All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?--that will
+never do for me, my lord;--have you no secret passage to the gate, as
+you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany.”
+
+“There is a passage through the chapel,” said the Marquis, “opening from
+my apartment.”
+
+“And what is the pass-word at the gate?”
+
+“The sword of Levi,” replied the Marquis; “but if you will receive my
+pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard,
+and set you at full liberty with a passport.”
+
+“I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the
+grasp of my fingers--as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the Spaniard
+says. Yet you may grant me a passport;--are there writing materials in
+your apartment?”
+
+“Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you
+there,” said the Marquis, “instantly.”
+
+“It were too much honour for the like of me,” said Dalgetty; “your
+lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh;
+therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.--Honest
+Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I
+doubt not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do;
+clap your hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under
+his ruff, and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy
+Ranald, to squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that
+is, till he swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your
+gullet and mine to still harder usage.”
+
+“If he offer at speech or struggle,” said Ranald, “he dies by my hand.”
+
+“That is right, Ranald--very spirited:--A thorough-going friend that
+understands a hint is worth a million!”
+
+Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate,
+Dalgetty pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open,
+though so well were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the
+slightest noise in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured
+by very strong bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys,
+designed apparently to undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending
+up through the thickness of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had
+truly informed him, behind the tapestry of his private apartment. Such
+communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave the
+lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of hearing the
+conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of visiting them in
+disguise, an experiment which had terminated so unpleasantly on the
+present occasion for Gillespie Grumach. Having examined previously
+whether there was any one in the apartment, and finding the coast clear,
+the Captain entered, and hastily possessing himself of a blank passport,
+several of which lay on the table, and of writing materials, securing,
+at the same time, the Marquis’s dagger, and a silk cord from the
+hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where, listening a moment
+at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of the Marquis making
+great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer him to give an
+alarm.
+
+“Not for a forest of deer--not for a thousand head of cattle,” answered
+the freebooter; “not for all the lands that ever called a son of
+Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted to him of the
+iron-garment!”
+
+“He of the iron-garment,” said Dalgetty, entering, “is bounden unto you,
+MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but first he must
+fill up this passport with the names of Major Dugald Dalgetty and his
+guide, or he is like to have a passport to another world.”
+
+The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark lantern, as
+the soldier prescribed to him.
+
+“And now, Ranald,” said Dalgetty, “strip thy upper garment--thy plaid
+I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M’Callum More, and make of
+him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;--Nay, I must bring it over your
+head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.--So,
+now he is sufficiently muffled;--hold down your hands, or, by Heaven,
+I will stab you to the heart with your own dagger!--nay, you shall be
+bound with nothing less than silk, as your quality deserves.--So, now
+he is secure till some one comes to relieve him. If he ordered us a late
+dinner, Ranald, he is like to be the sufferer;--at what hour, my good
+Ranald, did the jailor usually appear?”
+
+“Never till the sun was beneath the western wave,” said MacEagh. “Then,
+my friend, we shall have three hours good,” said the cautious Captain.
+“In the meantime, let us labour for your liberation.”
+
+To examine Ranald’s chain was the next occupation. It was undone by
+means of one of the keys which hung behind the private door, probably
+deposited there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased, dismiss a
+prisoner, or remove him elsewhere without the necessity of summoning
+the warden. The outlaw stretched his benumbed arms, and bounded from the
+floor of the dungeon in all the ecstasy of recovered freedom.
+
+“Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner,” said Captain Dalgetty;
+“put it on, and follow close at my heels.”
+
+The outlaw obeyed. They ascended the private stair, having first secured
+the door behind them, and thus safely reached the apartment of the
+Marquis.
+
+[The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great deal of
+espionage into their castles. Sir Robert Carey mentions his having put
+on the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a confession from the
+mouth of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom he caused presently to be
+hanged in return for the frankness of his communication. The fine old
+Border castle of Naworth contains a private stair from the apartment
+of the Lord William Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is
+alleged in the preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis
+of Argyle.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     This was the entry then, these stairs--but whither after?
+     Yet he that’s sure to perish on the land
+     May quit the nicety of card and compass,
+     And trust the open sea without a pilot.--TRAGEDY OF BENNOVALT.
+
+“Look out for the private way through the chapel, Ranald,” said the
+Captain, “while I give a hasty regard to these matters.”
+
+Thus speaking, he seized with one hand a bundle of Argyle’s most private
+papers, and with the other a purse of gold, both of which lay in a
+drawer of a rich cabinet, which stood invitingly open. Neither did he
+neglect to possess himself of a sword and pistols, with powder-flask and
+balls, which hung in the apartment. “Intelligence and booty,” said the
+veteran, as he pouched the spoils, “each honourable cavalier should
+look to, the one on his general’s behalf, and the other on his own. This
+sword is an Andrew Ferrara, and the pistols better than mine own. But
+a fair exchange is no robbery. Soldados are not to be endangered, and
+endangered gratuitously, my Lord of Argyle.--But soft, soft, Ranald;
+wise Man of the Mist, whither art thou bound?”
+
+It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh’s proceedings; for, not finding
+the private passage readily, and impatient, it would seem, of farther
+delay, he had caught down a sword and target, and was about to enter the
+great gallery, with the purpose, doubtless, of fighting his way through
+all opposition.
+
+“Hold, while you live,” whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him. “We
+must be perdue, if possible. So bar we this door, that it may be thought
+M’Callum More would be private--and now let me make a reconnaissance for
+the private passage.”
+
+By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length
+discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated
+by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel. But what was his
+disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door,
+the sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.
+
+“This made the villain,” he said, “recommend this to us as a private
+passage. I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat.”
+
+He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery
+used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps
+with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance
+upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular
+affairs. There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the
+Marquis,--such was the high state maintained in those days,--sate during
+service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the great
+man himself. This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to ensconce
+himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.
+
+Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon
+listened to with more impatience, and less edification,
+on the part of one, at least, of the audience. The Captain heard
+SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY and TO CONCLUDE, with a sort of
+feeling like protracted despair. But no man can lecture (for the service
+was called a lecture) for ever; and the discourse was at length closed,
+the clergyman not failing to make a profound bow towards the latticed
+gallery, little suspecting whom he honoured by that reverence. To judge
+from the haste with which they dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis
+were scarce more pleased with their late occupation than the anxious
+Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of them being Highlandmen, had the excuse
+of not understanding a single word which the clergyman spoke, although
+they gave their attendance on his doctrine by the special order of
+M’Callum More, and would have done so had the preacher been a Turkish
+Imaum.
+
+But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine
+remained behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its Gothic
+precincts, seemed either to be meditating on what he had just been
+delivering, or preparing a fresh discourse for the next opportunity.
+Bold as he was, Dalgetty hesitated what he ought to do. Time, however,
+pressed, and every moment increased the chance of their escape being
+discovered by the jailor visiting the dungeon perhaps before his wonted
+time, and discovering the exchange which had been made there. At length,
+whispering Ranald, who watched all his motions, to follow him and
+preserve his countenance, Captain Dalgetty, with a very composed air,
+descended a flight of steps which led from the gallery into the body of
+the chapel. A less experienced adventurer would have endeavoured to
+pass the worthy clergyman rapidly, in hopes to escape unnoticed. But the
+Captain, who foresaw the manifest danger of failing in such an attempt,
+walked gravely to meet the divine upon his walk in the midst of the
+chancel, and, pulling off his cap, was about to pass him after a formal
+reverence. But what was his surprise to view in the preacher the very
+same person with whom he had dined in the castle of Ardenvohr! Yet he
+speedily recovered his composure; and ere the clergyman could speak, was
+the first to address him. “I could not,” he said, “leave this mansion
+without bequeathing to you, my very reverend sir, my humble thanks for
+the homily with which you have this evening favoured us.”
+
+“I did not observe, sir,” said the clergyman, “that you were in the
+chapel.”
+
+“It pleased the honourable Marquis,” said Dalgetty, modestly, “to
+grace me with a seat in his own gallery.” The divine bowed low at this
+intimation, knowing that such an honour was only vouchsafed to persons
+of very high rank. “It has been my fate, sir,” said the Captain, “in
+the sort of wandering life which I have led, to have heard different
+preachers of different religions--as for example, Lutheran, Evangelical,
+Reformed, Calvinistical, and so forth, but never have I listened to such
+a homily as yours.”
+
+“Call it a lecture, worthy sir,” said the divine, “such is the phrase of
+our church.”
+
+“Lecture or homily,” said Dalgetty, “it was, as the High Germans say,
+GANZ FORTRE FLICH; and I could not leave this place without testifying
+unto you what inward emotions I have undergone during your edifying
+prelection; and how I am touched to the quick, that I should yesterday,
+during the refection, have seemed to infringe on the respect due to such
+a person as yourself.”
+
+“Alas! my worthy sir,” said the clergyman, “we meet in this world as
+in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not knowing against whom we
+may chance to encounter. In truth, it is no matter of marvel, if we
+sometimes jostle those, to whom, if known, we would yield all respect.
+Surely, sir, I would rather have taken you for a profane malignant than
+for such a devout person as you prove, who reverences the great Master
+even in the meanest of his servants.”
+
+“It is always my custom to do so, learned sir,” answered Dalgetty; “for
+in the service of the immortal Gustavus--but I detain you from your
+meditations,”--his desire to speak of the King of Sweden being for once
+overpowered by the necessity of his circumstances.
+
+“By no means, my worthy sir,” said the clergyman. “What was, I pray
+you, the order of that great Prince, whose memory is so dear to every
+Protestant bosom?”
+
+“Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly as for
+parade; and if a soldier passed without saluting the chaplain, he had
+an hour’s ride on the wooden mare for his pains. Sir, I wish you a very
+good evening--I am obliged to depart the castle under M’Callum More’s
+passport.”
+
+“Stay one instant, sir,” said the preacher; “is there nothing I can
+do to testify my respect for the pupil of the great Gustavus, and so
+admirable a judge of preaching?”
+
+“Nothing, sir,” said the Captain, “but to shew me the nearest way to
+the gate--and if you would have the kindness,” he added, with great
+effrontery, “to let a servant bring my horse with him, the dark grey
+gelding--call him Gustavus, and he will prick up his ears--for I know
+not where the castle-stables are situated, and my guide,” he added,
+looking at Ranald, “speaks no English.”
+
+“I hasten to accommodate you,” said the clergyman; “your way lies
+through that cloistered passage.”
+
+“Now, Heaven’s blessing upon your vanity!” said the Captain to himself.
+“I was afraid I would have had to march off without Gustavus.”
+
+In fact, so effectually did the chaplain exert himself in behalf of so
+excellent a judge of composition, that while Dalgetty was parleying with
+the sentinels at the drawbridge, showing his passport, and giving
+the watchword, a servant brought him his horse, ready saddled for the
+journey. In another place, the Captain’s sudden appearance at large
+after having been publicly sent to prison, might have excited suspicion
+and enquiry; but the officers and domestics of the Marquis were
+accustomed to the mysterious policy of their master, and never supposed
+aught else than that he had been liberated and intrusted with some
+private commission by their master. In this belief, and having received
+the parole, they gave him free passage.
+
+Dalgetty rode slowly through the town of Inverary, the outlaw attending
+upon him like a foot-page at his horse’s shoulder. As they passed the
+gibbet, the old man looked on the bodies and wrung his hands. The look
+and gesture was momentary, but expressive of indescribable anguish.
+Instantly recovering himself, Ranald, in passing, whispered somewhat
+to one of the females, who, like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, seemed
+engaged in watching and mourning the victims of feudal injustice and
+cruelty. The woman started at his voice, but immediately collected
+herself and returned for answer a slight inclination of the head.
+
+Dalgetty continued his way out of the town, uncertain whether he should
+try to seize or hire a boat and cross the lake, or plunge into the
+woods, and there conceal himself from pursuit. In the former event he
+was liable to be instantly pursued by the galleys of the Marquis, which
+lay ready for sailing, their long yard-arms pointing to the wind, and
+what hope could he have in an ordinary Highland fishing-boat to escape
+from them? If he made the latter choice, his chance either of supporting
+or concealing himself in those waste and unknown wildernesses, was in
+the highest degree precarious. The town lay now behind him, yet what
+hand to turn to for safety he was unable to determine, and began to be
+sensible, that in escaping from the dungeon at Inverary, desperate
+as the matter seemed, he had only accomplished the easiest part of a
+difficult task. If retaken, his fate was now certain; for the personal
+injury he had offered to a man so powerful and so vindictive, could be
+atoned for only by instant death. While he pondered these distressing
+reflections, and looked around with a countenance which plainly
+expressed indecision, Ranald MacEagh suddenly asked him, “which way he
+intended to journey?”
+
+“And that, honest comrade,” answered Dalgetty, “is precisely the
+question which I cannot answer you. Truly I begin to hold the
+opinion, Ranald, that we had better have stuck by the brown loaf and
+water-pitcher until Sir Duncan arrived, who, for his own honour, must
+have made some fight for me.”
+
+“Saxon,” answered MacEagh, “do not regret having exchanged the foul
+breath of yonder dungeon for the free air of heaven. Above all, repent
+not that you have served a Son of the Mist. Put yourself under my
+guidance, and I will warrant your safety with my head.”
+
+“Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the army of
+Montrose?” said Dalgetty.
+
+“I can,” answered MacEagh; “there lives not a man to whom the mountain
+passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the corries are known,
+as they are to the Children of the Mist. While others crawl on the level
+ground, by the sides of lakes and streams, ours are the steep hollows of
+the inaccessible mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs. Not
+all the bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I
+can guide you.”
+
+“Say’st thou so, honest Ranald?” replied Dalgetty; “then have on with
+thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own pilotage.”
+
+The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the castle
+is surrounded for several miles, walking with so much dispatch as kept
+Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a number of cross cuts and
+turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily lost all idea where he might be,
+and all knowledge of the points of the compass. At length, the path,
+which had gradually become more difficult, altogether ended among
+thickets and underwood. The roaring of a torrent was heard in the
+neighbourhood, the ground became in some places broken, in others boggy,
+and everywhere unfit for riding.
+
+“What the foul fiend,” said Dalgetty, “is to be done here? I must part
+with Gustavus, I fear.”
+
+“Take no care for your horse,” said the outlaw; “he shall soon be
+restored to you.”
+
+As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in
+tartan, half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong
+of leather, to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean,
+and half-starved in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten
+times the proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept
+out, as a wild beast might have done, from a thicket of brambles and
+briars.
+
+“Give your horse to the gillie,” said Ranald MacEagh; “your life depends
+upon it.”
+
+“Och! och!” exclaimed the despairing veteran; “Eheu! as we used to say
+at Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such grooming!”
+
+“Are you frantic, to lose time thus!” said his guide; “do we stand on
+friends’ ground, that you should part with your horse as if he were your
+brother? I tell you, you shall have him again; but if you never saw the
+animal, is not life better than the best colt ever mare foaled?”
+
+“And that is true too, mine honest friend,” sighed Dalgetty; “yet if
+you knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have done and
+suffered together--See, he turns back to look at me!--Be kind to him,
+my good breechless friend, and I will requite you well.” So saying,
+and withal sniffling a little to swallow his grief, he turned from the
+heart-rending spectacle in order to follow his guide.
+
+To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more agility
+than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first plunge after he had
+parted from his charger, carried him, with little assistance from a few
+overhanging boughs, or projecting roots of trees, eight foot sheer down
+into the course of a torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.
+Huge stones, over which they scrambled,--thickets of them and brambles,
+through which they had to drag themselves,--rocks which were to be
+climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the purpose of
+an equally precarious descent upon the other; all these, and many
+such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-footed and half-naked
+mountaineer with an ease and velocity which excited the surprise and
+envy of Captain Dalgetty, who, encumbered by his head-piece, corslet,
+and other armour, not to mention his ponderous jack-boots, found himself
+at length so much exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of the
+road, that he sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath,
+while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
+EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were understood
+at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen. The sole answer of the mountaineer
+was to lay his hand on the soldier’s arm, and point backward in the
+direction of the wind. Dalgetty could spy nothing, for evening was
+closing fast, and they were at the bottom of a dark ravine. But at
+length he could distinctly hear at a distance the sullen toll of a large
+bell.
+
+“That,” said he, “must be the alarm--the storm-clock, as the Germans
+call it.”
+
+“It strikes the hour of your death,” answered Ranald, “unless you can
+accompany me a little farther. For every toll of that bell a brave man
+has yielded up his soul.”
+
+“Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend,” said Dalgetty, “I will not deny
+that the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen (being, as
+I explained to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been EXPEDITUS, I mind not
+pedestrian exercise the flourish of a fife), that I think I had better
+ensconce myself in one of these bushes, and even lie quiet there to
+abide what fortune God shall send me. I entreat you, mine honest friend
+Ranald, to shift for yourself, and leave me to my fortune, as the Lion
+of the North, the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, my never-to-be-forgotten
+master (whom you must surely have heard of, Ranald, though you may have
+heard of no one else), said to Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburgh,
+when he was mortally wounded on the plains of Lutzen. Neither despair
+altogether of my safety, Ranald, seeing I have been in as great pinches
+as this in Germany--more especially, I remember me, that at the fatal
+battle of Nerlingen--after which I changed service--”
+
+“If you would save your father’s son’s breath to help his child out
+of trouble, instead of wasting it upon the tales of Seannachies,” said
+Ranald, who now grew impatient of the Captain’s loquacity, “or if your
+feet could travel as fast as your tongue, you might yet lay your head on
+an unbloody pillow to-night.”
+
+“Something there is like military skill in that,” replied the Captain,
+“although wantonly and irreverently spoken to an officer of rank. But
+I hold it good to pardon such freedoms on a march, in respect of the
+Saturnalian license indulged in such cases to the troops of all
+nations. And now, resume thine office, friend Ranald, in respect I am
+well-breathed; or, to be more plain, I PRAE, SEQUAR, as we used to say
+at Mareschal-College.”
+
+Comprehending his meaning rather from his motions than his language,
+the Son of the Mist again led the way, with an unerring precision that
+looked like instinct, through a variety of ground the most difficult and
+broken that could well be imagined. Dragging along his ponderous boots,
+encumbered with thigh-pieces, gauntlets, corslet, and back-piece, not to
+mention the buff jerkin which he wore under all these arms, talking of
+his former exploits the whole way, though Ranald paid not the slightest
+attention to him, Captain Dalgetty contrived to follow his guide a
+considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a hound was
+heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent of its prey.
+
+“Black hound,” said Ranald, “whose throat never boded good to a Child of
+the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast thou already found
+our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound of darkness, and the deer
+has gained the herd.”
+
+So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone equally
+low from the top of a pass, up which they had for some time been
+ascending. Mending their pace, they reached the top, where the moon,
+which had now risen bright and clear, showed to Dalgetty a party of ten
+or twelve Highlanders, and about as many women and children, by whom
+Ranald MacEagh was received with such transports of joy, as made his
+companion easily sensible that those by whom he was surrounded, must
+of course be Children of the Mist. The place which they occupied well
+suited their name and habits. It was a beetling crag, round which winded
+a very narrow and broken footpath, commanded in various places by the
+position which they held.
+
+Ranald spoke anxiously and hastily to the children of his tribe, and
+the men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women,
+clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his
+garment. “They plight their faith to you,” said Ranald MacEagh, “for
+requital of the good deed you have done to the tribe this day.”
+
+“Enough said, Ranald,” answered the soldier, “enough said--tell them
+I love not this shaking of hands--it confuses ranks and degrees in
+military service; and as to kissing of gauntlets, puldrons, and the
+like, I remember that the immortal Gustavus, as he rode through the
+streets of Nuremberg, being thus worshipped by the poulace (being
+doubtless far more worthy of it than a poor though honourable cavalier
+like myself), did say unto them, in the way of rebuke, ‘If you idolize
+me thus like a god, who shall assure you that the vengeance of Heaven
+will not soon prove me to be a mortal?’--And so here, I suppose you
+intend to make a stand against your followers, Ranald--VOTO A DIOS, as
+the Spaniard says?--a very pretty position--as pretty a position for
+a small peloton of men as I have seen in my service--no enemy can
+come towards it by the road without being at the mercy of cannon and
+musket.--But then, Ranald, my trusty comrade, you have no cannon, I dare
+to aver, and I do not see that any of these fellows have muskets either.
+So with what artillery you propose making good the pass, before you come
+to hand blows, truly, Ranald, it passeth my apprehension.”
+
+“With the weapons and with the courage of our fathers,” said MacEagh;
+and made the Captain observe, that the men of his party were armed with
+bows and arrows.
+
+“Bows and arrows!” exclaimed Dalgetty; “ha! ha! ha! have we Robin Hood
+and Little John back again? Bows and arrows! why, the sight has not been
+seen in civilized war for a hundred years. Bows and arrows! and why not
+weavers’ beams, as in the days of Goliah? Ah! that Dugald Dalgetty, of
+Drumthwacket, should live to see men fight with bows and arrows!--The
+immortal Gustavus would never have believed it--nor Wallenstein--nor
+Butler--nor old Tilly,--Well, Ranald, a cat can have but its
+claws--since bows and arrows are the word, e’en let us make the best
+of it. Only, as I do not understand the scope and range of such
+old-fashioned artillery, you must make the best disposition you can out
+of your own head for MY taking the command, whilk I would have gladly
+done had you been to fight with any Christian weapons, is out of the
+question, when you are to combat like quivered Numidians. I will,
+however, play my part with my pistols in the approaching melley, in
+respect my carabine unhappily remains at Gustavus’s saddle.--My service
+and thanks to you,” he continued, addressing a mountaineer who offered
+him a bow; “Dugald Dalgetty may say of himself, as he learned at
+Mareschal-College,
+
+     “Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu,
+     Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
+     Fusce, pharetra;
+
+whilk is to say--”
+
+Ranald MacEagh a second time imposed silence on the talkative commander
+as before, by pulling his sleeve, and pointing down the pass. The bay
+of the bloodhound was now approaching nearer and nearer, and they could
+hear the voices of several persons who accompanied the animal, and
+hallooed to each other as they dispersed occasionally, either in the
+hurry of their advance, or in order to search more accurately the
+thickets as they came along. They were obviously drawing nearer and
+nearer every moment. MacEagh, in the meantime, proposed to Captain
+Dalgetty to disencumber himself of his armour, and gave him to
+understand that the women should transport it to a place of safety.
+
+“I crave your pardon, sir,” said Dalgetty, “such is not the rule of
+our foreign service in respect I remember the regiment of Finland
+cuirassiers reprimanded, and their kettle-drums taken from them, by
+the immortal Gustavus, because they had assumed the permission to march
+without their corslets, and to leave them with the baggage. Neither did
+they strike kettle-drums again at the head of that famous regiment until
+they behaved themselves so notably at the field of Leipsic; a lesson
+whilk is not to be forgotten, any more than that exclamation of the
+immortal Gustavus, ‘Now shall I know if my officers love me, by their
+putting on their armour; since, if my officers are slain, who shall lead
+my soldiers into victory?’ Nevertheless, friend Ranald, this is without
+prejudice to my being rid of these somewhat heavy boots, providing I
+can obtain any other succedaneum; for I presume not to say that my bare
+soles are fortified so as to endure the flints and thorns, as seems to
+be the case with your followers.”
+
+To rid the Captain of his cumbrous greaves, and case his feet in a pair
+of brogues made out of deerskin, which a Highlander stripped off for his
+accommodation, was the work of a minute, and Dalgetty found himself much
+lightened by the exchange. He was in the act of recommending to Ranald
+MacEagh, to send two or three of his followers a little lower to
+reconnoitre the pass, and, at the same time, somewhat to extend his
+front, placing two detached archers at each flank by way of posts of
+observation, when the near cry of the hound apprised them that the
+pursuers were at the bottom of the pass. All was then dead silence; for,
+loquacious as he was on other occasions, Captain Dalgetty knew well the
+necessity of an ambush keeping itself under covert.
+
+The moon gleamed on the broken pathway, and on the projecting cliffs of
+rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here and there by the
+branches of bushes and dwarf-trees, which, finding nourishment in the
+crevices of the rocks, in some places overshadowed the brow and ledge
+of the precipice. Below, a thick copse-wood lay in deep and dark shadow,
+somewhat resembling the billows of a half-seen ocean. From the bosom of
+that darkness, and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was
+heard at intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the
+echoes of the woods and rocks around. At intervals, these sunk into deep
+silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a small runnel of
+water, which partly fell from the rock, partly found a more silent
+passage to the bottom along its projecting surface. Voices of men were
+also heard in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had
+not discovered the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, or
+that, having discovered it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the
+imperfect light, and the uncertainty whether it might not be defended,
+made them hesitate to attempt it.
+
+At length a shadowy figure was seen, which raised itself up from the
+abyss of darkness below, and, emerging into the pale moonlight, began
+cautiously and slowly to ascend the rocky path. The outline was so
+distinctly marked, that Captain Dalgetty could discover not only the
+person of a Highlander, but the long gun which he carried in his hand,
+and the plume of feathers which decorated his bonnet. “TAUSEND TEIFLEN!
+that I should say so, and so like to be near my latter end!” ejaculated
+the Captain, but under his breath, “what will become of us, now they
+have brought musketry to encounter our archers?”
+
+But just as the pursuer had attained a projecting piece of rock about
+half way up the ascent, and, pausing, made a signal for those who were
+still at the bottom to follow him, an arrow whistled from the bow of one
+of the Children of the Mist, and transfixed him with so fatal a wound,
+that, without a single effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and
+fell headlong from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below.
+The crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of his
+fall from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of horror and
+surprise, which burst from his followers. The Children of the Mist,
+encouraged in proportion to the alarm this first success had caused
+among the pursuers, echoed back the clamour with a loud and shrill yell
+of exultation, and, showing themselves on the brow of the precipice,
+with wild cries and vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their
+enemies a sense at once of their courage, their numbers, and their state
+of defence. Even Captain Dalgetty’s military prudence did not prevent
+his rising up, and calling out to Ranald, more loud than prudence
+warranted, “CAROCCO, comrade, as the Spaniard says! The long-bow for
+ever! In my poor apprehension now, were you to order a file to advance
+and take position--”
+
+“The Sassenach!” cried a voice from beneath, “mark the Sassenach sidier!
+I see the glitter of his breastplate.” At the same time three muskets
+were discharged; and while one ball rattled against the corslet of
+proof, to the strength of which our valiant Captain had been more than
+once indebted for his life, another penetrated the armour which covered
+the front of his left thigh, and stretched him on the ground. Ranald
+instantly seized him in his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the
+precipice, while he dolefully ejaculated, “I always told the immortal
+Gustavus, Wallenstein, Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my
+poor mind, taslets ought to be made musket-proof.”
+
+With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the wounded
+man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of his little
+party, and was then about to return to the contest. But Dalgetty
+detained him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.--“I know not how this
+matter may end--but I request you will inform Montrose, that I died like
+a follower of the immortal Gustavus--and I pray you, take heed how you
+quit your present strength, even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy,
+if you gain any advantage--and--and--”
+
+Here Dalgetty’s breath and eyesight began to fail him through loss of
+blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this circumstance, extricated
+from his grasp the end of his own mantle, and substituted that of a
+female, by which the Captain held stoutly, thereby securing, as he
+conceived, the outlaw’s attention to the military instructions which he
+continued to pour forth while he had any breath to utter them, though
+they became gradually more and more incoherent--“And, comrade, you
+will be sure to keep your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes,
+Lochaber-axes, and two-handed swords--Stand fast, dragoons, on the left
+flank!--where was I?--Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded to retreat, leave
+some lighted matches burning on the branches of the trees--it shows as
+if they were lined with shot--But I forget--ye have no match-locks nor
+habergeons--only bows and arrows--bows and arrows! ha! ha! ha!”
+
+Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable
+to resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he
+connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war. It was a long
+time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in
+the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in
+reality, as they were wild and uncouth in outward appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     But if no faithless action stain
+     Thy true and constant word,
+     I’ll make thee famous by my pen,
+     And glorious by my sword.
+
+     I’ll serve thee in such noble ways
+     As ne’er were known before;
+     I’ll deck and crown thy head with bays,
+     And love thee more and more.--MONTROSE’S LINES.
+
+We must now leave, with whatever regret, the valiant Captain Dalgetty,
+to recover of his wounds or otherwise as fate shall determine, in order
+briefly to trace the military operations of Montrose, worthy as they are
+of a more important page, and a better historian. By the assistance of
+the chieftains whom we have commemorated, and more especially by the
+junction of the Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were
+peculiarly zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army of two
+or three thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully united the Irish
+under Colkitto. This last leader, who, to the great embarrassment of
+Milton’s commentators, is commemorated in one of that great poet’s
+sonnets, was properly named Alister, or Alexander M’Donnell, by birth a
+Scottish islesman, and related to the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage
+he owed the command assigned him in the Irish troops. In many respects
+he merited this distinction. He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to
+insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely master of
+his weapons, and always ready to show the example in the extremity of
+danger. To counterbalance these good qualities, it must be recorded,
+that he was inexperienced in military tactics, and of a jealous and
+presumptuous disposition, which often lost to Montrose the fruits of
+Colkitto’s gallantry. Yet such is the predominance of outward personal
+qualities in the eyes of a mild people, that the feats of strength and
+courage shown by this champion, seem to have made a stronger impression
+upon the minds of the Highlanders, than the military skill and
+chivalrous spirit of the great Marquis of Montrose. Numerous traditions
+are still preserved in the Highland glens concerning Alister M’Donnell,
+though the name of Montrose is rarely mentioned among them.
+
+[Milton’s book, entitled TETRACHORDON, had been ridiculed, it would
+seem, by the divines assembled at Westminster, and others, on account of
+the hardness of the title; and Milton in his sonnet retaliates upon
+the barbarous Scottish names which the Civil War had made familiar to
+English ears:--
+
+     . . . . why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
+     COLKITTO or M’Donald, or Gallasp?
+     These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
+     That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp.
+
+“We may suppose,” says Bishop Newton, “that these were persons of note
+among the Scotch ministers, who were for pressing and enforcing the
+Covenant;” whereas Milton only intends to ridicule the barbarism
+of Scottish names in general, and quotes, indiscriminately, that of
+Gillespie, one of the Apostles of the Covenant, and those of Colkitto
+and M’Donnell (both belonging to one person), one of its bitterest
+enemies.]
+
+The point upon which Montrose finally assembled his little army, was in
+Strathearn, on the verge of the Highlands of Perthshire, so as to menace
+the principal town of that county.
+
+His enemies were not unprepared for his reception. Argyle, at the head
+of his Highlanders, was dogging the steps of the Irish from the west to
+the east, and by force, fear, or influence, had collected an army nearly
+sufficient to have given battle to that under Montrose. The Lowlands
+were also prepared, for reasons which we assigned at the beginning of
+this tale. A body of six thousand infantry, and six or seven thousand
+cavalry, which profanely assumed the title of God’s army, had been
+hastily assembled from the shires of Fife, Angus, Perth, Stirling, and
+the neighbouring counties. A much less force in former times, nay, even
+in the preceding reign, would have been sufficient to have secured the
+Lowlands against a more formidable descent of Highlanders, than those
+united under Montrose; but times had changed strangely within the last
+half century. Before that period, the Lowlanders were as constantly
+engaged in war as the mountaineers, and were incomparably better
+disciplined and armed. The favourite Scottish order of battle somewhat
+resembled the Macedonian phalanx. Their infantry formed a compact body,
+armed with long spears, impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the age,
+though well mounted, and arrayed in complete proof. It may easily
+be conceived, therefore, that their ranks could not be broken by the
+disorderly charge of Highland infantry armed for close combat only, with
+swords, and ill furnished with missile weapons, and having no artillery
+whatever.
+
+This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the introduction
+of muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which, not being as yet
+combined with the bayonet, was a formidable weapon at a distance, but
+gave no assurance against the enemy who rushed on to close quarters. The
+pike, indeed, was not wholly disused in the Scottish army; but it was no
+longer the favourite weapon, nor was it relied upon as formerly by those
+in whose hands it was placed; insomuch that Daniel Lupton, a tactician
+of the day, has written a book expressly upon the superiority of the
+musket. This change commenced as early as the wars of Gustavus Adolphus,
+whose marches were made with such rapidity, that the pike was very soon
+thrown aside in his army, and exchanged for fire-arms. A circumstance
+which necessarily accompanied this change, as well as the establishment
+of standing armies, whereby war became a trade, was the introduction of
+a laborious and complicated system of discipline, combining a variety
+of words of command with corresponding operations and manoeuvres, the
+neglect of any one of which was sure to throw the whole into confusion.
+War therefore, as practised among most nations of Europe, had assumed
+much more than formerly the character of a profession or mystery, to
+which previous practice and experience were indispensable requisites.
+Such was the natural consequence of standing armies, which had almost
+everywhere, and particularly in the long German wars, superseded what
+may be called the natural discipline of the feudal militia.
+
+The Scottish Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double
+disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders. They were divested of the
+spear, a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had so often
+repelled the impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and they were
+subjected to a new and complicated species of discipline, well adapted,
+perhaps, to the use of regular troops, who could be rendered completely
+masters of it, but tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen
+soldiers, by whom it was rarely practised, and imperfectly understood.
+So much has been done in our own time in bringing back tactics to their
+first principles, and in getting rid of the pedantry of war, that it
+is easy for us to estimate the disadvantages under which a half-trained
+militia laboured, who were taught to consider success as depending upon
+their exercising with precision a system of tactics, which they probably
+only so far comprehended as to find out when they were wrong, but
+without the power of getting right again. Neither can it be denied,
+that, in the material points of military habits and warlike spirit,
+the Lowlanders of the seventeenth century had sunk far beneath their
+Highland countrymen.
+
+From the earliest period down to the union of the crowns, the whole
+kingdom of Scotland, Lowlands as well as Highlands, had been the
+constant scene of war, foreign and domestic; and there was probably
+scarce one of its hardy inhabitants, between the age of sixteen and
+sixty, who was not as willing in point of fact as he was literally bound
+in law, to assume arms at the first call of his liege lord, or of a
+royal proclamation. The law remained the same in sixteen hundred and
+forty-five as a hundred years before, but the race of those subjected to
+it had been bred up under very different feelings. They had sat in quiet
+under their vine and under their fig-tree, and a call to battle involved
+a change of life as new as it was disagreeable. Such of them, also, who
+lived near unto the Highlands, were in continual and disadvantageous
+contact with the restless inhabitants of those mountains, by whom their
+cattle were driven off, their dwellings plundered, and their persons
+insulted, and who had acquired over them that sort of superiority
+arising from a constant system of aggression. The Lowlanders, who lay
+more remote, and out of reach of these depredations, were influenced by
+the exaggerated reports circulated concerning the Highlanders, whom,
+as totally differing in laws, language, and dress, they were induced
+to regard as a nation of savages, equally void of fear and of humanity.
+These various prepossessions, joined to the less warlike habits of the
+Lowlanders, and their imperfect knowledge of the new and complicated
+system of discipline for which they had exchanged their natural mode
+of fighting, placed them at great disadvantage when opposed to the
+Highlander in the field of battle. The mountaineers, on the contrary,
+with the arms and courage of their fathers, possessed also their simple
+and natural system of tactics, and bore down with the fullest confidence
+upon an enemy, to whom anything they had been taught of discipline was,
+like Saul’s armour upon David, a hinderance rather than a help, “because
+they had not proved it.”
+
+It was with such disadvantages on the one side, and such advantages on
+the other, to counterbalance the difference of superior numbers and the
+presence of artillery and cavalry, that Montrose encountered the army of
+Lord Elcho upon the field of Tippermuir. The Presbyterian clergy had not
+been wanting in their efforts to rouse the spirit of their followers,
+and one of them, who harangued the troops on the very day of battle,
+hesitated not to say, that if ever God spoke by his mouth, he promised
+them, in His name, that day, a great and assured victory. The cavalry
+and artillery were also reckoned sure warrants of success, as the
+novelty of their attack had upon former occasions been very discouraging
+to the Highlanders. The place of meeting was an open heath, and the
+ground afforded little advantage to either party, except that it allowed
+the horse of the Covenanters to act with effect.
+
+A battle upon which so much depended, was never more easily decided.
+The Lowland cavalry made a show of charging; but, whether thrown into
+disorder by the fire of musketry, or deterred by a disaffection to
+the service said to have prevailed among the gentlemen, they made no
+impression on the Highlanders whatever, and recoiled in disorder from
+ranks which had neither bayonets nor pikes to protect them. Montrose
+saw, and instantly availed himself of this advantage. He ordered his
+whole army to charge, which they performed with the wild and desperate
+valour peculiar to mountaineers. One officer of the Covenanters alone,
+trained in the Italian wars, made a desperate defence upon the right
+wing. In every other point their line was penetrated at the first onset;
+and this advantage once obtained, the Lowlanders were utterly unable to
+contend at close quarters with their more agile and athletic enemies.
+Many were slain on the held, and such a number in the pursuit, that
+above one-third of the Covenanters were reported to have fallen; in
+which number, however, must be computed a great many fat burgesses who
+broke their wind in the flight, and thus died without stroke of sword.
+[We choose to quote our authority for a fact so singular:--“A great many
+burgesses were killed--twenty-five householders in St. Andrews--many
+were bursten in the flight, and died without stroke.”--See Baillie’s
+Letters, vol. ii. page 92.]
+
+The victors obtained possession of Perth, and obtained considerable sums
+of money, as well as ample supplies of arms and ammunition. But
+those advantages were to be balanced against an almost insurmountable
+inconvenience that uniformly attended a Highland army. The clans could
+be in no respect induced to consider themselves as regular soldiers,
+or to act as such. Even so late as the year 1745-6, when the Chevalier
+Charles Edward, by way of making an example, caused a soldier to be shot
+for desertion, the Highlanders, who composed his army, were affected as
+much by indignation as by fear. They could not conceive any principle
+of justice upon which a man’s life could be taken, for merely going home
+when it did not suit him to remain longer with the army. Such had been
+the uniform practice of their fathers. When a battle was over, the
+campaign was, in their opinion, ended; if it was lost, they sought
+safety in their mountains--if won, they returned there to secure their
+booty. At other times they had their cattle to look after, and their
+harvests to sow or reap, without which their families would have
+perished for want. In either case, there was an end of their services
+for the time; and though they were easily enough recalled by the
+prospect of fresh adventures and more plunder, yet the opportunity
+of success was, in the meantime, lost, and could not afterwards be
+recovered. This circumstance serves to show, even if history had not
+made us acquainted with the same fact, that the Highlanders had never
+been accustomed to make war with the view of permanent conquest, but
+only with the hope of deriving temporary advantage, or deciding some
+immediate quarrel. It also explains the reason why Montrose, with all
+his splendid successes, never obtained any secure or permanent footing
+in the Lowlands, and why even those Lowland noblemen and gentlemen, who
+were inclined to the royal cause, showed diffidence and reluctance to
+join an army of a character so desultory and irregular, as might lead
+them at all times to apprehend that the Highlanders securing themselves
+by a retreat to their mountains, would leave whatever Lowlanders might
+have joined them to the mercy of an offended and predominant enemy. The
+same consideration will also serve to account for the sudden marches
+which Montrose was obliged to undertake, in order to recruit his army in
+the mountains, and for the rapid changes of fortune, by which we often
+find him obliged to retreat from before those enemies over whom he had
+recently been victorious. If there should be any who read these tales
+for any further purpose than that of immediate amusement, they will find
+these remarks not unworthy of their recollection.
+
+It was owing to such causes, the slackness of the Lowland loyalists and
+the temporary desertion of his Highland followers, that Montrose found
+himself, even after the decisive victory of Tippermuir, in no condition
+to face the second army with which Argyle advanced upon him from the
+westward. In this emergency, supplying by velocity the want of strength,
+he moved suddenly from Perth to Dundee, and being refused admission into
+that town, fell northward upon Aberdeen, where he expected to be joined
+by the Gordons and other loyalists. But the zeal of these gentlemen
+was, for the time, effectually bridled by a large body of Covenanters,
+commanded by the Lord Burleigh, and supposed to amount to three thousand
+men. These Montrose boldly attacked with half their number. The battle
+was fought under the walls Of the city, and the resolute valour of
+Montrose’s followers was again successful against every disadvantage.
+
+But it was the fate of this great commander, always to gain the glory,
+but seldom to reap the fruits of victory. He had scarcely time to repose
+his small army in Aberdeen, ere he found, on the one hand, that the
+Gordons were likely to be deterred from joining him, by the reasons we
+have mentioned, with some others peculiar to their chief, the Marquis
+of Huntly; on the other hand, Argyle, whose forces had been augmented by
+those of several Lowland noblemen, advanced towards Montrose at the head
+of an army much larger than he had yet had to cope with. These troops
+moved, indeed, with slowness, corresponding to the cautious character
+of their commander; but even that caution rendered Argyle’s approach
+formidable, since his very advance implied, that he was at the head of
+an army irresistibly superior.
+
+There remained one mode of retreat open to Montrose, and he adopted
+it. He threw himself into the Highlands, where he could set pursuit
+at defiance, and where he was sure, in every glen, to recover those
+recruits who had left his standard to deposit their booty in their
+native fastnesses. It was thus that the singular character of the
+army which Montrose commanded, while, on the one hand, it rendered his
+victory in some degree nugatory, enabled him, on the other, under the
+most disadvantageous circumstances, to secure his retreat, recruit
+his forces, and render himself more formidable than ever to the enemy,
+before whom he had lately been unable to make a stand.
+
+On the present occasion he threw himself into Badenoch, and rapidly
+traversing that district, as well as the neighbouring country of Athole,
+he alarmed the Covenanters by successive attacks upon various unexpected
+points, and spread such general dismay, that repeated orders were
+dispatched by the Parliament to Argyle, their commander, to engage, and
+disperse Montrose at all rates.
+
+These commands from his superiors neither suited the haughty spirit, nor
+the temporizing and cautious policy, of the nobleman to whom they were
+addressed. He paid, accordingly, no regard to them, but limited his
+efforts to intrigues among Montrose’s few Lowland followers, many of
+whom had become disgusted with the prospect of a Highland campaign,
+which exposed their persons to intolerable fatigue, and left their
+estates at the Covenanters’ mercy. Accordingly, several of them left
+Montrose’s camp at this period. He was joined, however, by a body of
+forces of more congenial spirit, and far better adapted to the situation
+in which he found himself. This reinforcement consisted of a large body
+of Highlanders, whom Colkitto, dispatched for that purpose, had levied
+in Argyleshire. Among the most distinguished was John of Moidart, called
+the Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts of Appin, the Clan Gregor,
+the Clan M’Nab, and other tribes of inferior distinction. By these
+means, Montrose’s army was so formidably increased, that Argyle cared no
+longer to remain in the command of that opposed to him, but returned to
+Edinburgh, and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his
+army was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner
+in which they ought to have been. From thence the Marquis returned to
+Inverary, there, in full security, to govern his feudal vassals, and
+patriarchal followers, and to repose himself in safety on the faith of
+the Clan proverb already quoted--“It is a far cry to Lochow.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     Such mountains steep, such craggy hills,
+     His army on one side enclose:
+     The other side, great griesly gills
+     Did fence with fenny mire and moss.
+
+     Which when the Earl understood,
+     He council craved of captains all,
+     Who bade set forth with mournful mood,
+     And take such fortune as would fall.
+     --FLODDEN FIELD, AN ANCIENT POEM.
+
+Montrose had now a splendid career in his view, provided he could obtain
+the consent of his gallant, but desultory troops, and their independent
+chieftains. The Lowlands lay open before him without an army adequate to
+check his career; for Argyle’s followers had left the Covenanters’ host
+when their master threw up his commission, and many other troops, tired
+of the war, had taken the same opportunity to disband themselves. By
+descending Strath-Tay, therefore, one of the most convenient passes from
+the Highlands, Montrose had only to present himself in the Lowlands, in
+order to rouse the slumbering spirit of chivalry and of loyalty which
+animated the gentlemen to the north of the Forth. The possession of
+these districts, with or without a victory, would give him the command
+of a wealthy and fertile part of the kingdom, and would enable him, by
+regular pay, to place his army on a permanent footing, to penetrate as
+far as the capital, perhaps from thence to the Border, where he deemed
+it possible to communicate with the yet unsubdued forces of King
+Charles.
+
+Such was the plan of operations by which the truest glory was to be
+acquired, and the most important success insured for the royal cause.
+Accordingly it did not escape the ambitious and daring spirit of him
+whose services had already acquired him the title of the Great Marquis.
+But other motives actuated many of his followers, and perhaps were not
+without their secret and unacknowledged influence upon his own feelings.
+
+The Western Chiefs in Montrose’s army, almost to a man, regarded the
+Marquis of Argyle as the most direct and proper object of hostilities.
+Almost all of them had felt his power; almost all, in withdrawing their
+fencible men from their own glens, left their families and property
+exposed to his vengeance; all, without exception, were desirous
+of diminishing his sovereignty; and most of them lay so near his
+territories, that they might reasonably hope to be gratified by a share
+of his spoil. To these Chiefs the possession of Inverary and its castle
+was an event infinitely more important and desirable than the capture
+of Edinburgh. The latter event could only afford their clansmen a little
+transitory pay or plunder; the former insured to the Chiefs themselves
+indemnity for the past, and security for the future. Besides these
+personal reasons, the leaders, who favoured this opinion, plausibly
+urged, that though, at his first descent into the Lowlands, Montrose
+might be superior to the enemy, yet every day’s march he made from the
+hills must diminish his own forces, and expose him to the accumulated
+superiority of any army which the Covenanters could collect from the
+Lowland levies and garrisons. On the other hand, by crushing Argyle
+effectually, he would not only permit his present western friends to
+bring out that proportion of their forces which they must otherwise
+leave at home for protection of their families; but farther, he would
+draw to his standard several tribes already friendly to his cause, but
+who were prevented from joining him by fear of M’Callum More.
+
+These arguments, as we have already hinted, found something responsive
+in Montrose’s own bosom, not quite consonant with the general heroism
+of his character. The houses of Argyle and Montrose had been in former
+times, repeatedly opposed to each other in war and in politics, and the
+superior advantages acquired by the former, had made them the subject
+of envy and dislike to the neighbouring family, who, conscious of equal
+desert, had not been so richly rewarded. This was not all. The existing
+heads of these rival families had stood in the most marked opposition to
+each other since the commencement of the present troubles.
+
+Montrose, conscious of the superiority of his talents, and of having
+rendered great service to the Covenanters at the beginning of the war,
+had expected from that party the supereminence of council and command,
+which they judged it safer to intrust to the more limited faculties,
+and more extensive power, of his rival Argyle. The having awarded this
+preference, was an injury which Montrose never forgave the Covenanters;
+and he was still less likely to extend his pardon to Argyle, to whom
+he had been postponed. He was therefore stimulated by every feeling of
+hatred which could animate a fiery temper in a fierce age, to seek for
+revenge upon the enemy of his house and person; and it is probable that
+these private motives operated not a little upon his mind, when he found
+the principal part of his followers determined rather to undertake an
+expedition against the territories of Argyle, than to take the far more
+decisive step of descending at once into the Lowlands.
+
+Yet whatever temptation Montrose found to carry into effect his attack
+upon Argyleshire, he could not easily bring himself to renounce the
+splendid achievement of a descent upon the Lowlands. He held more than
+one council with the principal Chiefs, combating, perhaps, his own
+secret inclination as well as theirs. He laid before them the extreme
+difficulty of marching even a Highland army from the eastward into
+Argyleshire, through passes scarcely practicable for shepherds and
+deer-stalkers, and over mountains, with which even the clans lying
+nearest to them did not pretend to be thoroughly acquainted. These
+difficulties were greatly enhanced by the season of the year, which was
+now advancing towards December, when the mountain-passes, in themselves
+so difficult, might be expected to be rendered utterly impassable by
+snowstorms. These objections neither satisfied nor silenced the Chiefs,
+who insisted upon their ancient mode of making war, by driving the
+cattle, which, according to the Gaelic phrase, “fed upon the grass
+of their enemy.” The council was dismissed late at night, and without
+coming to any decision, excepting that the Chiefs, who supported the
+opinion that Argyle should be invaded, promised to seek out among their
+followers those who might be most capable of undertaking the office of
+guides upon the expedition.
+
+Montrose had retired to the cabin which served him for a tent, and
+stretched himself upon a bed of dry fern, the only place of repose which
+it afforded. But he courted sleep in vain, for the visions of ambition
+excluded those of Morpheus. In one moment he imagined himself displaying
+the royal banner from the reconquered Castle of Edinburgh, detaching
+assistance to a monarch whose crown depended upon his success, and
+receiving in requital all the advantages and preferments which could be
+heaped upon him whom a king delighteth to honour. At another time
+this dream, splendid as it was, faded before the vision of gratified
+vengeance, and personal triumph over a personal enemy. To surprise
+Argyle in his stronghold of Inverary--to crush in him at once the rival
+of his own house and the chief support of the Presbyterians--to show
+the Covenanters the difference between the preferred Argyle and the
+postponed Montrose, was a picture too flattering to feudal vengeance to
+be easily relinquished.
+
+While he lay thus busied with contradictory thoughts and feelings, the
+soldier who stood sentinel upon his quarters announced to the Marquis
+that two persons desired to speak with his Excellency.
+
+“Their names?” answered Montrose, “and the cause of their urgency at
+such a late hour?”
+
+On these points, the sentinel, who was one of Colkitto’s Irishmen, could
+afford his General little information; so that Montrose, who at such a
+period durst refuse access to no one, lest he might have been neglecting
+some important intelligence, gave directions, as a necessary precaution,
+to put the guard under arms, and then prepared to receive his untimely
+visitors. His groom of the chambers had scarce lighted a pair of
+torches, and Montrose himself had scarce risen from his couch, when two
+men entered, one wearing a Lowland dress, of shamoy leather worn almost
+to tatters; the other a tall upright old Highlander, of a complexion
+which might be termed iron-grey, wasted and worn by frost and tempest.
+
+“What may be your commands with me, my friends?” said the Marquis, his
+hand almost unconsciously seeking the but of one of his pistols; for
+the period, as well as the time of night, warranted suspicions which the
+good mien of his visitors was not by any means calculated to remove.
+
+“I pray leave to congratulate you,” said the Lowlander, “my most noble
+General, and right honourable lord, upon the great battles which you
+have achieved since I had the fortune to be detached from you, It was
+a pretty affair that tuilzie at Tippermuir; nevertheless, if I might be
+permitted to counsel--”
+
+“Before doing so,” said the Marquis, “will you be pleased to let me know
+who is so kind as to favour me with his opinion?”
+
+“Truly, my lord,” replied the man, “I should have hoped that was
+unnecessary, seeing it is not so long since I took on in your service,
+under promise of a commission as Major, with half a dollar of daily pay
+and half a dollar of arrears; and I am to trust your lordship has nut
+forgotten my pay as well as my person?”
+
+“My good friend, Major Dalgetty,” said Montrose, who by this time
+perfectly recollected his man, “you must consider what important things
+have happened to put my friends’ faces out of my memory, besides this
+imperfect light; but all conditions shall be kept.--And what news from
+Argyleshire, my good Major? We have long given you up for lost, and I
+was now preparing to take the most signal vengeance upon the old fox who
+infringed the law of arms in your person.”
+
+“Truly, my noble lord,” said Dalgetty, “I have no desire that my return
+should put any stop to so proper and becoming an intention; verily it
+is in no shape in the Earl of Argyle’s favour or mercy that I now stand
+before you, and I shall be no intercessor for him. But my escape
+is, under Heaven, and the excellent dexterity which, as an old and
+accomplished cavalier, I displayed in effecting the same,--I say, under
+these, it is owing to the assistance of this old Highlander, whom
+I venture to recommend to your lordship’s special favour, as the
+instrument of saving your lordship’s to command, Dugald Dalgetty of
+Drumthwacket.”
+
+“A thankworthy service,” said the Marquis, gravely, “which shall
+certainly be requited in the manner it deserves.”
+
+“Kneel down, Ranald,” said Major Dalgetty (as we must now call him),
+“kneel down, and kiss his Excellency’s hand.”
+
+The prescribed form of acknowledgment not being according to the custom
+of Ranald’s country, he contented himself with folding his arms on his
+bosom, and making a low inclination of his head.
+
+“This poor man, my lord,” said Major Dalgetty, continuing his speech
+with a dignified air of protection towards Ranald M’Eagh, “has strained
+all his slender means to defend my person from mine enemies, although
+having no better weapons of a missile sort than bows and arrows, whilk
+your lordship will hardly believe.”
+
+“You will see a great many such weapons in my camp,” said Montrose, “and
+we find them serviceable.” [In fact, for the admirers of archery it may
+be stated, not only that many of the Highlanders in Montrose’s army used
+these antique missiles, but even in England the bow and quiver, once the
+glory of the bold yeomen of that land, were occasionally used during the
+great civil wars.]
+
+“Serviceable, my lord!” said Dalgetty; “I trust your lordship will
+permit me to be surprised--bows and arrows!--I trust you will forgive
+my recommending the substitution of muskets, the first convenient
+opportunity. But besides defending me, this honest Highlander also was
+at the pains of curing me, in respect that I had got a touch of the
+wars in my retreat, which merits my best requital in this special
+introduction of him to your lordship’s notice and protection.”
+
+“What is your name, my friend?” said Montrose, turning to the
+Highlander.
+
+“It may not be spoken,” answered the mountaineer.
+
+“That is to say,” interpreted Major Dalgetty, “he desires to have his
+name concealed, in respect he hath in former days taken a castle, slain
+certain children, and done other things, whilk, as your good lordship
+knows, are often practised in war time, but excite no benevolence
+towards the perpetrator in the friends of those who sustain injury. I
+have known, in my military experience, many brave cavaliers put to death
+by the boors, simply for having used military license upon the country.”
+
+“I understand,” said Montrose: “This person is at feud with some of our
+followers. Let him retire to the court of guard, and we will think of
+the best mode of protecting him.”
+
+“You hear, Ranald,” said Major Dalgetty, with an air of superiority,
+“his Excellency wishes to hold privy council with me, you must go to the
+court of guard.--He does not know where that is, poor fellow!--he is
+a young soldier for so old a man; I will put him under the charge of
+a sentinel, and return to your lordship incontinent.” He did so, and
+returned accordingly.
+
+Montrose’s first enquiry respected the embassy to Inverary; and he
+listened with attention to Dalgetty’s reply, notwithstanding the
+prolixity of the Major’s narrative. It required an effort from the
+Marquis to maintain his attention; but no one better knew, that where
+information is to be derived from the report of such agents as Dalgetty,
+it can only be obtained by suffering them to tell their story in their
+own way. Accordingly the Marquis’s patience was at length rewarded.
+Among other spoils which the Captain thought himself at liberty to take,
+was a packet of Argyle’s private papers. These he consigned to the hands
+of his General; a humour of accounting, however, which went no farther,
+for I do not understand that he made any mention of the purse of gold
+which he had appropriated at the same time that he made seizure of the
+papers aforesaid. Snatching a torch from the wall, Montrose was in an
+instant deeply engaged in the perusal of these documents, in which it is
+probable he found something to animate his personal resentment against
+his rival Argyle.
+
+“Does he not fear me?” said he; “then he shall feel me. Will he fire my
+castle of Murdoch?--Inverary shall raise the first smoke.--O for a guide
+through the skirts of Strath-Fillan!”
+
+Whatever might be Dalgetty’s personal conceit, he understood his
+business sufficiently to guess at Montrose’s meaning. He instantly
+interrupted his own prolix narration of the skirmish which had taken
+place, and the wound he had received in his retreat, and began to speak
+to the point which he saw interested his General.
+
+“If,” said he, “your Excellency wishes to make an infall into
+Argyleshire, this poor man, Ranald, of whom I told you, together with
+his children and companions, know every pass into that land, both
+leading from the east and from the north.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Montrose; “what reason have you to believe their
+knowledge so extensive?”
+
+“So please your Excellency,” answered Dalgetty, “during the weeks that I
+remained with them for cure of my wound, they were repeatedly obliged
+to shift their quarters, in respect of Argyle’s repeated attempts to
+repossess himself of the person of an officer who was honoured with Your
+Excellency’s confidence; so that I had occasion to admire the singular
+dexterity and knowledge of the face of the country with which they
+alternately achieved their retreat and their advance; and when, at
+length, I was able to repair to your Excellency’s standard, this honest
+simple creature, Ranald MacEagh, guided me by paths which my steed
+Gustavus (which your lordship may remember) trode with perfect safety,
+so that I said to myself, that where guides, spies, or intelligencers,
+were required in a Highland campaign in that western country, more
+expert persons than he and his attendants could not possibly be
+desired.”
+
+“And can you answer for this man’s fidelity?” said Montrose; “what is
+his name and condition?”
+
+“He is an outlaw and robber by profession, something also of a homicide
+or murderer,” answered Dalgetty; “and by name, called Ranald MacEagh;
+whilk signifies, Ranald, the Son of the Mist.”
+
+“I should remember something of that name,” said Montrose, pausing: “Did
+not these Children of the Mist perpetrate some act of cruelty upon the
+M’Aulays?”
+
+Major Dalgetty mentioned the circumstance of the murder of the forester,
+and Montrose’s active memory at once recalled all the circumstances of
+the feud.
+
+“It is most unlucky,” said Montrose, “this inexpiable quarrel between
+these men and the M’Aulays. Allan has borne himself bravely in these
+wars, and possesses, by the wild mystery of his behaviour and
+language, so much influence over the minds of his countrymen, that the
+consequences of disobliging him might be serious. At the same time,
+these men being so capable of rendering useful service, and being as you
+say, Major Dalgetty, perfectly trustworthy--”
+
+“I will pledge my pay and arrears, my horse and arms, my head and neck,
+upon their fidelity,” said the Major; “and your Excellency knows, that a
+soldado could say no more for his own father.”
+
+“True,” said Montrose; “but as this is a matter of particular moment, I
+would willingly know the grounds of so positive an assurance.”
+
+“Concisely then, my lord,” said the Major, “not only did they disdain to
+profit by a handsome reward which Argyle did me the honour to place upon
+this poor head of mine, and not only did they abstain from pillaging
+my personal property, whilk was to an amount that would have tempted
+regular soldiers in any service of Europe; and not only did they restore
+me my horse, whilk your Excellency knows to be of value, but I could not
+prevail on them to accept one stiver, doit, or maravedi, for the trouble
+and expenses of my sick bed. They actually refused my coined money when
+freely offered,--a tale seldom to be told in a Christian land.”
+
+“I admit,” said Montrose, after a moment’s reflection, “that their
+conduct towards you is good evidence of their fidelity; but how to
+secure against the breaking out of this feud?” He paused, and then
+suddenly added, “I had forgot I have supped, while you, Major, have been
+travelling by moonlight.”
+
+He called to his attendants to fetch a stoup of wine and some
+refreshments. Major Dalgetty, who had the appetite of a convalescent
+returned from Highland quarters, needed not any pressing to partake of
+what was set before him, but proceeded to dispatch his food with such
+alacrity, that the Marquis, filling a cup of wine, and drinking to his
+health, could not help remarking, that coarse as the provisions of his
+camp were, he was afraid Major Dalgetty had fared much worse during his
+excursion into Argyleshire.
+
+“Your Excellency may take your corporal oath upon that,” said the worthy
+Major, speaking with his mouth full; “for Argyle’s bread and water are
+yet stale and mouldy in my recollection, and though they did their
+best, yet the viands that the Children of the Mist procured for me, poor
+helpless creatures as they were, were so unrefreshful to my body, that
+when enclosed in my armour, whilk I was fain to leave behind me for
+expedition’s sake, I rattled therein like the shrivelled kernel in a nut
+that hath been kept on to a second Hallowe’en.”
+
+“You must take the due means to repair these losses, Major Dalgetty.”
+
+“In troth,” answered the soldier, “I shall hardly be able to compass
+that, unless my arrears are to be exchanged for present pay; for I
+protest to your Excellency, that the three stone weight which I have
+lost were simply raised upon the regular accountings of the States of
+Holland.”
+
+“In that case,” said the Marquis, “you are only reduced to good marching
+order. As for the pay, let us once have victory--victory, Major, and
+your wishes, and all our wishes, shall be amply fulfilled. Meantime,
+help yourself to another cup of wine.”
+
+“To your Excellency’s health,” said the Major, filling a cup to the
+brim, to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, “and victory over
+all our enemies, and particularly over Argyle! I hope to twitch another
+handful from his board myself--I have had one pluck at it already.”
+
+“Very true,” answered Montrose; “but to return to those men of the Mist.
+You understand, Dalgetty, that their presence here, and the purpose for
+which we employ them, is a secret between you and me?”
+
+Delighted, as Montrose had anticipated, with this mark of his
+General’s confidence, the Major laid his hand upon his nose, and nodded
+intelligence.
+
+“How many may there be of Ranald’s followers?” continued the Marquis.
+
+“They are reduced, so far as I know, to some eight or ten men,” answered
+Major Dalgetty, “and a few women and children.”
+
+“Where are they now?” demanded Montrose.
+
+“In a valley, at three miles’ distance,” answered the soldier, “awaiting
+your Excellency’s command; I judged it not fit to bring them to your
+leaguer without your Excellency’s orders.”
+
+“You judged very well,” said Montrose; “it would be proper that they
+remain where they are, or seek some more distant place of refuge. I will
+send them money, though it is a scarce article with me at present.”
+
+“It is quite unnecessary,” said Major Dalgetty; “your Excellency has
+only to hint that the M’Aulays are going in that direction, and my
+friends of the Mist will instantly make volte-face, and go to the right
+about.”
+
+“That were scarce courteous,” said the Marquis. “Better send them a few
+dollars to purchase them some cattle for the support of the women and
+children.”
+
+“They know how to come by their cattle at a far cheaper rate,” said the
+Major; “but let it be as your Excellency wills.”
+
+“Let Ranald MacEagh,” said Montrose, “select one or two of his
+followers, men whom he can trust, and who are capable of keeping their
+own secret and ours; these, with their chief for scout-master-general,
+shall serve for our guides. Let them be at my tent to-morrow at
+daybreak, and see, if possible, that they neither guess my purpose, nor
+hold any communication with each other in private.--This old man, has he
+any children?”
+
+“They have been killed or hanged,” answered the Major, “to the number of
+a round dozen, as I believe--but he hath left one grand-child, a smart
+and hopeful youth, whom I have noted to be never without a pebble in
+his plaid-nook, to fling at whatsoever might come in his way; being
+a symbol, that, like David, who was accustomed to sling smooth stones
+taken from the brook, he may afterwards prove an adventurous warrior.”
+
+“That boy, Major Dalgetty,” said the Marquis, “I will have to attend
+upon my own person. I presume he will have sense enough to keep his name
+secret?”
+
+“Your Excellency need not fear that,” answered Dalgetty; “these Highland
+imps, from the moment they chip the shell--”
+
+“Well,” interrupted Montrose, “that boy shall be pledge for the fidelity
+of his parent, and if he prove faithful, the child’s preferment shall be
+his reward.--And now, Major Dalgetty, I will license your departure for
+the night; tomorrow you will introduce this MacEagh, under any name or
+character he may please to assume. I presume his profession has rendered
+him sufficiently expert in all sort of disguises; or we may admit
+John of Moidart into our schemes, who has sense, practicability,
+and intelligence, and will probably allow this man for a time to be
+disguised as one of his followers. For you, Major, my groom of the
+chambers will be your quarter-master for this evening.”
+
+Major Dalgetty took his leave with a joyful heart greatly elated with
+the reception he had met with, and much pleased with the personal
+manners of his new General, which, as he explained at great length to
+Ranald MacEagh, reminded him in many respects of the demeanour of the
+immortal Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and Bulwark of the
+Protestant Faith.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+     The march begins in military state,
+     And nations on his eyes suspended wait;
+     Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
+     And winter barricades the realms of frost.
+     He comes,--nor want, nor cold, his course delay.
+     --VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.
+
+By break of day Montrose received in his cabin old MacEagh, and
+questioned him long and particularly as to the means of approaching the
+country of Argyle. He made a note of his answers, which he compared with
+those of two of his followers, whom he introduced as the most prudent
+and experienced. He found them to correspond in all respects; but, still
+unsatisfied where precaution was so necessary, the Marquis compared the
+information he had received with that he was able to collect from the
+Chiefs who lay most near to the destined scene of invasion, and being in
+all respects satisfied of its accuracy, he resolved to proceed in full
+reliance upon it.
+
+In one point Montrose changed his mind. Having judged it unfit to take
+the boy Kenneth into his own service, lest, in case of his birth being
+discovered, it should be resented as an offence by the numerous clans
+who entertained a feudal enmity to this devoted family, he requested the
+Major to take him in attendance upon himself; and as he accompanied
+this request with a handsome DOUCEUR, under pretence of clothing and
+equipping the lad, this change was agreeable to all parties.
+
+It was about breakfast-time, when Major Dalgetty, being dismissed by
+Montrose, went in quest of his old acquaintances, Lord Menteith and the
+M’Aulays, to whom he longed to communicate his own adventures, as
+well as to learn from them the particulars of the campaign. It may
+be imagined he was received with great glee by men to whom the late
+uniformity of their military life had rendered any change of society
+an interesting novelty. Allan M’Aulay alone seemed to recoil from his
+former acquaintance, although, when challenged by his brother, he could
+render no other reason than a reluctance to be familiar with one who
+had been so lately in the company of Argyle, and other enemies. Major
+Dalgetty was a little alarmed by this sort of instinctive consciousness
+which Allan seemed to entertain respecting the society he had been
+lately keeping; he was soon satisfied, however, that the perceptions of
+the seer in this particular were not infallible.
+
+As Ranald MacEagh was to be placed under Major Dalgetty’s protection and
+superintendence, it was necessary he should present him to those persons
+with whom he was most likely to associate. The dress of the old man had,
+in the meantime, been changed from the tartan of his clan to a sort
+of clothing peculiar to the men of the distant Isles, resembling a
+waistcoat with sleeves, and a petticoat, all made in one piece. This
+dress was laced from top to bottom in front, and bore some resemblance
+to that called Polonaise, still worn by children in Scotland of the
+lower rank. The tartan hose and bonnet completed the dress, which old
+men of the last century remembered well to have seen worn by the distant
+Islesmen who came to the Earl of Mar’s standard in the year 1715.
+
+Major Dalgetty, keeping his eye on Allan as he spoke, introduced Ranald
+MacEagh under the fictitious name of Ranald MacGillihuron in Benbecula,
+who had escaped with him out of Argyle’s prison. He recommended him as
+a person skilful in the arts of the harper and the senachie, and by no
+means contemptible in the quality of a second-sighted person or seer.
+While making this exposition, Major Dalgetty stammered and hesitated in
+a way so unlike the usual glib forwardness of his manner, that he could
+not have failed to have given suspicion to Allan M’Aulay, had not that
+person’s whole attention been engaged in steadily perusing the
+features of the person thus introduced to him. This steady gaze so much
+embarrassed Ranald MacEagh, that his hand was beginning to sink down
+towards his dagger, in expectation of a hostile assault, when Allan,
+suddenly crossing the floor of the hut, extended his hand to him in the
+way of friendly greeting. They sat down side by side, and conversed in
+a low mysterious tone of voice. Menteith and Angus M’Aulay were not
+surprised at this, for there prevailed among the Highlanders who
+pretended to the second-sight, a sort of Freemasonry, which generally
+induced them, upon meeting, to hold communication with each other on the
+nature and extent of their visionary experiences.
+
+“Does the sight come gloomy upon your spirits?” said Allan to his new
+acquaintance.
+
+“As dark as the shadow upon the moon,” replied Ranald, “when she is
+darkened in her mid-course in heaven, and prophets foretell of evil
+times.”
+
+“Come hither,” said Allan, “come more this way, I would converse with
+you apart; for men say that in your distant islands the sight is poured
+forth with more clearness and power than upon us, who dwell near the
+Sassenach.”
+
+While they were plunged into their mystic conference, the two English
+cavaliers entered the cabin in the highest possible spirits, and
+announced to Angus M’Aulay that orders had been issued that all should
+hold themselves in readiness for an immediate march to the westward.
+Having delivered themselves of their news with much glee, they paid
+their compliments to their old acquaintance Major Dalgetty, whom they
+instantly recognised, and enquired after the health of his charger,
+Gustavus.
+
+“I humbly thank you, gentlemen,” answered the soldier, “Gustavas is
+well, though, like his master, somewhat barer on the ribs than when you
+offered to relieve me of him at Darnlinvarach; and let me assure you,
+that before you have made one or two of those marches which you seem to
+contemplate with so much satisfaction in prospect, you will leave, my
+good knights, some of your English beef, and probably an English horse
+or two, behind you.”
+
+Both exclaimed that they cared very little what they found or what they
+left, provided the scene changed from dogging up and down Angus and
+Aberdeenshire, in pursuit of an enemy who would neither fight nor run
+away.
+
+“If such be the case,” said Angus M’Aulay, “I must give orders to my
+followers, and make provision too for the safe conveyance of Annot Lyle;
+for an advance into M’Callum More’s country will be a farther and fouler
+road than these pinks of Cumbrian knighthood are aware of.” So saying,
+he left the cabin.
+
+“Annot Lyle!” repeated Dalgetty, “is she following the campaign?”
+
+“Surely,” replied Sir Giles Musgrave, his eye glancing slightly from
+Lord Menteith to Allan M’Aulay; “we could neither march nor fight,
+advance nor retreat, without the influence of the Princess of Harps.”
+
+“The Princess of Broadswords and Targets, I say,” answered his
+companion; “for the Lady of Montrose herself could not be more
+courteously waited upon; she has four Highland maidens, and as many
+bare-legged gillies, to wait upon her orders.”
+
+“And what would you have, gentlemen?” said Allan, turning suddenly from
+the Highlander with whom he was in conversation; “would you yourselves
+have left an innocent female, the companion of your infancy, to die by
+violence, or perish by famine? There is not, by this time, a roof upon
+the habitation of my fathers--our crops have been destroyed, and our
+cattle have been driven--and you, gentlemen, have to bless God, that,
+coming from a milder and more civilized country, you expose only your
+own lives in this remorseless war, without apprehension that your
+enemies will visit with their vengeance the defenceless pledges you may
+have left behind you.”
+
+The Englishmen cordially agreed that they had the superiority in this
+respect; and the company, now dispersing, went each to his several
+charge or occupation.
+
+Allan lingered a moment behind, still questioning the reluctant Ranald
+MacEagh upon a point in his supposed visions, by which he was greatly
+perplexed. “Repeatedly,” he said, “have I had the sight of a Gael, who
+seemed to plunge his weapon into the body of Menteith,--of that young
+nobleman in the scarlet laced cloak, who has just now left the bothy.
+But by no effort, though I have gazed till my eyes were almost fixed
+in the sockets, can I discover the face of this Highlander, or even
+conjecture who he may be, although his person and air seem familiar to
+me.” [See Note II.--Wraiths.]
+
+“Have you reversed your own plaid,” said Ranald, “according to the rule
+of the experienced Seers in such case?”
+
+“I have,” answered Allan, speaking low, and shuddering as if with
+internal agony.
+
+“And in what guise did the phantom then appear to you?” said Ranald.
+
+“With his plaid also reversed,” answered Allan, in the same low and
+convulsed tone.
+
+“Then be assured,” said Ranald, “that your own hand, and none other,
+will do the deed of which you have witnessed the shadow.”
+
+“So has my anxious soul a hundred times surmised,” replied Allan. “But
+it is impossible! Were I to read the record in the eternal book of fate,
+I would declare it impossible--we are bound by the ties of blood, and by
+a hundred ties more intimate--we have stood side by side in battle,
+and our swords have reeked with the blood of the same enemies--it is
+IMPOSSIBLE I should harm him!”
+
+“That you WILL do so,” answered Ranald, “is certain, though the cause be
+hid in the darkness of futurity. You say,” he continued, suppressing his
+own emotions with difficulty, “that side by side you have pursued your
+prey like bloodhounds--have you never seen bloodhounds turn their fangs
+against each other, and fight over the body of a throttled deer?”
+
+“It is false!” said M’Aulay, starting up, “these are not the forebodings
+of fate, but the temptation of some evil spirit from the bottomless
+pit!” So saying, he strode out of the cabin.
+
+“Thou hast it!” said the Son of the Mist, looking after him with an
+air of exultation; “the barbed arrow is in thy side! Spirits of the
+slaughtered, rejoice! soon shall your murderers’ swords be dyed in each
+other’s blood.”
+
+On the succeeding morning all was prepared, and Montrose advanced by
+rapid marches up the river Tay, and poured his desultory forces into the
+romantic vale around the lake of the same name, which lies at the head
+of that river. The inhabitants were Campbells, not indeed the vassals
+of Argyle, but of the allied and kindred house of Glenorchy, which
+now bears the name of Breadalbane. Being taken by surprise, they were
+totally unprepared for resistance, and were compelled to be passive
+witnesses of the ravages which took place among their flocks and herds.
+Advancing in this manner to the vale of Loch Dochart, and laying waste
+the country around him, Montrose reached the most difficult point of his
+enterprise.
+
+To a modern army, even with the assistance of the good military road
+which now leads up by Teinedrum to the head of Loch Awe, the passage of
+these extensive wilds would seem a task of some difficulty. But at this
+period, and for long afterwards, there was no road or path whatsoever;
+and to add to the difficulty, the mountains were already covered with
+snow. It was a sublime scene to look up to them, piled in great masses,
+one upon another, the front rank of dazzling whiteness, while those
+which arose behind them caught a rosy tint from the setting of a clear
+wintry sun. Ben Cruachan, superior in magnitude, and seeming the very
+citadel of the Genius of the Region, rose high above the others, showing
+his glimmering and scathed peak to the distance of many miles.
+
+The followers of Montrose were men not to be daunted by the sublime, yet
+terrible prospect before them. Many of them were of that ancient race
+of Highlanders, who not only willingly made their couch in the snow,
+but considered it as effeminate luxury to use a snowball for a pillow.
+Plunder and revenge lay beyond the frozen mountains which they beheld,
+and they did not permit themselves to be daunted by the difficulty of
+traversing them. Montrose did not allow their spirits time to subside.
+He ordered the pipes to play in the van the ancient pibroch entitled,
+“HOGGIL NAM BO,” etc. (that is, We come through snow-drift to drive the
+prey), the shrilling sounds of which had often struck the vales of the
+Lennox with terror. [It is the family-march of the M’Farlanes, a warlike
+and predatory clan, who inhabited the western banks of Loch-Lomond.
+See WAVERLY, Note XV.] The troops advanced with the nimble alacrity
+of mountaineers, and were soon involved in the dangerous pass, through
+which Ranald acted as their guide, going before them with a select
+party, to track out the way.
+
+The power of man at no time appears more contemptible than when it
+is placed in contrast with scenes of natural terror and dignity. The
+victorious army of Montrose, whose exploits had struck terror into all
+Scotland, when ascending up this terrific pass, seemed a contemptible
+handful of stragglers, in the act of being devoured by the jaws of the
+mountain, which appeared ready to close upon them. Even Montrose half
+repented the boldness of his attempt, as he looked down from the summit
+of the first eminence which he attained, upon the scattered condition
+of his small army. The difficulty of getting forward was so great, that
+considerable gaps began to occur in the line of march, and the distance
+between the van, centre, and rear, was each moment increased in a degree
+equally incommodious and dangerous. It was with great apprehension that
+Montrose looked upon every point of advantage which the hill afforded,
+in dread it might be found occupied by an enemy prepared for defence;
+and he often afterwards was heard to express his conviction, that had
+the passes of Strath-Fillan been defended by two hundred resolute men,
+not only would his progress have been effectually stopped, but his army
+must have been in danger of being totally cut off. Security, however,
+the bane of many a strong country and many a fortress, betrayed, on this
+occasion, the district of Argyle to his enemies. The invaders had only
+to contend with the natural difficulties of the path, and with the snow,
+which, fortunately, had not fallen in any great quantity. The army no
+sooner reached the summit of the ridge of hills dividing Argyleshire
+from the district of Breadalbane, than they rushed down upon the devoted
+vales beneath them with a fury sufficiently expressive of the motives
+which had dictated a movement so difficult and hazardous.
+
+Montrose divided his army into three bodies, in order to produce a wider
+and more extensive terror, one of which was commanded by the Captain
+of Clan Ranald, one intrusted to the leading of Colkitto, and the third
+remained under his own direction. He was thus enabled to penetrate the
+country of Argyle at three different points. Resistance there was none.
+The flight of the shepherds from the hills had first announced in the
+peopled districts this formidable irruption, and wherever the clansmen
+were summoned out, they were killed, disarmed, and dispersed, by an
+enemy who had anticipated their motions. Major Dalgetty, who had been
+sent forward against Inverary with the few horse of the army that were
+fit for service, managed his matters so well, that he had very nearly
+surprised Argyle, as he expressed it, INTER POCULA; and it was only a
+rapid flight by water which saved that chief from death or captivity.
+But the punishment which Argyle himself escaped fell heavily upon his
+country and clan, and the ravages committed by Montrose on that devoted
+land, although too consistent with the genius of the country and times,
+have been repeatedly and justly quoted as a blot on his actions and
+character.
+
+Argyle in the meantime had fled to Edinburgh, to lay his complaints
+before the Convention of Estates. To meet the exigence of the moment,
+a considerable army was raised under General Baillie, a Presbyterian
+officer of skill and fidelity, with whom was joined in command the
+celebrated Sir John Urrie, a soldier of fortune like Dalgetty, who had
+already changed sides twice during the Civil War, and was destined to
+turn his coat a third time before it was ended. Argyle also, burning
+with indignation, proceeded to levy his own numerous forces, in order to
+avenge himself of his feudal enemy. He established his head-quarters at
+Dunbarton, where he was soon joined by a considerable force, consisting
+chiefly of his own clansmen and dependants. Being there joined by
+Baillie and Urrie, with a very considerable army of regular forces,
+he prepared to march into Argyleshire, and chastise the invader of his
+paternal territories.
+
+But Montrose, while these two formidable armies were forming a junction,
+had been recalled from that ravaged country by the approach of a third,
+collected in the north under the Earl of Seaforth, who, after some
+hesitation, having embraced the side of the Covenanters, had now,
+with the assistance of the veteran garrison of Inverness, formed
+a considerable army, with which he threatened Montrose from
+Inverness-shire. Enclosed in a wasted and unfriendly country, and
+menaced on each side by advancing enemies of superior force, it might
+have been supposed that Montrose’s destruction was certain. But these
+were precisely the circumstances under which the active and enterprising
+genius of the Great Marquis was calculated to excite the wonder and
+admiration of his friends, the astonishment and terror of his enemies.
+As if by magic, he collected his scattered forces from the wasteful
+occupation in which they had been engaged; and scarce were they again
+united, ere Argyle and his associate generals were informed, that the
+royalists, having suddenly disappeared from Argyleshire, had retreated
+northwards among the dusky and impenetrable mountains of Lochaber.
+
+The sagacity of the generals opposed to Montrose immediately
+conjectured, that it was the purpose of their active antagonist to fight
+with, and, if possible, to destroy Seaforth, ere they could come to his
+assistance. This occasioned a corresponding change in their operations.
+Leaving this chieftain to make the best defence he could, Urrie and
+Baillie again separated their forces from those of Argyle; and, having
+chiefly horse and Lowland troops under their command, they kept the
+southern side of the Grampian ridge, moving along eastward into the
+county of Angus, resolving from thence to proceed into Aberdeenshire,
+in order to intercept Montrose, if he should attempt to escape in that
+direction.
+
+Argyle, with his own levies and other troops, undertook to follow
+Montrose’s march; so that, in case he should come to action either with
+Seaforth, or with Baillie and Urrie, he might be placed between two
+fires by this third army, which, at a secure distance, was to hang upon
+his rear.
+
+For this purpose, Argyle once more moved towards Inverary, having an
+opportunity, at every step, to deplore the severities which the hostile
+clans had exercised on his dependants and country. Whatever noble
+qualities the Highlanders possessed, and they had many, clemency in
+treating a hostile country was not of the number; but even the ravages
+of hostile troops combined to swell the number of Argyle’s followers.
+It is still a Highland proverb, He whose house is burnt must become a
+soldier; and hundreds of the inhabitants of these unfortunate valleys
+had now no means of maintenance, save by exercising upon others the
+severities they had themselves sustained, and no future prospect of
+happiness, excepting in the gratification of revenge. His bands were,
+therefore, augmented by the very circumstances which had desolated his
+country, and Argyle soon found himself at the head of three thousand
+determined men, distinguished for activity and courage, and commanded by
+gentlemen of his own name, who yielded to none in those qualities. Under
+himself, he conferred the principal command upon Sir Duncan Campbell of
+Ardenvohr, and another Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchenbreck, [This last
+character is historical] an experienced and veteran soldier, whom he had
+recalled from the wars of Ireland for this purpose. The cold spirit
+of Argyle himself, however, clogged the military councils of his
+more intrepid assistants; and it was resolved, notwithstanding their
+increased force, to observe the same plan of operations, and to follow
+Montrose cautiously, in whatever direction he should march, avoiding an
+engagement until an opportunity should occur of falling upon his rear,
+while he should be engaged with another enemy in front.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+     Piobracht au Donuil-dhu,
+     Piobrachet au Donuil,
+     Piobrachet agus S’breittach
+     Feacht an Innerlochy.
+
+     The war-tune of Donald the Black,
+     The war-tune of Black Donald,
+     The pipes and the banner
+     Are up in the rendezvous of Inverlochy.
+
+The military road connecting the chains of forts, as it is called, and
+running in the general line of the present Caledonian Canal, has now
+completely opened the great glen, or chasm, extending almost across
+the whole island, once doubtless filled by the sea, and still affording
+basins for that long line of lakes, by means of which modern art has
+united the German and Atlantic Oceans. The paths or tracks by which the
+natives traversed this extensive valley, were, in 1645-6, in the same
+situation as when they awaked the strain of an Irish engineer officer,
+who had been employed in converting them into practicable military
+roads, and whose eulogium begins, and, for aught I know, ends, as
+follows:
+
+Had you seen but these roads before they were made, You would have held
+up your hands and bless’d General Wade.
+
+But, bad as the ordinary paths were, Montrose avoided them, and led
+his army, like a herd of wild deer, from mountain to mountain, and from
+forest to forest, where his enemies could learn nothing of his motions,
+while he acquired the most perfect knowledge respecting theirs from the
+friendly clans of Cameron and M’Donnell, whose mountainous districts he
+now traversed. Strict orders had been given that Argyle’s advance should
+be watched, and that all intelligence respecting his motions should be
+communicated instantly to the General himself.
+
+It was a moonlight night, and Montrose, worn out by the fatigues of
+the day, was laid down to sleep in a miserable shieling. He had only
+slumbered two hours, when some one touched his shoulder. He looked up,
+and, by the stately form and deep voice, easily recognised the Chief of
+the Camerons.
+
+“I have news for you,” said that leader, “which is worth while to arise
+and listen to.”
+
+“M’Ilduy [Mhich-Connel Dhu, the descendant of Black Donald.] can
+bring no other,” said Montrose, addressing the Chief by his patronymic
+title--“are they good or bad?”
+
+“As you may take them,” said the Chieftain.
+
+“Are they certain?” demanded Montrose.
+
+“Yes,” answered M’Ilduy, “or another messenger should have brought them.
+Know that, tired with the task imposed upon me of accompanying that
+unhappy Dalgetty and his handful of horse, who detained me for hours
+on the march at the pace of a crippled badger, I made a stretch of four
+miles with six of my people in the direction of Inverlochy, and there
+met with Ian of Glenroy, who had been out for intelligence. Argyle is
+moving upon Inverlochy with three thousand chosen men, commanded by the
+flower of the sons of Diarmid.--These are my news--they are certain--it
+is for you to construe their purport.”
+
+“Their purport must be good,” answered Montrose, readily and cheerfully;
+“the voice of M’Ilduy is ever pleasant in the ears of Montrose, and most
+pleasant when it speaks of some brave enterprise at hand--What are our
+musters?”
+
+He then called for light, and easily ascertained that a great part of
+his followers having, as usual, dispersed to secure their booty, he had
+not with him above twelve or fourteen hundred men.
+
+“Not much above a third,” said Montrose, pausing, “of Argyle’s force,
+and Highlanders opposed to Highlanders.--With the blessing of God upon
+the royal cause, I would not hesitate were the odds but one to two.”
+
+“Then do not hesitate,” said Cameron; “for when your trumpets shall
+sound to attack M’Callum More, not a man of these glens will remain deaf
+to the summons. Glengarry--Keppoch--I myself--would destroy, with
+fire and sword, the wretch who should remain behind under any pretence
+whatsoever. To-morrow, or the next day, shall be a day of battle to all
+who bear the name of M’Donnell or Cameron, whatever be the event.”
+
+“It is gallantly said, my noble friend,” said Montrose, grasping his
+hand, “and I were worse than a coward did I not do justice to such
+followers, by entertaining the most indubitable hopes of success. We
+will turn back on this M’Callum More, who follows us like a raven to
+devour the relics of our army, should we meet braver men who may be able
+to break its strength! Let the Chiefs and leaders be called together as
+quickly as possible; and you, who have brought us the first news of this
+joyful event,--for such it shall be,--you, M’Ilduy, shall bring it to
+a joyful issue, by guiding us the best and nearest road against our
+enemy.”
+
+“That will I willingly do,” said M’Ilduy; “if I have shown you paths by
+which to retreat through these dusky wilds, with far more readiness will
+I teach you how to advance against your foe.”
+
+A general bustle now prevailed, and the leaders were everywhere startled
+from the rude couches on which they had sought temporary repose.
+
+“I never thought,” said Major Dalgetty, when summoned up from a handful
+of rugged heather roots, “to have parted from a bed as hard as a
+stable-broom with such bad will; but, indubitably, having but one man
+of military experience in his army, his Excellency the Marquis may be
+vindicated in putting him upon hard duty.”
+
+So saying, he repaired to the council, where, notwithstanding his
+pedantry, Montrose seemed always to listen to him with considerable
+attention; partly because the Major really possessed military knowledge
+and experience, and often made suggestions which were found of
+advantage, and partly because it relieved the General from the necessity
+of deferring entirely to the opinion of the Highland Chiefs, and gave
+him additional ground for disputing it when it was not agreeable to
+his own. On the present occasion, Dalgetty joyfully acquiesced in the
+proposal of marching back and confronting Argyle, which he compared to
+the valiant resolution of the great Gustavus, who moved against the
+Duke of Bavaria, and enriched his troops by the plunder of that fertile
+country, although menaced from the northward by the large army which
+Wallenstein had assembled in Bohemia.
+
+The Chiefs of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Lochiel, whose clans, equal
+in courage and military fame to any in the Highlands, lay within the
+neighbourhood of the scene of action, dispatched the fiery cross through
+their vassals, to summon every one who could bear arms to meet the
+King’s lieutenant, and to join the standards of their respective Chiefs,
+as they marched towards Inverlochy. As the order was emphatically given,
+it was speedily and willingly obeyed. Their natural love of war, their
+zeal for the royal cause,--for they viewed the King in the light of
+a chief whom his clansmen had deserted,--as well as their implicit
+obedience to their own patriarch, drew in to Montrose’s army not only
+all in the neighbourhood who were able to bear arms, but some who, in
+age at least, might have been esteemed past the use of them. During the
+next day’s march, which, being directed straight through the mountains
+of Lochaber, was unsuspected by the enemy, his forces were augmented by
+handfuls of men issuing from each glen, and ranging themselves under
+the banners of their respective Chiefs. This was a circumstance highly
+inspiriting to the rest of the army, who, by the time they approached
+the enemy, found their strength increased considerably more than
+one-fourth, as had been prophesied by the valiant leader of the
+Camerons.
+
+While Montrose executed this counter-march, Argyle had, at the head of
+his gallant army, advanced up the southern side of Loch-Eil, and reached
+the river Lochy, which combines that lake with Loch-Lochy. The ancient
+Castle of Inverlochy, once, as it is said, a royal fortress, and still,
+although dismantled, a place of some strength and consideration, offered
+convenient head-quarters, and there was ample room for Argyle’s army to
+encamp around him in the valley, where the Lochy joins Loch-Eil. Several
+barges had attended, loaded with provisions, so that they were in every
+respect as well accommodated as such an army wished or expected to be.
+Argyle, in council with Auchenbreck and Ardenvohr, expressed his full
+confidence that Montrose was now on the brink of destruction; that his
+troops must gradually diminish as he moved eastward through such uncouth
+paths; that if he went westward, he must encounter Urrie and Baillie;
+if northward, fall into the hands of Seaforth; or should he choose any
+halting-place, he would expose himself to be attacked by three armies at
+once.
+
+“I cannot rejoice in the prospect, my lord,” said Auchebreck, “that
+James Grahame will be crushed with little assistance of ours. He has
+left a heavy account in Argyleshire against him, and I long to reckon
+with him drop of blood for drop of blood. I love not the payment of such
+debts by third hands.”
+
+“You are too scrupulous,” said Argyle; “what signifies it by whose
+hands the blood of the Grahames is spilt? It is time that of the sons of
+Diarmid should cease to flow.--What say you, Ardenvohr?”
+
+“I say, my lord,” replied Sir Duncan, “that I think Auchenbreck will
+be gratified, and will himself have a personal opportunity of settling
+accounts with Montrose for his depredations. Reports have reached our
+outposts that the Camerons are assembling their full strength on the
+skirts of Ben-Nevis; this must be to join the advance of Montrose, and
+not to cover his retreat.”
+
+“It must be some scheme of harassing and depredation,” said Argyle,
+“devised by the inveterate malignity of M’Ilduy, which he terms
+loyalty. They can intend no more than an attack on our outposts, or some
+annoyance to to-morrow’s march.”
+
+“I have sent out scouts,” said Sir Duncan, “in every direction, to
+procure intelligence; and we must soon hear whether they really do
+assemble any force, upon what point, or with what purpose.”
+
+It was late ere any tidings were received; but when the moon had arisen,
+a considerable bustle in the camp, and a noise immediately after heard
+in the castle, announced the arrival of important intelligence. Of the
+scouts first dispersed by Ardenvohr, some had returned without being
+able to collect anything, save uncertain rumours concerning movements
+in the country of the Camerons. It seemed as if the skirts of Ben-Nevis
+were sending forth those unaccountable and portentous sounds with which
+they sometimes announce the near approach of a storm. Others, whose zeal
+carried them farther upon their mission, were entrapped and slain, or
+made prisoners, by the inhabitants of the fastnesses into which they
+endeavoured to penetrate. At length, on the rapid advance of Montrose’s
+army, his advanced guard and the outposts of Argyle became aware of each
+other’s presence, and after exchanging a few musket-shots and arrows,
+fell back to their respective main bodies, to convey intelligence and
+receive orders.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell, and Auchenbreck, instantly threw themselves on
+horseback, in order to visit the state of the outposts; and Argyle
+maintained his character of commander-in-chief with reputation, by
+making a respectable arrangement of his forces in the plain, as it was
+evident that they might now expect a night alarm, or an attack in the
+morning at farthest. Montrose had kept his forces so cautiously within
+the defiles of the mountain, that no effort which Auchenbreck or
+Ardenvohr thought it prudent to attempt, could ascertain his probable
+strength. They were aware, however, that, at the utmost computation, it
+must be inferior to their own, and they returned to Argyle to inform
+him of the amount of their observations; but that nobleman refused to
+believe that Montrose could be in presence himself. He said, “It was
+a madness, of which even James Grahame, in his height of presumptuous
+frenzy, was incapable; and he doubted not that their march was only
+impeded by their ancient enemies, Glencoe, Keppoch, and Glengarry; and
+perhaps M’Vourigh, with his M’Phersons, might have assembled a force,
+which he knew must be greatly inferior in numbers to his own, and
+whom, therefore, he doubted not to disperse by force, or by terms of
+capitulation.”
+
+The spirit of Argyle’s followers was high, breathing vengeance for the
+disasters which their country had so lately undergone; and the
+night passed in anxious hopes that the morning might dawn upon their
+vengeance. The outposts of either army kept a careful watch, and the
+soldiers of Argyle slept in the order of battle which they were next day
+to occupy.
+
+A pale dawn had scarce begun to tinge the tops of these immense
+mountains, when the leaders of both armies prepared for the business of
+the day. It was the second of February, 1645-6. The clansmen of Argyle
+were arranged in two lines, not far from the angle between the river
+and the lake, and made an appearance equally resolute and formidable.
+Auchenbreck would willingly have commenced the battle by an attack
+on the outposts of the enemy, but Argyle, with more cautious policy,
+preferred receiving to making the onset. Signals were soon heard,
+that they would not long wait for it in vain. The Campbells could
+distinguish, in the gorge of the mountains, the war-tunes of various
+clans as they advanced to the onset. That of the Camerons, which bears
+the ominous words, addressed to the wolves and ravens, “Come to me, and
+I will give you flesh,” was loudly re-echoed from their native glens. In
+the language of the Highland bards, the war voice of Glengarry was
+not silent; and the gathering tunes of other tribes could be plainly
+distinguished, as they successively came up to the extremity of the
+passes from which they were to descend into the plain.
+
+“You see,” said Argyle to his kinsmen, “it is as I said, we have only to
+deal with our neighbours; James Grahame has not ventured to show us his
+banner.”
+
+At this moment there resounded from the gorge of the pass a lively
+flourish of trumpets, in that note with which it was the ancient
+Scottish fashion to salute the royal standard.
+
+“You may hear, my lord, from yonder signal,” said Sir Duncan Campbell,
+“that he who pretends to be the King’s Lieutenant, must be in person
+among these men.”
+
+“And has probably horse with him,” said Auchenbreck, “which I could not
+have anticipated. But shall we look pale for that, my lord, when we have
+foes to fight, and wrongs to revenge?”
+
+Argyle was silent, and looked upon his arm, which hung in a sash, owing
+to a fall which he had sustained in a preceding march.
+
+“It is true,” interrupted Ardenvohr, eagerly, “my Lord of Argyle, you
+are disabled from using either sword or pistol; you must retire on board
+the galleys--your life is precious to us as a head--your hand cannot be
+useful to us as a soldier.”
+
+“No,” said Argyle, pride contending with irresolution, “it shall never
+be said that I fled before Montrose; if I cannot fight, I will at least
+die in the midst of my children.”
+
+Several other principal Chiefs of the Campbells, with one voice,
+conjured and obtested their Chieftain to leave them for that day to the
+leading of Ardenvohr and Auchenbreck, and to behold the conflict from a
+distance and in safety.--We dare not stigmatize Argyle with poltroonery;
+for, though his life was marked by no action of bravery, yet he behaved
+with so much composure and dignity in the final and closing scene, that
+his conduct upon the present and similar occasions, should be rather
+imputed to indecision than to want of courage. But when the small still
+voice within a man’s own breast, which tells him that his life is of
+consequence to himself, is seconded by that of numbers around him, who
+assure him that it is of equal advantage to the public, history affords
+many examples of men more habitually daring than Argyle, who have
+consulted self-preservation when the temptations to it were so
+powerfully increased.
+
+“See him on board, if you will, Sir Duncan,” said Auchenbreck to his
+kinsman; “It must be my duty to prevent this spirit from spreading
+farther among us.”
+
+So saying, he threw himself among the ranks, entreating, commanding, and
+conjuring the soldiers, to remember their ancient fame and their present
+superiority; the wrongs they had to revenge, if successful, and the fate
+they had to dread, if vanquished; and imparting to every bosom a portion
+of the fire which glowed in his own. Slowly, meanwhile, and apparently
+with reluctance, Argyle suffered himself to be forced by his officious
+kinsmen to the verge of the lake, and was transported on board of a
+galley, from the deck of which he surveyed with more safety than credit
+the scene which ensued.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, notwithstanding the urgency of
+the occasion, stood with his eyes riveted on the boat which bore his
+Chieftain from the field of battle. There were feelings in his bosom
+which could not be expressed; for the character of a Chief was that of
+a father, and the heart of a clansman durst not dwell upon his failings
+with critical severity as upon those of other men. Argyle, too, harsh
+and severe to others, was generous and liberal among his kinsmen, and
+the noble heart of, Ardenvohr was wrung with bitter anguish, when he
+reflected to what interpretation his present conduct might subject him.
+
+“It is better it should be so,” said he to himself, devouring his own
+emotion; “but--of his line of a hundred sires, I know not one who would
+have retired while the banner of Diarmid waved in the wind, in the face
+of its most inveterate foes!”
+
+A loud shout now compelled him to turn, and to hasten with all dispatch
+to his post, which was on the right flank of Argyle’s little army.
+
+The retreat of Argyle had not passed unobserved by his watchful enemy,
+who, occupying the superior ground, could mark every circumstance which
+passed below. The movement of three or four horsemen to the rear showed
+that those who retreated were men of rank.
+
+“They are going,” said Dalgetty, “to put their horses out of danger,
+like prudent cavaliers. Yonder goes Sir Duncan Campbell, riding a brown
+bay gelding, which I had marked for my own second charger.”
+
+“You are wrong, Major,” said Montrose, with a bitter smile, “they are
+saving their precious Chief--Give the signal for assault instantly--send
+the word through the ranks.--Gentlemen, noble Chiefs, Glengarry,
+Keppoch, M’Vourigh, upon them instantly!--Ride to M’Ilduy, Major
+Dalgetty, and tell him to charge as he loves Lochaber--return and bring
+our handful of horse to my standard. They shall be placed with the Irish
+as a reserve.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+     As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Lochlin.
+     --OSSIAN.
+
+The trumpets and bagpipes, those clamorous harbingers of blood and
+death, at once united in the signal for onset, which was replied to
+by the cry of more than two thousand warriors, and the echoes of the
+mountain glens behind them. Divided into three bodies, or columns,
+the Highland followers of Montrose poured from the defiles which had
+hitherto concealed them from their enemies, and rushed with the utmost
+determination upon the Campbells, who waited their charge with the
+greatest firmness. Behind these charging columns marched in line the
+Irish, under Colkitto, intended to form the reserve. With them was the
+royal standard, and Montrose himself; and on the flanks were about fifty
+horse, under Dalgetty, which by wonderful exertions had been kept in
+some sort fit for service.
+
+The right column of Royalists was led by Glengarry, the left by Lochiel,
+and the centre by the Earl of Menteith, who preferred fighting on foot
+in a Highland dress to remaining with the cavalry.
+
+The Highlanders poured on with the proverbial fury of their country,
+firing their guns, and discharging their arrows, at a little distance
+from the enemy, who received the assault with the most determined
+gallantry. Better provided with musketry than their enemies, stationary
+also, and therefore taking the more decisive aim, the fire of Argyle’s
+followers was more destructive than that which they sustained. The royal
+clans, perceiving this, rushed to close quarters, and succeeded on two
+points in throwing their enemies into disorder. With regular troops
+this must have achieved a victory; but here Highlanders were opposed to
+Highlanders, and the nature of the weapons, as well as the agility of
+those who wielded them, was equal on both sides.
+
+Their strife was accordingly desperate; and the clash of the swords
+and axes, as they encountered each other, or rung upon the targets, was
+mingled with the short, wild, animating shrieks with which Highlanders
+accompany the battle, the dance, or indeed violent exertion of any kind.
+Many of the foes opposed were personally acquainted, and sought to match
+themselves with each other from motives of hatred, or a more generous
+emulation of valour. Neither party would retreat an inch, while the
+place of those who fell (and they fell fast on both sides) was eagerly
+supplied by others, who thronged to the front of danger. A steam, like
+that which arises from a seething cauldron, rose into the thin, cold,
+frosty air, and hovered above the combatants.
+
+So stood the fight on the right and the centre, with no immediate
+consequence, except mutual wounds and death.
+
+On the right of the Campbells, the Knight of Ardenvohr obtained some
+advantage, through his military skill and by strength of numbers. He had
+moved forward obliquely the extreme flank of his line at the instant the
+Royalists were about to close, so that they sustained a fire at once
+on front and in flank, and, despite the utmost efforts of their leader,
+were thrown into some confusion. At this instant, Sir Duncan Campbell
+gave the word to charge, and thus unexpectedly made the attack at
+the very moment he seemed about to receive it. Such a change of
+circumstances is always discouraging, and often fatal. But the disorder
+was remedied by the advance of the Irish reserve, whose heavy and
+sustained fire compelled the Knight of Ardenvohr to forego his
+advantage, and content himself with repulsing the enemy. The Marquis
+of Montrose, in the meanwhile, availing himself of some scattered birch
+trees, as well as of the smoke produced by the close fire of the Irish
+musketry, which concealed the operation, called upon Dalgetty to follow
+him with the horse, and wheeling round so as to gain the right flank and
+even the rear of the enemy, he commanded his six trumpets to sound
+the charge. The clang of the cavalry trumpets, and the noise of the
+galloping of the horse, produced an effect upon Argyle’s right wing
+which no other sounds could have impressed them with. The mountaineers
+of that period had a superstitious dread of the war-horse, like that
+entertained by the Peruvians, and had many strange ideas respecting the
+manner in which that animal was trained to combat. When, therefore, they
+found their ranks unexpectedly broken, and that the objects of their
+greatest terror were suddenly in the midst of them, the panic, in spite
+of Sir Duncan’s attempts to stop it, became universal. Indeed, the
+figure of Major Dalgetty alone, sheathed in impenetrable armour, and
+making his horse caracole and bound, so as to give weight to every
+blow which he struck, would have been a novelty in itself sufficient to
+terrify those who had never seen anything more nearly resembling such
+a cavalier, than a SHELTY waddling under a Highlander far bigger than
+itself. The repulsed Royalists returned to the charge; the Irish,
+keeping their ranks, maintained a fire equally close and destructive.
+There was no sustaining the fight longer. Argyle’s followers began
+to break and fly, most towards the lake, the remainder in different
+directions. The defeat of the right wing, of itself decisive, was
+rendered irreparable by the death of Auchenbreck, who fell while
+endeavouring to restore order.
+
+The Knight of Ardenvohr, with two or three hundred men, all gentlemen of
+descent and distinguished gallantry,--for the Campbells are supposed to
+have had more gentlemen in their ranks than any of the Highland clans,
+endeavoured, with unavailing heroism, to cover the tumultuary retreat
+of the common file. Their resolution only proved fatal to themselves,
+as they were charged again and again by fresh adversaries, and forced to
+separate from each other, until at length their aim seemed only to be to
+purchase an honourable death by resisting to the very last.
+
+“Good quarter, Sir Duncan,” called out Major Dalgetty, when he
+discovered his late host, with one or two others, defending himself
+against several Highlanders; and, to enforce his offer, he rode up to
+him with his sword uplifted. Sir Duncan’s reply was the discharge of a
+reserved pistol, which took effect not on the person of the rider, but
+on that of his gallant horse, which, shot through the heart, fell dead
+under him. Ranald MacEagh, who was one of those who had been pressing
+Sir Duncan hard, took the opportunity to cut him down with his
+broadsword, as he turned from him in the act of firing the pistol.
+
+Allan M’Aulay came up at this moment. They were, excepting Ranald,
+followers of his brother who were engaged on that part of the field,
+“Villains!” he said, “which of you has dared to do this, when it was my
+positive order that the Knight of Ardenvohr should be taken alive?”
+
+Half-a-dozen of busy hands, which were emulously employed in plundering
+the fallen knight, whose arms and accoutrements were of a magnificence
+befitting his quality, instantly forbore the occupation, and half the
+number of voices exculpated themselves, by laying the blame on the
+Skyeman, as they called Ranald MacEagh.
+
+“Dog of an Islander!” said Allan, forgetting, in his wrath, their
+prophetic brotherhood, “follow the chase, and harm him no farther,
+unless you mean to die by my hand.” They were at this moment left almost
+alone; for Allan’s threats had forced his own clan from the spot, and
+all around had pressed onwards toward the lake, carrying before them
+noise, terror, and confusion, and leaving behind only the dead and
+dying. The moment was tempting to MacEagh’s vengeful spirit.--“That I
+should die by your hand, red as it is with the blood of my kindred,”
+ said he, answering the threat of Allan in a tone as menacing as his own,
+“is not more likely than that you should fall by mine.” With that, he
+struck at M’Aulay with such unexpected readiness, that he had scarce
+time to intercept the blow with his target.
+
+“Villain!” said Allan, in astonishment, “what means this?”
+
+“I am Ranald of the Mist!” answered the Islesman, repeating the blow;
+and with that word, they engaged in close and furious conflict. It
+seemed to be decreed, that in Allan M’Aulay had arisen the avenger of
+his mother’s wrongs upon this wild tribe, as was proved by the issue of
+the present, as well as of former combats. After exchanging a few blows,
+Ranald MacEagh was prostrated by a deep wound on the skull; and M’Aulay,
+setting his foot on him, was about to pass the broadsword through his
+body, when the point of the weapon was struck up by a third party,
+who suddenly interposed. This was no other than Major Dalgetty, who,
+stunned by the fall, and encumbered by the dead body of his horse, had
+now recovered his legs and his understanding. “Hold up your sword,” said
+he to M’Aulay, “and prejudice this person no farther, in respect that
+he is here in my safeconduct, and in his Excellency’s service; and in
+regard that no honourable cavalier is at liberty, by the law martial, to
+avenge his own private injuries, FLAGRANTE BELLO, MULTO MAJUS FLAGRANTE
+PRAELIO.”
+
+“Fool!” said Allan, “stand aside, and dare not to come between the tiger
+and his prey!”
+
+But, far from quitting his point, Dalgetty stept across the fallen body
+of MacEagh, and gave Allan to understand, that if he called himself
+a tiger, he was likely, at present, to find a lion in his path. There
+required no more than the gesture and tone of defiance to turn the whole
+rage of the military Seer against the person who was opposing the course
+of his vengeance, and blows were instantly exchanged without farther
+ceremony.
+
+The strife betwixt Allan and MacEagh had been unnoticed by the
+stragglers around, for the person of the latter was known to few of
+Montrose’s followers; but the scuffle betwixt Dalgetty and him, both so
+well known, attracted instant attention; and fortunately, among others,
+that of Montrose himself, who had come for the purpose of gathering
+together his small body of horse, and following the pursuit down
+Loch-Eil. Aware of the fatal consequences of dissension in his little
+army, he pushed his horse up to the spot, and seeing MacEagh on the
+ground, and Dalgetty in the attitude of protecting him against M’Aulay,
+his quick apprehension instantly caught the cause of quarrel, and as
+instantly devised means to stop it. “For shame,” he said, “gentlemen
+cavaliers, brawling together in so glorious a field of victory!--Are you
+mad? Or are you intoxicated with the glory which you have both this day
+gained?”
+
+“It is not my fault, so please your Excellency,” said Dalgetty. “I
+have been known a BONUS SOCIUS, A BON CAMARADO, in all the services of
+Europe; but he that touches a man under my safeguard--”
+
+“And he,” said Allan, speaking at the same time, “who dares to bar the
+course of my just vengeance--”
+
+“For shame, gentlemen!” again repeated Montrose; “I have other business
+for you both,--business of deeper importance than any private quarrel,
+which you may easily find a more fitting time to settle. For you, Major
+Dalgetty, kneel down.”
+
+“Kneel!” said Dalgetty; “I have not learned to obey that word of
+command, saving when it is given from the pulpit. In the Swedish
+discipline, the front rank do indeed kneel, but only when the regiment
+is drawn up six file deep.”
+
+“Nevertheless,” repeated Montrose,--“kneel down, in the name of King
+Charles and of his representative.”
+
+When Dalgetty reluctantly obeyed, Montrose struck him lightly on the
+neck with the flat of his sword, saying,--“In reward of the gallant
+service of this day, and in the name and authority of our Sovereign,
+King Charles, I dub thee knight; be brave, loyal, and fortunate. And
+now, Sir Dugald Dalgetty, to your duty. Collect what horsemen you can,
+and pursue such of the enemy as are flying down the side of the lake. Do
+not disperse your force, nor venture too far; but take heed to prevent
+their rallying, which very little exertion may do. Mount, then, Sir
+Dugald, and do your duty.”
+
+“But what shall I mount?” said the new-made chevalier. “Poor Gustavus
+sleeps in the bed of honour, like his immortal namesake! and I am made a
+knight, a rider, as the High Dutch have it, just when I have not a horse
+left to ride upon.” [In German, as in Latin, the original meaning of the
+word Ritter, corresponding to Eques, is merely a horseman.]
+
+“That shall not be said,” answered Montrose, dismounting; “I make you a
+present of my own, which has been thought a good one; only, I pray you,
+resume the duty you discharge so well.”
+
+With many acknowledgments, Sir Dugald mounted the steed so liberally
+bestowed upon him; and only beseeching his Excellency to remember that
+MacEagh was under his safe-conduct, immediately began to execute the
+orders assigned to him, with great zeal and alacrity.
+
+“And you, Allan M’Aulay,” said Montrose, addressing the Highlander, who,
+leaning his sword-point on the ground, had regarded the ceremony of his
+antagonist’s knighthood with a sneer of sullen scorn,--“you, who are
+superior to the ordinary men led by the paltry motives of plunder, and
+pay, and personal distinction,--you, whose deep knowledge renders you so
+valuable a counsellor,--is it YOU whom I find striving with a man like
+Dalgetty, for the privilege of trampling the remains of life out of so
+contemptible an enemy as lies there? Come, my friend, I have other work
+for you. This victory, skilfully improved, shall win Seaforth to our
+party. It is not disloyalty, but despair of the good cause, that has
+induced him to take arms against us. These arms, in this moment of
+better augury, he may be brought to unite with ours. I shall send my
+gallant friend, Colonel Hay, to him, from this very field of battle,
+but he must be united in commission with a Highland gentleman of rank,
+befitting that of Seaforth, and of talents and of influence such as
+may make an impression upon him. You are not only in every respect
+the fittest for this most important mission, but, having no immediate
+command, your presence may be more easily spared than that of a Chief
+whose following is in the field. You know every pass and glen in
+the Highlands, as well as the manners and customs of every tribe. Go
+therefore to Hay, on the right wing; he has instructions, and expects
+you. You will find him with Glenmorrison’s men; be his guide, his
+interpreter, and his colleague.”
+
+Allan M’Aulay bent on the Marquis a dark and penetrating glance, as
+if to ascertain whether this sudden mission was not conferred for some
+latent and unexplained purpose. But Montrose, skilful in searching
+the motives of others, was an equal adept in concealing his own. He
+considered it as of the last consequence, in this moment of enthusiasm
+and exalted passion, to remove Allan from the camp for a few days, that
+he might provide, as his honour required, for the safety of those
+who had acted as his guides, when he trusted the Seer’s quarrel with
+Dalgetty might be easily made up. Allan, at parting, only recommended
+to the Marquis the care of Sir Duncan Campbell, whom Montrose instantly
+directed to be conveyed to a place of safety. He took the same
+precaution for MacEagh, committing the latter, however, to a party of
+the Irish, with directions that he should be taken care of, but that no
+Highlander, of any clan, should have access to him.
+
+The Marquis then mounted a led horse, which was held by one of his
+attendants, and rode on to view the scene of his victory, which was more
+decisive than even his ardent hopes had anticipated. Of Argyle’s gallant
+army of three thousand men, fully one-half fell in the battle, or in the
+flight. They had been chiefly driven back upon that part of the plain
+where the river forms an angle with the lake, so that there was no free
+opening either for retreat or escape. Several hundreds were forced
+into the lake and drowned. Of the survivors, about one-half escaped by
+swimming the river, or by an early flight along the left bank of the
+lake. The remainder threw themselves into the old Castle of Inverlochy;
+but being without either provisions or hopes of relief, they were
+obliged to surrender, on condition of being suffered to return to their
+homes in peace. Arms, ammunition, standards, and baggage, all became the
+prey of the conquerors.
+
+This was the greatest disaster that ever befell the race of Diarmid, as
+the Campbells were called in the Highlands; it being generally remarked
+that they were as fortunate in the issue of their undertakings, as they
+were sagacious in planning, and courageous in executing them. Of the
+number slain, nearly five hundred were dunniwassels, or gentlemen
+claiming descent from known and respected houses. And, in the opinion
+of many of the clan, even this heavy loss was exceeded by the disgrace
+arising from the inglorious conduct of their Chief, whose galley weighed
+anchor when the day was lost, and sailed down the lake with all the
+speed to which sails and oars could impel her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     Faint the din of battle bray’d,
+     Distant down the hollow wind;
+     War and terror fled before,
+     Wounds and death remain’d behind.--PENROSE.
+
+Montrose’s splendid success over his powerful rival was not attained
+without some loss, though not amounting to the tenth of what he
+inflicted. The obstinate valour of the Campbells cost the lives of many
+brave men of the opposite party; and more were wounded, the Chief of
+whom was the brave young Earl of Menteith, who had commanded the centre.
+He was but slightly touched, however, and made rather a graceful than
+a terrible appearance when he presented to his general the standard of
+Argyle, which he had taken from the standard-bearer with his own hand,
+and slain him in single combat. Montrose dearly loved his noble kinsman,
+in whom there was conspicuous a flash of the generous, romantic,
+disinterested chivalry of the old heroic times, entirely different from
+the sordid, calculating, and selfish character, which the practice of
+entertaining mercenary troops had introduced into most parts of Europe,
+and of which degeneracy Scotland, which furnished soldiers of fortune
+for the service of almost every nation, had been contaminated with a
+more than usual share. Montrose, whose native spirit was congenial,
+although experience had taught him how to avail himself of the motives
+of others, used to Menteith neither the language of praise nor of
+promise, but clasped him to his bosom as he exclaimed, “My gallant
+kinsman!” And by this burst of heartfelt applause was Menteith thrilled
+with a warmer glow of delight, than if his praises had been recorded in
+a report of the action sent directly to the throne of his sovereign.
+
+“Nothing,” he said, “my lord, now seems to remain in which I can render
+any assistance; permit me to look after a duty of humanity--the Knight
+of Ardenvohr, as I am told, is our prisoner, and severely wounded.”
+
+“And well he deserves to be so,” said Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who came
+up to them at that moment with a prodigious addition of acquired
+importance, “since he shot my good horse at the time that I was offering
+him honourable quarter, which, I must needs say, was done more like an
+ignorant Highland cateran, who has not sense enough to erect a sconce
+for the protection of his old hurley-house of a castle, than like a
+soldier of worth and quality.”
+
+“Are we to condole with you then,” said Lord Menteith, “upon the loss of
+the famed Gustavus?”
+
+“Even so, my lord,” answered the soldier, with a deep sigh, “DIEM
+CLAUSIT SUPREMUM, as we said at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen.
+Better so than be smothered like a cadger’s pony in some flow-moss,
+or snow-wreath, which was like to be his fate if this winter campaign
+lasted longer. But it has pleased his Excellency” (making an inclination
+to Montrose) “to supply his place by the gift of a noble steed, whom
+I have taken the freedom to name ‘LOYALTY’S REWARD,’ in memory of this
+celebrated occasion.”
+
+“I hope,” said the Marquis, “you’ll find Loyalty’s Reward, since you
+call him so, practised in all the duties of the field,--but I must just
+hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty is more frequently
+rewarded with a halter than with a horse.”
+
+“Ahem! your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty’s Reward is
+as perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a far finer figure.
+Marry! his social qualities are less cultivated, in respect he has kept
+till now inferior company.”
+
+“Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope,” said Lord Menteith.
+“For shame, Sir Dugald!”
+
+“My lord,” answered the knight gravely, “I am incapable to mean anything
+so utterly unbecoming. What I asseverate is, that his Excellency, having
+the same intercourse with his horse during his exercise, that he hath
+with his soldiers when training them, may form and break either to every
+feat of war which he chooses to practise, and accordingly that this
+noble charger is admirably managed. But as it is the intercourse of
+private life that formeth the social character, so I do not apprehend
+that of the single soldier to be much polished by the conversation of
+the corporal or the sergeant, or that of Loyalty’s Reward to have been
+much dulcified, or ameliorated, by the society of his Excellency’s
+grooms, who bestow more oaths, and kicks, and thumps, than kindness or
+caresses, upon the animals intrusted to their charge; whereby many a
+generous quadruped, rendered as it were misanthropic, manifests during
+the rest of his life a greater desire to kick and bite his master, than
+to love and to honour him.”
+
+“Spoken like an oracle,” said Montrose. “Were there an academy for the
+education of horses to be annexed to the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen,
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the chair.”
+
+“Because, being an ass,” said Menteith, aside to the General, “there
+would be some distant relation between the professor and the students.”
+
+“And now, with your Excellency’s permission,” said the new-made knight,
+“I am going to pay my last visit to the remains of my old companion in
+arms.”
+
+“Not with the purpose of going through the ceremonial of interment?”
+ said the Marquis, who did not know how far Sir Dugald’s enthusiasm might
+lead him; “consider our brave fellows themselves will have but a hasty
+burial.”
+
+“Your Excellency will pardon me,” said Dalgetty; “my purpose is less
+romantic. I go to divide poor Gustavus’s legacy with the fowls of
+heaven, leaving the flesh to them, and reserving to myself his hide;
+which, in token of affectionate remembrance, I purpose to form into
+a cassock and trowsers, after the Tartar fashion, to be worn under my
+armour, in respect my nether garments are at present shamefully the
+worse of the wear.--Alas! poor Gustavus, why didst thou not live at
+least one hour more, to have borne the honoured weight of knighthood
+upon thy loins!”
+
+He was now turning away, when the Marquis called after him,--“As you
+are not likely to be anticipated in this act of kindness, Sir Dugald,
+to your old friend and companion, I trust,” said the Marquis, “you will
+first assist me, and our principal friends, to discuss some of Argyle’s
+good cheer, of which we have found abundance in the Castle.”
+
+“Most willingly, please your Excellency,” said Sir Dugald; “as meat
+and mass never hinder work. Nor, indeed, am I afraid that the wolves or
+eagles will begin an onslaught on Gustavus to-night, in regard there is
+so much better cheer lying all around. But,” added he, “as I am to meet
+two honourable knights of England, with others of the knightly degree in
+your lordship’s army, I pray it may be explained to them, that now, and
+in future, I claim precedence over them all, in respect of my rank as a
+Banneret, dubbed in a field of stricken battle.”
+
+“The devil confound him!” said Montrose, speaking aside; “he has
+contrived to set the kiln on fire as fast as I put it out.--‘This is
+a point, Sir Dugald,” said he, gravely addressing him, “which I shall
+reserve for his Majesty’s express consideration; in my camp, all must
+be upon equality, like the Knights of the Round Table; and take their
+places as soldiers should, upon the principle of,--first come, first
+served.”
+
+“Then I shall take care,” said Menteith, apart to the Marquis, “that Don
+Dugald is not first in place to-day.--Sir Dugald,” added he, raising his
+voice, “as you say your wardrobe is out of repair, had you not better go
+to the enemy’s baggage yonder, over which there is a guard placed? I saw
+them take out an excellent buff suit, embroidered in front in silk and
+silver.”
+
+“VOTO A DIOS! as the Spaniard says,” exclaimed the Major, “and some
+beggarly gilly may get it while I stand prating here!”
+
+The prospect of booty having at once driven out of his head both
+Gustavus and the provant, he set spurs to Loyalty’s Reward, and rode off
+through the field of battle.
+
+“There goes the hound,” said Menteith, “breaking the face, and trampling
+on the body, of many a better man than himself; and as eager on his
+sordid spoil as a vulture that stoops upon carrion. Yet this man the
+world calls a soldier--and you, my lord, select him as worthy of the
+honours of chivalry, if such they can at this day be termed. You have
+made the collar of knighthood the decoration of a mere bloodhound.”
+
+“What could I do?” said Montrose. “I had no half-picked bones to give
+him, and bribed in some manner he must be,--I cannot follow the chase
+alone. Besides, the dog has good qualities.”
+
+“If nature has given him such,” said Menteith, “habit has converted them
+into feelings of intense selfishness. He may be punctilious concerning
+his reputation, and brave in the execution of his duty, but it is only
+because without these qualities he cannot rise in the service;--nay, his
+very benevolence is selfish; he may defend his companion while he can
+keep his feet, but the instant he is down, Sir Dugald will be as ready
+to ease him of his purse, as he is to convert the skin of Gustavus into
+a buff jerkin.”
+
+“And yet, if all this were true, cousin,” answered Montrose, “there is
+something convenient in commanding a soldier, upon whose motives and
+springs of action you can calculate to a mathematical certainty. A fine
+spirit like yours, my cousin, alive to a thousand sensations to which
+this man’s is as impervious as his corslet,--it is for such that thy
+friend must feel, while he gives his advice.” Then, suddenly changing
+his tone, he asked Menteith when he had seen Annot Lyle.
+
+The young Earl coloured deeply, and answered, “Not since last
+evening,--excepting,” he added, with hesitation, “for one moment, about
+half an hour before the battle began.”
+
+“My dear Menteith,” said Montrose, very kindly, “were you one of the gay
+cavaliers of Whitehall, who are, in their way, as great self-seekers
+as our friend Dalgetty, should I need to plague you with enquiring into
+such an amourette as this? it would be an intrigue only to be laughed
+at. But this is the land of enchantment, where nets strong as steel are
+wrought out of ladies’ tresses, and you are exactly the destined knight
+to be so fettered. This poor girl is exquisitely beautiful, and has
+talents formed to captivate your romantic temper. You cannot think of
+injuring her--you cannot think of marrying her?”
+
+“My lord,” replied Menteith, “you have repeatedly urged this jest, for
+so I trust it is meant, somewhat beyond bounds. Annot Lyle is of unknown
+birth,--a captive,--the daughter, probably, of some obscure outlaw; a
+dependant on the hospitality of the M’Aulays.”
+
+“Do not be angry, Menteith,” said the Marquis, interrupting him; “you
+love the classics, though not educated at Mareschal-College; and you may
+remember how many gallant hearts captive beauty has subdued:--
+
+     Movit Ajacem, Telamone natum,
+     Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae.
+
+In a word, I am seriously anxious about this--I should not have time,
+perhaps,” he added very gravely, “to trouble you with my lectures on the
+subject, were your feelings, and those of Annot, alone interested; but
+you have a dangerous rival in Allan M’Aulay; and there is no knowing to
+what extent he may carry his resentment. It is my duty to tell you that
+the King’s service may be much prejudiced by dissensions betwixt you.”
+
+“My lord,” said Menteith, “I know what you mean is kind and friendly; I
+hope you will be satisfied when I assure you, that Allan M’Aulay and I
+have discussed this circumstance; and that I have explained to him, that
+it is utterly remote from my character to entertain dishonourable views
+concerning this unprotected female; so, on the other hand, the obscurity
+of her birth prevents my thinking of her upon other terms. I will
+not disguise from your lordship, what I have not disguised from
+M’Aulay,--that if Annot Lyle were born a lady, she should share my name
+and rank; as matters stand, it is impossible. This explanation, I
+trust, will satisfy your lordship, as it has satisfied a less reasonable
+person.”
+
+Montrose shrugged his shoulders. “And, like true champions in romance,”
+ he said, “you have agreed, that you are both to worship the same
+mistress, as idolaters do the same image, and that neither shall extend
+his pretensions farther?”
+
+“I did not go so far, my lord,” answered Menteith--“I only said in
+the present circumstances--and there is no prospect of their being
+changed,--I could, in duty to myself and family, stand in no relation
+to Annot Lyle, but as that of friend or brother--But your lordship must
+excuse me; I have,” said he, looking at his arm, round which he had tied
+his handkerchief, “a slight hurt to attend to.”
+
+“A wound?” said Montrose, anxiously; “let me see it.--Alas!” he said, “I
+should have heard nothing of this, had I not ventured to tent and sound
+another more secret and more rankling one, Menteith; I am sorry for
+you--I too have known--But what avails it to awake sorrows which have
+long slumbered!”
+
+So saying, he shook hands with his noble kinsman, and walked into the
+castle.
+
+Annot Lyle, as was not unusual for females in the Highlands, was
+possessed of a slight degree of medical and even surgical skill. It may
+readily be believed, that the profession of surgery, or medicine, as a
+separate art, was unknown; and the few rude rules which they observed
+were intrusted to women, or to the aged, whom constant casualties
+afforded too much opportunity of acquiring experience. The care and
+attention, accordingly, of Annot Lyle, her attendants, and others acting
+under her direction, had made her services extremely useful during this
+wild campaign. And most readily had these services been rendered to
+friend and foe, wherever they could be most useful. She was now in an
+apartment of the castle, anxiously superintending the preparation of
+vulnerary herbs, to be applied to the wounded; receiving reports from
+different females respecting those under their separate charge, and
+distributing what means she had for their relief, when Allan M’Aulay
+suddenly entered the apartment. She started, for she had heard that he
+had left the camp upon a distant mission; and, however accustomed she
+was to the gloom of his countenance, it seemed at present to have even
+a darker shade than usual. He stood before her perfectly silent, and she
+felt the necessity of being the first to speak.
+
+“I thought,” she said, with some effort, “you had already set out.”
+
+“My companion awaits me,” said Allan; “I go instantly.” Yet still he
+stood before her, and held her by the arm, with a pressure which, though
+insufficient to give her pain, made her sensible of his great personal
+strength, his hand closing on her like the gripe of a manacle.
+
+“Shall I take the harp?” she said, in a timid voice; “is--is the shadow
+falling upon you?”
+
+Instead of replying, he led her to the window of the apartment, which
+commanded a view of the field of the slain, with all its horrors. It was
+thick spread with dead and wounded, and the spoilers were busy tearing
+the clothes from the victims of war and feudal ambition, with as much
+indifference as if they had not been of the same species, and themselves
+exposed, perhaps to-morrow, to the same fate.
+
+“Does the sight please you?” said M’Aulay.
+
+“It is hideous!” said Annot, covering her eyes with her hands; “how can
+you bid me look upon it?”
+
+“You must be inured to it,” said he, “if you remain with this destined
+host--you will soon have to search such a field for my brother’s
+corpse--for Menteith’s--for mine---but that will be a more indifferent
+task--You do not love me!”
+
+“This is the first time you have taxed me with unkindness,” said Annot,
+weeping. “You are my brother--my preserver--my protector--and can I then
+BUT love you?--But your hour of darkness is approaching, let me fetch my
+harp--”
+
+“Remain,” said Allan, still holding her fast; “be my visions from heaven
+or hell, or from the middle sphere of disembodied spirits--or be they,
+as the Saxons hold, but the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they
+do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the
+visible world.--You love not me, Annot--you love Menteith--by him you
+are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the corpses
+which encumber yonder heath.”
+
+It cannot be supposed that this strange speech conveyed any new
+information to her who was thus addressed. No woman ever lived who could
+not, in the same circumstances, have discerned long since the state of
+her lover’s mind. But by thus suddenly tearing off the veil, thin as it
+was, Allan prepared her to expect consequences violent in proportion to
+the enthusiasm of his character. She made an effort to repel the charge
+he had stated.
+
+“You forget,” she said, “your own worth and nobleness when you insult so
+very helpless a being, and one whom fate has thrown so totally into
+your power. You know who and what I am, and how impossible it is that
+Menteith or you can use language of affection to me, beyond that of
+friendship. You know from what unhappy race I have too probably derived
+my existence.”
+
+“I will not believe it,” said Allan, impetuously; “never flowed crystal
+drop from a polluted spring.”
+
+“Yet the very doubt,” pleaded Annot, “should make you forbear to use
+this language to me.”
+
+“I know,” said M’Aulay, “it places a bar between us--but I know also
+that it divides you not so inseparably from Menteith.--Hear me, my
+beloved Annot!--leave this scene of terrors and danger--go with me to
+Kintail--I will place you in the house of the noble Lady of Seaforth--or
+you shall be removed in safety to Icolmkill, where some women yet devote
+themselves to the worship of God, after the custom of our ancestors.”
+
+“You consider not what you ask of me,” replied Annot; “to undertake such
+a journey under your sole guardianship, were to show me less scrupulous
+than maiden ought. I will remain here, Allan--here under the protection
+of the noble Montrose; and when his motions next approach the Lowlands,
+I will contrive some proper means to relieve you of one, who has, she
+knows not how, become an object of dislike to you.”
+
+Allan stood as if uncertain whether to give way to sympathy with her
+distress, or to anger at her resistance.
+
+“Annot,” he said, “you know too well how little your words apply to
+my feelings towards you--but you avail yourself of your power, and you
+rejoice in my departure, as removing a spy upon your intercourse with
+Menteith. But beware both of you,” he added, in a stern tone; “for when
+was it ever heard that an injury was offered to Allan M’Aulay, for which
+he exacted not tenfold vengeance?”
+
+So saying, he pressed her arm forcibly, pulled the bonnet over his
+brows, and strode out of the apartment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+     --After you’re gone,
+     I grew acquainted with my heart, and search’d,
+     What stirr’d it so.--Alas!  I found it love.
+     Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived
+     In presence of you, I had had my end.--PHILASTER.
+
+Annot Lyle had now to contemplate the terrible gulf which Allan
+M’Aulay’s declaration of love and jealousy had made to open around her.
+It seemed as if she was tottering on the very brink of destruction, and
+was at once deprived of every refuge, and of all human assistance. She
+had long been conscious that she loved Menteith dearer than a brother;
+indeed, how could it be otherwise, considering their early intimacy, the
+personal merit of the young nobleman, his assiduous attentions,--and his
+infinite superiority in gentleness of disposition, and grace of manners,
+over the race of rude warriors with whom she lived? But her affection
+was of that quiet, timid, meditative character, which sought rather a
+reflected share in the happiness of the beloved object, than formed
+more presumptuous or daring hopes. A little Gaelic song, in which she
+expressed her feelings, has been translated by the ingenious and unhappy
+Andrew M’Donald; and we willingly transcribe the lines:--
+
+     Wert thou, like me, in life’s low vale,
+     With thee how blest, that lot I’d share;
+     With thee I’d fly wherever gale
+     Could waft, or bounding galley bear.
+     But parted by severe decree,
+     Far different must our fortunes prove;
+     May thine be joy--enough for me
+     To weep and pray for him I love.
+
+     The pangs this foolish heart must feel,
+     When hope shall be forever flown,
+     No sullen murmur shall reveal,
+     No selfish murmurs ever own.
+     Nor will I through life’s weary years,
+     Like a pale drooping mourner move,
+     While I can think my secret tears
+     May wound the heart of him I love.
+
+The furious declaration of Allan had destroyed the romantic plan which
+she had formed, of nursing in secret her pensive tenderness, without
+seeking any other requital. Long before this, she had dreaded Allan, as
+much as gratitude, and a sense that he softened towards her a temper so
+haughty and so violent, could permit her to do; but now she regarded him
+with unalloyed terror, which a perfect knowledge of his disposition, and
+of his preceding history, too well authorised her to entertain. Whatever
+was in other respects the nobleness of his disposition, he had never
+been known to resist the wilfulness of passion,--he walked in the house,
+and in the country of his fathers, like a tamed lion, whom no one dared
+to contradict, lest they should awaken his natural vehemence of passion.
+So many years had elapsed since he had experienced contradiction, or
+even expostulation, that probably nothing but the strong good sense,
+which, on all points, his mysticism excepted, formed the ground of his
+character, prevented his proving an annoyance and terror to the whole
+neighbourhood. But Annot had no time to dwell upon her fears, being
+interrupted by the entrance of Sir Dugald Dalgetty.
+
+It may well be supposed, that the scenes in which this person had passed
+his former life, had not much qualified him to shine in female society.
+He himself felt a sort of consciousness that the language of the
+barrack, guard-room, and parade, was not proper to entertain ladies.
+The only peaceful part of his life had been spent at Mareschal-College,
+Aberdeen; and he had forgot the little he had learned there, except the
+arts of darning his own hose, and dispatching his commons with unusual
+celerity, both which had since been kept in good exercise by the
+necessity of frequent practice. Still it was from an imperfect
+recollection of what he had acquired during this pacific period, that
+he drew his sources of conversation when in company with women; in other
+words, his language became pedantic when it ceased to be military.
+
+“Mistress Annot Lyle,” said he, upon the present occasion, “I am just
+now like the half-pike, or spontoon of Achilles, one end of which could
+wound and the other cure--a property belonging neither to Spanish pike,
+brown-bill, partizan, halberd, Lochaber-axe, or indeed any other modern
+staff-weapon whatever.” This compliment he repeated twice; but as Annot
+scarce heard him the first time, and did not comprehend him the second,
+he was obliged to explain.
+
+“I mean,” he said, “Mistress Annot Lyle, that having been the means
+of an honourable knight receiving a severe wound in this day’s
+conflict,--he having pistolled, somewhat against the law of arms, my
+horse, which was named after the immortal King of Sweden,--I am desirous
+of procuring him such solacement as you, madam, can supply, you being
+like the heathen god Esculapius” (meaning possibly Apollo), “skilful
+not only in song and in music, but in the more noble art of
+chirurgery-OPIFERQUE PER ORBEM DICOR.”
+
+“If you would have the goodness to explain,” said Annot, too sick at
+heart to be amused by Sir Dugald’s airs of pedantic gallantry.
+
+“That, madam,” replied the Knight, “may not be so easy, as I am out
+of the habit of construing--but we shall try. DICOR, supply EGO--I
+am called,--OPIFER? OPIFER?--I remember SIGNIFER and FURCIFER--but
+I believe OPIFER stands in this place for M.D., that is, Doctor of
+Physic.”
+
+“This is a busy day with us all,” said Annot; “will you say at once what
+you want with me?”
+
+“Merely,” replied Sir Dugald, “that you will visit my brother knight,
+and let your maiden bring some medicaments for his wound, which
+threatens to be what the learned call a DAMNUM FATALE.”
+
+Annot Lyle never lingered in the cause of humanity. She informed herself
+hastily of the nature of the injury, and interesting herself for the
+dignified old Chief whom she had seen at Darnlinvarach, and whose
+presence had so much struck her, she hastened to lose the sense of her
+own sorrow for a time, in the attempt to be useful to another.
+
+Sir Dugald with great form ushered Annot Lyle to the chamber of her
+patient, in which, to her surprise, she found Lord Menteith. She could
+not help blushing deeply at the meeting, but, to hide her confusion,
+proceeded instantly to examine the wound of the Knight of Ardenvohr, and
+easily satisfied herself that it was beyond her skill to cure it. As
+for Sir Dugald, he returned to a large outhouse, on the floor of which,
+among other wounded men, was deposited the person of Ranald of the Mist.
+
+“Mine old friend,” said the Knight, “as I told you before, I would
+willingly do anything to pleasure you, in return for the wound you have
+received while under my safe-conduct. I have, therefore, according to
+your earnest request, sent Mrs. Annot Lyle to attend upon the wound of
+the knight of Ardenvohr, though wherein her doing so should benefit you,
+I cannot imagine.--I think you once spoke of some blood relationship
+between them; but a soldado, in command and charge like me, has other
+things to trouble his head with than Highland genealogies.”
+
+And indeed, to do the worthy Major justice, he never enquired after,
+listened to, or recollected, the business of other people, unless it
+either related to the art military, or was somehow or other connected
+with his own interest, in either of which cases his memory was very
+tenacious.
+
+“And now, my good friend of the Mist,” said he, “can you tell me what
+has become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him since he
+assisted me to disarm after the action, a negligence which deserveth the
+strapado?”
+
+“He is not far from hence,” said the wounded outlaw--“lift not your hand
+upon him, for he is man enough to pay a yard of leathern scourge with a
+foot of tempered steel.”
+
+“A most improper vaunt,” said Sir Dugald; “but I owe you some favours,
+Ranald, and therefore shall let it pass.”
+
+“And if you think you owe me anything,” said the outlaw, “it is in your
+power to requite me by granting me a boon.”
+
+“Friend Ranald,” answered Dalgetty, “I have read of these boons in silly
+story-books, whereby simple knights were drawn into engagements to their
+great prejudice; wherefore, Ranald, the more prudent knights of this
+day never promise anything until they know that they may keep their
+word anent the premises, without any displeasure or incommodement to
+themselves. It may be, you would have me engage the female chirurgeon
+to visit your wound; though you ought to consider, Ranald, that the
+uncleanness of the place where you are deposited may somewhat soil the
+gaiety of her garments, concerning the preservation of which, you may
+have observed, women are apt to be inordinately solicitous. I lost the
+favour of the lady of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam, by touching
+with the sole of my boot the train of her black velvet gown, which
+I mistook for a foot-cloth, it being half the room distant from her
+person.”
+
+“It is not to bring Annot Lyle hither,” answered MacEagh, “but to
+transport me into the room where she is in attendance upon the Knight of
+Ardenvohr. Somewhat I have to say of the last consequence to them both.”
+
+“It is something out of the order of due precedence,” said Dalgetty, “to
+carry a wounded outlaw into the presence of a knight; knighthood having
+been of yore, and being, in some respects, still, the highest military
+grade, independent always of commissioned officers, who rank according
+to their patents; nevertheless, as your boon, as you call it, is so
+slight, I shall not deny compliance with the same.” So saying, he
+ordered three files of men to transport MacEagh on their shoulders
+to Sir Duncan Campbell’s apartment, and he himself hastened before
+to announce the cause of his being brought thither. But such was the
+activity of the soldiers employed, that they followed him close at the
+heels, and, entering with their ghastly burden, laid MacEagh on the
+floor of the apartment. His features, naturally wild, were now distorted
+by pain; his hands and scanty garments stained with his own blood, and
+those of others, which no kind hand had wiped away, although the wound
+in his side had been secured by a bandage.
+
+“Are you,” he said, raising his head painfully towards the couch where
+lay stretched his late antagonist, “he whom men call the Knight of
+Ardenvohr?”
+
+“The same,” answered Sir Duncan,--“what would you with one whose hours
+are now numbered?”
+
+“My hours are reduced to minutes,” said the outlaw; “the more grace, if
+I bestow them in the service of one, whose hand has ever been against
+me, as mine has been raised higher against him.”
+
+“Thine higher against me!--Crushed worm!” said the Knight, looking down
+on his miserable adversary.
+
+“Yes,” answered the outlaw, in a firm voice, “my arm hath been highest.
+In the deadly contest betwixt us, the wounds I have dealt have been
+deepest, though thine have neither been idle nor unfelt.--I am Ranald
+MacEagh--I am Ranald of the Mist--the night that I gave thy castle to
+the winds in one huge blaze of fire, is now matched with the day in
+which you have fallen under the sword of my fathers.--Remember the
+injuries thou hast done our tribe--never were such inflicted, save
+by one, beside thee. HE, they say, is fated and secure against our
+vengeance--a short time will show.”
+
+“My Lord Menteith,” said Sir Duncan, raising himself out of his bed,
+“this is a proclaimed villain, at once the enemy of King and Parliament,
+of God and man--one of the outlawed banditti of the Mist; alike the
+enemy of your house, of the M’Aulays, and of mine. I trust you will
+not suffer moments, which are perhaps my last, to be embittered by his
+barbarous triumph.”
+
+“He shall have the treatment he merits,” said Menteith; “let him be
+instantly removed.”
+
+Sir Dugald here interposed, and spoke of Ranald’s services as a guide,
+and his own pledge for his safety; but the high harsh tones of the
+outlaw drowned his voice.
+
+“No,” said he, “be rack and gibbet the word! let me wither between
+heaven and earth, and gorge the hawks and eagles of Ben-Nevis; and so
+shall this haughty Knight, and this triumphant Thane, never learn the
+secret I alone can impart; a secret which would make Ardenvohr’s
+heart leap with joy, were he in the death agony, and which the Earl of
+Menteith would purchase at the price of his broad earldom.--Come hither,
+Annot Lyle,” he said, raising himself with unexpected strength; “fear
+not the sight of him to whom thou hast clung in infancy. Tell these
+proud men, who disdain thee as the issue of mine ancient race, that thou
+art no blood of ours,--no daughter of the race of the Mist, but born in
+halls as lordly, and cradled on couch as soft, as ever soothed infancy
+in their proudest palaces.”
+
+“In the name of God,” said Menteith, trembling with emotion, “if you
+know aught of the birth of this lady, do thy conscience the justice to
+disburden it of the secret before departing from this world!”
+
+“And bless my enemies with my dying breath?” said MacEagh, looking at
+him malignantly.--“Such are the maxims your priests preach--but when,
+or towards whom, do you practise them? Let me know first the worth of my
+secret ere I part with it--What would you give, Knight of Ardenvohr, to
+know that your superstitious fasts have been vain, and that there still
+remains a descendant of your house?--I pause for an answer--without it,
+I speak not one word more.
+
+“I could,” said Sir Duncan, his voice struggling between the emotions of
+doubt, hatred, and anxiety--“I could--but that I know thy race are like
+the Great Enemy, liars and murderers from the beginning--but could it be
+true thou tellest me, I could almost forgive thee the injuries thou hast
+done me.”
+
+“Hear it!” said Ranald; “he hath wagered deeply for a son of
+Diarmid--And you, gentle Thane--the report of the camp says, that you
+would purchase with life and lands the tidings that Annot Lyle was no
+daughter of proscription, but of a race noble in your estimation as your
+own--Well--It is for no love I tell you--The time has been that I would
+have exchanged this secret against liberty; I am now bartering it for
+what is dearer than liberty or life.--Annot Lyle is the youngest, the
+sole surviving child of the Knight of Ardenvohr, who alone was saved
+when all in his halls besides was given to blood and ashes.”
+
+“Can this man speak truth?” said Annot Lyle, scarce knowing what she
+said; “or is this some strange delusion?”
+
+“Maiden,” replied Ranald, “hadst thou dwelt longer with us, thou wouldst
+have better learnt to know how to distinguish the accents of truth.
+To that Saxon lord, and to the Knight of Ardenvohr, I will yield such
+proofs of what I have spoken, that incredulity shall stand convinced.
+Meantime, withdraw--I loved thine infancy, I hate not thy youth--no eye
+hates the rose in its blossom, though it groweth upon a thorn, and for
+thee only do I something regret what is soon to follow. But he that
+would avenge him of his foe must not reck though the guiltless be
+engaged in the ruin.”
+
+“He advises well, Annot,” said Lord Menteith; “in God’s name retire!
+if--if there be aught in this, your meeting with Sir Duncan must be more
+prepared for both your sakes.”
+
+“I will not part from my father, if I have found one!” said Annot--“I
+will not part from him under circumstances so terrible.”
+
+“And a father you shall ever find in me,” murmured Sir Duncan.
+
+“Then,” said Menteith, “I will have MacEagh removed into an adjacent
+apartment, and will collect the evidence of his tale myself. Sir Dugald
+Dalgetty will give me his attendance and assistance.”
+
+“With pleasure, my lord,” answered Sir Dugald.--“I will be your
+confessor, or assessor--either or both. No one can be so fit, for I had
+heard the whole story a month ago at Inverary castle--but onslaughts
+like that of Ardenvohr confuse each other in my memory, which is besides
+occupied with matters of more importance.”
+
+Upon hearing this frank declaration, which was made as they left the
+apartment with the wounded man, Lord Menteith darted upon Dalgetty a
+look of extreme anger and disdain, to which the self-conceit of the
+worthy commander rendered him totally insensible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+     I am as free as nature first made man,
+     Ere the base laws of servitude began,
+     When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
+     --CONQUEST OF GRANADA
+
+The Earl of Menteith, as he had undertaken, so he proceeded to
+investigate more closely the story told by Ranald of the Mist, which was
+corroborated by the examination of his two followers, who had assisted
+in the capacity of guides. These declarations he carefully compared with
+such circumstances concerning the destruction of his castle and family
+as Sir Duncan Campbell was able to supply; and it may be supposed he had
+forgotten nothing relating to an event of such terrific importance. It
+was of the last consequence to prove that this was no invention of
+the outlaw’s, for the purpose of passing an impostor as the child and
+heiress of Ardenvohr.
+
+Perhaps Menteith, so much interested in believing the tale, was not
+altogether the fittest person to be intrusted with the investigation of
+its truth; but the examinations of the Children of the Mist were simple,
+accurate, and in all respects consistent with each other. A personal
+mark was referred to, which was known to have been borne by the infant
+child of Sir Duncan, and which appeared upon the left shoulder of Annot
+Lyle. It was also well remembered, that when the miserable relics of the
+other children had been collected, those of the infant had nowhere
+been found. Other circumstances of evidence, which it is unnecessary to
+quote, brought the fullest conviction not only to Menteith, but to the
+unprejudiced mind of Montrose, that in Annot Lyle, an humble dependant,
+distinguished only by beauty and talent, they were in future to respect
+the heiress of Ardenvohr.
+
+While Menteith hastened to communicate the result of these enquiries
+to the persons most interested, the outlaw demanded to speak with his
+grandchild, whom he usually called his son. “He would be found,” he
+said, “in the outer apartment, in which he himself had been originally
+deposited.”
+
+Accordingly, the young savage, after a close search, was found lurking
+in a corner, coiled up among some rotten straw, and brought to his
+grandsire.
+
+“Kenneth,” said the old outlaw, “hear the last words of the sire of
+thy father. A Saxon soldier, and Allan of the Red-hand, left this camp
+within these few hours, to travel to the country to Caberfae. Pursue
+them as the bloodhound pursues the hurt deer--swim the lake-climb the
+mountain--thread the forest--tarry not until you join them;” and then
+the countenance of the lad darkened as his grandfather spoke, and he
+laid his hand upon a knife which stuck in the thong of leather that
+confined his scanty plaid. “No!” said the old man; “it is not by thy
+hand he must fall. They will ask the news from the camp--say to them
+that Annot Lyle of the Harp is discovered to be the daughter of Duncan
+of Ardenvohr; that the Thane of Menteith is to wed her before the
+priest; and that you are sent to bid guests to the bridal. Tarry
+not their answer, but vanish like the lightning when the black cloud
+swallows it.--And now depart, beloved son of my best beloved! I shall
+never more see thy face, nor hear the light sound of thy footstep--yet
+tarry an instant and hear my last charge. Remember the fate of our race,
+and quit not the ancient manners of the Children of the Mist. We are now
+a straggling handful, driven from every vale by the sword of every clan,
+who rule in the possessions where their forefathers hewed the wood, and
+drew the water for ours. But in the thicket of the wilderness, and in
+the mist of the mountain, Kenneth, son of Eracht, keep thou unsoiled the
+freedom which I leave thee as a birthright. Barter it not neither for
+the rich garment, nor for the stone-roof, nor for the covered board, nor
+for the couch of down--on the rock or in the valley, in abundance or in
+famine--in the leafy summer, and in the days of the iron winter--Son of
+the Mist! be free as thy forefathers. Own no lord--receive no law--take
+no hire--give no stipend--build no hut--enclose no pasture--sow no
+grain;--let the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and herds--if these
+fail thee, prey upon the goods of our oppressors--of the Saxons, and of
+such Gael as are Saxons in their souls, valuing herds and flocks more
+than honour and freedom. Well for us that they do so--it affords the
+broader scope for our revenge. Remember those who have done kindness to
+our race, and pay their services with thy blood, should the hour require
+it. If a MacIan shall come to thee with the head of the king’s son
+in his hand, shelter him, though the avenging army of the father were
+behind him; for in Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, we have dwelt in peace
+in the years that have gone by. The sons of Diarmid--the race of
+Darnlinvarach--the riders of Menteith--my curse on thy head, Child of
+the Mist, if thou spare one of those names, when the time shall offer
+for cutting them off! and it will come anon, for their own swords shall
+devour each other, and those who are scattered shall fly to the Mist,
+and perish by its Children. Once more, begone--shake the dust from thy
+feet against the habitations of men, whether banded together for peace
+or for war. Farewell, beloved! and mayst thou die like thy
+forefathers, ere infirmity, disease, or age, shall break thy
+spirit--Begone!--begone!--live free--requite kindness--avenge the
+injuries of thy race!”
+
+The young savage stooped, and kissed the brow of his dying parent; but
+accustomed from infancy to suppress every exterior sign of emotion,
+he parted without tear or adieu, and was soon far beyond the limits of
+Montrose’s camp.
+
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who was present during the latter part of this
+scene, was very little edified by the conduct of MacEagh upon the
+occasion. “I cannot think, my friend Ranald,” said he, “that you are in
+the best possible road for a dying man. Storms, onslaughts, massacres,
+the burning of suburbs, are indeed a soldier’s daily work, and are
+justified by the necessity of the case, seeing that they are done in the
+course of duty; for burning of suburbs, in particular, it may be said
+that they are traitors and cut-throats to all fortified towns. Hence it
+is plain, that a soldier is a profession peculiarly favoured by Heaven,
+seeing that we may hope for salvation, although we daily commit actions
+of so great violence. But then, Ranald, in all services of Europe, it is
+the custom of the dying soldier not to vaunt him of such doings, or
+to recommend them to his fellows; but, on the contrary, to express
+contrition for the same, and to repeat, or have repeated to him, some
+comfortable prayer; which, if you please, I will intercede with his
+Excellency’s chaplain to prefer on your account. It is otherwise no
+point of my duty to put you in mind of those things; only it may be for
+the ease of your conscience to depart more like a Christian, and less
+like a Turk, than you seem to be in a fair way of doing.”
+
+The only answer of the dying man--(for as such Ranald MacEagh might now
+be considered)--was a request to be raised to such a position that he
+might obtain a view from the window of the Castle. The deep frost mist,
+which had long settled upon the top of the mountains, was now rolling
+down each rugged glen and gully, where the craggy ridges showed their
+black and irregular outline, like desert islands rising above the ocean
+of vapour. “Spirit of the Mist!” said Ranald MacEagh, “called by our
+race our father, and our preserver--receive into thy tabernacle of
+clouds, when this pang is over, him whom in life thou hast so often
+sheltered.” So saying, he sunk back into the arms of those who upheld
+him, spoke no further word, but turned his face to the wall for a short
+space.
+
+“I believe,” said Dalgetty, “my friend Ranald will be found in his heart
+to be little better than a heathen.” And he renewed his proposal
+to procure him the assistance of Dr. Wisheart, Montrose’s military
+chaplain; “a man,” said Sir Dugald, “very clever in his exercise, and
+who will do execution on your sins in less time than I could smoke a
+pipe of tobacco.”
+
+“Saxon,” said the dying man, “speak to me no more of thy priest--I die
+contented. Hadst thou ever an enemy against whom weapons were of no
+avail--whom the ball missed, and against whom the arrow shivered, and
+whose bare skin was as impenetrable to sword and dirk as thy steel
+garment--Heardst thou ever of such a foe?”
+
+“Very frequently, when I served in Germany,” replied Sir Dugald. “There
+was such a fellow at Ingolstadt; he was proof both against lead and
+steel. The soldiers killed him with the buts of their muskets.”
+
+“This impassible foe,” said Ranald, without regarding the Major’s
+interruption, “who has the blood dearest to me upon his hands--to this
+man I have now bequeathed agony of mind, jealousy, despair, and sudden
+death,--or a life more miserable than death itself. Such shall be the
+lot of Allan of the Red-hand, when he learns that Annot weds Menteith
+and I ask no more than the certainty that it is so, to sweeten my own
+bloody end by his hand.”
+
+“If that be the case,” said the Major, “there’s no more to be said; but
+I shall take care as few people see you as possible, for I cannot
+think your mode of departure can be at all creditable or exemplary to
+a Christian army.” So saying, he left the apartment, and the Son of the
+Mist soon after breathed his last.
+
+Menteith, in the meanwhile, leaving the new-found relations to their
+mutual feelings of mingled emotion, was eagerly discussing with Montrose
+the consequences of this discovery. “I should now see,” said the
+Marquis, “even had I not before observed it, that your interest in
+this discovery, my dear Menteith, has no small reference to your own
+happiness. You love this new-found lady,--your affection is returned. In
+point of birth, no exceptions can be made; in every other respect,
+her advantages are equal to those which you yourself possess--think,
+however, a moment. Sir Duncan is a fanatic--Presbyterian, at least--in
+arms against the King; he is only with us in the quality of a prisoner,
+and we are, I fear, but at the commencement of a long civil war. Is this
+a time, think you, Menteith, for you to make proposals for his heiress?
+Or what chance is there that he will now listen to it?”
+
+Passion, an ingenious, as well as an eloquent advocate, supplied the
+young nobleman with a thousand answers to these objections. He reminded
+Montrose that the Knight of Ardenvohr was neither a bigot in politics
+nor religion. He urged his own known and proved zeal for the royal
+cause, and hinted that its influence might be extended and strengthened
+by his wedding the heiress of Ardenvohr. He pleaded the dangerous state
+of Sir Duncan’s wound, the risk which must be run by suffering the young
+lady to be carried into the country of the Campbells, where, in case of
+her father’s death, or continued indisposition, she must necessarily
+be placed under the guardianship of Argyle, an event fatal to his
+(Menteith’s) hopes, unless he could stoop to purchase his favour by
+abandoning the King’s party.
+
+Montrose allowed the force of these arguments, and owned, although the
+matter was attended with difficulty, yet it seemed consistent with the
+King’s service that it should be concluded as speedily as possible.
+
+“I could wish,” said he, “that it were all settled in one way or
+another, and that this fair Briseis were removed from our camp before
+the return of our Highland Achilles, Allan M’Aulay.--I fear some fatal
+feud in that quarter, Menteith--and I believe it would be best that Sir
+Duncan be dismissed on his parole, and that you accompany him and his
+daughter as his escort. The journey can be made chiefly by water, so
+will not greatly incommode his wound--and your own, my friend, will be
+an honourable excuse for the absence of some time from my camp.”
+
+“Never!” said Menteith. “Were I to forfeit the very hope that has so
+lately dawned upon me, never will I leave your Excellency’s camp while
+the royal standard is displayed. I should deserve that this trifling
+scratch should gangrene and consume my sword-arm, were I capable
+of holding it as an excuse for absence at this crisis of the King’s
+affairs.”
+
+“On this, then, you are determined?” said Montrose.
+
+“As fixed as Ben-Nevis,” said the young nobleman.
+
+“You must, then,” said Montrose, “lose no time in seeking an explanation
+with the Knight of Ardenvohr. If this prove favourable, I will talk
+myself with the elder M’Aulay, and we will devise means to employ his
+brother at a distance from the army until he shall be reconciled to his
+present disappointment. Would to God some vision would descend upon his
+imagination fair enough to obliterate all traces of Annot Lyle! That
+perhaps you think impossible, Menteith?--Well, each to his service; you
+to that of Cupid, and I to that of Mars.”
+
+They parted, and in pursuance of the scheme arranged, Menteith, early on
+the ensuing morning, sought a private interview with the wounded Knight
+of Ardenvohr, and communicated to him his suit for the hand of his
+daughter. Of their mutual attachment Sir Duncan was aware, but he was
+not prepared for so early a declaration on the part of Menteith. He
+said, at first, that he had already, perhaps, indulged too much in
+feelings of personal happiness, at a time when his clan had sustained
+so great a loss and humiliation, and that he was unwilling, therefore,
+farther to consider the advancement of his own house at a period so
+calamitous. On the more urgent suit of the noble lover, he requested a
+few hours to deliberate and consult with his daughter, upon a question
+so highly important.
+
+The result of this interview and deliberation was favourable to
+Menteith. Sir Duncan Campbell became fully sensible that the happiness
+of his new-found daughter depended upon a union with her lover; and
+unless such were now formed, he saw that Argyle would throw a thousand
+obstacles in the way of a match in every respect acceptable to himself.
+Menteith’s private character was so excellent, and such was the rank and
+consideration due to his fortune and family, that they outbalanced, in
+Sir Duncan’s opinion, the difference in their political opinions. Nor
+could he have resolved, perhaps, had his own opinion of the match been
+less favourable, to decline an opportunity of indulging the new-found
+child of his hopes. There was, besides, a feeling of pride which
+dictated his determination. To produce the Heiress of Ardenvohr to the
+world as one who had been educated a poor dependant and musician in the
+family of Darnlinvarach, had something in it that was humiliating. To
+introduce her as the betrothed bride, or wedded wife, of the Earl of
+Menteith, upon an attachment formed during her obscurity, was a warrant
+to the world that she had at all times been worthy of the rank to which
+she was elevated.
+
+It was under the influence of these considerations that Sir Duncan
+Campbell announced to the lovers his consent that they should be married
+in the chapel of the Castle, by Montrose’s chaplain, and as privately as
+possible. But when Montrose should break up from Inverlochy, for which
+orders were expected in the course of a very few days, it was agreed
+that the young Countess should depart with her father to his Castle, and
+remain there until the circumstances of the nation permitted Menteith to
+retire with honour from his present military employment. His resolution
+being once taken, Sir Duncan Campbell would not permit the maidenly
+scruples of his daughter to delay its execution; and it was therefore
+resolved that the bridal should take place the next evening, being the
+second after the battle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+     My maid--my blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
+     Due to the toils of many a bloody day.--ILLIAD.
+
+It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M’Aulay, so long the kind
+protector of Annot Lyle, should be made acquainted with the change in
+the fortunes of his late protege; and Montrose, as he had undertaken,
+communicated to him these remarkable events. With the careless and
+cheerful indifference of his character, he expressed much more joy than
+wonder at Annot’s good fortune; had no doubt whatever she would merit
+it, and as she had always been bred in loyal principles, would convey
+the whole estate of her grim fanatical father to some honest fellow who
+loved the king. “I should have no objection that my brother Allan should
+try his chance,” added he, “notwithstanding that Sir Duncan Campbell was
+the only man who ever charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality. Annot
+Lyle could always charm Allan out of the sullens, and who knows whether
+matrimony might not make him more a man of this world?” Montrose
+hastened to interrupt the progress of his castle-building, by informing
+him that the lady was already wooed and won, and, with her father’s
+approbation, was almost immediately to be wedded to his kinsman, the
+Earl of Menteith; and that in testimony of the high respect due to
+M’Aulay, so long the lady’s protector, he was now to request his
+presence at the ceremony. M’Aulay looked very grave at this intimation,
+and drew up his person with the air of one who thought that he had been
+neglected.
+
+“He contrived,” he said, “that his uniform kind treatment of the young
+lady, while so many years under his roof, required something more upon
+such an occasion than a bare compliment of ceremony. He might,” he
+thought, “without arrogance, have expected to have been consulted. He
+wished his kinsman of Menteith well, no man could wish him better;
+but he must say he thought he had been hasty in this matter. Allan’s
+sentiments towards the young lady had been pretty well understood, and
+he, for one, could not see why the superior pretensions which he
+had upon her gratitude should have been set aside, without at least
+undergoing some previous discussion.”
+
+Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed, entreated M’Aulay
+to be reasonable, and to consider what probability there was that the
+Knight of Ardenvohr could be brought to confer the hand of his sole
+heiress upon Allan, whose undeniable excellent qualities were mingled
+with others, by which they were overclouded in a manner that made all
+tremble who approached him.
+
+“My lord,” said Angus M’Aulay, “my brother Allan has, as God made us
+all, faults as well as merits; but he is the best and bravest man of
+your army, be the other who he may, and therefore ill deserved that his
+happiness should have been so little consulted by your Excellency--by
+his own near kinsman--and by a young person who owes all to him and to
+his family.”
+
+Montrose in vain endeavoured to place the subject in a different view;
+this was the point in which Angus was determined to regard it, and he
+was a man of that calibre of understanding, who is incapable of being
+convinced when he has once adopted a prejudice. Montrose now assumed
+a higher tone, and called upon Angus to take care how he nourished
+any sentiments which might be prejudicial to his Majesty’s service. He
+pointed out to him, that he was peculiarly desirous that Allan’s efforts
+should not be interrupted in the course of his present mission; “a
+mission,” he said, “highly honourable for himself, and likely to prove
+most advantageous to the King’s cause. He expected his brother would
+hold no communication with him upon other subjects, nor stir up any
+cause of dissension, which might divert his mind from a matter of such
+importance.”
+
+Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that “he was no makebate, or stirrer-up
+of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker. His brother knew as well
+as most men how to resent his own quarrels--as for Allan’s mode of
+receiving information, it was generally believed he had other sources
+than those of ordinary couriers. He should not be surprised if they saw
+him sooner than they expected.”
+
+A promise that he would not interfere, was the farthest to which
+Montrose could bring this man, thoroughly good-tempered as he was on all
+occasions, save when his pride, interest, or prejudices, were interfered
+with. And at this point the Marquis was fain to leave the matter for the
+present.
+
+A more willing guest at the bridal ceremony, certainly a more willing
+attendant at the marriage feast, was to be expected in Sir Dugald
+Dalgetty, whom Montrose resolved to invite, as having been a confidant
+to the circumstances which preceded it. But even Sir Dugald hesitated,
+looked on the elbows of his doublet, and the knees of his leather
+breeches, and mumbled out a sort of reluctant acquiescence in the
+invitation, providing he should find it possible, after consulting with
+the noble bridegroom. Montrose was somewhat surprised, but scorning to
+testify displeasure, he left Sir Dugald to pursue his own course.
+
+This carried him instantly to the chamber of the bride-groom, who,
+amidst the scanty wardrobe which his camp-equipage afforded, was
+seeking for such articles as might appear to the best advantage upon the
+approaching occasion. Sir Dugald entered, and paid his compliments, with
+a very grave face, upon his approaching happiness, which, he said, “he
+was very sorry he was prevented from witnessing.”
+
+“In plain truth,” said he, “I should but disgrace the ceremony, seeing
+that I lack a bridal garment. Rents, and open seams, and tatters
+at elbows in the apparel of the assistants, might presage a similar
+solution of continuity in your matrimonial happiness--and to say truth,
+my lord, you yourself must partly have the blame of this disappointment,
+in respect you sent me upon a fool’s errand to get a buff-coat out of
+the booty taken by the Camerons, whereas you might as well have sent me
+to fetch a pound of fresh butter out of a black dog’s throat. I had no
+answer, my lord, but brandished dirks and broadswords, and a sort of
+growling and jabbering in what they call their language. For my part, I
+believe these Highlanders to be no better than absolute pagans, and have
+been much scandalized by the manner in which my acquaintance, Ranald
+MacEagh, was pleased to beat his final march, a little while since.”
+
+In Menteith’s state of mind, disposed to be pleased with everything,
+and everybody, the grave complaint of Sir Dugald furnished additional
+amusement. He requested his acceptance of a very handsome buff-dress
+which was lying on the floor. “I had intended it,” he said, “for my own
+bridal-garment, as being the least formidable of my warlike equipments,
+and I have here no peaceful dress.”
+
+Sir Dugald made the necessary apologies--would not by any means
+deprive--and so forth, until it happily occurred to him that it was much
+more according to military rule that the Earl should be married in his
+back and breast pieces, which dress he had seen the bridegroom wear at
+the union of Prince Leo of Wittlesbach with the youngest daughter of old
+George Frederick, of Saxony, under the auspices of the gallant Gustavus
+Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and so forth. The good-natured young
+Earl laughed, and acquiesced; and thus having secured at least one merry
+face at his bridal, he put on a light and ornamented cuirass, concealed
+partly by a velvet coat, and partly by a broad blue silk scarf, which
+he wore over his shoulder, agreeably to his rank, and the fashion of the
+times.
+
+Everything was now arranged; and it had been settled that, according
+to the custom of the country, the bride and bridegroom should not again
+meet until they were before the altar. The hour had already struck that
+summoned the bridegroom thither, and he only waited in a small anteroom
+adjacent to the chapel, for the Marquis, who condescended to act as
+bride’s-man upon the occasion. Business relating to the army having
+suddenly required the Marquis’s instant attention, Menteith waited his
+return, it may be supposed, in some impatience; and when he heard
+the door of the apartment open, he said, laughing, “You are late upon
+parade.”
+
+“You will find I am too early,” said Allan M’Aulay, who burst into the
+apartment. “Draw, Menteith, and defend yourself like a man, or die like
+a dog!”
+
+“You are mad, Allan!” answered Menteith, astonished alike at his sudden
+appearance, and at the unutterable fury of his demeanour. His cheeks
+were livid--his eyes started from their sockets--his lips were covered
+with foam, and his gestures were those of a demoniac.
+
+“You lie, traitor!” was his frantic reply--“you lie in that, as you lie
+in all you have said to me. Your life is a lie!”
+
+“Did I not speak my thoughts when I called you mad,” said Menteith,
+indignantly, “your own life were a brief one. In what do you charge me
+with deceiving you?”
+
+“You told me,” answered M’Aulay, “that you would not marry Annot
+Lyle!--False traitor!--she now waits you at the altar.”
+
+“It is you who speak false,” retorted Menteith. “I told you the
+obscurity of her birth was the only bar to our union--that is now
+removed; and whom do you think yourself, that I should yield up my
+pretensions in your favour?”
+
+“Draw then,” said M’Aulay; “we understand each other.”
+
+“Not now,” said Menteith, “and not here. Allan, you know me well--wait
+till to-morrow, and you shall have fighting enough.”
+
+“This hour--this instant--or never,” answered M’Aulay.
+
+“Your triumph shall not go farther than the hour which is stricken.
+Menteith, I entreat you by our relationship--by our joint conflicts and
+labours--draw your sword, and defend your life!” As he spoke, he seized
+the Earl’s hand, and wrung it with such frantic earnestness, that his
+grasp forced the blood to start under the nails. Menteith threw him off
+with violence, exclaiming, “Begone, madman!”
+
+“Then, be the vision accomplished!” said Allan; and, drawing his dirk,
+struck with his whole gigantic force at the Earl’s bosom. The temper of
+the corslet threw the point of the weapon upwards, but a deep wound
+took place between the neck and shoulder; and the force of the blow
+prostrated the bridegroom on the floor. Montrose entered at one side of
+the anteroom. The bridal company, alarmed at the noise, were in equal
+apprehension and surprise; but ere Montrose could almost see what had
+happened, Allan M’Aulay had rushed past him, and descended the
+castle stairs like lightning. “Guards, shut the gate!” exclaimed
+Montrose--“Seize him--kill him, if he resists!--He shall die, if he were
+my brother!”
+
+But Allan prostrated, with a second blow of his dagger, a sentinel who
+was upon duty---traversed the camp like a mountain-deer, though pursued
+by all who caught the alarm--threw himself into the river, and, swimming
+to the opposite side, was soon lost among the woods. In the course of
+the same evening, his brother Angus and his followers left Montrose’s
+camp, and, taking the road homeward, never again rejoined him.
+
+Of Allan himself it is said, that, in a wonderfully short space after
+the deed was committed, he burst into a room in the Castle of Inverary,
+where Argyle was sitting in council, and flung on the table his bloody
+dirk.
+
+“Is it the blood of James Grahame?” said Argyle, a ghastly expression
+of hope mixing with the terror which the sudden apparition naturally
+excited.
+
+“It is the blood of his minion,” answered M’Aulay--“It is the blood
+which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have spilt my
+own.”
+
+Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from that moment
+nothing certain is known of his fate. As the boy Kenneth, with three of
+the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards to cross Lochfine,
+it is supposed they dogged his course, and that he perished by their
+hand in some obscure wilderness. Another opinion maintains, that Allan
+M’Aulay went abroad and died a monk of the Carthusian order. But nothing
+beyond bare presumption could ever be brought in support of either
+opinion.
+
+His vengeance was much less complete than he probably fancied; for
+Menteith, though so severely wounded as to remain long in a dangerous
+state, was, by having adopted Major Dalgetty’s fortunate recommendation
+of a cuirass as a bridal-garment, happily secured from the worst
+consequences of the blow. But his services were lost to Montrose; and it
+was thought best, that he should be conveyed with his intended
+countess, now truly a mourning bride, and should accompany his wounded
+father-in-law to the castle of Sir Duncan at Ardenvohr. Dalgetty
+followed them to the water’s edge, reminding Menteith of the necessity
+of erecting a sconce on Drumsnab to cover his lady’s newly-acquired
+inheritance.
+
+They performed their voyage in safety, and Menteith was in a few weeks
+so well in health, as to be united to Annot in the castle of her father.
+
+The Highlanders were somewhat puzzled to reconcile Menteith’s recovery
+with the visions of the second sight, and the more experienced Seers
+were displeased with him for not having died. But others thought the
+credit of the vision sufficiently fulfilled, by the wound inflicted by
+the hand, and with the weapon, foretold; and all were of opinion, that
+the incident of the ring, with the death’s head, related to the death
+of the bride’s father, who did not survive her marriage many months.
+The incredulous held, that all this was idle dreaming, and that Allan’s
+supposed vision was but a consequence of the private suggestions of his
+own passion, which, having long seen in Menteith a rival more beloved
+than himself, struggled with his better nature, and impressed upon him,
+as it were involuntarily, the idea of killing his competitor.
+
+Menteith did not recover sufficiently to join Montrose during his brief
+and glorious career; and when that heroic general disbanded his army and
+retired from Scotland, Menteith resolved to adopt the life of privacy,
+which he led till the Restoration. After that happy event, he occupied
+a situation in the land befitting his rank, lived long, happy alike in
+public regard and in domestic affection, and died at a good old age.
+
+Our DRAMATIS PERSONAE have been so limited, that, excepting Montrose,
+whose exploits and fate are the theme of history, we have only to
+mention Sir Dugald Dalgetty. This gentleman continued, with the most
+rigorous punctuality, to discharge his duty, and to receive his pay,
+until he was made prisoner, among others, upon the field of Philiphaugh.
+He was condemned to share the fate of his fellow-officers upon that
+occasion, who were doomed to death rather by denunciations from the
+pulpit, than the sentence either of civil or military tribunal; their
+blood being considered as a sort of sin-offering to take away the guilt
+of the land, and the fate imposed upon the Canaanites, under a special
+dispensation, being impiously and cruelly applied to them.
+
+Several Lowland officers, in the service of the Covenanters, interceded
+for Dalgetty on this occasion, representing him as a person whose skill
+would be useful in their army, and who would be readily induced to
+change his service. But on this point they found Sir Dugald unexpectedly
+obstinate. He had engaged with the King for a certain term, and,
+till that was expired, his principles would not permit any shadow of
+changing. The Covenanters, again, understood no such nice distinction,
+and he was in the utmost danger of falling a martyr, not to this or that
+political principle, but merely to his own strict ideas of a military
+enlistment. Fortunately, his friends discovered, by computation, that
+there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had
+formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no
+power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured
+a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly
+willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered
+the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to
+be Major in Gilbert Ker’s corps, commonly called the Kirk’s Own Regiment
+of Horse. Of his farther history we know nothing, until we find him in
+possession of his paternal estate of Drumthwacket, which he acquired,
+not by the sword, but by a pacific intermarriage with Hannah Strachan,
+a matron somewhat stricken in years, the widow of the Aberdeenshire
+Covenanter.
+
+Sir Dugald is supposed to have survived the Revolution, as traditions
+of no very distant date represent him as cruising about in that country,
+very old, very deaf, and very full of interminable stories about the
+immortal Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of
+the Protestant Faith.
+
+*****
+
+READER! THE TALES OF MY LANDLORD ARE NOW FINALLY CLOSED, closed, and
+it was my purpose to have addressed thee in the vein of Jedediah
+Cleishbotham; but, like Horam the son of Asmar, and all other imaginary
+story-tellers, Jedediah has melted into thin air.
+
+Mr. Cleishbotham bore the same resemblance to Ariel, as he at whose
+voice he rose doth to the sage Prospero; and yet, so fond are we of the
+fictions of our own fancy, that I part with him, and all his imaginary
+localities, with idle reluctance. I am aware this is a feeling in which
+the reader will little sympathize; but he cannot be more sensible than
+I am, that sufficient varieties have now been exhibited of the Scottish
+character, to exhaust one individual’s powers of observation, and that
+to persist would be useless and tedious. I have the vanity to suppose,
+that the popularity of these Novels has shown my countrymen, and their
+peculiarities, in lights which were new to the Southern reader; and that
+many, hitherto indifferent upon the subject, have been induced to read
+Scottish history, from the allusions to it in these works of fiction.
+
+I retire from the field, conscious that there remains behind not only a
+large harvest, but labourers capable of gathering it in. More than one
+writer has of late displayed talents of this description; and if the
+present author, himself a phantom, may be permitted to distinguish a
+brother, or perhaps a sister shadow, he would mention, in particular,
+the author of the very lively work entitled MARRIAGE.
+
+
+
+
+IV. APPENDIX.
+
+
+No. I
+
+The scarcity of my late friend’s poem may be an excuse for adding the
+spirited conclusion of Clan Alpin’s vow. The Clan Gregor has met in the
+ancient church of Balquidder. The head of Drummond-Ernoch is placed on
+the altar, covered for a time with the banner of the tribe. The Chief of
+the tribe advances to the altar:
+
+     And pausing, on the banner gazed;
+     Then cried in scorn, his finger raised,
+     “This was the boon of Scotland’s king;”
+      And, with a quick and angry fling,
+     Tossing the pageant screen away,
+     The dead man’s head before him lay.
+     Unmoved he scann’d the visage o’er,
+     The clotted locks were dark with gore,
+     The features with convulsion grim,
+     The eyes contorted, sunk, and dim.
+     But unappall’d, in angry mood,
+     With lowering brow, unmoved he stood.
+     Upon the head his bared right hand
+     He laid, the other grasp’d his brand:
+     Then kneeling, cried, “To Heaven I swear
+     This deed of death I own, and share;
+     As truly, fully mine, as though
+     This my right hand had dealt the blow:
+     Come then, our foeman, one, come all;
+     If to revenge this caitiffs fall
+     One blade is bared, one bow is drawn,
+     Mine everlasting peace I pawn,
+     To claim from them, or claim from him,
+     In retribution, limb for limb.
+     In sudden fray, or open strife,
+     This steel shall render life for life.”
+      He ceased; and at his beckoning nod,
+     The clansmen to the altar trod;
+     And not a whisper breathed around,
+     And nought was heard of mortal sound,
+     Save from the clanking arms they bore,
+     That rattled on the marble floor;
+     And each, as he approach’d in haste,
+     Upon the scalp his right hand placed;
+     With livid lip, and gather’d brow,
+     Each uttered, in his turn, the vow.
+     Fierce Malcolm watch’d the passing scene,
+     And search’d them through with glances keen;
+     Then dash’d a tear-drop from his eye;
+     Unhid it came--he knew not why.
+     Exulting high, he towering stood:
+     “Kinsmen,” he cried, “of Alpin’s blood,
+     And worthy of Clan Alpin’s name,
+     Unstain’d by cowardice and shame,
+     E’en do, spare nocht, in time of ill
+     Shall be Clan Alpin’s legend still!”
+
+
+
+
+No. II.
+
+It has been disputed whether the Children of the Mist were actual
+MacGregors, or whether they were not outlaws named MacDonald, belonging
+to Ardnamurchan. The following act of the Privy Council seems to decide
+the question:--
+
+“Edinburgh, 4th February, 1589.
+
+“The same day, the Lords of Secret Council being crediblie informed of
+ye cruel and mischievous proceeding of ye wicked Clangrigor, so lang
+continueing in blood, slaughters, herships, manifest reifts, and stouths
+committed upon his Hieness’ peaceable and good subjects; inhabiting ye
+countries ewest ye brays of ye Highlands, thir money years bybgone;
+but specially heir after ye cruel murder of umqll Jo. Drummond of
+Drummoneyryuch, his Majesties proper tennant and ane of his fosters of
+Glenartney, committed upon ye day of last bypast, be certain of ye said
+clan, be ye council and determination of ye haill, avow and to defend ye
+authors yrof qoever wald persew for revenge of ye same, qll ye said Jo.
+was occupied in seeking of venison to his Hieness, at command of
+Pat. Lord Drummond, stewart of Stratharne, and principal forrester of
+Clenartney; the Queen, his Majesties dearest spouse, being yn shortlie
+looked for to arrive in this realm. Likeas, after ye murder committed,
+ye authors yrof cutted off ye said umqll Jo. Drummond’s head, and
+carried the same to the Laird of M’Grigor, who, and the haill surname of
+M’Grigors, purposely conveined upon the Sunday yrafter, at the Kirk of
+Buchquhidder; qr they caused ye said umqll John’s head to be pnted to
+ym, and yr avowing ye sd murder to have been committed by yr communion,
+council, and determination, laid yr hands upon the pow, and in eithnik,
+and barbarous manner, swear to defend ye authors of ye sd murder, in
+maist proud contempt of our sovrn Lord and his authoritie, and in
+evil example to others wicked limmaris to do ye like, give ys sall be
+suffered to remain unpunished.”
+
+Then follows a commission to the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Athole,
+Montrose, Pat. Lord Drummond, Ja. Commendator of Incheffray, And.
+Campbel of Lochinnel, Duncan Campbel of Ardkinglas, Lauchlane M’Intosh
+of Dunnauchtane, Sir Jo. Murray of Tullibarden, knt., Geo. Buchanan of
+that Ilk, and And. M’Farlane of Ariquocher, to search for and apprehend
+Alaster M’Grigor of Glenstre (and a number of others nominatim), “and
+all others of the said Clangrigor, or ye assistars, culpable of the said
+odious murther, or of thift, reset of thift, herships, and sornings,
+qrever they may be apprehended. And if they refuse to be taken, or flees
+to strengths and houses, to pursue and assege them with fire and sword;
+and this commission to endure for the space of three years.”
+
+Such was the system of police in 1589; and such the state of Scotland
+nearly thirty years after the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+V. NOTES.
+
+
+
+
+Note I.--FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+
+The military men of the times agreed upon dependencies of honour, as
+they called them, with all the metaphysical argumentation of civilians,
+or school divines.
+
+The English officer, to whom Sir James Turner was prisoner after the
+rout at Uttoxeter, demanded his parole of honour not to go beyond the
+wall of Hull without liberty. “He brought me the message himself,--I
+told him I was ready to do so, provided he removed his guards from
+me, for FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA; and, if he took my word for my
+fidelity, he was obliged to trust it, otherwise, it was needless for him
+to seek it, either to give trust to my word, which I would not break, or
+his own guards, who I supposed would not deceive him. In this manner I
+dealt with him, because I knew him to be a scholar.”--TURNER’S MEMOIRS,
+p. 80. The English officer allowed the strength of the reasoning; but
+that concise reasoner, Cromwell, soon put an end to the dilemma: “Sir
+James Turner must give his parole, or be laid in irons.”
+
+
+
+
+Note II.--WRAITHS.
+
+A species of apparition, similar to what the Germans call a
+Double-Ganger, was believed in by the Celtic tribes, and is still
+considered as an emblem of misfortune or death. Mr. Kirke (See Note to
+ROB ROY,), the minister of Aberfoil, who will no doubt be able to tell
+us more of the matter should he ever come back from Fairy-land, gives us
+the following:--
+
+“Some men of that exalted sight, either by art or nature, have told me
+they have seen at these meetings a double man, or the shape of some man
+in two places, that is, a superterranean and a subterranean
+inhabitant perfectly resembling one another in all points, whom he,
+notwithstanding, could easily distinguish one fro another by some secret
+tokens and operations, and so go speak to the man his neighbour and
+familiar, passing by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch
+that every element and different state of being have animals resembling
+those of another element, as there be fishes at sea resembling Monks of
+late order in all their hoods and dresses, so as the Roman invention
+of good and bad daemons and guardian angels particularly assigned, is
+called by them ane ignorant mistake, springing only from this originall.
+They call this reflex man a Co-Walker, every way like the man, as a
+twin-brother and companion haunting him as his shadow, as is that seen
+and known among men resembling the originall, both before and after the
+originall is dead, and was also often seen of old to enter a hous, by
+which the people knew that the person of that liknes was to visit them
+within a few days. This copy, echo, or living picture, goes at last to
+his own herd. It accompanied that person so long and frequently for ends
+best known to its selve, whether to guard him from the secret assaults
+of some of its own folks, or only as an sportfull ape to counterfeit all
+his actions.”--KIRKE’S SECRET COMMOMWEALTH, p. 3.
+
+The two following apparitions, resembling the vision of Allan M’Aulay in
+the text, occur in Theophilus Insulanus (Rev. Mr. Fraser’s Treatise on
+the Second Sight, Relations x. and xvii.):--
+
+“Barbara Macpherson, relict of the deceased Mr. Alexander MacLeod, late
+minister of St. Kilda, informed me the natives of that island had a
+particular kind of second sight, which is always a forerunner of their
+approaching end. Some months before they sicken, they are haunted with
+an apparition, resembling themselves in all respects as to their person,
+features, or clothing. This image, seemingly animated, walks with them
+in the field in broad daylight; and if they are employed in delving,
+harrowing, seed-sowing, or any other occupation, they are at the same
+time mimicked by this ghostly visitant. My informer added further that
+having visited a sick person of the inhabitants, she had the curiosity
+to enquire of him, if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself
+as above described; he answered in the affirmative, and told her, that
+to make farther trial, as he was going out of his house of a morning, he
+put on straw-rope garters instead of those he formerly used, and
+having gone to the fields, his other self appeared in such garters. The
+conclusion was, the sick man died of that ailment, and she no longer
+questioned the truth of those remarkable presages.”
+
+“Margaret MacLeod, an honest woman advanced in years, informed me, that
+when she was a young woman in the family of Grishornish, a dairy-maid,
+who daily used to herd the calves in a park close to the house,
+observed, at different times, a woman resembling herself in shape and
+attire, walking solitarily at no great distance from her, and being
+surprised at the apparition, to make further trial, she put the back
+part of her upper garment foremost, and anon the phantom was dressed
+in the same manner, which made her uneasy, believing it portended some
+fatal consequence to herself. In a short time thereafter she was seized
+with a fever, which brought her to her end, and before her sickness and
+on her deathbed, declared the second sight to several.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1461-0.txt or 1461-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/1461/
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
+
+The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/1461-0.zip b/old/1461-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bd9d166
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-0.zip
diff --git a/old/1461-h.zip b/old/1461-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a0d2b8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h.zip
diff --git a/old/1461-h/1461-h.htm b/old/1461-h/1461-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f5a8c0b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/1461-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,11065 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .indent5   { margin-left: 5%;}
+    .indent10  { margin-left: 10%;}
+    .indent15  { margin-left: 15%;}
+    .indent20  { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .indent30  { margin-left: 30%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 100%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    .side      { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em;
+               border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left;
+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;}
+    p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0}
+    span.dropcap         { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 }
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    -->
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Legend of Montrose
+
+Author: Sir Walter Scott
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2006 [EBook #1461]
+Last Updated: August 30, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+
+
+<p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+<hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      A LEGEND OF MONTROSE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by<br /> Sir Walter Scott
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I. INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement). </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> IV. APPENDIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> No. II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> V. NOTES. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> Note I.&mdash;FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> Note II.&mdash;WRAITHS. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      I. INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Legend of Montrose was written chiefly with a view to place before the
+      reader the melancholy fate of John Lord Kilpont, eldest son of William
+      Earl of Airth and Menteith, and the singular circumstances attending the
+      birth and history of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, by whose hand the
+      unfortunate nobleman fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our subject leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin with one
+      still more ancient than that to which our story relates. During the reign
+      of James IV., a great feud between the powerful families of Drummond and
+      Murray divided Perthshire. The former, being the most numerous and
+      powerful, cooped up eight score of the Murrays in the kirk of Monivaird,
+      and set fire to it. The wives and the children of the ill-fated men, who
+      had also found shelter in the church, perished by the same conflagration.
+      One man, named David Murray, escaped by the humanity of one of the
+      Drummonds, who received him in his arms as he leaped from amongst the
+      flames. As King James IV. ruled with more activity than most of his
+      predecessors, this cruel deed was severely revenged, and several of the
+      perpetrators were beheaded at Stirling. In consequence of the prosecution
+      against his clan, the Drummond by whose assistance David Murray had
+      escaped, fled to Ireland, until, by means of the person whose life he had
+      saved, he was permitted to return to Scotland, where he and his
+      descendants were distinguished by the name of Drummond-Eirinich, or
+      Ernoch, that is, Drummond of Ireland; and the same title was bestowed on
+      their estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Drummond-ernoch of James the Sixth&rsquo;s time was a king&rsquo;s forester in the
+      forest of Glenartney, and chanced to be employed there in search of
+      venison about the year 1588, or early in 1589. This forest was adjacent to
+      the chief haunts of the MacGregors, or a particular race of them, known by
+      the title of MacEagh, or Children of the Mist. They considered the
+      forester&rsquo;s hunting in their vicinity as an aggression, or perhaps they had
+      him at feud, for the apprehension or slaughter of some of their own name,
+      or for some similar reason. This tribe of MacGregors were outlawed and
+      persecuted, as the reader may see in the Introduction to ROB ROY; and
+      every man&rsquo;s hand being against them, their hand was of course directed
+      against every man. In short, they surprised and slew Drummond-ernoch, cut
+      off his head, and carried it with them, wrapt in the corner of one of
+      their plaids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the full exultation of vengeance, they stopped at the house of
+      Ardvoirlich and demanded refreshment, which the lady, a sister of the
+      murdered Drummond-ernoch (her husband being absent), was afraid or
+      unwilling to refuse. She caused bread and cheese to be placed before them,
+      and gave directions for more substantial refreshments to be prepared.
+      While she was absent with this hospitable intention, the barbarians placed
+      the head of her brother on the table, filling the mouth with bread and
+      cheese, and bidding him eat, for many a merry meal he had eaten in that
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman returning, and beholding this dreadful sight, shrieked
+      aloud, and fled into the woods, where, as described in the romance, she
+      roamed a raving maniac, and for some time secreted herself from all living
+      society. Some remaining instinctive feeling brought her at length to steal
+      a glance from a distance at the maidens while they milked the cows, which
+      being observed, her husband, Ardvoirlich, had her conveyed back to her
+      home, and detained her there till she gave birth to a child, of whom she
+      had been pregnant; after which she was observed gradually to recover her
+      mental faculties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the outlaws had carried to the utmost their insults against the
+      regal authority, which indeed, as exercised, they had little reason for
+      respecting. They bore the same bloody trophy, which they had so savagely
+      exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich, into the old church of Balquidder,
+      nearly in the centre of their country, where the Laird of MacGregor and
+      all his clan being convened for the purpose, laid their hands successively
+      on the dead man&rsquo;s head, and swore, in heathenish and barbarous manner, to
+      defend the author of the deed. This fierce and vindictive combination gave
+      the author&rsquo;s late and lamented friend, Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart.,
+      subject for a spirited poem, entitled &ldquo;Clan-Alpin&rsquo;s Vow,&rdquo; which was
+      printed, but not, I believe, published, in 1811 [See Appendix No. I].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fact is ascertained by a proclamation from the Privy Council, dated
+      4th February, 1589, directing letters of fire and sword against the
+      MacGregors [See Appendix No. II]. This fearful commission was executed
+      with uncommon fury. The late excellent John Buchanan of Cambusmore showed
+      the author some correspondence between his ancestor, the Laird of
+      Buchanan, and Lord Drummond, about sweeping certain valleys with their
+      followers, on a fixed time and rendezvous, and &ldquo;taking sweet revenge for
+      the death of their cousin, Drummond-ernoch.&rdquo; In spite of all, however,
+      that could be done, the devoted tribe of MacGregor still bred up survivors
+      to sustain and to inflict new cruelties and injuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [I embrace the opportunity given me by a second mention of this tribe, to
+      notice an error, which imputes to an individual named Ciar Mohr MacGregor,
+      the slaughter of the students at the battle of Glenfruin. I am informed
+      from the authority of John Gregorson, Esq., that the chieftain so named
+      was dead nearly a century before the battle in question, and could not,
+      therefore, have done the cruel action mentioned. The mistake does not rest
+      with me, as I disclaimed being responsible for the tradition while I
+      quoted it, but with vulgar fame, which is always disposed to ascribe
+      remarkable actions to a remarkable name.&mdash;See the erroneous passage,
+      ROB ROY, Introduction; and so soft sleep the offended phantom of Dugald
+      Ciar Mohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is with mingled pleasure and shame that I record the more important
+      error, of having announced as deceased my learned acquaintance, the Rev.
+      Dr. Grahame, minister of Aberfoil.&mdash;See ROB ROY, p.360. I cannot now
+      recollect the precise ground of my depriving my learned and excellent
+      friend of his existence, unless, like Mr. Kirke, his predecessor in the
+      parish, the excellent Doctor had made a short trip to Fairyland, with
+      whose wonders he is so well acquainted. But however I may have been
+      misled, my regret is most sincere for having spread such a rumour; and no
+      one can be more gratified than I that the report, however I have been
+      induced to credit and give it currency, is a false one, and that Dr.
+      Grahame is still the living pastor of Aberfoil, for the delight and
+      instruction of his brother antiquaries.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Young James Stewart of Ardvoirlich grew up to manhood uncommonly
+      tall, strong, and active, with such power in the grasp of his hand in
+      particular, as could force the blood from beneath the nails of the persons
+      who contended with him in this feat of strength. His temper was moody,
+      fierce, and irascible; yet he must have had some ostensible good
+      qualities, as he was greatly beloved by Lord Kilpont, the eldest son of
+      the Earl of Airth and Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gallant young nobleman joined Montrose in the setting up his standard
+      in 1644, just before the decisive battle at Tippermuir, on the 1st
+      September in that year. At that time, Stewart of Ardvoirlich shared the
+      confidence of the young Lord by day, and his bed by night, when, about
+      four or five days after the battle, Ardvoirlich, either from a fit of
+      sudden fury or deep malice long entertained against his unsuspecting
+      friend, stabbed Lord Kilpont to the heart, and escaped from the camp of
+      Montrose, having killed a sentinel who attempted to detain him. Bishop
+      Guthrie gives us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont
+      had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to assassinate
+      Montrose. But it does not appear that there is any authority for this
+      charge, which rests on mere suspicion. Ardvoirlich, the assassin,
+      certainly did fly to the Covenanters, and was employed and promoted by
+      them. He obtained a pardon for the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, confirmed by
+      Parliament in 1634, and was made Major of Argyle&rsquo;s regiment in 1648. Such
+      are the facts of the tale here given as a Legend of Montrose&rsquo;s wars. The
+      reader will find they are considerably altered in the fictitious
+      narrative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author has endeavoured to enliven the tragedy of the tale by the
+      introduction of a personage proper to the time and country. In this he has
+      been held by excellent judges to have been in some degree successful. The
+      contempt of commerce entertained by young men having some pretence to
+      gentility, the poverty of the country of Scotland, the national
+      disposition to wandering and to adventure, all conduced to lead the Scots
+      abroad into the military service of countries which were at war with each
+      other. They were distinguished on the Continent by their bravery; but in
+      adopting the trade of mercenary soldiers, they necessarily injured their
+      national character. The tincture of learning, which most of them
+      possessed, degenerated into pedantry; their good breeding became mere
+      ceremonial; their fear of dishonour no longer kept them aloof from that
+      which was really unworthy, but was made to depend on certain punctilious
+      observances totally apart from that which was in itself deserving of
+      praise. A cavalier of honour, in search of his fortune, might, for
+      example, change his service as he would his shirt, fight, like the doughty
+      Captain Dalgetty, in one cause after another, without regard to the
+      justice of the quarrel, and might plunder the peasantry subjected to him
+      by the fate of war with the most unrelenting rapacity; but he must beware
+      how he sustained the slightest reproach, even from a clergyman, if it had
+      regard to neglect on the score of duty. The following occurrence will
+      prove the truth of what I mean:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I must not forget the memory of one preacher, Master William
+      Forbesse, a preacher for souldiers, yea, and a captaine in neede to leade
+      souldiers on a good occasion, being full of courage, with discretion and
+      good conduct, beyond some captaines I have knowne, that were not so
+      capable as he. At this time he not onely prayed for us, but went on with
+      us, to remarke, as I thinke, men&rsquo;s carriage; and having found a sergeant
+      neglecting his dutie and his honour at such a time (whose name I will not
+      expresse), having chidden him, did promise to reveale him unto me, as he
+      did after their service. The sergeant being called before me, and accused,
+      did deny his accusation, alleaging, if he were no pasteur that had
+      alleaged it, he would not lie under the injury, The preacher offered to
+      fight with him, [in proof] that it was truth he had spoken of him;
+      whereupon I cashiered the sergeant, and gave his place to a worthier,
+      called Mungo Gray, a gentleman of good worth, and of much courage. The
+      sergeant being cashiered, never called Master William to account, for
+      which he was evill thought of; so that he retired home, and quit the
+      warres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The above quotation is taken from a work which the author repeatedly
+      consulted while composing the following sheets, and which is in great
+      measure written in the humour of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. It bears the
+      following formidable title:&mdash;&ldquo;MONRO his Expedition with the worthy
+      Scots Regiment, called MacKeye&rsquo;s Regiment, levied in August 1626, by Sir
+      Donald MacKeye Lord Rees Colonel, for his Majestie&rsquo;s service of Denmark,
+      and reduced after the battle of Nerling, in September 1634, at Wormes, in
+      the Palz: Discharged in several duties and observations of service, first,
+      under the magnanimous King of Denmark, during his wars against the Empire;
+      afterwards under the invincible King of Sweden, during his Majestie&rsquo;s
+      lifetime; and since under the Director-General, the Rex-Chancellor
+      Oxensterne, and his Generals: collected and gathered together, at spare
+      hours, by Colonel Robert Monro, as First Lieutenant under the said
+      Regiment, to the noble and worthy Captain Thomas MacKenzie of Kildon,
+      brother to the noble Lord, the Lord Earl of Seaforth, for the use of all
+      noble Cavaliers favouring the laudable profession of arms. To which is
+      annexed, the Abridgement of Exercise, and divers Practical Observations
+      for the Younger Officer, his consideration. Ending with the Soldier&rsquo;s
+      Meditations on going on Service.&rdquo;&mdash;London, 1637.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another worthy of the same school, and nearly the same views of the
+      military character, is Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, who rose to
+      considerable rank in the reign of Charles II., had a command in Galloway
+      and Dumfries-shire, for the suppression of conventicles, and was made
+      prisoner by the insurgent Covenanters in that rising which was followed by
+      the battle of Pentland. Sir James is a person even of superior pretensions
+      to Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, having written a Military Treatise on the
+      Pike-Exercise, called &ldquo;Pallas Armata.&rdquo; Moreover, he was educated at
+      Glasgow College, though he escaped to become an Ensign in the German wars,
+      instead of taking his degree of Master of Arts at that learned seminary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In latter times, he was author of several discourses on historical and
+      literary subjects, from which the Bannatyne Club have extracted and
+      printed such passages as concern his Life and Times, under the title of
+      SIR JAMES TURNER&rsquo;S MEMOIRS. From this curious book I extract the following
+      passage, as an example of how Captain Dalgetty might have recorded such an
+      incident had he kept a journal, or, to give it a more just character, it
+      is such as the genius of De Foe would have devised, to give the minute and
+      distinguishing features of truth to a fictitious narrative:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heere I will set doun ane accident befell me; for thogh it was not a very
+      strange one, yet it was a very od one in all its parts. My tuo brigads lay
+      in a village within halfe a mile of Applebie; my own quarter was in a
+      gentleman&rsquo;s house, ho was a Ritmaster, and at that time with Sir
+      Marmaduke; his wife keepd her chamber readie to be brought to bed. The
+      castle being over, and Lambert farre enough, I resolved to goe to bed
+      everie night, haveing had fatigue enough before. &lsquo;The first night I sleepd
+      well enough; and riseing nixt morning, I misd one linnen stockine, one
+      halfe silke one, and one boothose, the accoustrement under a boote for one
+      leg; neither could they be found for any search. Being provided of more of
+      the same kind, I made myselfe reddie, and rode to the head-quarters. At my
+      returne, I could heare no news of my stockins. That night I went to bed,
+      and nixt morning found myselfe just so used; missing the three stockins
+      for one leg onlie, the other three being left intire as they were the day
+      before. A narrower search then the first was made, bot without successe. I
+      had yet in reserve one paire of whole stockings, and a paire of boothose,
+      greater then the former. These I put on my legs. The third morning I found
+      the same usage, the stockins for one leg onlie left me. It was time for me
+      then, and my servants too, to imagine it must be rats that had shard my
+      stockins so inequallie with me; and this the mistress of the house knew
+      well enough, but would not tell it me. The roome, which was a low parlour,
+      being well searched with candles, the top of my great boothose was found
+      at a hole, in which they had drawne all the rest. I went abroad and
+      ordered the boards to be raised, to see how the rats had disposed of my
+      moveables. The mistress sent a servant of her oune to be present at this
+      action, which she knew concerned her. One board being bot a litle opend, a
+      litle boy of mine thrust in his hand, and fetchd with him foure and
+      tuentie old peeces of gold, and one angell. The servant of the house
+      affirmed it appertained to his mistres. The boy bringing the gold to me, I
+      went immediatlie to the gentlewomans chamber, and told her, it was
+      probable Lambert haveing quarterd in that house, as indeed he had, some of
+      his servants might have hid that gold; and if so, it was lawfullie mine;
+      bot if she could make it appeare it belongd to her, I should immediatlie
+      give it her. The poore gentlewoman told me with many teares, that her
+      husband being none of the frugallest men (and indeed he was a
+      spendthrift), she had hid that gold without his, knowledge, to make use of
+      it as she had occasion, especiallie when she lay in; and conjured me, as I
+      lovd the King (for whom her husband and she had suffered much), not to
+      detaine her gold. She said, if there was either more or lesse then foure
+      and tuentie whole peeces, and two halfe ones, it sould be none of hers;
+      and that they were put by her in a red velvet purse. After I had given her
+      assureance of her gold, a new search is made, the other angell is found,
+      the velvet purse all gnawd in bits, as my stockins were, and the gold
+      instantlie restord to the gentlewoman. I have often heard that the eating
+      or gnawing of cloths by rats is ominous, and portends some mischance to
+      fall on those to whom the cloths belong. I thank God I was never addicted
+      to such divinations, or heeded them. It is true, that more misfortunes
+      then one fell on me shortlie after; bot I am sure I could have better
+      forseene them myselfe then rats or any such vermine, and yet did it not. I
+      have heard indeed many fine stories told of rats, how they abandon houses
+      and ships, when the first are to be burnt and the second dround.
+      Naturalists say they are very sagacious creatures, and I beleeve they are
+      so; bot I shall never be of the opinion they can forsee future
+      contingencies, which I suppose the divell himselfe can neither forknow nor
+      fortell; these being things which the Almightie hath keepd hidden in the
+      bosome of his divine prescience. And whither the great God hath
+      preordained or predestinated these things, which to us are contingent, to
+      fall out by ane uncontrollable and unavoidable necessitie, is a question
+      not yet decided.&rdquo; [SIR JAMES TURNER&rsquo;S MEMOIRS, Bannatyne edition, p. 59.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more modern
+      sketch of a Scottish soldier of the old fashion, by a masterhand, in the
+      character of Lesmahagow, since the existence of that doughty Captain alone
+      must deprive the present author of all claim to absolute originality.
+      Still Dalgetty, as the production of his own fancy, has been so far a
+      favourite with its parent, that he has fallen into the error of assigning
+      to the Captain too prominent a part in the story. This is the opinion of a
+      critic who encamps on the highest pinnacles of literature; and the author
+      is so far fortunate in having incurred his censure, that it gives his
+      modesty a decent apology for quoting the praise, which it would have
+      ill-befited him to bring forward in an unmingled state. The passage occurs
+      in the EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 55, containing a criticism on IVANHOE:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is too much, perhaps, of Dalgetty,&mdash;or, rather, he engrosses
+      too great a proportion of the work,&mdash;for, in himself, we think he is
+      uniformly entertaining;&mdash;and the author has nowhere shown more
+      affinity to that matchless spirit who could bring out his Falstaffs and
+      his Pistols, in act after act, and play after play, and exercise them
+      every time with scenes of unbounded loquacity, without either exhausting
+      their humour, or varying a note from its characteristic tone, than in his
+      large and reiterated specimens of the eloquence of the redoubted
+      Ritt-master. The general idea of the character is familiar to our comic
+      dramatists after the Restoration&mdash;and may be said in some measure to
+      be compounded of Captain Fluellen and Bobadil;&mdash;but the ludicrous
+      combination of the SOLDADO with the Divinity student of Mareschal-College,
+      is entirely original; and the mixture of talent, selfishness, courage,
+      coarseness, and conceit, was never so happily exemplified. Numerous as his
+      speeches are, there is not one that is not characteristic&mdash;and, to
+      our taste, divertingly ludicrous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      POSTSCRIPT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these pages were passing through the press, the author received a
+      letter from the present Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich, favouring him with
+      the account of the unhappy slaughter of Lord Kilpont, differing from, and
+      more probable than, that given by Bishop Wishart, whose narrative infers
+      either insanity or the blackest treachery on the part of James Stewart of
+      Ardvoirlich, the ancestor of the present family of that name. It is but
+      fair to give the entire communication as received from my respected
+      correspondent, which is more minute than the histories of the period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Although I have not the honour of being personally known to you, I hope
+      you will excuse the liberty I now take, in addressing you on the subject
+      of a transaction more than once alluded to by you, in which an ancestor of
+      mine was unhappily concerned. I allude to the slaughter of Lord Kilpont,
+      son of the Earl of Airth and Monteith, in 1644, by James Stewart of
+      Ardvoirlich. As the cause of this unhappy event, and the quarrel which led
+      to it, have never been correctly stated in any history of the period in
+      which it took place, I am induced, in consequence of your having, in the
+      second series of your admirable Tales on the History of Scotland, adopted
+      Wishart&rsquo;s version of the transaction, and being aware that your having
+      done so will stamp it with an authenticity which it does not merit, and
+      with a view, as far as possible, to do justice to the memory of my
+      unfortunate ancestor, to send you the account of this affair as it has
+      been handed down in the family.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/0681m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="0681m "  /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0681.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who lived in the early part of the 17th
+      century, and who was the unlucky cause of the slaughter of Lord Kilpont,
+      as before mentioned, was appointed to the command of one of several
+      independent companies raised in the Highlands at the commencement of the
+      troubles in the reign of Charles I.; another of these companies was under
+      the command of Lord Kilpont, and a strong intimacy, strengthened by a
+      distant relationship, subsisted between them. When Montrose raised the
+      royal standard, Ardvoirlich was one of the first to declare for him, and
+      is said to have been a principal means of bringing over Lord Kilpont to
+      the same cause; and they accordingly, along with Sir John Drummond and
+      their respective followers, joined Montrose, as recorded by Wishart, at
+      Buchanty. While they served together, so strong was their intimacy, that
+      they lived and slept in the same tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the meantime, Montrose had been joined by the Irish under the command
+      of Alexander Macdonald; these, on their march to join Montrose, had
+      committed some excesses on lands belonging to Ardvoirlich, which lay in
+      the line of their march from the west coast. Of this Ardvoirlich
+      complained to Montrose, who, probably wishing as much as possible to
+      conciliate his new allies, treated it in rather an evasive manner.
+      Ardvoirlich, who was a man of violent passions, having failed to receive
+      such satisfaction as he required, challenged Macdonald to single combat.
+      Before they met, however, Montrose, on the information and by advice, as
+      it is said, of Kilpont, laid them both under arrest. Montrose, seeing the
+      evils of such a feud at such a critical time, effected a sort of
+      reconciliation between them, and forced them to shake hands in his
+      presence; when, it was said, that Ardvoirlich, who was a very powerful
+      man, took such a hold of Macdonald&rsquo;s hand as to make the blood start from
+      his fingers. Still, it would appear, Ardvoirlich was by no means
+      reconciled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few days after the battle of Tippermuir, when Montrose with his army
+      was encamped at Collace, an entertainment was given by him to his
+      officers, in honour of the victory he had obtained, and Kilpont and his
+      comrade Ardvoirlich were of the party. After returning to their quarters,
+      Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to brood over his quarrel with Macdonald,
+      and being heated with drink, began to blame Lord Kilpont for the part he
+      had taken in preventing his obtaining redress, and reflecting against
+      Montrose for not allowing him what he considered proper reparation.
+      Kilpont of course defended the conduct of himself and his relative
+      Montrose, till their argument came to high words; and finally, from the
+      state they were both in, by an easy transition, to blows, when
+      Ardvoirlich, with his dirk, struck Kilpont dead on the spot. He
+      immediately fled, and under the cover of a thick mist escaped pursuit,
+      leaving his eldest son Henry, who had been mortally wounded at Tippermuir,
+      on his deathbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His followers immediately withdrew from Montrose, and no course remained
+      for him but to throw himself into the arms of the opposite faction, by
+      whom he was well received. His name is frequently mentioned in Leslie&rsquo;s
+      campaigns, and on more than one occasion he is mentioned as having
+      afforded protection to several of his former friends through his interest
+      with Leslie, when the King&rsquo;s cause became desperate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The foregoing account of this unfortunate transaction, I am well aware,
+      differs materially from the account given by Wishart, who alleges that
+      Stewart had laid a plot for the assassination of Montrose, and that he
+      murdered Lord Kilpont in consequence of his refusal to participate in his
+      design. Now, I may be allowed to remark, that besides Wishart having
+      always been regarded as a partial historian, and very questionable
+      authority on any subject connected with the motives or conduct of those
+      who differed from him in opinion, that even had Stewart formed such a
+      design, Kilpont, from his name and connexions, was likely to be the very
+      last man of whom Stewart would choose to make a confidant and accomplice.
+      On the other hand, the above account, though never, that I am aware,
+      before hinted at, has been a constant tradition in the family; and, from
+      the comparative recent date of the transaction, and the sources from which
+      the tradition has been derived, I have no reason to doubt its perfect
+      authenticity. It was most circumstantially detailed as above, given to my
+      father, Mr. Stewart, now of Ardvoirlich, many years ago, by a man nearly
+      connected with the family, who lived to the age of 100. This man was a
+      great-grandson of James Stewart, by a natural son John, of whom many
+      stories are still current in this country, under his appellation of JOHN
+      DHU MHOR. This John was with his father at the time, and of course was a
+      witness of the whole transaction; he lived till a considerable time after
+      the Revolution, and it was from him that my father&rsquo;s informant, who was a
+      man before his grandfather, John dhu Mhor&rsquo;s death, received the
+      information as above stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have many apologies to offer for trespassing so long on your patience;
+      but I felt a natural desire, if possible, to correct what I conceive to be
+      a groundless imputation on the memory of my ancestor, before it shall come
+      to be considered as a matter of History. That he was a man of violent
+      passions and singular temper, I do not pretend to deny, as many traditions
+      still current in this country amply verify; but that he was capable of
+      forming a design to assassinate Montrose, the whole tenor of his former
+      conduct and principles contradict. That he was obliged to join the
+      opposite party, was merely a matter of safety, while Kilpont had so many
+      powerful friends and connexions able and ready to avenge his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make what use of
+      this communication you please, and either to reject it altogether, or
+      allow it such credit as you think it deserves; and I shall be ready at all
+      times to furnish you with any further information on this subject which
+      you may require, and which it may be in my power to afford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;ARDVOIRLICH, 15TH JANUARY, 1830.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so correct, is
+      a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the victim, it would seem, of
+      his own violent passions, but perhaps incapable of an act of premeditated
+      treachery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ABBOTSFORD, 1ST AUGUST, 1830. <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement).
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant More M&rsquo;Alpin was, during his residence among us, one of the most
+      honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh. No one thought of disputing his
+      title to the great leathern chair on the &ldquo;cosiest side of the chimney,&rdquo; in
+      the common room of the Wallace Arms, on a Saturday evening. No less would
+      our sexton, John Duirward, have held it an unlicensed intrusion, to suffer
+      any one to induct himself into the corner of the left-hand pew nearest to
+      the pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly occupied on Sundays. There he
+      sat, his blue invalid uniform brushed with the most scrupulous accuracy.
+      Two medals of merit displayed at his button-hole, as well as the empty
+      sleeve which should have been occupied by his right arm, bore evidence of
+      his hard and honourable service. His weatherbeaten features, his grey hair
+      tied in a thin queue in the military fashion of former days, and the right
+      side of his head a little turned up, the better to catch the sound of the
+      clergyman&rsquo;s voice, were all marks of his profession and infirmities.
+      Beside him sat his sister Janet, a little neat old woman, with a Highland
+      curch and tartan plaid, watching the very looks of her brother, to her the
+      greatest man upon earth, and actively looking out for him, in his
+      silver-clasped Bible, the texts which the minister quoted or expounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe it was the respect that was universally paid to this worthy
+      veteran by all ranks in Gandercleugh which induced him to choose our
+      village for his residence, for such was by no means his original
+      intention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had risen to the rank of sergeant-major of artillery, by hard service
+      in various quarters of the world, and was reckoned one of the most tried
+      and trusty men of the Scotch Train. A ball, which shattered his arm in a
+      peninsular campaign, at length procured him an honourable discharge. with
+      an allowance from Chelsea, and a handsome gratuity from the patriotic
+      fund. Moreover, Sergeant More M&rsquo;Alpin had been prudent as well as valiant;
+      and, from prize-money and savings, had become master of a small sum in the
+      three per cent consols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He retired with the purpose of enjoying this income in the wild Highland
+      glen, in which, when a boy, he had herded black cattle and goats, ere the
+      roll of the drum had made him cock his bonnet an inch higher, and follow
+      its music for nearly forty years. To his recollection, this retired spot
+      was unparalleled in beauty by the richest scenes he had visited in his
+      wanderings. Even the Happy Valley of Rasselas would have sunk into nothing
+      upon the comparison. He came&mdash;he revisited the loved scene; it was
+      but a sterile glen, surrounded with rude crags, and traversed by a
+      northern torrent. This was not the worst. The fires had been quenched upon
+      thirty hearths&mdash;of the cottage of his fathers he could but
+      distinguish a few rude stones&mdash;the language was almost extinguished&mdash;the
+      ancient race from which he boasted his descent had found a refuge beyond
+      the Atlantic. One southland farmer, three grey-plaided shepherds, and six
+      dogs, now tenanted the whole glen, which in his youth had maintained, in
+      content, if not in competence, upwards of two hundred inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the house of the new tenant, Sergeant M&rsquo;Alpin found, however, an
+      unexpected source of pleasure, and a means of employing his social
+      affections. His sister Janet had fortunately entertained so strong a
+      persuasion that her brother would one day return, that she had refused to
+      accompany her kinsfolk upon their emigration. Nay, she had consented,
+      though not without a feeling of degradation, to take service with the
+      intruding Lowlander, who, though a Saxon, she said, had proved a kind man
+      to her. This unexpected meeting with his sister seemed a cure for all the
+      disappointments which it had been Sergeant More&rsquo;s lot to encounter,
+      although it was not without a reluctant tear that he heard told, as a
+      Highland woman alone could ten it, the story of the expatriation of his
+      kinsmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She narrated at great length the vain offers they had made of advanced
+      rent, the payment of which must have reduced them to the extremity of
+      poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for permission to live and
+      die on their native soil. Nor did Janet forget the portents which had
+      announced the departure of the Celtic race, and the arrival of the
+      strangers. For two years previous to the emigration, when the night wind
+      howled dawn the pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled to
+      the tune of &ldquo;HA TIL MI TULIDH&rdquo; (we return no more), with which the
+      emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores. The uncouth cries
+      of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of their dogs, were often
+      heard in the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival. A bard,
+      the last of his race, had commemorated the expulsion of the natives of the
+      glen in a tune, which brought tears into the aged eyes of the veteran, and
+      of which the first stanza may be thus rendered:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander,
+     Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border?
+     Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander,
+     Wasting the glen that was once in fair order?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      What added to Sergeant More M&rsquo;Alpin&rsquo;s distress upon the occasion was, that
+      the chief by whom this change had been effected, was, by tradition and
+      common opinion, held to represent the ancient leaders and fathers of the
+      expelled fugitives; and it had hitherto been one of Sergeant More&rsquo;s
+      principal subjects of pride to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what
+      degree of kindred he stood to this personage. A woful change was now
+      wrought in his sentiments towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot curse him,&rdquo; he said, as he rose and strode through the room,
+      when Janet&rsquo;s narrative was finished&mdash;&ldquo;I will not curse him; he is the
+      descendant and representative of my fathers. But never shall mortal man
+      hear me name his name again.&rdquo; And he kept his word; for, until his dying
+      day, no man heard him mention his selfish and hard-hearted chieftain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After giving a day to sad recollections, the hardy spirit which had
+      carried him through so many dangers, manned the Sergeant&rsquo;s bosom against
+      this cruel disappointment. &ldquo;He would go,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to Canada to his
+      kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic valley after the glen of
+      their fathers. Janet,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;should kilt her coats like a leaguer
+      lady; d&mdash;n the distance! it was a flea&rsquo;s leap to the voyages and
+      marches he had made on a slighter occasion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this purpose he left the Highlands, and came with his sister as far
+      as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage to Canada. But
+      winter was now set in, and as he thought it advisable to wait for a spring
+      passage, when the St. Lawrence should be open, he settled among us for the
+      few months of his stay in Britain. As we said before, the respectable old
+      man met with deference and attention from all ranks of society; and when
+      spring returned, he was so satisfied with his quarters, that he did not
+      renew the purpose of his voyage. Janet was afraid of the sea, and he
+      himself felt the infirmities of age and hard service more than he had at
+      first expected. And, as he confessed to the clergyman, and my worthy
+      principal, Mr. Cleishbotham, &ldquo;it was better staying with kend friends,
+      than going farther, and faring worse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He therefore established himself and his domicile at Gandercleugh, to the
+      great satisfaction, as we have already said, of all its inhabitants, to
+      whom he became, in respect of military intelligence, and able commentaries
+      upon the newspapers, gazettes, and bulletins, a very oracle, explanatory
+      of all martial events, past, present, or to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, the Sergeant had his inconsistencies. He was a steady
+      jacobite, his father and his four uncles having been out in the
+      forty-five; but he was a no less steady adherent of King George, in whose
+      service he had made his little fortune, and lost three brothers; so that
+      you were in equal danger to displease him, in terming Prince Charles, the
+      Pretender, or by saying anything derogatory to the dignity of King George.
+      Further, it must not be denied, that when the day of receiving his
+      dividends came round, the Sergeant was apt to tarry longer at the Wallace
+      Arms of an evening, than was consistent with strict temperance, or indeed
+      with his worldly interest; for upon these occasions, his compotators
+      sometimes contrived to flatter his partialities by singing jacobite songs,
+      and drinking confusion to Bonaparte, and the health of the Duke of
+      Wellington, until the Sergeant was not only flattered into paying the
+      whole reckoning, but occasionally induced to lend small sums to his
+      interested companions. After such sprays, as he called them, were over,
+      and his temper once more cool, he seldom failed to thank God, and the Duke
+      of York, who had made it much more difficult for an old soldier to ruin
+      himself by his folly, than had been the case in his younger days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not on such occasions that I made a part of Sergeant More M&rsquo;Alpin&rsquo;s
+      society. But often, when my leisure would permit, I used to seek him, on
+      what he called his morning and evening parade, on which, when the weather
+      was fair, he appeared as regularly as if summoned by tuck of drum. His
+      morning walk was beneath the elms in the churchyard; &ldquo;for death,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;had been his next-door neighbour for so many years, that he had no
+      apology for dropping the acquaintance.&rdquo; His evening promenade was on the
+      bleaching-green by the river-side, where he was sometimes to be seen on an
+      open bench, with spectacles on nose, conning over the newspapers to a
+      circle of village politicians, explaining military terms, and aiding the
+      comprehension of his hearers by lines drawn on the ground with the end of
+      his rattan. On other occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of
+      school-boys, whom he sometimes drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with
+      less approbation on the part of their parents, instructed in the mystery
+      of artificial fire-works; for in the case of public rejoicings, the
+      Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as the Encyclopedia calls it) to the village of
+      Gandercleugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the veteran.
+      And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath, overshadowed by the
+      row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his upright form advancing
+      towards me with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me the
+      military salute&mdash;but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
+      under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
+      corner of the churchyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The delight which I had in Sergeant M&rsquo;Alpin&rsquo;s conversation, related not
+      only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the course
+      of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous Highland
+      traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his parents, and of
+      which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of heresy to question
+      the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars of Montrose, in which
+      some of the Sergeant&rsquo;s ancestry had, it seems, taken a distinguished part.
+      It has happened, that, although these civil commotions reflect the highest
+      honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed the first occasion upon which
+      they showed themselves superior, or even equal to their Low-country
+      neighbours in military encounters, they have been less commemorated among
+      them than any one would have expected, judging from the abundance of
+      traditions which they have preserved upon less interesting subjects. It
+      was, therefore, with great pleasure, that I extracted from my military
+      friend some curious particulars respecting that time; they are mixed with
+      that measure of the wild and wonderful which belongs to the period and the
+      narrator, but which I do not in the least object to the reader&rsquo;s treating
+      with disbelief, providing he will be so good as to give implicit credit to
+      the natural events of the story, which, like all those which I have had
+      the honour to put under his notice, actually rest upon a basis of truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Such as do build their faith upon
+     The holy text of pike and gun,
+     Decide all controversies by
+     Infallible artillery,
+     And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+     By apostolic blows and knocks.&mdash;BUTLER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which agitated
+      Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale has its
+      commencement. Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of
+      intestine war, although its inhabitants were much divided in political
+      opinions; and many of them, tired of the control of the Estates of
+      Parliament, and disapproving of the bold measure which they had adopted,
+      by sending into England a large army to the assistance of the Parliament,
+      were determined on their part to embrace the earliest opportunity of
+      declaring for the King, and making such a diversion as should at least
+      compel the recall of General Leslie&rsquo;s army out of England, if it did not
+      recover a great part of Scotland to the King&rsquo;s allegiance. This plan was
+      chiefly adopted by the northern nobility, who had resisted with great
+      obstinacy the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant, and by many of
+      the chiefs of the Highland clans, who conceived their interest and
+      authority to be connected with royalty, who had, besides, a decided
+      aversion to the Presbyterian form of religion, and who, finally, were in
+      that half savage state of society, in which war is always more welcome
+      than peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these concurrent
+      causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation, which the Scotch
+      Highlanders at all times exercised upon the Lowlands, began to assume a
+      more steady, avowed, and systematic form, as part of a general military
+      system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of the
+      moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel it. They
+      considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader or name of
+      consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of royalists, or even
+      to direct the efforts of those desultory bands, whom love of plunder,
+      perhaps, as much as political principle, had hurried into measures of
+      hostility. It was generally hoped that the quartering a sufficient number
+      of troops in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland line, would have the
+      effect of restraining the mountain chieftains; while the power of various
+      barons in the north, who had espoused the Covenant, as, for example, the
+      Earl Mareschal, the great families of Forbes, Leslie, and Irvine, the
+      Grants, and other Presbyterian clans, might counterbalance and bridle, not
+      only the strength of the Ogilvies and other cavaliers of Angus and
+      Kincardine, but even the potent family of the Gordons, whose extensive
+      authority was only equalled by their extreme dislike to the Presbyterian
+      model.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but the
+      power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken, and the spirit
+      of their chieftains intimidated, by the predominating influence of the
+      Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the confidence of the Convention of Estates
+      was reposed with the utmost security; and whose power in the Highlands,
+      already exorbitant, had been still farther increased by concessions
+      extorted from the King at the last pacification. It was indeed well known
+      that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise than personal
+      courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue of state, than to
+      control the tribes of hostile mountaineers; yet the numbers of his clan,
+      and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it was led, might, it was
+      supposed, atone for the personal deficiencies of their chief; and as the
+      Campbells had already severely humbled several of the neighbouring tribes,
+      it was supposed these would not readily again provoke an encounter with a
+      body so powerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,
+      indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,&mdash;Fifeshire being in a
+      peculiar manner their own, and possessing many and powerful friends even
+      north of the Forth and Tay,&mdash;the Scottish Convention of Estates saw
+      no danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had
+      adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the English
+      Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means of which
+      accession of strength, the King&rsquo;s party had been reduced to the defensive,
+      when in full career of triumph and success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The causes which moved the Convention of Estates at this time to take such
+      an immediate and active interest in the civil war of England, are detailed
+      in our historians, but may be here shortly recapitulated. They had indeed
+      no new injury or aggression to complain of at the hand of the King, and
+      the peace which had been made between Charles and his subjects of Scotland
+      had been carefully observed; but the Scottish rulers were well aware that
+      this peace had been extorted from the King, as well by the influence of
+      the parliamentary party in England, as by the terror of their own arms. It
+      is true, King Charles had since then visited the capital of his ancient
+      kingdom, had assented to the new organization of the church, and had
+      distributed honours and rewards among the leaders of the party which had
+      shown themselves most hostile to his interests; but it was suspected that
+      distinctions so unwillingly conferred would be resumed as soon as
+      opportunity offered. The low state of the English Parliament was seen in
+      Scotland with deep apprehension; and it was concluded, that should Charles
+      triumph by force of arms against his insurgent subjects of England, he
+      would not be long in exacting from the Scotch the vengeance which he might
+      suppose due to those who had set the example of taking up arms against
+      him. Such was the policy of the measure which dictated the sending the
+      auxiliary army into England; and it was avowed in a manifesto explanatory
+      of their reasons for giving this timely and important aid to the English
+      Parliament. The English Parliament, they said, had been already friendly
+      to them, and might be so again; whereas the King, although he had so
+      lately established religion among them according to their desires, had
+      given them no ground to confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had
+      found his promises and actions inconsistent with each other. &ldquo;Our
+      conscience,&rdquo; they concluded, &ldquo;and God, who is greater than our conscience,
+      beareth us record, that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of
+      both nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing in a
+      legal way, those who are the troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell,
+      the Korahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the
+      Tobiahs, the Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither
+      have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean for
+      compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which we could
+      think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us, ULTIMUM ET UNICUM
+      REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party is
+      justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion that, in certain
+      future contingencies, it might be infringed by the other, we shall proceed
+      to mention two other circumstances that had at least equal influence with
+      the Scottish rulers and nation, with any doubts which they entertained of
+      the King&rsquo;s good faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first of these was the nature and condition of their army; headed by a
+      poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was officered chiefly by
+      Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served in the German wars until they
+      had lost almost all distinction of political principle, and even of
+      country, in the adoption of the mercenary faith, that a soldier&rsquo;s
+      principal duty was fidelity to the state or sovereign from whom he
+      received his pay, without respect either to the justice of the quarrel, or
+      to their own connexion with either of the contending parties. To men of
+      this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character&mdash;NULLUM VITAE GENUS
+      ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE CONDUCTI,
+      MILITANT. To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to the needy gentry with
+      whom they were mixed in command, and who easily imbibed the same opinions,
+      the success of the late short invasion of England in 1641 was a sufficient
+      reason for renewing so profitable an experiment. The good pay and free
+      quarters of England had made a feeling impression upon the recollection of
+      these military adventurers, and the prospect of again levying eight
+      hundred and fifty pounds a-day, came in place of all arguments, whether of
+      state or of morality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another cause inflamed the minds of the nation at large, no less than the
+      tempting prospect of the wealth of England animated the soldiery. So much
+      had been written and said on either side concerning the form of church
+      government, that it had become a matter of infinitely more consequence in
+      the eyes of the multitude than the doctrines of that gospel which both
+      churches had embraced. The Prelatists and Presbyterians of the more
+      violent kind became as illiberal as the Papists, and would scarcely allow
+      the possibility of salvation beyond the pale of their respective churches.
+      It was in vain remarked to these zealots, that had the Author of our holy
+      religion considered any peculiar form of church government as essential to
+      salvation, it would have been revealed with the same precision as under
+      the Old Testament dispensation. Both parties continued as violent as if
+      they could have pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to justify their
+      intolerance, Laud, in the days of his domination, had fired the train, by
+      attempting to impose upon the Scottish people church ceremonies foreign to
+      their habits and opinions. The success with which this had been resisted,
+      and the Presbyterian model substituted in its place, had endeared the
+      latter to the nation, as the cause in which they had triumphed. The Solemn
+      League and Covenant, adopted with such zeal by the greater part of the
+      kingdom, and by them forced, at the sword&rsquo;s point, upon the others, bore
+      in its bosom, as its principal object, the establishing the doctrine and
+      discipline of the Presbyterian church, and the putting down all error and
+      heresy; and having attained for their own country an establishment of this
+      golden candlestick, the Scots became liberally and fraternally anxious to
+      erect the same in England. This they conceived might be easily attained by
+      lending to the Parliament the effectual assistance of the Scottish forces.
+      The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in the English
+      Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the King; while
+      the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards, under Cromwell,
+      resumed the power of the sword, and overset the Presbyterian model both in
+      Scotland and England, were as yet contented to lurk under the shelter of
+      the wealthier and more powerful party. The prospect of bringing to a
+      uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in discipline and worship,
+      seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The celebrated Sir Henry Vane, one of the commissioners who negotiated the
+      alliance betwixt England and Scotland, saw the influence which this bait
+      had upon the spirits of those with whom he dealt; and although himself a
+      violent Independent, he contrived at once to gratify and to elude the
+      eager desires of the Presbyterians, by qualifying the obligation to reform
+      the Church of England, as a change to be executed &ldquo;according to the word
+      of God, and the best reformed churches.&rdquo; Deceived by their own eagerness,
+      themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS DIVINUM of their own
+      ecclesiastical establishments, and not holding it possible such doubts
+      could be adopted by others, the Convention of Estates and the Kirk of
+      Scotland conceived, that such expressions necessarily inferred the
+      establishment of Presbytery; nor were they undeceived, until, when their
+      help was no longer needful, the sectaries gave them to understand, that
+      the phrase might be as well applied to Independency, or any other mode of
+      worship, which those who were at the head of affairs at the time might
+      consider as agreeable &ldquo;to the word of God, and the practice of the
+      reformed churches.&rdquo; Neither were the outwitted Scottish less astonished to
+      find, that the designs of the English sectaries struck against the
+      monarchial constitution of Britain, it having been their intention to
+      reduce the power of the King, but by no means to abrogate the office. They
+      fared, however, in this respect, like rash physicians, who commence by
+      over-physicking a patient, until he is reduced to a state of weakness,
+      from which cordials are afterwards unable to recover him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the Scottish
+      Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice,
+      prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to
+      their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax
+      and Manchester, enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to
+      fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert
+      and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated. The Scottish auxiliaries,
+      indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen could
+      desire. David Leslie, with their cavalry, fought bravely, and to them, as
+      well as to Cromwell&rsquo;s brigade of Independents, the honour of the day
+      belonged; but the old Earl of Leven, the covenanting general, was driven
+      out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert, and was thirty
+      miles distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he was overtaken by
+      the news that his party had gained a complete victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The absence of these auxiliary troops, upon this crusade for the
+      establishment of Presbyterianism in England, had considerably diminished
+      the power of the Convention of Estates in Scotland, and had given rise to
+      those agitations among the anti-covenanters, which we have noticed at the
+      beginning of this chapter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     His mother could for him as cradle set
+     Her husband&rsquo;s rusty iron corselet;
+     Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,
+     That never plain&rsquo;d of his uneasy nest;
+     Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,
+     And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.&mdash;HALL&rsquo;S SATIRES
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was towards the close of a summer&rsquo;s evening, during the anxious period
+      which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman of quality, well
+      mounted and armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom led a
+      sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep passes, by which the
+      Highlands are accessible from the Lowlands of Perthshire. [The beautiful
+      pass of Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects, answer
+      this description.] Their course had lain for some time along the banks of
+      a lake, whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the western sun.
+      The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty, was in some
+      places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees, and in others overhung by
+      fragments of huge rock. Elsewhere, the hill, which formed the northern
+      side of this beautiful sheet of water, arose in steep, but less
+      precipitous acclivity, and was arrayed in heath of the darkest purple. In
+      the present times, a scene so romantic would have been judged to possess
+      the highest charms for the traveller; but those who journey in days of
+      doubt and dread, pay little attention to picturesque scenery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one or both of
+      his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with them, probably
+      because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who are
+      made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions of the leading men
+      who inhabit this wild country, and the probability of their taking part in
+      the political convulsions that were soon expected, were the subjects of
+      their conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young gentleman
+      was pointing to his attendants the spot where their intended road turned
+      northwards, and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a ravine to the
+      right hand, when they discovered a single horseman coming down the shore,
+      as if to meet them. The gleam of the sunbeams upon his head-piece and
+      corslet showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of the other
+      travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned. &ldquo;We must know
+      who he is,&rdquo; said the young gentleman, &ldquo;and whither he is going.&rdquo; And
+      putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the rugged state of
+      the road would permit, followed by his two attendants, until he reached
+      the point where the pass along the side of the lake was intersected by
+      that which descended from the ravine, securing thus against the
+      possibility of the stranger eluding them, by turning into the latter road
+      before they came up with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed the three
+      riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw them halt and form a
+      front, which completely occupied the path, he checked his horse, and
+      advanced with great deliberation; so that each party had an opportunity to
+      take a full survey of the other. The solitary stranger was mounted upon an
+      able horse, fit for military service, and for the great weight which he
+      had to carry, and his rider occupied his demipique, or war-saddle, with an
+      air that showed it was his familiar seat. He had a bright burnished
+      head-piece, with a plume of feathers, together with a cuirass, thick
+      enough to resist a musket-ball, and a back-piece of lighter materials.
+      These defensive arms he wore over a buff jerkin, along with a pair of
+      gauntlets, or steel gloves, the tops of which reached up to his elbow, and
+      which, like the rest of his armour, were of bright steel. At the front of
+      his military saddle hung a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size,
+      nearly two feet in length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the pound. A
+      buff belt, with a broad silver buckle, sustained on one side a long
+      straight double-edged broadsword, with a strong guard, and a blade
+      calculated either to strike or push. On the right side hung a dagger of
+      about eighteen inches in length; a shoulder-belt sustained at his back a
+      musketoon or blunderbuss, and was crossed by a bandelier containing his
+      charges of ammunition. Thigh-pieces of steel, then termed taslets, met the
+      tops of his huge jack-boots, and completed the equipage of a well-armed
+      trooper of the period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The appearance of the horseman himself corresponded well with his military
+      equipage, to which he had the air of having been long inured. He was above
+      the middle size, and of strength sufficient to bear with ease the weight
+      of his weapons, offensive and defensive. His age might be forty and
+      upwards, and his countenance was that of a resolute weather-beaten
+      veteran, who had seen many fields, and brought away in token more than one
+      scar. At the distance of about thirty yards he halted and stood fast,
+      raised himself on his stirrups, as if to reconnoitre and ascertain the
+      purpose of the opposite party, and brought his musketoon under his right
+      arm, ready for use, if occasion should require it. In everything but
+      numbers, he had the advantage of those who seemed inclined to interrupt
+      his passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leader of the party was, indeed, well mounted and clad in a buff coat,
+      richly embroidered, the half-military dress of the period; but his
+      domestics had only coarse jackets of thick felt, which could scarce be
+      expected to turn the edge of a sword, if wielded by a strong man; and none
+      of them had any weapons, save swords and pistols, without which gentlemen,
+      or their attendants, during those disturbed times, seldom stirred abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had stood at gaze for about a minute, the younger gentleman gave
+      the challenge which was then common in the mouth of all strangers who met
+      in such circumstances&mdash;&ldquo;For whom are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me first,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;for whom are you?&mdash;the
+      strongest party should speak first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are for God and King Charles,&rdquo; answered the first speaker.&mdash;&ldquo;Now
+      tell your faction, you know ours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am for God and my standard,&rdquo; answered the single horseman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And for which standard?&rdquo; replied the chief of the other party&mdash;&ldquo;Cavalier
+      or Roundhead, King or Convention?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my troth, sir,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;I would be loath to reply to
+      you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of fortune and a
+      soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming veracity, it is necessary
+      I should myself have resolved to whilk of the present divisions of the
+      kingdom I shall ultimately adhere, being a matter whereon my mind is not
+      as yet preceesely ascertained.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have thought,&rdquo; answered the gentleman, &ldquo;that, when loyalty and
+      religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be long in
+      choosing his party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, sir,&rdquo; replied the trooper, &ldquo;if ye speak this in the way of
+      vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would
+      blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my single
+      person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of logical
+      ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the Mareschal-College
+      of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye LOGICE, that my resolution to
+      defer, for a certain season, the taking upon me either of these quarrels,
+      not only becometh me as a gentleman and a man of honour, but also as a
+      person of sense and prudence, one imbued with humane letters in his early
+      youth, and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars under the banner
+      of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and under many other
+      heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist, Papist and Arminian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger gentleman
+      replied, &ldquo;I should be glad, sir, to have some conversation with you upon
+      so interesting a question, and should be proud if I can determine you in
+      favour of the cause I have myself espoused. I ride this evening to a
+      friend&rsquo;s house not three miles distant, whither, if you choose to
+      accompany me, you shall have good quarters for the night, and free
+      permission to take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no
+      inclination to join with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose word am I to take for this?&rdquo; answered the cautious soldier&mdash;&ldquo;A
+      man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am called,&rdquo; answered the younger stranger, &ldquo;the Earl of Menteith, and,
+      I trust, you will receive my honour as a sufficient security.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A worthy nobleman,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;whose parole is not to be
+      doubted.&rdquo; With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his back, and with
+      another made his military salute to the young nobleman, and continuing to
+      talk as he rode forward to join him&mdash;&ldquo;And, I trust,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;my own
+      assurance, that I will be BON CAMARADO to your lordship in peace or in
+      peril, during the time we shall abide together, will not be altogether
+      vilipended in these doubtful times, when, as they say, a man&rsquo;s head is
+      safer in a steel-cap than in a marble palace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you, sir,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;that to judge from your
+      appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort; but, I
+      trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of valour, as I expect
+      to conduct you to good and friendly quarters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good quarters, my lord,&rdquo; replied the soldier, &ldquo;are always acceptable, and
+      are only to be postponed to good pay or good booty,&mdash;not to mention
+      the honour of a cavalier, or the needful points of commanded duty. And
+      truly, my lord, your noble proffer is not the less welcome, in that I knew
+      not preceesely this night where I and my poor companion&rdquo; (patting his
+      horse), &ldquo;were to find lodgments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I be permitted to ask, then,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;to whom I have the
+      good fortune to stand quarter-master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, my lord,&rdquo; said the trooper, &ldquo;my name is Dalgetty&mdash;Dugald
+      Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your honourable
+      service to command. It is a name you may have seen in GALLO BELGICUS, the
+      SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High Dutch, in the FLIEGENDEN
+      MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord, having by unthrifty courses
+      reduced a fair patrimony to a nonentity, I had no better shift, when I was
+      eighteen years auld, than to carry the learning whilk I had acquired at
+      the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and designation of
+      Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and legs conform, to
+      the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier of fortune. My lord,
+      my legs and arms stood me in more stead than either my gentle kin or my
+      book-lear, and I found myself trailing a pike as a private gentleman under
+      old Sir Ludovick Leslie, where I learned the rules of service so tightly,
+      that I will not forget them in a hurry. Sir, I have been made to stand
+      guard eight hours, being from twelve at noon to eight o&rsquo;clock of the
+      night, at the palace, armed with back and breast, head-piece and
+      bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter frost, and the ice was as
+      hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping an instant to speak to my
+      landlady, when I should have gone to roll-call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, doubtless, sir,&rdquo; replied Lord Menteith, &ldquo;you have gone through some
+      hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that hath seen
+      the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to have seen pitched
+      battles. And one who hath witnessed the intaking of Frankfort, and
+      Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth, should know somewhat about
+      leaguers, storms, onslaughts and outfalls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
+      promotion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It came slow, my lord, dooms slow,&rdquo; replied Dalgetty; &ldquo;but as my Scottish
+      countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of those valorous
+      Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany, began to fall pretty
+      thick, what with pestilence and what with the sword, why we, their
+      children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir, I was six years first
+      private gentleman of the company, and three years lance speisade;
+      disdaining to receive a halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I was
+      ultimately promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call it (which
+      signifies an ancient), in the King&rsquo;s Leif Regiment of Black-Horse, and
+      thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master, under that invincible
+      monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the Lion of the North, the
+      terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,&mdash;I think that rank
+      corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same grade preceesely,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty; &ldquo;ritt-master signifying
+      literally file-leader.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was observing,&rdquo; continued Lord Menteith, &ldquo;that, if I understood you
+      right, you had left the service of this great Prince.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was after his death&mdash;it was after his death, sir,&rdquo; said Dalgetty,
+      &ldquo;when I was in no shape bound to continue mine adherence. There are
+      things, my lord, in that service, that cannot but go against the stomach
+      of any cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of the most
+      superabundant, being only about sixty dollars a-month to a ritt-master,
+      yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of that sum, whilk
+      was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when justly considered,
+      it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of the additional
+      two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I have seen some whole
+      regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on the field of battle, like
+      base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt, signifying their desire of pay,
+      instead of falling to blows like our noble Scottish blades, who ever
+      disdained, my lord, postponing of honour to filthy lucre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But were not these arrears,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;paid to the soldiery at
+      some stated period?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;I take it on my conscience, that at no period,
+      and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever be recovered.
+      I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the time I served the
+      invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the chance of a storm or victory,
+      or the fetching in some town or doorp, when a cavalier of fortune, who
+      knows the usage of wars, seldom faileth to make some small profit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I begin rather to wonder, sir,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;that you should have
+      continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should have
+      ultimately withdrawn from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither I should,&rdquo; answered the Ritt-master; &ldquo;but that great leader,
+      captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
+      Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking towns, over-running
+      countries, and levying contributions, whilk made his service irresistibly
+      delectable to all true-bred cavaliers who follow the noble profession of
+      arms. Simple as I ride here, my lord, I have myself commanded the whole
+      stift of Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine, occupying the Palsgrave&rsquo;s palace,
+      consuming his choice wines with my comrades, calling in contributions,
+      requisitions, and caduacs, and not failing to lick my fingers, as became a
+      good cook. But truly all this glory hastened to decay, after our great
+      master had been shot with three bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore,
+      finding that Fortune had changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings
+      went on as before out of our pay, while the caduacs and casualties were
+      all cut off, I e&rsquo;en gave up my commission, and took service with
+      Wallenstein, in Walter Butler&rsquo;s Irish regiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And may I beg to know of you,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, apparently interested
+      in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, &ldquo;how you liked this change
+      of masters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indifferent well,&rdquo; said the Captain&mdash;&ldquo;very indifferent well. I
+      cannot say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For
+      hard knocks, we had plenty of them. I was often obliged to run my head
+      against my old acquaintances, the Swedish feathers, whilk your honour must
+      conceive to be double-pointed stakes, shod with iron at each end, and
+      planted before the squad of pikes to prevent an onfall of the cavalry. The
+      whilk Swedish feathers, although they look gay to the eye, resembling the
+      shrubs or lesser trees of ane forest, as the puissant pikes, arranged in
+      battalia behind them, correspond to the tall pines thereof, yet,
+      nevertheless, are not altogether so soft to encounter as the plumage of a
+      goose. Howbeit, in despite of heavy blows and light pay, a cavalier of
+      fortune may thrive indifferently well in the Imperial service, in respect
+      his private casualties are nothing so closely looked to as by the Swede;
+      and so that an officer did his duty on the field, neither Wallenstein nor
+      Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before them, would likely listen to the
+      objurgations of boors or burghers against any commander or soldado, by
+      whom they chanced to be somewhat closely shorn. So that an experienced
+      cavalier, knowing how to lay, as our Scottish phrase runs, &lsquo;the head of
+      the sow to the tail of the grice,&rsquo; might get out of the country the pay
+      whilk he could not obtain from the Emperor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indubitably, my lord,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty, composedly; &ldquo;for it would be
+      doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his name called in
+      question for any petty delinquency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And pray, Sir,&rdquo; continued Lord Menteith, &ldquo;what made you leave so gainful
+      a service?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, truly, sir,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;an Irish cavalier, called
+      O&rsquo;Quilligan, being major of our regiment, and I having had words with him
+      the night before, respecting the worth and precedence of our several
+      nations, it pleased him the next day to deliver his orders to me with the
+      point of his batoon advanced and held aloof, instead of declining and
+      trailing the same, as is the fashion from a courteous commanding officer
+      towards his equal in rank, though, it may be, his inferior in military
+      grade. Upon this quarrel, sir, we fought in private rencontre; and as, in
+      the perquisitions which followed, it pleased Walter Butler, our oberst, or
+      colonel, to give the lighter punishment to his countryman, and the heavier
+      to me, whereupon, ill-stomaching such partiality, I exchanged my
+      commission for one under the Spaniard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you found yourself better off by the change?&rdquo; said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In good sooth,&rdquo; answered the Ritt-master, &ldquo;I had but little to complain
+      of. The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by the rich Flemings and
+      Waloons of the Low Country. The quarters were excellent; the good wheaten
+      loaves of the Flemings were better than the Provant rye-bread of the
+      Swede, and Rhenish wine was more plenty with us than ever I saw the
+      black-beer of Rostock in Gustavus&rsquo;s camp. Service there was none, duty
+      there was little; and that little we might do, or leave undone, at our
+      pleasure; an excellent retirement for a cavalier somewhat weary of field
+      and leaguer, who had purchased with his blood as much honour as might
+      serve his turn, and was desirous of a little ease and good living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And may I ask,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;why you, Captain, being, as I
+      suppose, in the situation you describe, retired from the Spanish service
+      also?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to consider, my lord, that your Spaniard,&rdquo; replied Captain
+      Dalgetty, &ldquo;is a person altogether unparalleled in his own conceit,
+      where-through he maketh not fit account of such foreign cavaliers of
+      valour as are pleased to take service with him. And a galling thing it is
+      to every honourable soldado, to be put aside, and postponed, and obliged
+      to yield preference to every puffing signor, who, were it the question
+      which should first mount a breach at push of pike, might be apt to yield
+      willing place to a Scottish cavalier. Moreover, sir, I was pricked in
+      conscience respecting a matter of religion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not have thought, Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said the young nobleman,
+      &ldquo;that an old soldier, who had changed service so often, would have been
+      too scrupulous on that head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more I am, my lord,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;since I hold it to be the duty
+      of the chaplain of the regiment to settle those matters for me, and every
+      other brave cavalier, inasmuch as he does nothing else that I know of for
+      his pay and allowances. But this was a particular case, my lord, a CASUS
+      IMPROVISUS, as I may say, in whilk I had no chaplain of my own persuasion
+      to act as my adviser. I found, in short, that although my being a
+      Protestant might be winked at, in respect that I was a man of action, and
+      had more experience than all the Dons in our TERTIA put together, yet,
+      when in garrison, it was expected I should go to mass with the regiment.
+      Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated at the
+      Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the mass to be an act
+      of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I was altogether unwilling
+      to homologate by my presence. True it is, that I consulted on the point
+      with a worthy countryman of my own, one Father Fatsides, of the Scottish
+      Covenant in Wurtzburg&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I hope,&rdquo; observed Lord Menteith, &ldquo;you obtained a clear opinion from
+      this same ghostly father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As clear as it could be,&rdquo; replied Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;considering we had
+      drunk six flasks of Rhenish, and about two mutchkins of Kirchenwasser.
+      Father Fatsides informed me, that, as nearly as he could judge for a
+      heretic like myself, it signified not much whether I went to mass or not,
+      seeing my eternal perdition was signed and sealed at any rate, in respect
+      of my impenitent and obdurate perseverance in my damnable heresy. Being
+      discouraged by this response, I applied to a Dutch pastor of the reformed
+      church, who told me, he thought I might lawfully go to mass, in respect
+      that the prophet permitted Naaman, a mighty man of valour, and an
+      honourable cavalier of Syria, to follow his master into the house of
+      Rimmon, a false god, or idol, to whom he had vowed service, and to bow
+      down when the king was leaning upon his hand. But neither was this answer
+      satisfactory to me, both because there was an unco difference between an
+      anointed King of Syria and our Spanish colonel, whom I could have blown
+      away like the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly because I could not find
+      the thing was required of me by any of the articles of war; neither was I
+      proffered any consideration, either in perquisite or pay, for the wrong I
+      might thereby do to my conscience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you again changed your service?&rdquo; said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In troth did I, my lord; and after trying for a short while two or three
+      other powers, I even took on for a time with their High Mightinesses the
+      States of Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how did their service jump with your humour?&rdquo; again demanded his
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O! my lord,&rdquo; said the soldier, in a sort of enthusiasm, &ldquo;their behaviour
+      on pay-day might be a pattern to all Europe&mdash;no borrowings, no
+      lendings, no offsets no arrears&mdash;all balanced and paid like a
+      banker&rsquo;s book. The quarters, too, are excellent, and the allowances
+      unchallengeable; but then, sir, they are a preceese, scrupulous people,
+      and will allow nothing for peccadilloes. So that if a boor complains of a
+      broken head, or a beer-seller of a broken can, or a daft wench does but
+      squeak loud enough to be heard above her breath, a soldier of honour shall
+      be dragged, not before his own court-martial, who can best judge of and
+      punish his demerits, but before a base mechanical burgo-master, who shall
+      menace him with the rasp-house, the cord, and what not, as if he were one
+      of their own mean, amphibious, twenty-breeched boors. So not being able to
+      dwell longer among those ungrateful plebeians, who, although unable to
+      defend themselves by their proper strength, will nevertheless allow the
+      noble foreign cavalier who engages with them nothing beyond his dry wages,
+      which no honourable spirit will put in competition with a liberal license
+      and honourable countenance, I resolved to leave the service of the
+      Mynheers. And hearing at this time, to my exceeding satisfaction, that
+      there is something to be doing this summer in my way in this my dear
+      native country, I am come hither, as they say, like a beggar to a bridal,
+      in order to give my loving countrymen the advantage of that experience
+      which I have acquired in foreign parts. So your lordship has an outline of
+      my brief story, excepting my deportment in those passages of action in the
+      field, in leaguers, storms, and onslaughts, whilk would be wearisome to
+      narrate, and might, peradventure, better befit any other tongue than mine
+      own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     For pleas of right let statesmen vex their head,
+     Battle&rsquo;s my business, and my guerdon bread;
+     And, with the sworded Switzer, I can say,
+     The best of causes is the best of pay.&mdash;DONNE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The difficulty and narrowness of the road had by this time become such as
+      to interrupt the conversation of the travellers, and Lord Menteith,
+      reining back his horse, held a moment&rsquo;s private conversation with his
+      domestics. The Captain, who now led the van of the party, after about a
+      quarter of a mile&rsquo;s slow and toilsome advance up a broken and rugged
+      ascent, emerged into an upland valley, to which a mountain stream acted as
+      a drain, and afforded sufficient room upon its greensward banks for the
+      travellers to pursue their journey in a more social manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith accordingly resumed the conversation, which had been
+      interrupted by the difficulties of the way. &ldquo;I should have thought,&rdquo; said
+      he to Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;that a cavalier of your honourable mark, who hath
+      so long followed the valiant King of Sweden, and entertains such a
+      suitable contempt for the base mechanical States of Holland, would not
+      have hesitated to embrace the cause of King Charles, in preference to that
+      of the low-born, roundheaded, canting knaves, who are in rebellion against
+      his authority?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye speak reasonably, my lord,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;and, CAETERIS PARIBUS, I
+      might be induced to see the matter in the same light. But, my lord, there
+      is a southern proverb, fine words butter no parsnips. I have heard enough
+      since I came here, to satisfy me that a cavalier of honour is free to take
+      any part in this civil embroilment whilk he may find most convenient for
+      his own peculiar. Loyalty is your pass-word, my lord&mdash;Liberty, roars
+      another chield from the other side of the strath&mdash;the King, shouts
+      one war-cry&mdash;the Parliament, roars another&mdash;Montrose, for ever,
+      cries Donald, waving his bonnet&mdash;Argyle and Leven, cries a
+      south-country Saunders, vapouring with his hat and feather. Fight for the
+      bishops, says a priest, with his gown and rochet&mdash;Stand stout for the
+      Kirk, cries a minister, in a Geneva cap and band.&mdash;Good watchwords
+      all&mdash;excellent watchwords. Whilk cause is the best I cannot say. But
+      sure am I, that I have fought knee-deep in blood many a day for one that
+      was ten degrees worse than the worst of them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And pray, Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said his lordship, &ldquo;since the pretensions of
+      both parties seem to you so equal, will you please to inform us by what
+      circumstances your preference will be determined?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Simply upon two considerations, my lord,&rdquo; answered the soldier. &ldquo;Being,
+      first, on which side my services would be in most honourable request;&mdash;And,
+      secondly, whilk is a corollary of the first, by whilk party they are
+      likely to be most gratefully requited. And, to deal plainly with you, my
+      lord, my opinion at present doth on both points rather incline to the side
+      of the Parliament.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your reasons, if you please,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;and perhaps I may be
+      able to meet them with some others which are more powerful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, I shall be amenable to reason,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;supposing it
+      addresses itself to my honour and my interest. Well, then, my lord, here
+      is a sort of Highland host assembled, or expected to assemble, in these
+      wild hills, in the King&rsquo;s behalf. Now, sir, you know the nature of our
+      Highlanders. I will not deny them to be a people stout in body and valiant
+      in heart, and courageous enough in their own wild way of fighting, which
+      is as remote from the usages and discipline of war as ever was that of the
+      ancient Scythians, or of the salvage Indians of America that now is, They
+      havena sae mickle as a German whistle, or a drum, to beat a march, an
+      alarm, a charge, a retreat, a reveille, or the tattoo, or any other point
+      of war; and their damnable skirlin&rsquo; pipes, whilk they themselves pretend
+      to understand, are unintelligible to the ears of any cavaliero accustomed
+      to civilised warfare. So that, were I undertaking to discipline such a
+      breechless mob, it were impossible for me to be understood; and if I were
+      understood, judge ye, my lord, what chance I had of being obeyed among a
+      band of half salvages, who are accustomed to pay to their own lairds and
+      chiefs, allenarly, that respect and obedience whilk ought to be paid to
+      commissionate officers. If I were teaching them to form battalia by
+      extracting the square root, that is, by forming your square battalion of
+      equal number of men of rank and file, corresponding to the square root of
+      the full number present, what return could I expect for communicating this
+      golden secret of military tactic, except it may be a dirk in my wame, on
+      placing some M&rsquo;Alister More M&rsquo;Shemei or Capperfae, in the flank or rear,
+      when he claimed to be in the van?&mdash;Truly, well saith holy writ, &lsquo;if
+      ye cast pearls before swine, they will turn again and rend ye.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe, Anderson,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, looking back to one of his
+      servants, for both were close behind him, &ldquo;you can assure this gentleman,
+      we shall have more occasion for experienced officers, and be more disposed
+      to profit by their instructions, than he seems to be aware of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With your honour&rsquo;s permission,&rdquo; said Anderson, respectfully raising his
+      cap, &ldquo;when we are joined by the Irish infantry, who are expected, and who
+      should be landed in the West Highlands before now, we shall have need of
+      good soldiers to discipline our levies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I should like well&mdash;very well, to be employed in such service,&rdquo;
+       said Dalgetty; &ldquo;the Irish are pretty fellows&mdash;very pretty fellows&mdash;I
+      desire to see none better in the field. I once saw a brigade of Irish, at
+      the taking of Frankfort upon the Oder, stand to it with sword and pike
+      until they beat off the blue and yellow Swedish brigades, esteemed as
+      stout as any that fought under the immortal Gustavus. And although stout
+      Hepburn, valiant Lumsdale, courageous Monroe, with myself and other
+      cavaliers, made entry elsewhere at point of pike, yet, had we all met with
+      such opposition, we had returned with great loss and little profit.
+      Wherefore these valiant Irishes, being all put to the sword, as is usual
+      in such cases, did nevertheless gain immortal praise and honour; so that,
+      for their sakes, I have always loved and honoured those of that nation
+      next to my own country of Scotland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A command of Irish,&rdquo; said Menteith, &ldquo;I think I could almost promise you,
+      should you be disposed to embrace the royal cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;my second and greatest difficulty
+      remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and sordid thing for a
+      soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay and gelt, like the base
+      cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I mentioned before; and although I
+      will maintain it with my sword, that honour is to be preferred before pay,
+      free quarters, and arrears, yet, EX CONTRARIO, a soldier&rsquo;s pay being the
+      counterpart of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise and
+      considerate cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive for
+      his service, and from what funds it is to be paid. And truly, my lord,
+      from what I can see and hear, the Convention are the purse-masters. The
+      Highlanders, indeed, may be kept in humour, by allowing them to steal
+      cattle; and for the Irishes, your lordship and your noble associates may,
+      according to the practice of the wars in such cases, pay them as seldom or
+      as little as may suit your pleasure or convenience; but the same mode of
+      treatment doth not apply to a cavalier like me, who must keep up his
+      horses, servants, arms, and equipage, and who neither can, nor will, go to
+      warfare upon his own charges.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anderson, the domestic who had before spoken now respectfully addressed
+      his master.&mdash;&ldquo;I think, my lord,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that, under your
+      lordship&rsquo;s favour, I could say something to remove Captain Dalgetty&rsquo;s
+      second objection also. He asks us where we are to collect our pay; now, in
+      my poor mind, the resources are as open to us as to the Covenanters. They
+      tax the country according to their pleasure, and dilapidate the estates of
+      the King&rsquo;s friends; now, were we once in the Lowlands, with our
+      Highlanders and our Irish at our backs, and our swords in our hands, we
+      can find many a fat traitor, whose ill-gotten wealth shall fill our
+      military chest and satisfy our soldiery. Besides, confiscations will fall
+      in thick; and, in giving donations of forfeited lands to every adventurous
+      cavalier who joins his standard, the King will at once reward his friends
+      and punish his enemies. In short, he that joins these Roundhead dogs may
+      get some miserable pittance of pay&mdash;he that joins our standard has a
+      chance to be knight, lord, or earl, if luck serve him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever served, my good friend?&rdquo; said the Captain to the spokesman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little, sir, in these our domestic quarrels,&rdquo; answered the man,
+      modestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But never in Germany or the Low Countries?&rdquo; said Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never had the honour,&rdquo; answered Anderson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I profess,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, addressing Lord Menteith, &ldquo;your lordship&rsquo;s
+      servant has a sensible, natural, pretty idea of military matters; somewhat
+      irregular, though, and smells a little too much of selling the bear&rsquo;s skin
+      before he has hunted him.&mdash;I will take the matter, however, into my
+      consideration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do so, Captain,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;you will have the night to think of
+      it, for we are now near the house, where I hope to ensure you a hospitable
+      reception.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is what will be very welcome,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;for I have
+      tasted no food since daybreak but a farl of oatcake, which I divided with
+      my horse. So I have been fain to draw my sword-belt three bores tighter
+      for very extenuation, lest hunger and heavy iron should make the gird
+      slip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Once on a time, no matter when,
+     Some Glunimies met in a glen;
+     As deft and tight as ever wore
+     A durk, a targe, and a claymore,
+     Short hose, and belted plaid or trews,
+     In Uist, Lochaber, Skye, or Lewes,
+     Or cover&rsquo;d hard head with his bonnet;
+     Had you but known them, you would own it.&mdash;MESTON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A hill was now before the travellers, covered with an ancient forest of
+      Scottish firs, the topmost of which, flinging their scathed branches
+      across the western horizon, gleamed ruddy in the setting sun. In the
+      centre of this wood rose the towers, or rather the chimneys, of the house,
+      or castle, as it was called, destined for the end of their journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As usual at that period, one or two high-ridged narrow buildings,
+      intersecting and crossing each other, formed the CORPS DE LOGIS. A
+      protecting bartizan or two, with the addition of small turrets at the
+      angles, much resembling pepper-boxes, had procured for Darnlinvarach the
+      dignified appellation of a castle. It was surrounded by a low court-yard
+      wall, within which were the usual offices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the travellers approached more nearly, they discovered marks of recent
+      additions to the defences of the place, which had been suggested,
+      doubtless, by the insecurity of those troublesome times. Additional
+      loop-holes for musketry were struck out in different parts of the
+      building, and of its surrounding wall. The windows had just been carefully
+      secured by stancheons of iron, crossing each other athwart and end-long,
+      like the grates of a prison. The door of the court-yard was shut; and it
+      was only after cautious challenge that one of its leaves was opened by two
+      domestics, both strong Highlanders, and both under arms, like Bitias and
+      Pandarus in the AEneid, ready to defend the entrance if aught hostile had
+      ventured an intrusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the travellers were admitted into the court, they found additional
+      preparations for defence. The walls were scaffolded for the use of
+      fire-arms, and one or two of the small guns, called sackers, or falcons,
+      were mounted at the angles and flanking turrets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More domestics, both in the Highland and Lowland dress, instantly rushed
+      from the anterior of the mansion, and some hastened to take the horses of
+      the strangers, while others waited to marshal them a way into the
+      dwelling-house. But Captain Dalgetty refused the proffered assistance of
+      those who wished to relieve him of the charge of his horse. &ldquo;It is my
+      custom, my friends, to see Gustavus (for so I have called him, after my
+      invincible master) accommodated myself; we are old friends and
+      fellow-travellers, and as I often need the use of his legs, I always lend
+      him in my turn the service of my tongue, to call for whatever he has
+      occasion for;&rdquo; and accordingly he strode into the stable after his steed
+      without farther apology.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Lord Menteith nor his attendants paid the same attention to their
+      horses, but, leaving them to the proffered care of the servants of the
+      place, walked forward into the house, where a sort of dark vaulted
+      vestibule displayed, among other miscellaneous articles, a huge barrel of
+      two-penny ale, beside which were ranged two or three wooden queichs, or
+      bickers, ready, it would appear, for the service of whoever thought proper
+      to employ them. Lord Menteith applied himself to the spigot, drank without
+      ceremony, and then handed the stoup to Anderson, who followed his master&rsquo;s
+      example, but not until he had flung out the drop of ale which remained,
+      and slightly rinsed the wooden cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the deil, man,&rdquo; said an old Highland servant belonging to the
+      family, &ldquo;can she no drink after her ain master without washing the cup and
+      spilling the ale, and be tamned to her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was bred in France,&rdquo; answered Anderson, &ldquo;where nobody drinks after
+      another out of the same cup, unless it be after a young lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The teil&rsquo;s in their nicety!&rdquo; said Donald; &ldquo;and if the ale be gude, fat
+      the waur is&rsquo;t that another man&rsquo;s beard&rsquo;s been in the queich before ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anderson&rsquo;s companion drank without observing the ceremony which had given
+      Donald so much offence, and both of them followed their master into the
+      low-arched stone hall, which was the common rendezvous of a Highland
+      family. A large fire of peats in the huge chimney at the upper end shed a
+      dim light through the apartment, and was rendered necessary by the damp,
+      by which, even during the summer, the apartment was rendered
+      uncomfortable. Twenty or thirty targets, as many claymores, with dirks,
+      and plaids, and guns, both match-lock and fire-lock, and long-bows, and
+      cross-bows, and Lochaber axes, and coats of plate armour, and steel
+      bonnets, and headpieces, and the more ancient haborgeons, or shirts of
+      reticulated mail, with hood and sleeves corresponding to it, all hung in
+      confusion about the walls, and would have formed a month&rsquo;s amusement to a
+      member of a modern antiquarian society. But such things were too familiar,
+      to attract much observation on the part of the present spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a large clumsy oaken table, which the hasty hospitality of the
+      domestic who had before spoken, immediately spread with milk, butter,
+      goat-milk cheese, a flagon of beer, and a flask of usquebae, designed for
+      the refreshment of Lord Menteith; while an inferior servant made similar
+      preparations at the bottom of the table for the benefit of his attendants.
+      The space which intervened between them was, according to the manners of
+      the times, sufficient distinction between master and servant, even though
+      the former was, as in the present instance, of high rank. Meanwhile the
+      guests stood by the fire&mdash;the young nobleman under the chimney, and
+      his servants at some little distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think, Anderson,&rdquo; said the former, &ldquo;of our fellow-traveller?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A stout fellow,&rdquo; replied Anderson, &ldquo;if all be good that is upcome. I wish
+      we had twenty such, to put our Teagues into some sort of discipline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I differ from you, Anderson,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;I think this fellow
+      Dalgetty is one of those horse-leeches, whose appetite for blood being
+      only sharpened by what he has sucked in foreign countries, he is now
+      returned to batten upon that of his own. Shame on the pack of these
+      mercenary swordmen! they have made the name of Scot through all Europe
+      equivalent to that of a pitiful mercenary, who knows neither honour nor
+      principle but his month&rsquo;s pay, who transfers his allegiance from standard
+      to standard, at the pleasure of fortune or the highest bidder; and to
+      whose insatiable thirst for plunder and warm quarters we owe much of that
+      civil dissension which is now turning our swords against our own bowels. I
+      had scarce patience with the hired gladiator, and yet could hardly help
+      laughing at the extremity of his impudence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship will forgive me,&rdquo; said Anderson, &ldquo;if I recommend to you, in
+      the present circumstances, to conceal at least a part of this generous
+      indignation; we cannot, unfortunately, do our work without the assistance
+      of those who act on baser motives than our own. We cannot spare the
+      assistance of such fellows as our friend the soldado. To use the canting
+      phrase of the saints in the English Parliament, the sons of Zeruiah are
+      still too many for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must dissemble, then, as well as I can,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;as I have
+      hitherto done, upon your hint. But I wish the fellow at the devil with all
+      my heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, but still you must remember, my lord,&rdquo; resumed Anderson, &ldquo;that to
+      cure the bite of a scorpion, you must crush another scorpion on the wound&mdash;But
+      stop, we shall be overheard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From a side-door in the hall glided a Highlander into the apartment, whose
+      lofty stature and complete equipment, as well as the eagle&rsquo;s feather in
+      his bonnet, and the confidence of his demeanour, announced to be a person
+      of superior rank. He walked slowly up to the table, and made no answer to
+      Lord Menteith, who, addressing him by the name of Allan, asked him how he
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye manna speak to her e&rsquo;en now,&rdquo; whispered the old attendant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tall Highlander, sinking down upon the empty settle next the fire,
+      fixed his eyes upon the red embers and the huge heap of turf, and seemed
+      buried in profound abstraction. His dark eyes, and wild and enthusiastic
+      features, bore the air of one who, deeply impressed with his own subjects
+      of meditation, pays little attention to exterior objects. An air of gloomy
+      severity, the fruit perhaps of ascetic and solitary habits, might, in a
+      Lowlander, have been ascribed to religious fanaticism; but by that disease
+      of the mind, then so common both in England and the Lowlands of Scotland,
+      the Highlanders of this period were rarely infected. They had, however,
+      their own peculiar superstitions, which overclouded the mind with
+      thick-coming fancies, as completely as the puritanism of their neighbours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His lordship&rsquo;s honour,&rdquo; said the Highland servant sideling up to Lord
+      Menteith, and speaking in a very low tone, &ldquo;his lordship manna speak to
+      Allan even now, for the cloud is upon his mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith nodded, and took no farther notice of the reserved
+      mountaineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Said I not,&rdquo; asked the latter, suddenly raising his stately person
+      upright, and looking at the domestic&mdash;&ldquo;said I not that four were to
+      come, and here stand but three on the hall floor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In troth did ye say sae, Allan,&rdquo; said the old Highlander, &ldquo;and here&rsquo;s the
+      fourth man coming clinking in at the yett e&rsquo;en now from the stable, for
+      he&rsquo;s shelled like a partan, wi&rsquo; airn on back and breast, haunch and
+      shanks. And am I to set her chair up near the Menteith&rsquo;s, or down wi&rsquo; the
+      honest gentlemen at the foot of the table?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith himself answered the enquiry, by pointing to a seat beside
+      his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here she comes,&rdquo; said Donald, as Captain Dalgetty entered the hall;
+      &ldquo;and I hope gentlemens will all take bread and cheese, as we say in the
+      glens, until better meat be ready, until the Tiernach comes back frae the
+      hill wi&rsquo; the southern gentlefolk, and then Dugald Cook will show himself
+      wi&rsquo; his kid and hill venison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Captain Dalgetty had entered the apartment, and walking
+      up to the seat placed next Lord Menteith, was leaning on the back of it
+      with his arms folded. Anderson and his companion waited at the bottom of
+      the table, in a respectful attitude, until they should receive permission
+      to seat themselves; while three or four Highlanders, under the direction
+      of old Donald, ran hither and thither to bring additional articles of
+      food, or stood still to give attendance upon the guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of these preparations, Allan suddenly started up, and
+      snatching a lamp from the hand of an attendant, held it close to
+      Dalgetty&rsquo;s face, while he perused his features with the most heedful and
+      grave attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my honour,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, half displeased, as, mysteriously shaking
+      his head, Allan gave up the scrutiny&mdash;&ldquo;I trow that lad and I will ken
+      each other when we meet again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Allan strode to the bottom of the table, and having, by the aid
+      of his lamp, subjected Anderson and his companion to the same
+      investigation, stood a moment as if in deep reflection; then, touching his
+      forehead, suddenly seized Anderson by the arm, and before he could offer
+      any effectual resistance, half led and half dragged him to the vacant seat
+      at the upper end, and having made a mute intimation that he should there
+      place himself, he hurried the soldado with the same unceremonious
+      precipitation to the bottom of the table. The Captain, exceedingly
+      incensed at this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from him with
+      violence; but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle inferior to
+      the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such violence, that after
+      reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and the vaulted hall rang
+      with the clash of his armour. When he arose, his first action was to draw
+      his sword and to fly at Allan, who, with folded arms, seemed to await his
+      onset with the most scornful indifference. Lord Menteith and his
+      attendants interposed to preserve peace, while the Highlanders, snatching
+      weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase the broil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is mad,&rdquo; whispered Lord Menteith, &ldquo;he is perfectly mad; there is no
+      purpose in quarrelling with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your lordship is assured that he is NON COMPOS MENTIS,&rdquo; said Captain
+      Dalgetty, &ldquo;the whilk his breeding and behaviour seem to testify, the
+      matter must end here, seeing that a madman can neither give an affront,
+      nor render honourable satisfaction. But, by my saul, if I had my provstnt
+      and a bottle of Rhenish under my belt, I should hive stood otherways up to
+      him. And yet it&rsquo;s a pity he should be sae weak in the intellectuals, being
+      a strong proper man of body, fit to handle pike, morgenstern, or any other
+      military implement whatsoever.&rdquo; [This was a sort of club or mace, used in
+      the earlier part of the seventeenth century in the defence of breaches and
+      walls. When the Germans insulted a Scotch regiment then besieged in
+      Trailsund, saying they heard there was a ship come from Denmark to them
+      laden with tobacco pipes, &ldquo;One of our soldiers,&rdquo; says Colonel Robert
+      Munro, &ldquo;showing them over the work a morgenstern, made of a large stock
+      banded with iron, like the shaft of a halberd, with a round globe at the
+      end with cross iron pikes, saith, &lsquo;Here is one of the tobacco pipes,
+      wherewith we will beat out your brains when you intend to storm us.&rsquo;&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace was thus restored, and the party seated themselves agreeably to
+      their former arrangement, with which Allan, who had now returned to his
+      settle by the fire, and seemed once more immersed in meditation, did not
+      again interfere. Lord Menteith, addressing the principal domestic,
+      hastened to start some theme of conversation which might obliterate all
+      recollection of the fray that had taken place. &ldquo;The laird is at the hill
+      then, Donald, I understand, and some English strangers with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the hill he is, an it like your honour, and two Saxon calabaleros are
+      with him sure eneugh; and that is Sir Miles Musgrave and Christopher Hall,
+      both from the Cumraik, as I think they call their country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hall and Musgrave?&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, looking at his attendants, &ldquo;the
+      very men that we wished to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Troth,&rdquo; said Donald, &ldquo;an&rsquo; I wish I had never seen them between the een,
+      for they&rsquo;re come to herry us out o&rsquo; house and ha&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Donald,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;you did not use to be so churlish of
+      your beef and ale; southland though they be, they&rsquo;ll scarce eat up all the
+      cattle that&rsquo;s going on the castle mains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Teil care an they did,&rdquo; said Donald, &ldquo;an that were the warst o&rsquo;t, for we
+      have a wheen canny trewsmen here that wadna let us want if there was a
+      horned beast atween this and Perth. But this is a warse job&mdash;it&rsquo;s nae
+      less than a wager.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A wager!&rdquo; repeated Lord Menteith, with some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Troth,&rdquo; continued Donald, to the full as eager to tell his news as Lord
+      Menteith was curious to hear them, &ldquo;as your lordship is a friend and
+      kinsman o&rsquo; the house, an&rsquo; as ye&rsquo;ll hear eneugh o&rsquo;t in less than an hour, I
+      may as weel tell ye mysell. Ye sall be pleased then to know, that when our
+      Laird was up in England where he gangs oftener than his friends can wish,
+      he was biding at the house o&rsquo; this Sir Miles Musgrave, an&rsquo; there was
+      putten on the table six candlesticks, that they tell me were twice as
+      muckle as the candlesticks in Dunblane kirk, and neither airn, brass, nor
+      tin, but a&rsquo; solid silver, nae less;&mdash;up wi&rsquo; their English pride, has
+      sae muckle, and kens sae little how to guide it! Sae they began to jeer
+      the Laird, that he saw nae sic graith in his ain poor country; and the
+      Laird, scorning to hae his country put down without a word for its credit,
+      swore, like a gude Scotsman, that he had mair candlesticks, and better
+      candlesticks, in his ain castle at hame, than were ever lighted in a hall
+      in Cumberland, an Cumberland be the name o&rsquo; the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was patriotically said,&rdquo; observed Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fary true,&rdquo; said Donald; &ldquo;but her honour had better hae hauden her
+      tongue: for if ye say ony thing amang the Saxons that&rsquo;s a wee by ordinar,
+      they clink ye down for a wager as fast as a Lowland smith would hammer
+      shoon on a Highland shelty. An&rsquo; so the Laird behoved either to gae back o&rsquo;
+      his word, or wager twa hunder merks; and sa he e&rsquo;en tock the wager, rather
+      than be shamed wi&rsquo; the like o&rsquo; them. And now he&rsquo;s like to get it to pay,
+      and I&rsquo;m thinking that&rsquo;s what makes him sae swear to come hame at e&rsquo;en.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;from my idea of your family plate, Donald,
+      your master is certain to lose such a wager.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your honour may swear that; an&rsquo; where he&rsquo;s to get the siller I kenna,
+      although he borrowed out o&rsquo; twenty purses. I advised him to pit the twa
+      Saxon gentlemen and their servants cannily into the pit o&rsquo; the tower till
+      they gae up the bagain o&rsquo; free gude-will, but the Laird winna hear
+      reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan here started up, strode forward, and interrupted the conversation,
+      saying to the domestic in a voice like thunder, &ldquo;And how dared you to give
+      my brother such dishonourable advice? or how dare you to say he will lose
+      this or any other wager which it is his pleasure to lay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Troth, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay,&rdquo; answered the old man, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s no for my father&rsquo;s son
+      to gainsay what your father&rsquo;s son thinks fit to say, an&rsquo; so the Laird may
+      no doubt win his wager. A&rsquo; that I ken against it is, that the teil a
+      candlestick, or ony thing like it, is in the house, except the auld airn
+      branches that has been here since Laird Kenneth&rsquo;s time, and the tin
+      sconces that your father gard be made by auld Willie Winkie the tinkler,
+      mair be token that deil an unce of siller plate is about the house at a&rsquo;,
+      forby the lady&rsquo;s auld posset dish, that wants the cover and ane o&rsquo; the
+      lugs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace, old man!&rdquo; said Allan, fiercely; &ldquo;and do you, gentlemen, if your
+      refection is finished, leave this apartment clear; I must prepare it for
+      the reception of these southern guests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away,&rdquo; said the domestic, pulling Lord Menteith by the sleeve; &ldquo;his
+      hour is on him,&rdquo; said he, looking towards Allan, &ldquo;and he will not be
+      controlled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the hall accordingly, Lord Menteith and the Captain being
+      ushered one way by old Donald, and the two attendants conducted elsewhere
+      by another Highlander. The former had scarcely reached a sort of
+      withdrawing apartment ere they were joined by the lord of the mansion,
+      Angus M&rsquo;Aulay by name, and his English guests. Great joy was expressed by
+      all parties, for Lord Menteith and the English gentlemen were well known
+      to each other; and on Lord Menteith&rsquo;s introduction, Captain Dalgetty was
+      well received by the Laird. But after the first burst of hospitable
+      congratulation was over, Lord Menteith could observe that there was a
+      shade of sadness on the brow of his Highland friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have heard,&rdquo; said Sir Christopher Hall, &ldquo;that our fine
+      undertaking in Cumberland is all blown up. The militia would not march
+      into Scotland, and your prick-ear&rsquo;d Covenanters have been too hard for our
+      friends in the southern shires. And so, understanding there is some
+      stirring work here, Musgrave and I, rather than sit idle at home, are come
+      to have a campaign among your kilts and plaids.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you have brought arms, men, and money with you,&rdquo; said Lord
+      Menteith, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only some dozen or two of troopers, whom we left at the last Lowland
+      village,&rdquo; said Musgrave, &ldquo;and trouble enough we had to get them so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for money,&rdquo; said his companion, &ldquo;We expect a small supply from our
+      friend and host here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Laird now, colouring highly, took Menteith a little apart, and
+      expressed to him his regret that he had fallen into a foolish blunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard it from Donald,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, scarce able to suppress a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devil take that old man,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;he would tell every thing, were
+      it to cost one&rsquo;s life; but it&rsquo;s no jesting matter to you neither, my lord,
+      for I reckon on your friendly and fraternal benevolence, as a near kinsman
+      of our house, to help me out with the money due to these pock-puddings; or
+      else, to be plain wi&rsquo; ye, the deil a M&rsquo;Aulay will there be at the muster,
+      for curse me if I do not turn Covenanter rather than face these fellows
+      without paying them; and, at the best, I shall be ill enough off, getting
+      both the scaith and the scorn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may suppose, cousin,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;I am not too well equipt
+      just now; but you may be assured I shall endeavour to help you as well as
+      I can, for the sake of old kindred, neighbourhood, and alliance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank ye&mdash;thank ye&mdash;thank ye,&rdquo; reiterated M&rsquo;Aulay; &ldquo;and as they
+      are to spend the money in the King&rsquo;s service, what signifies whether you,
+      they, or I pay it?&mdash;we are a&rsquo; one man&rsquo;s bairns, I hope? But you must
+      help me out too with some reasonable excuse, or else I shall be for taking
+      to Andrew Ferrara; for I like not to be treated like a liar or a braggart
+      at my own board-end, when, God knows, I only meant to support my honour,
+      and that of my family and country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Donald, as they were speaking, entered, with rather a blither face than he
+      might have been expected to wear, considering the impending fate of his
+      master&rsquo;s purse and credit. &ldquo;Gentlemens, her dinner is ready, and HER
+      CANDLES ARE LIGHTED TOO,&rdquo; said Donald, with a strong guttural emphasis on
+      the last clause of his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil can he mean?&rdquo; said Musgrave, looking to his countryman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith put the same question with his eyes to the Laird, which
+      M&rsquo;Aulay answered by shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short dispute about precedence somewhat delayed their leaving the
+      apartment. Lord Menteith insisted upon yielding up that which belonged to
+      his rank, on consideration of his being in his own country, and of his
+      near connexion with the family in which they found themselves. The two
+      English strangers, therefore, were first ushered into the hall, where an
+      unexpected display awaited them. The large oaken table was spread with
+      substantial joints of meat, and seats were placed in order for the guests.
+      Behind every seat stood a gigantic Highlander, completely dressed and
+      armed after the fashion of his country, holding in his right hand his
+      drawn sword, with the point turned downwards, and in the left a blazing
+      torch made of the bog-pine. This wood, found in the morasses, is so full
+      of turpentine, that, when split and dried, it is frequently used in the
+      Highlands instead of candles. The unexpected and somewhat startling
+      apparition was seen by the red glare of the torches, which displayed the
+      wild features, unusual dress, and glittering arms of those who bore them,
+      while the smoke, eddying up to the roof of the hall, over-canopied them
+      with a volume of vapour. Ere the strangers had recovered from their
+      surprise, Allan stept forward, and pointing with his sheathed broadsword
+      to the torch-bearers, said, in a deep and stern tone of voice, &ldquo;Behold,
+      gentlemen cavaliers, the chandeliers of my brother&rsquo;s house, the ancient
+      fashion of our ancient name; not one of these men knows any law but their
+      Chiefs command&mdash;Would you dare to compare to THEM in value the
+      richest ore that ever was dug out of the mine? How say you, cavaliers?&mdash;is
+      your wager won or lost?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost; lost,&rdquo; said Musgrave, gaily&mdash;&ldquo;my own silver candlesticks are
+      all melted and riding on horseback by this time, and I wish the fellows
+      that enlisted were half as trusty as these.&mdash;Here, sir,&rdquo; he added to
+      the Chief, &ldquo;is your money; it impairs Hall&rsquo;s finances and mine somewhat,
+      but debts of honour must be settled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father&rsquo;s curse upon my father&rsquo;s son,&rdquo; said Allan, interrupting him,
+      &ldquo;if he receive from you one penny! It is enough that you claim no right to
+      exact from him what is his own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith eagerly supported Allan&rsquo;s opinion, and the elder M&rsquo;Aulay
+      readily joined, declaring the whole to be a fool&rsquo;s business, and not worth
+      speaking more about. The Englishmen, after some courteous opposition, were
+      persuaded to regard the whole as a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Allan,&rdquo; said the Laird, &ldquo;please to remove your candles; for,
+      since the Saxon gentlemen have seen them, they will eat their dinner as
+      comfortably by the light of the old tin sconces, without scomfishing them
+      with so much smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, at a sign from Allan, the living chandeliers, recovering
+      their broadswords, and holding the point erect, marched out of the hall,
+      and left the guests to enjoy their refreshment. [Such a bet as that
+      mentioned in the text is said to have been taken by MacDonald of Keppoch,
+      who extricated himself in the manner there narrated.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Thareby so fearlesse and so fell he grew,
+     That his own syre and maister of his guise
+     Did often tremble at his horrid view;
+     And if for dread of hurt would him advise,
+     The angry beastes not rashly to despise,
+     Nor too much to provoke; for he would learne
+     The lion stoup to him in lowly wise,
+     (A lesson hard,) and make the libbard sterne
+     Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did earne.&mdash;SPENSER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the proverbial epicurism of the English,&mdash;proverbial,
+      that is to say, in Scotland at the period,&mdash;the English visitors made
+      no figure whatever at the entertainment, compared with the portentous
+      voracity of Captain Dalgetty, although that gallant soldier had already
+      displayed much steadiness and pertinacity in his attack upon the lighter
+      refreshment set before them at their entrance, by way of forlorn hope. He
+      spoke to no one during the time of his meal; and it was not until the
+      victuals were nearly withdrawn from the table, that he gratified the rest
+      of the company, who had watched him with some surprise, with an account of
+      the reasons why he ate so very fast and so very long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The former quality,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;he had acquired, while he filled a place
+      at the bursar&rsquo;s table at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen; when,&rdquo; said
+      he; &ldquo;if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets, you
+      were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them. And as for the
+      quantity of my food, be it known to this honourable company,&rdquo; continued
+      the Captain, &ldquo;that it&rsquo;s the duty of every commander of a fortress, on all
+      occasions which offer, to secure as much munition and vivers as their
+      magazines can possibly hold, not knowing when they may have to sustain a
+      siege or a blockade. Upon which principle, gentlemen,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when a
+      cavalier finds that provant is good and abundant, he will, in my
+      estimation, do wisely to victual himself for at least three days, as there
+      is no knowing when he may come by another meal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Laird expressed his acquiescence in the prudence of this principle,
+      and recommended to the veteran to add a tass of brandy and a flagon of
+      claret to the substantial provisions he had already laid in, to which
+      proposal the Captain readily agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When dinner was removed, and the servants had withdrawn, excepting the
+      Laird&rsquo;s page, or henchman, who remained in the apartment to call for or
+      bring whatever was wanted, or, in a word, to answer the purposes of a
+      modern bell-wire, the conversation began to turn upon politics, and the
+      state of the country; and Lord Menteith enquired anxiously and
+      particularly what clans were expected to join the proposed muster of the
+      King&rsquo;s friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That depends much, my lord, on the person who lifts the banner,&rdquo; said the
+      Laird; &ldquo;for you know we Highlanders, when a few clans are assembled, are
+      not easily commanded by one of our own Chiefs, or, to say the truth, by
+      any other body. We have heard a rumour, indeed, that Colkitto&mdash;that
+      is, young Colkitto, or Alaster M&rsquo;Donald, is come over the Kyle from
+      Ireland, with a body of the Earl of Antrim&rsquo;s people, and that they had got
+      as far as Ardnamurchan. They might have been here before now, but, I
+      suppose, they loitered to plunder the country as they came along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will Colkitto not serve you for a leader, then?&rdquo; said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Colkitto?&rdquo; said Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, scornfully; &ldquo;who talks of Colkitto?&mdash;There
+      lives but one man whom we will follow, and that is Montrose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Montrose, sir,&rdquo; said Sir Christopher Hall, &ldquo;has not been heard of
+      since our ineffectual attempt to rise in the north of England. It is
+      thought he has returned to the King at Oxford for farther instructions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Returned!&rdquo; said Allan, with a scornful laugh; &ldquo;I could tell ye, but it is
+      not worth my while; ye will know soon enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my honour, Allan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;you will weary out your
+      friends with this intolerable, froward, and sullen humour&mdash;But I know
+      the reason,&rdquo; added he, laughing; &ldquo;you have not seen Annot Lyle to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom did you say I had not seen?&rdquo; said Allan, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Annot Lyle, the fairy queen of song and minstrelsy,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would to God I were never to see her again,&rdquo; said Allan, sighing, &ldquo;On
+      condition the same weird were laid on you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why on me?&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said Allan, &ldquo;it is written on your forehead, that you are to be
+      the ruin of each other.&rdquo; So saying, he rose up and left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he been long in this way?&rdquo; asked Lord Menteith, addressing his
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About three days,&rdquo; answered Angus; &ldquo;the fit is wellnigh over, he will be
+      better to-morrow.&mdash;But come, gentlemen, don&rsquo;t let the tappit-hen
+      scraugh to be emptied. The King&rsquo;s health, King Charles&rsquo;s health! and may
+      the covenanting dog that refuses it, go to Heaven by the road of the
+      Grassmarket!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The health was quickly pledged, and as fast succeeded by another, and
+      another, and another, all of a party cast, and enforced in an earnest
+      manner. Captain Dalgetty, however, thought it necessary to enter a
+      protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen cavaliers,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I drink these healths, PRIMO, both out of
+      respect to this honourable and hospitable roof-tree, and, SECUNDO, because
+      I hold it not good to be preceese in such matters, INTER POCULA; but I
+      protest, agreeable to the warrandice granted by this honourable lord, that
+      it shall be free to me, notwithstanding my present complaisance, to take
+      service with the Covenanters to-morrow, providing I shall be so minded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M&rsquo;Aulay and his English guests stared at this declaration, which would
+      have certainly bred new disturbance, if Lord Menteith had not taken up the
+      affair, and explained the circumstances and conditions. &ldquo;I trust,&rdquo; he
+      concluded, &ldquo;we shall be able to secure Captain Dalgetty&rsquo;s assistance to
+      our own party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if not,&rdquo; said the Laird, &ldquo;I protest, as the Captain says, that
+      nothing that has passed this evening, not even his having eaten my bread
+      and salt, and pledged me in brandy, Bourdeaux, or usquebaugh, shall
+      prejudice my cleaving him to the neck-bone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall be heartily welcome,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;providing my sword
+      cannot keep my head, which it has done in worse dangers than your fend is
+      likely to make for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Lord Menteith again interposed, and the concord of the company being
+      with no small difficulty restored, was cemented by some deep carouses.
+      Lord Menteith, however, contrived to break up the party earlier than was
+      the usage of the Castle, under pretence of fatigue and indisposition. This
+      was somewhat to the disappointment of the valiant Captain, who, among
+      other habits acquired in the Low countries, had acquired both a
+      disposition to drink, and a capacity to bear, an exorbitant quantity of
+      strong liquors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their landlord ushered them in person to a sort of sleeping gallery, in
+      which there was a four-post bed, with tartan curtains, and a number of
+      cribs, or long hampers, placed along the wall, three of which, well
+      stuffed with blooming heather, were prepared for the reception of guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need not tell your lordship,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay to Lord Menteith, a little
+      apart, &ldquo;our Highland mode of quartering. Only that, not liking you should
+      sleep in the room alone with this German land-louper, I have caused your
+      servants&rsquo; beds to be made here in the gallery. By G&mdash;d, my lord,
+      these are times when men go to bed with a throat hale and sound as ever
+      swallowed brandy, and before next morning it may be gaping like an
+      oyster-shell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith thanked him sincerely, saying, &ldquo;It was just the arrangement
+      he would have requested; for, although he had not the least apprehension
+      of violence from Captain Dalgetty, yet Anderson was a better kind of
+      person, a sort of gentleman, whom he always liked to have near his
+      person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not seen this Anderson,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay; &ldquo;did you hire him in
+      England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did so,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;you will see the man to-morrow; in the
+      meantime I wish you good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His host left the apartment after the evening salutation, and was about to
+      pay the same compliment to Captain Dalgetty, but observing him deeply
+      engaged in the discussion of a huge pitcher filled with brandy posset, he
+      thought it a pity to disturb him in so laudable an employment, and took
+      his leave without farther ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith&rsquo;s two attendants entered the apartment almost immediately
+      after his departure. The good Captain, who was now somewhat encumbered
+      with his good cheer, began to find the undoing of the clasps of his armour
+      a task somewhat difficult, and addressed Anderson in these words,
+      interrupted by a slight hiccup,&mdash;&ldquo;Anderson, my good friend, you may
+      read in Scripture, that he that putteth off his armour should not boast
+      himself like he that putteth it on&mdash;I believe that is not the right
+      word of command; but the plain truth of it is, I am like to sleep in my
+      corslet, like many an honest fellow that never waked again, unless you
+      unloose this buckle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undo his armour, Sibbald,&rdquo; said Anderson to the other servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By St. Andrew!&rdquo; exclaimed the Captain, turning round in great
+      astonishment, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a common fellow&mdash;a stipendiary with four pounds
+      a-year and a livery cloak, thinks himself too good to serve Ritt-master
+      Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who has studied humanity at the
+      Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, and served half the princes of Europe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, whose lot it was to stand
+      peacemaker throughout the evening, &ldquo;please to understand that Anderson
+      waits upon no one but myself; but I will help Sibbald to undo your corslet
+      with much pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too much trouble for you, my lord,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;and yet it would do
+      you no harm to practise how a handsome harness is put on and put off. I
+      can step in and out of mine like a glove; only to-night, although not
+      EBRIUS, I am, in the classic phrase, VINO CIBOQUE GRAVATUS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time he was unshelled, and stood before the fire musing with a
+      face of drunken wisdom on the events of the evening. What seemed chiefly
+      to interest him, was the character of Allan M&rsquo;Aulay. &ldquo;To come over the
+      Englishmen so cleverly with his Highland torch-bearers&mdash;eight
+      bare-breeched Rories for six silver candlesticks!&mdash;it was a
+      master-piece&mdash;a TOUR DE PASSE&mdash;it was perfect legerdemain&mdash;and
+      to be a madman after all!&mdash;I doubt greatly, my lord&rdquo; (shaking his
+      head), &ldquo;that I must allow him, notwithstanding his relationship to your
+      lordship, the privileges of a rational person, and either batoon him
+      sufficiently to expiate the violence offered to my person, or else bring
+      it to a matter of mortal arbitrement, as becometh an insulted cavalier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you care to hear a long story,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;at this time of
+      night, I can tell you how the circumstances of Allan&rsquo;s birth account so
+      well for his singular character, as to put such satisfaction entirely out
+      of the question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A long story, my lord,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;is, next to a good
+      evening draught and a warm nightcap, the best shoeinghorn for drawing on a
+      sound sleep. And since your lordship is pleased to take the trouble to
+      tell it, I shall rest your patient and obliged auditor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anderson,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;and you, Sibbald, are dying to hear, I
+      suppose, of this strange man too! and I believe I must indulge your
+      curiosity, that you may know how to behave to him in time of need. You had
+      better step to the fire then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus assembled an audience about him, Lord Menteith sat down upon
+      the edge of the four-post bed, while Captain Dalgetty, wiping the relics
+      of the posset from his beard and mustachoes, and repeating the first verse
+      of the Lutheran psalm, ALLE GUTER GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, etc. rolled
+      himself into one of the places of repose, and thrusting his shock pate
+      from between the blankets, listened to Lord Menteith&rsquo;s relation in a most
+      luxurious state, between sleeping and waking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The father,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;of the two brothers, Angus and Allan
+      M&rsquo;Aulay, was a gentleman of consideration and family, being the chief of a
+      Highland clan, of good account, though not numerous; his lady, the mother
+      of these young men, was a gentlewoman of good family, if I may be
+      permitted to say so of one nearly connected with my own. Her brother, an
+      honourable and spirited young man, obtained from James the Sixth a grant
+      of forestry, and other privileges, over a royal chase adjacent to this
+      castle; and, in exercising and defending these rights, he was so
+      unfortunate as to involve himself in a quarrel with some of our Highland
+      freebooters or caterans, of whom I think, Captain Dalgetty, you must have
+      heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that I have,&rdquo; said the Captain, exerting himself to answer the
+      appeal. &ldquo;Before I left the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, Dugald Garr was
+      playing the devil in the Garioch, and the Farquharsons on Dee-side, and
+      the Clan Chattan on the Gordons&rsquo; lands, and the Grants and Camerons in
+      Moray-land. And since that, I have seen the Cravats and Pandours in
+      Pannonia and Transylvania, and the Cossacks from the Polish frontier, and
+      robbers, banditti, and barbarians of all countries besides, so that I have
+      a distinct idea of your broken Highlandmen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The clan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;with whom the maternal uncle of the
+      M&rsquo;Aulays had been placed in feud, was a small sept of banditti, called,
+      from their houseless state, and their incessantly wandering among the
+      mountains and glens, the Children of the Mist. They are a fierce and hardy
+      people, with all the irritability, and wild and vengeful passions, proper
+      to men who have never known the restraint of civilized society. A party of
+      them lay in wait for the unfortunate Warden of the Forest, surprised him
+      while hunting alone and unattended, and slew him with every circumstance
+      of inventive cruelty. They cut off his head, and resolved, in a bravado,
+      to exhibit it at the castle of his brother-in-law. The laird was absent,
+      and the lady reluctantly received as guests, men against whom, perhaps,
+      she was afraid to shut her gates. Refreshments were placed before the
+      Children of the Mist, who took an opportunity to take the head of their
+      victim from the plaid in which it was wrapt, placed it on the table, put a
+      piece of bread between the lifeless jaws, bidding them do their office
+      now, since many a good meal they had eaten at that table. The lady, who
+      had been absent for some household purpose, entered at this moment, and,
+      upon beholding her brother&rsquo;s head, fled like an arrow out of the house
+      into the woods, uttering shriek upon shriek. The ruffians, satisfied with
+      this savage triumph, withdrew. The terrified menials, after overcoming the
+      alarm to which they had been subjected, sought their unfortunate mistress
+      in every direction, but she was nowhere to be found. The miserable husband
+      returned next day, and, with the assistance of his people, undertook a
+      more anxious and distant search, but to equally little purpose. It was
+      believed universally, that, in the ecstasy of her terror, she must either
+      have thrown herself over one of the numerous precipices which overhang the
+      river, or into a deep lake about a mile from the castle. Her loss was the
+      more lamented, as she was six months advanced in her pregnancy; Angus
+      M&rsquo;Aulay, her eldest son, having been born about eighteen months before.&mdash;But
+      I tire you, Captain Dalgetty, and you seem inclined to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means,&rdquo; answered the soldier; &ldquo;I am no whit somnolent; I always
+      hear best with my eyes shut. It is a fashion I learned when I stood
+      sentinel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I daresay,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, aside to Anderson, &ldquo;the weight of the
+      halberd of the sergeant of the rounds often made him open them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being apparently, however, in the humour of story-telling, the young
+      nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his servants, without
+      minding the slumbering veteran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every baron in the country,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;now swore revenge for this
+      dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and brother-in-law of
+      the murdered person, and the Children of the Mist were hunted down, I
+      believe, with as little mercy as they had themselves manifested. Seventeen
+      heads, the bloody trophies of their vengeance, were distributed among the
+      allies, and fed the crows upon the gates of their castles. The survivors
+      sought out more distant wildernesses, to which they retreated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former ground,&rdquo;
+       said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having produced the
+      correspondent word of command; and then starting up, professed he had been
+      profoundly atttentive to every word that had been spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the custom in summer,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, without attending to his
+      apology, &ldquo;to send the cows to the upland pastures to have the benefit of
+      the grass; and the maids of the village, and of the family, go there to
+      milk them in the morning and evening. While thus employed, the females of
+      this family, to their great terror, perceived that their motions were
+      watched at a distance by a pale, thin, meagre figure, bearing a strong
+      resemblance to their deceased mistress, and passing, of course, for her
+      apparition. When some of the boldest resolved to approach this faded form,
+      it fled from them into the woods with a wild shriek. The husband, informed
+      of this circumstance, came up to the glen with some attendants, and took
+      his measures so well as to intercept the retreat of the unhappy fugitive,
+      and to secure the person of his unfortunate lady, though her intellect
+      proved to be totally deranged. How she supported herself during her
+      wandering in the woods could not be known&mdash;some supposed she lived
+      upon roots and wild-berries, with which the woods at that season abounded;
+      but the greater part of the vulgar were satisfied that she must have
+      subsisted upon the milk of the wild does, or been nourished by the
+      fairies, or supported in some manner equally marvellous. Her re-appearance
+      was more easily accounted for. She had seen from the thicket the milking
+      of the cows, to superintend which had been her favourite domestic
+      employment, and the habit had prevailed even in her deranged state of
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In due season the unfortunate lady was delivered of a boy, who not only
+      showed no appearance of having suffered from his mother&rsquo;s calamities, but
+      appeared to be an infant of uncommon health and strength. The unhappy
+      mother, after her confinement, recovered her reason&mdash;at least in a
+      great measure, but never her health and spirits. Allan was her only joy.
+      Her attention to him was unremitting; and unquestionably she must have
+      impressed upon his early mind many of those superstitious ideas to which
+      his moody and enthusiastic temper gave so ready a reception. She died when
+      he was about ten years old. Her last words were spoken to him in private;
+      but there is little doubt that they conveyed an injunction of vengeance
+      upon the Children of the Mist, with which he has since amply complied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From this moment, the habits of Allan M&rsquo;Aulay were totally changed. He
+      had hitherto been his mother&rsquo;s constant companion, listening to her
+      dreams, and repeating his own, and feeding his imagination, which,
+      probably from the circumstances preceding his birth, was constitutionally
+      deranged, with all the wild and terrible superstitions so common to the
+      mountaineers, to which his unfortunate mother had become much addicted
+      since her brother&rsquo;s death. By living in this manner, the boy had gotten a
+      timid, wild, startled look, loved to seek out solitary places in the
+      woods, and was never so much terrified, as by the approach of children of
+      the same age. I remember, although some years younger, being brought up
+      here by my father upon a visit, nor can I forget the astonishment with
+      which I saw this infant-hermit shun every attempt I made to engage him in
+      the sports natural to our age. I can remember his father bewailing his
+      disposition to mine, and alleging, at the same time, that it was
+      impossible for him to take from his wife the company of the boy, as he
+      seemed to be the only consolation that remained to her in this world, and
+      as the amusement which Allan&rsquo;s society afforded her seemed to prevent the
+      recurrence, at least in its full force, of that fearful malady by which
+      she had been visited. But, after the death of his mother, the habits and
+      manners of the boy seemed at once to change. It is true he remained as
+      thoughtful and serious as before; and long fits of silence and abstraction
+      showed plainly that his disposition, in this respect, was in no degree
+      altered. But at other times, he sought out the rendezvous of the youth of
+      the clan, which he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid. He took share in
+      all their exercises; and, from his very extraordinary personal strength,
+      soon excelled his brother and other youths, whose age considerably
+      exceeded his own. They who had hitherto held him in contempt, now feared,
+      if they did not love him; and, instead of Allan&rsquo;s being esteemed a
+      dreaming, womanish, and feeble-minded boy, those who encountered him in
+      sports or military exercise, now complained that, when heated by the
+      strife, he was too apt to turn game into earnest, and to forget that he
+      was only engaged in a friendly trial of strength.&mdash;But I speak to
+      regardless ears,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, interrupting himself, for the
+      Captain&rsquo;s nose now gave the most indisputable signs that he was fast
+      locked in the arms of oblivion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mean the ears of that snorting swine, my lord,&rdquo; said Anderson,
+      &ldquo;they are, indeed, shut to anything that you can say; nevertheless, this
+      place being unfit for more private conference, I hope you will have the
+      goodness to proceed, for Sibbald&rsquo;s benefit and for mine. The history of
+      this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must know, then,&rdquo; proceeded Lord Menteith, &ldquo;that Allan continued to
+      increase in strength and activity, till his fifteenth year, about which
+      time he assumed a total independence of character, and impatience of
+      control, which much alarmed his surviving parent. He was absent in the
+      woods for whole days and nights, under pretence of hunting, though he did
+      not always bring home game. His father was the more alarmed, because
+      several of the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing troubles
+      of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did he think it
+      altogether safe to renew any attack upon them. The risk of Allan, in his
+      wanderings, sustaining injury from these vindictive freebooters, was a
+      perpetual source of apprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was myself upon a visit to the castle when this matter was brought to a
+      crisis. Allan had been absent since day-break in the woods, where I had
+      sought for him in vain; it was a dark stormy night, and he did not return.
+      His father expressed the utmost anxiety, and spoke of detaching a party at
+      the dawn of morning in quest of him; when, as we were sitting at the
+      supper-table, the door suddenly opened, and Allan entered the room with a
+      proud, firm, and confident air. His intractability of temper, as well as
+      the unsettled state of his mind, had such an influence over his father,
+      that he suppressed all other tokens of displeasure, excepting the
+      observation that I had killed a fat buck, and had returned before sunset,
+      while he supposed Allan, who had been on the hill till midnight, had
+      returned with empty hands. &lsquo;Are you sure of that?&rsquo; said Allan, fiercely;
+      &lsquo;here is something will tell you another tale.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots of blood
+      on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when suddenly, undoing
+      the corner of his plaid, he rolled down on the table a human head, bloody
+      and new severed, saying at the same time, &lsquo;Lie thou where the head of a
+      better man lay before ye.&rsquo; From the haggard features, and matted red hair
+      and beard, partly grizzled with age, his father and others present
+      recognised the head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known leader among the
+      outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had been active in the
+      murder of the unfortunate Forester, uncle to Allan, and had escaped by a
+      desperate defence and extraordinary agility, when so many of his
+      companions were destroyed. We were all, it may be believed, struck with
+      surprise, but Allan refused to gratify our curiosity; and we only
+      conjectured that he must have overcome the outlaw after a desperate
+      struggle, because we discovered that he had sustained several wounds from
+      the contest. All measures were now taken to ensure him against the
+      vengeance of the freebooters; but neither his wounds, nor the positive
+      command of his father, nor even the locking of the gates of the castle and
+      the doors of his apartment, were precautions adequate to prevent Allan
+      from seeking out the very persons to whom he was peculiarly obnoxious. He
+      made his escape by night from the window of the apartment, and laughing at
+      his father&rsquo;s vain care, produced on one occasion the head of one, and upon
+      another those of two, of the Children of the Mist. At length these men,
+      fierce as they were, became appalled by the inveterate animosity and
+      audacity with which Allan sought out their recesses. As he never hesitated
+      to encounter any odds, they concluded that he must bear a charmed life, or
+      fight under the guardianship of some supernatural influence. Neither gun,
+      dirk, nor dourlach [DOURLACH&mdash;quiver; literally, satchel&mdash;of
+      arrows.], they said, availed aught against him. They imputed this to the
+      remarkable circumstances under which he was born; and at length five or
+      six of the stoutest caterans of the Highlands would have fled at Allan&rsquo;s
+      halloo, or the blast of his horn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the meanwhile, however, the Children of the Mist carried on their old
+      trade, and did the M&rsquo;Aulays, as well as their kinsmen and allies, as much
+      mischief as they could. This provoked another expedition against the
+      tribe, in which I had my share; we surprised them effectually, by
+      besetting at once the upper and under passes of the country, and made such
+      clean work as is usual on these occasions, burning and slaying right
+      before us. In this terrible species of war, even the females and the
+      helpless do not always escape. One little maiden alone, who smiled upon
+      Allan&rsquo;s drawn dirk, escaped his vengeance upon my earnest entreaty. She
+      was brought to the castle, and here bred up under the name of Annot Lyle,
+      the most beautiful little fairy certainly that ever danced upon a heath by
+      moonlight. It was long ere Allan could endure the presence of the child,
+      until it occurred to his imagination, from her features perhaps, that she
+      did not belong to the hated blood of his enemies, but had become their
+      captive in some of their incursions; a circumstance not in itself
+      impossible, but in which he believes as firmly as in holy writ. He is
+      particularly delighted by her skill in music, which is so exquisite, that
+      she far exceeds the best performers in this country in playing on the
+      clairshach, or harp. It was discovered that this produced upon the
+      disturbed spirits of Allan, in his gloomiest moods, beneficial effects,
+      similar to those experienced by the Jewish monarch of old; and so engaging
+      is the temper of Annot Lyle, so fascinating the innocence and gaiety of
+      her disposition, that she is considered and treated in the castle rather
+      as the sister of the proprietor, than as a dependent upon his charity.
+      Indeed, it is impossible for any one to see her without being deeply
+      interested by the ingenuity, liveliness, and sweetness of her
+      disposition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, my lord,&rdquo; said Anderson, smiling; &ldquo;there is danger in such
+      violent commendations. Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, as your lordship describes him,
+      would prove no very safe rival.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! pooh!&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, laughing, yet blushing at the same time;
+      &ldquo;Allan is not accessible to the passion of love; and for myself,&rdquo; said he,
+      more gravely; &ldquo;Annot&rsquo;s unknown birth is a sufficient reason against
+      serious designs, and her unprotected state precludes every other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is spoken like yourself, my lord,&rdquo; said Anderson.&mdash;&ldquo;But I trust
+      you will proceed with your interesting story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is wellnigh finished,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;I have only to add, that
+      from the great strength and courage of Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, from his energetic
+      and uncontrollable disposition, and from an opinion generally entertained
+      and encouraged by himself that he holds communion with supernatural
+      beings, and can predict future events, the clan pay a much greater degree
+      of deference to him than even to his brother, who is a bold-hearted
+      rattling Highlander, but with nothing which can possibly rival the
+      extraordinary character of his younger brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such a character,&rdquo; said Anderson, &ldquo;cannot but have the deepest effect on
+      the minds of a Highland host. We must secure Allan, my lord, at all
+      events. What between his bravery and his second sight&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;that owl is awaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you talk of the second sight, or DEUTERO-SCOPIA?&rdquo; said the soldier; &ldquo;I
+      remember memorable Major Munro telling me how Murdoch Mackenzie, born in
+      Assint, a private gentleman in a company, and a pretty soldier, foretold
+      the death of Donald Tough, a Lochaber man, and certain other persons, as
+      well as the hurt of the major himself at a sudden onfall at the siege of
+      Trailsund.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have often heard of this faculty,&rdquo; observed Anderson, &ldquo;but I have
+      always thought those pretending to it were either enthusiasts or
+      impostors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be loath,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;to apply either character to my
+      kinsman, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay. He has shown on many occasions too much acuteness
+      and sense, of which you this night had an instance, for the character of
+      an enthusiast; and his high sense of honour, and manliness of disposition,
+      free him from the charge of imposture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship, then,&rdquo; said Anderson, &ldquo;is a believer in his supernatural
+      attributes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means,&rdquo; said the young nobleman; &ldquo;I think that he persuades himself
+      that the predictions which are, in reality, the result of judgment and
+      reflection, are supernatural impressions on his mind, just as fanatics
+      conceive the workings of their own imagination to be divine inspiration&mdash;at
+      least, if this will not serve you, Anderson, I have no better explanation
+      to give; and it is time we were all asleep after the toilsome journey of
+      the day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Coming events cast their shadows before.&mdash;CAMPBELL.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At an early hour in the morning the guests of the castle sprung from their
+      repose; and, after a moment&rsquo;s private conversation with his attendants,
+      Lord Menteith addressed the soldier, who was seated in a corner burnishing
+      his corslet with rot-stone and chamois-leather, while he hummed the old
+      song in honour of the victorious Gustavus Adolphus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     When cannons are roaring, and bullets are flying,
+     The lad that would have honour, boys, must never fear dying.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;the time is come that we must
+      part, or become comrades in service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not before breakfast, I hope?&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have thought,&rdquo; replied his lordship, &ldquo;that your garrison was
+      victualled for three days at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have still some stowage left for beef and bannocks,&rdquo; said the Captain;
+      &ldquo;and I never miss a favourable opportunity of renewing my supplies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;no judicious commander allows either flags of
+      truce or neutrals to remain in his camp longer than is prudent; and
+      therefore we must know your mind exactly, according to which you shall
+      either have a safe-conduct to depart in peace, or be welcome to remain
+      with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;that being the case, I will not attempt to
+      protract the capitulation by a counterfeited parley, (a thing excellently
+      practised by Sir James Ramsay at the siege of Hannau, in the year of God
+      1636,) but I will frankly own, that if I like your pay as well as your
+      provant and your company, I care not how soon I take the oath to your
+      colours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our pay,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;must at present be small, since it is paid
+      out of the common stock raised by the few amongst us who can command some
+      funds&mdash;As major and adjutant, I dare not promise Captain Dalgetty
+      more than half a dollar a-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil take all halves and quarters!&rdquo; said the Captain; &ldquo;were it in my
+      option, I could no more consent to the halving of that dollar, than the
+      woman in the Judgment of Solomon to the disseverment of the child of her
+      bowels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The parallel will scarce hold, Captain Dalgetty, for I think you would
+      rather consent to the dividing of the dollar, than give it up entire to
+      your competitor. However, in the way of arrears, I may promise you the
+      other half-dollar at the end of the campaign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! these arrearages!&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;that are always promised,
+      and always go for nothing! Spain, Austria, and Sweden, all sing one song.
+      Oh! long life to the Hoganmogans! if they were no officers of soldiers,
+      they were good paymasters.&mdash;And yet, my lord, if I could but be made
+      certiorate that my natural hereditament of Drumthwacket had fallen into
+      possession of any of these loons of Covenanters, who could be, in the
+      event of our success, conveniently made a traitor of, I have so much value
+      for that fertile and pleasant spot, that I would e&rsquo;en take on with you for
+      the campaign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can resolve Captain Dalgetty&rsquo;s question,&rdquo; said Sibbald, Lord Menteith&rsquo;s
+      second attendant; &ldquo;for if his estate of Drumthwacket be, as I conceive,
+      the long waste moor so called, that lies five miles south of Aberdeen, I
+      can tell him it was lately purchased by Elias Strachan, as rank a rebel as
+      ever swore the Covenant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The crop-eared hound!&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, in a rage; &ldquo;What the devil
+      gave him the assurance to purchase the inheritance of a family of four
+      hundred years standing?&mdash;CYNTHIUS AUREM VELLET, as we used to say at
+      Mareschal-College; that is to say, I will pull him out of my father&rsquo;s
+      house by the ears. And so, my Lord Menteith, I am yours, hand and sword,
+      body and soul, till death do us part, or to the end of the next campaign,
+      whichever event shall first come to pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; said the young nobleman, &ldquo;rivet the bargain with a month&rsquo;s pay in
+      advance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is more than necessary,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, pocketing the money however.
+      &ldquo;But now I must go down, look after my war-saddle and abuilziements, and
+      see that Gustavus has his morning, and tell him we have taken new
+      service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There goes your precious recruit,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith to Anderson, as the
+      Captain left the room; &ldquo;I fear we shall have little credit of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a man of the times, however,&rdquo; said Anderson; &ldquo;and without such we
+      should hardly be able to carry on our enterprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go down,&rdquo; answered Lord Menteith, &ldquo;and see how our muster is
+      likely to thrive, for I hear a good deal of bustle in the castle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they entered the hall, the domestics keeping modestly in the
+      background, morning greetings passed between Lord Menteith, Angus M&rsquo;Aulay,
+      and his English guests, while Allan, occupying the same settle which he
+      had filled the preceding evening, paid no attention whatever to any one.
+      Old Donald hastily rushed into the apartment. &ldquo;A message from Vich Alister
+      More; [The patronymic of MacDonell of Glengarry.] he is coming up in the
+      evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With how many attendants?&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some five-and-twenty or thirty,&rdquo; said Donald, &ldquo;his ordinary retinue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shake down plenty of straw in the great barn,&rdquo; said the Laird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another servant here stumbled hastily in, announcing the expected approach
+      of Sir Hector M&rsquo;Lean, &ldquo;who is arriving with a large following.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put them in the malt-kiln,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay; &ldquo;and keep the breadth of the
+      middenstead between them and the M&rsquo;Donalds; they are but unfriends to each
+      other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Donald now re-entered, his visage considerably lengthened&mdash;&ldquo;The
+      tell&rsquo;s i&rsquo; the folk,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the haill Hielands are asteer, I think.
+      Evan Dhu, of Lochiel, will be here in an hour, with Lord kens how many
+      gillies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Into the great barn with them beside the M&rsquo;Donalds,&rdquo; said the Laird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More and more chiefs were announced, the least of whom would have
+      accounted it derogatory to his dignity to stir without a retinue of six or
+      seven persons. To every new annunciation, Angus M&rsquo;Aulay answered by naming
+      some place of accommodation,&mdash;the stables, the loft, the cow-house,
+      the sheds, every domestic office, were destined for the night to some
+      hospitable purpose or other. At length the arrival of M&rsquo;Dougal of Lorn,
+      after all his means of accommodation were exhausted, reduced him to some
+      perplexity. &ldquo;What the devil is to be done, Donald?&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;the great
+      barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads and thraws; but there
+      would be drawn dirks amang them which should lie upper-most, and so we
+      should have bloody puddings before morning!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What needs all this?&rdquo; said Allan, starting up, and coming forward with
+      the stern abruptness of his usual manner; &ldquo;are the Gael to-day of softer
+      flesh or whiter blood than their fathers were? Knock the head out of a
+      cask of usquebae; let that be their night-gear&mdash;their plaids their
+      bed-clothes&mdash;the blue sky their canopy, and the heather their couch.&mdash;Come
+      a thousand more, and they would not quarrel on the broad heath for want of
+      room!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Allan is right,&rdquo; said his brother; &ldquo;it is very odd how Allan, who,
+      between ourselves,&rdquo; said he to Musgrave, &ldquo;is a little wowf, [WOWF, i.e.
+      crazed.] seems at times to have more sense than us all put together.
+      Observe him now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continued Allan, fixing his eyes with a ghastly stare upon the
+      opposite side of the hall, &ldquo;they may well begin as they are to end; many a
+      man will sleep this night upon the heath, that when the Martinmas wind
+      shalt blow shall lie there stark enough, and reck little of cold or lack
+      of covering.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not forespeak us, brother,&rdquo; said Angus; &ldquo;that is not lucky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what luck is it then that you expect?&rdquo; said Allan; and straining his
+      eyes until they almost started from their sockets, he fell with a
+      convulsive shudder into the arms of Donald and his brother, who, knowing
+      the nature of his fits, had come near to prevent his fall. They seated him
+      upon a bench, and supported him until he came to himself, and was about to
+      speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake, Allan,&rdquo; said his brother, who knew the impression his
+      mystical words were likely to make on many of the guests, &ldquo;say nothing to
+      discourage us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I he who discourages you?&rdquo; said Allan; &ldquo;let every man face his world
+      as I shall face mine. That which must come, will come; and we shall stride
+      gallantly over many a field of victory, ere we reach yon fatal
+      slaughter-place, or tread yon sable scaffolds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What slaughter-place? what scaffolds?&rdquo; exclaimed several voices; for
+      Allan&rsquo;s renown as a seer was generally established in the Highlands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will know that but too soon,&rdquo; answered Allan. &ldquo;Speak to me no more, I
+      am weary of your questions.&rdquo; He then pressed his hand against his brow,
+      rested his elbow upon his knee, and sunk into a deep reverie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send for Annot Lyle, and the harp,&rdquo; said Angus, in a whisper, to his
+      servant; &ldquo;and let those gentlemen follow me who do not fear a Highland
+      breakfast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All accompanied their hospitable landlord excepting only Lord Menteith,
+      who lingered in one of the deep embrasures formed by the windows of the
+      hall. Annot Lyle shortly after glided into the room, not ill described by
+      Lord Menteith as being the lightest and most fairy figure that ever trode
+      the turf by moonlight. Her stature, considerably less than the ordinary
+      size of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth, insomuch, that
+      although she was near eighteen, she might have passed for four years
+      younger. Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed upon a model of
+      exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of her person, so that
+      Titania herself could scarce have found a more fitting representative. Her
+      hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed flaxen, whose
+      clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair complexion, and with
+      the playful, yet simple, expression of her features. When we add to these
+      charms, that Annot, in her orphan state, seemed the gayest and happiest of
+      maidens, the reader must allow us to claim for her the interest of almost
+      all who looked on her. In fact, it was impossible to find a more universal
+      favourite, and she often came among the rude inhabitants of the castle, as
+      Allan himself, in a poetical mood, expressed it, &ldquo;like a sunbeam on a
+      sullen sea,&rdquo; communicating to all others the cheerfulness that filled her
+      own mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot, such as we have described her, smiled and blushed, when, on
+      entering the apartment, Lord Menteith came from his place of retirement,
+      and kindly wished her good-morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And good-morning to you, my lord,&rdquo; returned she, extending her hand to
+      her friend; &ldquo;we have seldom seen you of late at the castle, and now I fear
+      it is with no peaceful purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least, let me not interrupt your harmony, Annot,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith,
+      &ldquo;though my arrival may breed discord elsewhere. My cousin Allan needs the
+      assistance of your voice and music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My preserver,&rdquo; said Annot Lyle, &ldquo;has a right to my poor exertions; and
+      you, too, my lord,&mdash;you, too, are my preserver, and were the most
+      active to save a life that is worthless enough, unless it can benefit my
+      protectors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, she sate down at a little distance upon the bench on which
+      Allan M&rsquo;Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about
+      thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice. The air was an
+      ancient Gaelic melody, and the words, which were supposed to be very old,
+      were in the same language; but we subjoin a translation of them, by
+      Secundus Macpherson, Esq. of Glenforgen, which, although submitted to the
+      fetters of English rhythm, we trust will be found nearly as genuine as the
+      version of Ossian by his celebrated namesake.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Birds of omen dark and foul,
+     Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
+     Leave the sick man to his dream&mdash;
+     All night long he heard your scream&mdash;
+     Haste to cave and ruin&rsquo;d tower,
+     Ivy, tod, or dingled bower,
+     There to wink and mope, for, hark!
+     In the mid air sings the lark.
+
+     &ldquo;Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
+     Prowling wolf and wily fox,&mdash;
+     Hie you fast, nor turn your view,
+     Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
+     Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
+     Safety parts with parting night;
+     And on distant echo borne,
+     Comes the hunter&rsquo;s early horn.
+
+     &ldquo;The moon&rsquo;s wan crescent scarcely gleams,
+     Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
+     Hie hence each peevish imp and fay,
+     That scare the pilgrim on his way:&mdash;
+     Quench, kelpy!  quench, in bog and fen,
+     Thy torch that cheats benighted men;
+     Thy dance is o&rsquo;er, thy reign is done,
+     For Benyieglo hath seen the sun.
+
+     &ldquo;Wild thoughts, that, sinful, dark, and deep,
+     O&rsquo;erpower the passive mind in sleep,
+     Pass from the slumberer&rsquo;s soul away,
+     Like night-mists from the brow of day:
+     Foul hag, whose blasted visage grim
+     Smothers the pulse, unnerves the limb,
+     Spur thy dark palfrey, and begone!
+     Thou darest not face the godlike sun.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      As the strain proceeded, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay gradually gave signs of recovering
+      his presence of mind, and attention to the objects around him. The
+      deep-knit furrows of his brow relaxed and smoothed themselves; and the
+      rest of his features, which had seemed contorted with internal agony,
+      relapsed into a more natural state. When he raised his head and sat
+      upright, his countenance, though still deeply melancholy, was divested of
+      its wildness and ferocity; and in its composed state, although by no means
+      handsome, the expression of his features was striking, manly, and even
+      noble. His thick, brown eyebrows, which had hitherto been drawn close
+      together, were now slightly separated, as in the natural state; and his
+      grey eyes, which had rolled and flashed from under them with an unnatural
+      and portentous gleam, now recovered a steady and determined expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God!&rdquo; he said, after sitting silent for about a minute, until the
+      very last sounds of the harp had ceased to vibrate, &ldquo;my soul is no longer
+      darkened&mdash;the mist hath passed from my spirit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You owe thanks, cousin Allan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, coming forward, &ldquo;to
+      Annot Lyle, as well as to heaven, for this happy change in your melancholy
+      mood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My noble cousin Menteith,&rdquo; said Allan, rising and greeting him very
+      respectfully, as well as kindly, &ldquo;has known my unhappy circumstances so
+      long, that his goodness will require no excuse for my being thus late in
+      bidding him welcome to the castle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are too old acquaintances, Allan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;and too good
+      friends, to stand on the ceremonial of outward greeting; but half the
+      Highlands will be here to-day, and you know, with our mountain Chiefs,
+      ceremony must not be neglected. What will you give little Annot for making
+      you fit company to meet Evan Dhu, and I know not how many bonnets and
+      feathers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What will he give me?&rdquo; said Annot, smiling; &ldquo;nothing less, I hope, than
+      the best ribbon at the Fair of Doune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Fair of Doune, Annot?&rdquo; said Allan sadly; &ldquo;there will be bloody work
+      before that day, and I may never see it; but you have well reminded me of
+      what I have long intended to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having said this, he left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should he talk long in this manner,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;you must keep
+      your harp in tune, my dear Annot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not,&rdquo; said Annot, anxiously; &ldquo;this fit has been a long one, and
+      probably will not soon return. It is fearful to see a mind, naturally
+      generous and affectionate, afflicted by this constitutional malady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke in a low and confidential tone, Lord Menteith naturally drew
+      close, and stooped forward, that he might the better catch the sense of
+      what she said. When Allan suddenly entered the apartment, they as
+      naturally drew back from each other with a manner expressive of
+      consciousness, as if surprised in a conversation which they wished to keep
+      secret from him. This did not escape Allan&rsquo;s observation; he stopt short
+      at the door of the apartment&mdash;his brows were contracted&mdash;his
+      eyes rolled; but it was only the paroxysm of a moment. He passed his broad
+      sinewy hand across his brow, as if to obliterate these signs of emotion,
+      and advanced towards Annot, holding in his hand a very small box made of
+      oakwood, curiously inlaid. &ldquo;I take you to witness,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;cousin
+      Menteith, that I give this box and its contents to Annot Lyle. It contains
+      a few ornaments that belonged to my poor mother&mdash;of trifling value,
+      you may guess, for the wife of a Highland laird has seldom a rich
+      jewel-casket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But these ornaments,&rdquo; said Annot Lyle, gently and timidly refusing the
+      box, &ldquo;belong to the family&mdash;I cannot accept&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They belong to me alone, Annot,&rdquo; said Allan, interrupting her; &ldquo;they were
+      my mother&rsquo;s dying bequest. They are all I can call my own, except my plaid
+      and my claymore. Take them, therefore&mdash;they are to me valueless
+      trinkets&mdash;and keep them for my sake&mdash;should I never return from
+      these wars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he opened the case, and presented it to Annot. &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said he,
+      &ldquo;they are of any value, dispose of them for your own support, when this
+      house has been consumed with hostile fire, and can no longer afford you
+      protection. But keep one ring in memory of Allan, who has done, to requite
+      your kindness, if not all he wished, at least all he could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle endeavoured in vain to restrain the gathering tears, when she
+      said, &ldquo;ONE ring, Allan, I will accept from you as a memorial of your
+      goodness to a poor orphan, but do not press me to take more; for I cannot,
+      and will not, accept a gift of such disproportioned value.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make your choice, then,&rdquo; said Allan; &ldquo;your delicacy may be well founded;
+      the others will assume a shape in which they may be more useful to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think not of it,&rdquo; said Annot, choosing from the contents of the casket a
+      ring, apparently the most trifling in value which it contained; &ldquo;keep them
+      for your own, or your brother&rsquo;s bride.&mdash;But, good heavens!&rdquo; she said,
+      interrupting herself, and looking at the ring, &ldquo;what is this that I have
+      chosen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan hastened to look upon it, with eyes of gloomy apprehension; it bore,
+      in enamel, a death&rsquo;s head above two crossed daggers. When Allan recognised
+      the device, he uttered a sigh so deep, that she dropped the ring from her
+      hand, which rolled upon the floor. Lord Menteith picked it up, and
+      returned it to the terrified Annot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take God to witness,&rdquo; said Allan, in a solemn tone, &ldquo;that your hand,
+      young lord, and not mine, has again delivered to her this ill-omened gift.
+      It was the mourning ring worn by my mother in memorial of her murdered
+      brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear no omens,&rdquo; said Annot, smiling through her tears; &ldquo;and nothing
+      coming through the hands of my two patrons,&rdquo; so she was wont to call Lord
+      Menteith and Allan, &ldquo;can bring bad luck to the poor orphan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put the ring on her finger, and, turning to her harp, sung, to a
+      lively air, the following verses of one of the fashionable songs of the
+      period, which had found its way, marked as it was with the quaint
+      hyperbolical taste of King Charles&rsquo;s time, from some court masque to the
+      wilds of Perthshire:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Gaze not upon the stars, fond sage,
+     In them no influence lies;
+     To read the fate of youth or age,
+     Look on my Helen&rsquo;s eyes.
+
+     &ldquo;Yet, rash astrologer, refrain!
+     Too dearly would be won
+     The prescience of another&rsquo;s pain,
+     If purchased by thine own.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is right, Allan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;and this end of an old song is
+      worth all we shall gain by our attempt to look into futurity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is WRONG, my lord,&rdquo; said Allan, sternly, &ldquo;though you, who treat with
+      lightness the warnings I have given you, may not live to see the event of
+      the omen.&mdash;laugh not so scornfully,&rdquo; he added, interrupting himself
+      &ldquo;or rather laugh on as loud and as long as you will; your term of laughter
+      will find a pause ere long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I care not for your visions, Allan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;however short
+      my span of life, the eye of no Highland seer can see its termination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For heaven&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; said Annot Lyle, interrupting him, &ldquo;you know his
+      nature, and how little he can endure&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fear me not,&rdquo; said Allan, interrupting her,&mdash;&ldquo;my mind is now
+      constant and calm.&mdash;But for you, young lord,&rdquo; said he, turning to
+      Lord Menteith, &ldquo;my eye has sought you through fields of battle, where
+      Highlanders and Lowlanders lay strewed as thick as ever the rooks sat on
+      those ancient trees,&rdquo; pointing to a rookery which was seen from the window&mdash;&ldquo;my
+      eye sought you, but your corpse was not there&mdash;my eye sought you
+      among a train of unresisting and disarmed captives, drawn up within the
+      bounding walls of an ancient and rugged fortress;&mdash;flash after flash&mdash;platoon
+      after platoon&mdash;the hostile shot fell amongst them, They dropped like
+      the dry leaves in autumn, but you were not among their ranks;&mdash;scaffolds
+      were prepared&mdash;blocks were arranged, saw-dust was spread&mdash;the
+      priest was ready with his book, the headsman with his axe&mdash;but there,
+      too, mine eye found you not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gibbet, then, I suppose, must be my doom?&rdquo; said Lord Menteith. &ldquo;Yet I
+      wish they had spared me the halter, were it but for the dignity of the
+      peerage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke this scornfully, yet not without a sort of curiosity, and a wish
+      to receive an answer; for the desire of prying into futurity frequently
+      has some influence even on the minds of those who disavow all belief in
+      the possibility of such predictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your rank, my lord, will suffer no dishonour in your person, or by the
+      manner of your death. Three times have I seen a Highlander plant his dirk
+      in your bosom&mdash;and such will be your fate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you would describe him to me,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;and I shall
+      save him the trouble of fulfilling your prophecy, if his plaid be passible
+      to sword or pistol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your weapons,&rdquo; said Allan, &ldquo;would avail you little; nor can I give you
+      the information you desire. The face of the vision has been ever averted
+      from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it then,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;and let it rest in the uncertainty
+      in which your augury has placed it. I shall dine not the less merrily
+      among plaids, and dirks, and kilts to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be so,&rdquo; said Allan; &ldquo;and, it may be, you do well to enjoy these
+      moments, which to me are poisoned by auguries of future evil. But I,&rdquo; he
+      continued&mdash;&ldquo;I repeat to you, that this weapon&mdash;that is, such a
+      weapon as this,&rdquo; touching the hilt of the dirk which he wore, &ldquo;carries
+      your fate.&rdquo; &ldquo;In the meanwhile,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;you, Allan, have
+      frightened the blood from the cheeks of Annot Lyle&mdash;let us leave this
+      discourse, my friend, and go to see what we both understand,&mdash;the
+      progress of our military preparations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They joined Angus M&rsquo;Aulay and his English guests, and, in the military
+      discussions which immediately took place, Allan showed a clearness of
+      mind, strength of judgment, and precision of thought, totally inconsistent
+      with the mystical light in which his character has been hitherto
+      exhibited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     When Albin her claymore indignantly draws,
+     When her bonneted chieftains around her shall crowd,
+     Clan-Ranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
+     All plaided and plumed in their tartan array&mdash;LOCHEIL&rsquo;S WARNING.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Whoever saw that morning, the Castle of Darnlinvarach, beheld a busy and a
+      gallant sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The various Chiefs, arriving with their different retinues, which,
+      notwithstanding their numbers, formed no more than their usual equipage
+      and body-guard upon occasions of solemnity, saluted the lord of the castle
+      and each other with overflowing kindness, or with haughty and distant
+      politeness, according to the circumstances of friendship or hostility in
+      which their clans had recently stood to each other. Each Chief, however
+      small his comparative importance, showed the full disposition to exact
+      from the rest the deference due to a separate and independent prince;
+      while the stronger and more powerful, divided among themselves by recent
+      contentions or ancient feuds, were constrained in policy to use great
+      deference to the feelings of their less powerful brethren, in order, in
+      case of need, to attach as many well-wishers as might be to their own
+      interest and standard. Thus the meeting of Chiefs resembled not a little
+      those ancient Diets of the Empire, where the smallest FREY-GRAF, who
+      possessed a castle perched upon a barren crag, with a few hundred acres
+      around it, claimed the state and honours of a sovereign prince, and a seat
+      according to his rank among the dignitaries of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The followers of the different leaders were separately arranged and
+      accommodated, as room and circumstances best permitted, each retaining
+      however his henchman, who waited, close as the shadow, upon his person, to
+      execute whatever might be required by his patron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exterior of the castle afforded a singular scene. The Highlanders,
+      from different islands, glens, and straths, eyed each other at a distance
+      with looks of emulation, inquisitive curiosity, or hostile malevolence;
+      but the most astounding part of the assembly, at least to a Lowland ear,
+      was the rival performance of the bagpipers. These warlike minstrels, who
+      had the highest opinion, each, of the superiority of his own tribe, joined
+      to the most overweening idea of the importance connected with his
+      profession, at first, performed their various pibrochs in front each of
+      his own clan. At length, however, as the black-cocks towards the end of
+      the season, when, in sportsman&rsquo;s language, they are said to flock or
+      crowd, attracted together by the sound of each others&rsquo; triumphant crow,
+      even so did the pipers, swelling their plaids and tartans in the same
+      triumphant manner in which the birds ruffle up their feathers, begin to
+      approach each other within such distance as might give to their brethren a
+      sample of their skill. Walking within a short interval, and eyeing each
+      other with looks in which self-importance and defiance might be traced,
+      they strutted, puffed, and plied their screaming instruments, each playing
+      his own favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had
+      lain buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the dead to
+      run out of hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chieftains meanwhile had assembled in close conclave in the great hall
+      of the castle. Among them were the persons of the greatest consequence in
+      the Highlands, some of them attracted by zeal for the royal cause, and
+      many by aversion to that severe and general domination which the Marquis
+      of Argyle, since his rising to such influence in the state, had exercised
+      over his Highland neighbours. That statesman, indeed, though possessed of
+      considerable abilities, and great power, had failings, which rendered him
+      unpopular among the Highland chiefs. The devotion which he professed was
+      of a morose and fanatical character; his ambition appeared to be
+      insatiable, and inferior chiefs complained of his want of bounty and
+      liberality. Add to this, that although a Highlander, and of a family
+      distinguished for valour before and since, Gillespie Grumach [GRUMACH&mdash;ill-favored.]
+      (which, from an obliquity in his eyes, was the personal distinction he
+      bore in the Highlands, where titles of rank are unknown) was suspected of
+      being a better man in the cabinet than in the field. He and his tribe were
+      particularly obnoxious to the M&rsquo;Donalds and the M&rsquo;Leans, two numerous
+      septs, who, though disunited by ancient feuds, agreed in an intense
+      dislike to the Campbells, or, as they were called, the Children of
+      Diarmid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some time the assembled Chiefs remained silent, until some one should
+      open the business of the meeting. At length one of the most powerful of
+      them commenced the diet by saying,&mdash;&ldquo;We have been summoned hither,
+      M&rsquo;Aulay, to consult of weighty matters concerning the King&rsquo;s affairs, and
+      those of the state; and we crave to know by whom they are to be explained
+      to us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M&rsquo;Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his wish that
+      Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great modesty,
+      and at the same time with spirit, that young lord said, &ldquo;he wished what he
+      was about to propose had come from some person of better known and more
+      established character. Since, however, it lay with him to be spokesman, he
+      had to state to the Chiefs assembled, that those who wished to throw off
+      the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to wreath round their
+      necks, had not a moment to lose. &lsquo;The Covenanters,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;after
+      having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having extorted from him
+      every request, reasonable or unreasonable, which they thought proper to
+      demand&mdash;after their Chiefs had been loaded with dignities and favours&mdash;after
+      having publicly declared, when his Majesty, after a gracious visit to the
+      land of his nativity, was upon his return to England, that he returned a
+      contented king from a contented people,&mdash;after all this, and without
+      even the pretext for a national grievance, the same men have, upon doubts
+      and suspicions, equally dishonourable to the King, and groundless in
+      themselves, detached a strong army to assist his rebels in England, in a
+      quarrel with which Scotland had no more to do than she has with the wars
+      in Germany. It was well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that the eagerness with which this
+      treasonable purpose was pursued, had blinded the junta who now usurped the
+      government of Scotland to the risk which they were about to incur. The
+      army which they had dispatched to England under old Leven comprehended
+      their veteran soldiers, the strength of those armies which had been levied
+      in Scotland during the two former wars&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Captain Dalgetty endeavoured to rise, for the purpose of explaining
+      how many veteran officers, trained in the German wars, were, to his
+      certain knowledge, in the army of the Earl of Leven. But Allan M&rsquo;Aulay
+      holding him down in his seat with one hand, pressed the fore-finger of the
+      other upon his own lips, and, though with some difficulty, prevented his
+      interference. Captain Dalgetty looked upon him with a very scornful and
+      indignant air, by which the other&rsquo;s gravity was in no way moved, and Lord
+      Menteith proceeded without farther interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The moment,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;was most favourable for all true-hearted and loyal
+      Scotchmen to show, that the reproach their country had lately undergone
+      arose from the selfish ambition of a few turbulent and seditious men,
+      joined to the absurd fanaticism which, disseminated from five hundred
+      pulpits, had spread like a land-flood over the Lowlands of Scotland. He
+      had letters from the Marquis of Huntly in the north, which he should show
+      to the Chiefs separately. That nobleman, equally loyal and powerful was
+      determined to exert his utmost energy in the common cause, and the
+      powerful Earl of Seaforth was prepared to join the same standard. From the
+      Earl of Airly, and the Ogilvies in Angusshire, he had had communications
+      equally decided; and there was no doubt that these, who, with the Hays,
+      Leiths, Burnets, and other loyal gentlemen, would be soon on horseback,
+      would form a body far more than sufficient to overawe the northern
+      Covenanters, who had already experienced their valour in the well-known
+      rout which was popularly termed the Trot of Turiff. South of Forth and
+      Tay,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the King had many friends, who, oppressed by enforced
+      oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy taxes, unjustly imposed and unequally
+      levied, by the tyranny of the Committee of Estates, and the inquisitorial
+      insolence of the Presbyterian divines, waited but the waving of the royal
+      banner to take up arms. Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh, Hume, all friendly to
+      the royal cause, would counterbalance,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the covenanting interest
+      in the south; and two gentlemen, of name and quality, here present, from
+      the north of England, would answer for the zeal of Cumberland,
+      Westmoreland, and Northumberland. Against so many gallant gentlemen the
+      southern Covenanters could but arm raw levies; the Whigamores of the
+      western shires, and the ploughmen and mechanics of the Low-country. For
+      the West Highlands, he knew no interest which the Covenanters possessed
+      there, except that of one individual, as well known as he was odious. But
+      was there a single man, who, on casting his eye round this hall, and
+      recognising the power, the gallantry, and the dignity of the chiefs
+      assembled, could entertain a moment&rsquo;s doubt of their success against the
+      utmost force which Gillespie Grumach could collect against them? He had
+      only farther to add, that considerable funds, both of money and
+      ammunition, had been provided for the army&rdquo;&mdash;(Here Dalgetty pricked
+      up his ears)&mdash;&ldquo;that officers of ability and experience in the foreign
+      wars, one of whom was now present,&rdquo; (the Captain drew himself up, and
+      looked round,) &ldquo;had engaged to train such levies as might require to be
+      disciplined;&mdash;and that a numerous body of auxiliary forces from
+      Ireland, having been detached from the Earl of Antrim, from Ulster, had
+      successfully accomplished their descent upon the main land, and, with the
+      assistance of Clanranald&rsquo;s people, having taken and fortified the Castle
+      of Mingarry, in spite of Argyle&rsquo;s attempts to intercept them, were in full
+      march to this place of rendezvous. It only remained,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that the
+      noble Chiefs assembled, laying aside every lesser consideration, should
+      unite, heart and hand, in the common cause; send the fiery cross through
+      their clans, in order to collect their utmost force, and form their
+      junction with such celerity as to leave the enemy no time, either for
+      preparation, or recovery from the panic which would spread at the first
+      sound of their pibroch. He himself,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;though neither among the
+      richest nor the most powerful of the Scottish nobility, felt that he had
+      to support the dignity of an ancient and honourable house, the
+      independence of an ancient and honourable nation, and to that cause he was
+      determined to devote both life and fortune. If those who were more
+      powerful were equally prompt, he trusted they would deserve the thanks of
+      their King, and the gratitude of posterity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud applause followed this speech of Lord Menteith, and testified the
+      general acquiescence of all present in the sentiments which he had
+      expressed; but when the shout had died away, the assembled Chiefs
+      continued to gaze upon each other as if something yet remained to be
+      settled. After some whispers among themselves, an aged man, whom his grey
+      hairs rendered respectable, although he was not of the highest order of
+      Chiefs, replied to what had been said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thane of Menteith,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have well spoken; nor is there one of
+      us in whose bosom the same sentiments do not burn like fire. But it is not
+      strength alone that wins the fight; it is the head of the commander, as
+      well as the arm of the soldier, that brings victory. I ask of you who is
+      to raise and sustain the banner under which we are invited to rise and
+      muster ourselves? Will it be expected that we should risk our children,
+      and the flower of our kinsmen, ere we know to whose guidance they are to
+      be intrusted? This were leading those to slaughter, whom, by the laws of
+      God and man, it is our duty to protect. Where is the royal commission,
+      under which the lieges are to be convocated in arms? Simple and rude as we
+      may be deemed, we know something of the established rules of war, as well
+      as of the laws of our country; nor will we arm ourselves against the
+      general peace of Scotland, unless by the express commands of the King, and
+      under a leader fit to command such men as are here assembled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where would you find such a leader,&rdquo; said another Chief, starting up,
+      &ldquo;saving the representative of the Lord of the Isles, entitled by birth and
+      hereditary descent to lead forth the array of every clan of the Highlands;
+      and where is that dignity lodged, save in the house of Vich Alister More?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I acknowledge,&rdquo; said another Chief, eagerly interrupting the speaker,
+      &ldquo;the truth in what has been first said, but not the inference. If Vich
+      Alister More desires to be held representative of the Lord of the Isles,
+      let him first show his blood is redder than mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is soon tried,&rdquo; said Vich Alister More, laying his hand upon the
+      basket hilt of his claymore. Lord Menteith threw himself between them,
+      entreating and imploring each to remember that the interests of Scotland,
+      the liberty of their country, and the cause of their King, ought to be
+      superior in their eyes to any personal disputes respecting descent, rank,
+      and precedence. Several of the Highland Chiefs, who had no desire to admit
+      the claims of either chieftain, interfered to the same purpose, and none
+      with more emphasis than the celebrated Evan Dhu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come from my lakes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;as a stream descends from the
+      hills, not to turn again, but to accomplish my course. It is not by
+      looking back to our own pretensions that we shall serve Scotland or King
+      Charles. My voice shall be for that general whom the King shall name, who
+      will doubtless possess those qualities which are necessary to command men
+      like us. High-born he must be, or we shall lose our rank in obeying him&mdash;wise
+      and skilful, or we shall endanger the safety of our people&mdash;bravest
+      among the brave, or we shall peril our own honour&mdash;temperate, firm,
+      and manly, to keep us united. Such is the man that must command us. Are
+      you prepared, Thane of Menteith, to say where such a general is to be
+      found?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is but ONE,&rdquo; said Allan M&rsquo;Aulay; &ldquo;and here,&rdquo; he said, laying his
+      hand upon the shoulder of Anderson, who stood behind Lord Menteith, &ldquo;here
+      he stands!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The general surprise of the meeting was expressed by an impatient murmur;
+      when Anderson, throwing back the cloak in which his face was muffled, and
+      stepping forward, spoke thus:&mdash;&ldquo;I did not long intend to be a silent
+      spectator of this interesting scene, although my hasty friend has obliged
+      me to disclose myself somewhat sooner than was my intention. Whether I
+      deserve the honour reposed in me by this parchment will best appear from
+      what I shall be able to do for the King&rsquo;s service. It is a commission
+      under the great seal, to James Graham, Earl of Montrose, to command those
+      forces which are to be assembled for the service of his Majesty in this
+      kingdom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud shout of approbation burst from the assembly. There was, in fact,
+      no other person to whom, in point of rank, these proud mountaineers would
+      have been disposed to submit. His inveterate and hereditary hostility to
+      the Marquis of Argyle insured his engaging in the war with sufficient
+      energy, while his well-known military talents, and his tried valour,
+      afforded every hope of his bringing it to a favourable conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
+     constant:  a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation:
+     an excellent plot, very good friends.&mdash;HENRY IV Part I.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the general acclamation of joyful surprise subsided, than
+      silence was eagerly demanded for reading the royal commission; and the
+      bonnets, which hitherto each Chief had worn, probably because unwilling to
+      be the first to uncover, were now at once vailed in honour of the royal
+      warrant. It was couched in the most full and ample terms, authorizing the
+      Earl of Montrose to assemble the subjects in arms, for the putting down
+      the present rebellion, which divers traitors and seditious persons had
+      levied against the King, to the manifest forfaulture, as it stated, of
+      their allegiance, and to the breach of the pacification between the two
+      kingdoms. It enjoined all subordinate authorities to be obedient and
+      assisting to Montrose in his enterprise; gave him the power of making
+      ordinances and proclamations, punishing misdemeanours, pardoning
+      criminals, placing and displacing governors and commanders. In fine, it
+      was as large and full a commission as any with which a prince could
+      intrust a subject. As soon as it was finished, a shout burst from the
+      assembled Chiefs, in testimony of their ready submission to the will of
+      their sovereign. Not contented with generally thanking them for a
+      reception so favourable, Montrose hastened to address himself to
+      individuals, The most important Chiefs had already been long personally
+      known to him, but even to those of inferior consequence he now introduced
+      himself and by the acquaintance he displayed with their peculiar
+      designations, and the circumstances and history of their clans, he showed
+      how long he must have studied the character of the mountaineers, and
+      prepared himself for such a situation as he now held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was engaged in these acts of courtesy, his graceful manner,
+      expressive features, and dignity of deportment, made a singular contrast
+      with the coarseness and meanness of his dress. Montrose possessed that
+      sort of form and face, in which the beholder, at the first glance, sees
+      nothing extraordinary, but of which the interest becomes more impressive
+      the longer we gaze upon them. His stature was very little above the middle
+      size, but in person he was uncommonly well-built, and capable both of
+      exerting great force, and enduring much fatigue. In fact, he enjoyed a
+      constitution of iron, without which he could not have sustained the trials
+      of his extraordinary campaigns, through all of which he subjected himself
+      to the hardships of the meanest soldier. He was perfect in all exercises,
+      whether peaceful or martial, and possessed, of course, that graceful ease
+      of deportment proper to those to whom habit has rendered all postures
+      easy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His long brown hair, according to the custom of men of quality among the
+      Royalists, was parted on the top of his head, and trained to hang down on
+      each side in curled locks, one of which, descending two or three inches
+      lower than the others, intimated Montrose&rsquo;s compliance with that fashion
+      against which it pleased Mr. Prynne, the puritan, to write a treatise,
+      entitled, THE UNLOVELINESS OF LOVE-LOCKS. The features which these tresses
+      enclosed, were of that kind which derive their interest from the character
+      of the man, rather than from the regularity of their form. But a high
+      nose, a full, decided, well-opened, quick grey eye, and a sanguine
+      complexion, made amends for some coarseness and irregularity in the
+      subordinate parts of the face; so that, altogether, Montrose might be
+      termed rather a handsome, than a hard-featured man. But those who saw him
+      when his soul looked through those eyes with all the energy and fire of
+      genius&mdash;those who heard him speak with the authority of talent, and
+      the eloquence of nature, were impressed with an opinion even of his
+      external form, more enthusiastically favourable than the portraits which
+      still survive would entitle us to ascribe to it. Such, at least, was the
+      impression he made upon the assembled Chiefs of the mountaineers, over
+      whom, as upon all persons in their state of society, personal appearance
+      has no small influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the discussions which followed his discovering himself, Montrose
+      explained the various risks which he had run in his present undertaking.
+      His first attempt had been to assemble a body of loyalists in the north of
+      England, who, in obedience to the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle, he
+      expected would have marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of the
+      English to cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim, who was
+      to have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army, prevented his
+      executing this design. Other plans having in like manner failed, he stated
+      that he found himself under the necessity of assuming a disguise to render
+      his passage secure through the Lowlands, in which he had been kindly
+      assisted by his kinsman of Menteith. By what means Allan M&rsquo;Aulay had come
+      to know him, he could not pretend to explain. Those who knew Allan&rsquo;s
+      prophetic pretensions, smiled mysteriously; but he himself only replied,
+      that &ldquo;the Earl of Montrose need not be surprised if he was known to
+      thousands, of whom he himself could retain no memory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the honour of a cavalier,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, finding at length an
+      opportunity to thrust in his word, &ldquo;I am proud and happy in having an
+      opportunity of drawing a sword under your lordship&rsquo;s command; and I do
+      forgive all grudge, malecontent, and malice of my heart, to Mr. Allan
+      M&rsquo;Aulay, for having thrust me down to the lowest seat of the board
+      yestreen. Certes, he hath this day spoken so like a man having full
+      command of his senses, that I had resolved in my secret purpose that he
+      was no way entitled to claim the privilege of insanity. But since I was
+      only postponed to a noble earl, my future commander-in-chief, I do, before
+      you all, recognise the justice of the preference, and heartily salute
+      Allan as one who is to be his BON-CAMARADO.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made this speech, which was little understood or attended to,
+      without putting off his military glove, he seized on Allan&rsquo;s hand, and
+      began to shake it with violence, which Allan, with a gripe like a smith&rsquo;s
+      vice, returned with such force, as to drive the iron splents of the
+      gauntlet into the hand of the wearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dalgetty might have construed this into a new affront, had not his
+      attention, as he stood blowing and shaking the injured member, been
+      suddenly called by Montrose himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear this news,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Captain Dalgetty&mdash;I should say Major
+      Dalgetty,&mdash;the Irish, who are to profit by your military experience,
+      are now within a few leagues of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our deer-stalkers,&rdquo; said Angus M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;who were abroad to bring in
+      venison for this honourable party, have heard of a band of strangers,
+      speaking neither Saxon nor pure Gaelic, and with difficulty making
+      themselves understood by the people of the country, who are marching this
+      way in arms, under the leading, it is said, of Alaster M&rsquo;Donald, who is
+      commonly called Young Colkitto.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These must be our men,&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;we must hasten to send messengers
+      forward, both to act as guides and to relieve their wants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last,&rdquo; said Angus M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;will be no easy matter; for I am
+      informed, that, excepting muskets and a very little ammunition, they want
+      everything that soldiers should have; and they are particularly deficient
+      in money, in shoes, and in raiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is at least no use in saying so,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;in so loud a
+      tone. The puritan weavers of Glasgow shall provide them plenty of
+      broad-cloth, when we make a descent from the Highlands; and if the
+      ministers could formerly preach the old women of the Scottish boroughs out
+      of their webs of napery, to make tents to the fellows on Dunse Law, [The
+      Covenanters encamped on Dunse Law, during the troubles of 1639.] I will
+      try whether I have not a little interest both to make these godly dames
+      renew their patriotic gift, and the prick-eared knaves, their husbands,
+      open their purses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And respecting arms,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;if your lordship will
+      permit an old cavalier to speak his mind, so that the one-third have
+      muskets, my darling weapon would be the pike for the remainder, whether
+      for resisting a charge of horse, or for breaking the infantry. A common
+      smith will make a hundred pike-heads in a day; here is plenty of wood for
+      shafts; and I will uphold, that, according to the best usages of war, a
+      strong battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of the
+      North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx, of which
+      I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied in the ancient
+      town of Bon-accord; and further, I will venture to predicate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain&rsquo;s lecture upon tactics was here suddenly interrupted by Allan
+      M&rsquo;Aulay, who said, hastily,&mdash;&ldquo;Room for an unexpected and unwelcome
+      guest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same moment, the door of the hall opened, and a grey-haired man, of
+      a very stately appearance, presented himself to the assembly. There was
+      much dignity, and even authority, in his manner. His stature was above the
+      common size, and his looks such as were used to command. He cast a severe,
+      and almost stern glance upon the assembly of Chiefs. Those of the higher
+      rank among them returned it with scornful indifference; but some of the
+      western gentlemen of inferior power, looked as if they wished themselves
+      elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To which of this assembly,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;am I to address myself as
+      leader? or have you not fixed upon the person who is to hold an office at
+      least as perilous as it is honourable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Address yourself to me, Sir Duncan Campbell,&rdquo; said Montrose, stepping
+      forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To you!&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, with some scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&mdash;to me,&rdquo; repeated Montrose,&mdash;&ldquo;to the Earl of Montrose, if
+      you have forgot him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should now, at least,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;have had some
+      difficulty in recognising him in the disguise of a groom.&mdash;and yet I
+      might have guessed that no evil influence inferior to your lordship&rsquo;s,
+      distinguished as one who troubles Israel, could have collected together
+      this rash assembly of misguided persons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will answer unto you,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;in the manner of your own
+      Puritans. I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father&rsquo;s house. But
+      let us leave an altercation, which is of little consequence but to
+      ourselves, and hear the tidings you have brought from your Chief of
+      Argyle; for I must conclude that it is in his name that you have come to
+      this meeting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in the name of the Marquis of Argyle,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell,&mdash;&ldquo;in
+      the name of the Scottish Convention of Estates, that I demand to know the
+      meaning of this singular convocation. If it is designed to disturb the
+      peace of the country, it were but acting like neighbours, and men of
+      honour, to give us some intimation to stand upon our guard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a singular, and new state of affairs in Scotland,&rdquo; said Montrose,
+      turning from Sir Duncan Campbell to the assembly, &ldquo;when Scottish men of
+      rank and family cannot meet in the house of a common friend without an
+      inquisitorial visit and demand, on the part of our rulers, to know the
+      subject of our conference. Methinks our ancestors were accustomed to hold
+      Highland huntings, or other purposes of meeting, without asking the leave
+      either of the great M&rsquo;Callum More himself, or any of his emissaries or
+      dependents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The times have been such in Scotland,&rdquo; answered one of the Western
+      Chiefs, &ldquo;and such they will again be, when the intruders on our ancient
+      possessions are again reduced to be Lairds of Lochow instead of
+      overspreading us like a band of devouring locusts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I to understand, then,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, &ldquo;that it is against my name
+      alone that these preparations are directed? or are the race of Diarmid
+      only to be sufferers in common with the whole of the peaceful and orderly
+      inhabitants of Scotland?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would ask,&rdquo; said a wild-looking Chief, starting hastily up, &ldquo;one
+      question of the Knight of Ardenvohr, ere he proceeds farther in his daring
+      catechism.&mdash;Has he brought more than one life to this castle, that he
+      ventures to intrude among us for the purposes of insult?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;let me implore your patience; a messenger who
+      comes among us for the purpose of embassy, is entitled to freedom of
+      speech and safe-conduct. And since Sir Duncan Campbell is so pressing, I
+      care not if I inform him, for his guidance, that he is in an assembly of
+      the King&rsquo;s loyal subjects, convoked by me, in his Majesty&rsquo;s name and
+      authority, and as empowered by his Majesty&rsquo;s royal commission.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are to have, then, I presume,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;a civil war
+      in all its forms? I have been too long a soldier to view its approach with
+      anxiety; but it would have been for my Lord of Montrose&rsquo;s honour, if, in
+      this matter, he had consulted his own ambition less, and the peace of the
+      country more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those consulted their own ambition and self-interest, Sir Duncan,&rdquo;
+       answered Montrose, &ldquo;who brought the country to the pass in which it now
+      stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies which we are now
+      reluctantly about to use.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what rank among these self-seekers,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;we
+      shall assign to a noble Earl, so violently attached to the Covenant, that
+      he was the first, in 1639, to cross the Tyne, wading middle deep at the
+      head of his regiment, to charge the royal forces? It was the same, I
+      think, who imposed the Covenant upon the burgesses and colleges of
+      Aberdeen, at the point of sword and pike.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand your sneer, Sir Duncan,&rdquo; said Montrose, temperately; &ldquo;and I
+      can only add, that if sincere repentance can make amends for youthful
+      error, and for yielding to the artful representation of ambitious
+      hypocrites, I shall be pardoned for the crimes with which you taunt me. I
+      will at least endeavour to deserve forgiveness, for I am here, with my
+      sword in my hand, willing to spend the best blood of my body to make
+      amends for my error; and mortal man can do no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my lord,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, &ldquo;I shall be sorry to carry back this
+      language to the Marquis of Argyle. I had it in farther charge from the
+      Marquis, that, to prevent the bloody feuds which must necessarily follow a
+      Highland war, his lordship will be contented if terms of truce could be
+      arranged to the north of the Highland line, as there is ground enough in
+      Scotland to fight upon, without neighbours destroying each other&rsquo;s
+      families and inheritances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a peaceful proposal,&rdquo; said Montrose, smiling, &ldquo;such as it should
+      be, coming from one whose personal actions have always been more peaceful
+      than his measures. Yet, if the terms of such a truce could be equally
+      fixed, and if we can obtain security, for that, Sir Duncan, is
+      indispensable,&mdash;that your Marquis will observe these terms with
+      strict fidelity, I, for my part, should be content to leave peace behind
+      us, since we must needs carry war before us. But, Sir Duncan, you are too
+      old and experienced a soldier for us to permit you to remain in our
+      leaguer, and witness our proceedings; we shall therefore, when you have
+      refreshed yourself, recommend your speedy return to Inverary, and we shall
+      send with you a gentleman on our part to adjust the terms of the Highland
+      armistice, in case the Marquis shall be found serious in proposing such a
+      measure.&rdquo; Sir Duncan Campbell assented by a bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord of Menteith,&rdquo; continued Montrose, &ldquo;will you have the goodness to
+      attend Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, while we determine who shall
+      return with him to his Chief? M&rsquo;Aulay will permit us to request that he be
+      entertained with suitable hospitality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give orders for that,&rdquo; said Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, rising and coming
+      forward. &ldquo;I love Sir Duncan Campbell; we have been joint sufferers in
+      former days, and I do not forget it now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord of Menteith,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;I am grieved to see you,
+      at your early age, engaged in such desperate and rebellious courses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am young,&rdquo; answered Menteith, &ldquo;yet old enough to distinguish between
+      right and wrong, between loyalty and rebellion; and the sooner a good
+      course is begun, the longer and the better have I a chance of running it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you too, my friend, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, taking his hand,
+      &ldquo;must we also call each other enemies, that have been so often allied
+      against a common foe?&rdquo; Then turning round to the meeting, he said,
+      &ldquo;Farewell, gentlemen; there are so many of you to whom I wish well, that
+      your rejection of all terms of mediation gives me deep affliction. May
+      Heaven,&rdquo; he said, looking upwards, &ldquo;judge between our motives, and those
+      of the movers of this civil commotion!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;to that tribunal we all submit us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell left the hall, accompanied by Allan M&rsquo;Aulay and Lord
+      Menteith. &ldquo;There goes a true-bred Campbell,&rdquo; said Montrose, as the envoy
+      departed, &ldquo;for they are ever fair and false.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, my lord,&rdquo; said Evan Dhu; &ldquo;hereditary enemy as I am to their
+      name, I have ever found the Knight of Ardenvohr brave in war, honest in
+      peace, and true in council.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of his own disposition,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;such he is undoubtedly; but he
+      now acts as the organ or mouth-piece of his Chief, the Marquis, the
+      falsest man that ever drew breath. And, M&rsquo;Aulay,&rdquo; he continued in a
+      whisper to his host, &ldquo;lest he should make some impression upon the
+      inexperience of Menteith, or the singular disposition of your brother, you
+      had better send music into their chamber, to prevent his inveigling them
+      into any private conference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil a musician have I,&rdquo; answered M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;excepting the piper, who
+      has nearly broke his wind by an ambitious contention for superiority with
+      three of his own craft; but I can send Annot Lyle and her harp.&rdquo; And he
+      left the apartment to give orders accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the perilous
+      task of returning with Sir Duncan to Inverary. To the higher dignitaries,
+      accustomed to consider themselves upon an equality even with M&rsquo;Callum
+      More, this was an office not to be proposed; unto others who could not
+      plead the same excuse, it was altogether unacceptable. One would have
+      thought Inverary had been the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the inferior
+      chiefs showed such reluctance to approach it. After a considerable
+      hesitation, the plain reason was at length spoken out, namely, that
+      whatever Highlander should undertake an office so distasteful to M&rsquo;Callum
+      More, he would be sure to treasure the offence in his remembrance, and one
+      day or other to make him bitterly repent of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice as a mere
+      stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not ventured bluntly to
+      reject it in presence of those whom it concerned so nearly, resolved to
+      impose the danger and dignity upon Captain Dalgetty, who had neither clan
+      nor estate in the Highlands upon which the wrath of Argyle could wreak
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have a neck though,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, bluntly; &ldquo;and what if he
+      chooses to avenge himself upon that? I have known a case where an
+      honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before now. Neither did the
+      Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully at the siege of Capua,
+      although I read that they only cut off their hands and noses, put out
+      their eyes, and suffered them to depart in peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my honour Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;should the Marquis,
+      contrary to the rules of war, dare to practise any atrocity against you,
+      you may depend upon my taking such signal vengeance that all Scotland
+      shall ring of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will do but little for Dalgetty,&rdquo; returned the Captain; &ldquo;but
+      corragio! as the Spaniard says. With the Land of Promise full in view, the
+      Moor of Drumthwacket, MEA PAUPERA REGNA, as we said at Mareschal-College,
+      I will not refuse your Excellency&rsquo;s commission, being conscious it becomes
+      a cavalier of honour to obey his commander&rsquo;s orders, in defiance both of
+      gibbet and sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gallantly resolved,&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;and if you will come apart with me,
+      I will furnish you with the conditions to be laid before M&rsquo;Callum More,
+      upon which we are willing to grant him a truce for his Highland
+      dominions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these we need not trouble our readers. They were of an evasive
+      nature, calculated to meet a proposal which Montrose considered to have
+      been made only for the purpose of gaining time. When he had put Captain
+      Dalgetty in complete possession of his instructions, and when that worthy,
+      making his military obeisance, was near the door of his apartment,
+      Montrose made him a sign to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I need not remind an officer who has served under
+      the great Gustavus, that a little more is required of a person sent with a
+      flag of truce than mere discharge of his instructions, and that his
+      general will expect from him, on his return, some account of the state of
+      the enemy&rsquo;s affairs, as far as they come under his observation. In short,
+      Captain Dalgetty, you must be UN PEU CLAIR-VOYANT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ha! your Excellency,&rdquo; said the Captain, twisting his hard features
+      into an inimitable expression of cunning and intelligence, &ldquo;if they do not
+      put my head in a poke, which I have known practised upon honourable
+      soldados who have been suspected to come upon such errands as the present,
+      your Excellency may rely on a preceese narration of whatever Dugald
+      Dalgetty shall hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune there are
+      in M&rsquo;Callum More&rsquo;s pibroch, or how many checks in the sett of his plaid
+      and trews.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough,&rdquo; answered Montrose; &ldquo;farewell, Captain Dalgetty: and as they say
+      that a lady&rsquo;s mind is always expressed in her postscript, so I would have
+      you think that the most important part of your commission lies in what I
+      have last said to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual his
+      charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching mission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first care,&mdash;he
+      met Angus M&rsquo;Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been looking at his
+      horse; and, after praising his points and carriage, both united in
+      strongly dissuading the Captain from taking an animal of such value with
+      him upon his present very fatiguing journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather wild
+      tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into Argyleshire,
+      and the wretched huts or bothies where he would be condemned to pass the
+      night, and where no forage could be procured for his horse, unless he
+      could eat the stumps of old heather. In short, he pronounced it absolutely
+      impossible, that, after undertaking such a pilgrimage, the animal could be
+      in any case for military service. The Englishman strongly confirmed all
+      that Angus had said, and gave himself, body and soul, to the devil, if he
+      thought it was not an act little short of absolute murder to carry a horse
+      worth a farthing into such a waste and inhospitable desert. Captain
+      Dalgetty for an instant looked steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and
+      next at the other, and then asked them, as if in a state of indecision,
+      what they would advise him to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the hand of my father, my dear friend,&rdquo; answered M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;if you
+      leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed and sorted
+      according to his worth and quality, and that upon your happy return, you
+      will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in butter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or,&rdquo; said Sir Miles Musgrave, &ldquo;if this worthy cavalier chooses to part
+      with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part of the silver
+      candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse, which I shall be very
+      willing to transfer to his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In brief, mine honourable friends,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing
+      them both with an air of comic penetration, &ldquo;I find it would not be
+      altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember
+      the old soldier by, in case it shall please M&rsquo;Callum More to hang him up
+      at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small
+      satisfaction to me, in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier like
+      Sir Miles Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our
+      excellent landlord, should act as my executor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both hastened to protest that they had no such object, and insisted again
+      upon the impassable character of the Highland paths. Angus M&rsquo;Aulay mumbled
+      over a number of hard Gaellic names, descriptive of the difficult passes,
+      precipices, corries, and beals, through which he said the road lay to
+      Inverary, when old Donald, who had now entered, sanctioned his master&rsquo;s
+      account of these difficulties, by holding up his hands, and elevating his
+      eyes, and shaking his head, at every gruttural which M&rsquo;Aulay pronounced.
+      But all this did not move the inflexible Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My worthy friends,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;Gustavus is not new to the dangers of
+      travelling, and the mountains of Bohemia; and (no disparagement to the
+      beals and corries Mr. Angus is pleased to mention, and of which Sir Miles,
+      who never saw them, confirms the horrors,) these mountains may compete
+      with the vilest roads in Europe. In fact, my horse hath a most excellent
+      and social quality; for although he cannot pledge in my cup, yet we share
+      our loaf between us, and it will be hard if he suffers famine where cakes
+      or bannocks are to be found. And, to cut this matter short, I beseech you,
+      my good friends, to observe the state of Sir Duncan Campbell&rsquo;s palfrey,
+      which stands in that stall before us, fat and fair; and, in return for
+      your anxiety an my account, I give you my honest asseveration, that while
+      we travel the same road, both that palfrey and his rider shall lack for
+      food before either Gustavus or I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having said this he filled a large measure with corn, and walked up with
+      it to his charger, who, by his low whinnying neigh, his pricked ears, and
+      his pawing, showed how close the alliance was betwixt him and his rider.
+      Nor did he taste his corn until he had returned his master&rsquo;s caresses, by
+      licking his hands and face. After this interchange of greeting, the steed
+      began to his provender with an eager dispatch, which showed old military
+      habits; and the master, after looking on the animal with great complacency
+      for about five minutes, said,&mdash;&ldquo;Much good may it do your honest
+      heart, Gustavus;&mdash;now must I go and lay in provant myself for the
+      campaign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then departed, having first saluted the Englishman and Angus M&rsquo;Aulay,
+      who remained looking at each other for some time in silence, and then
+      burst out into a fit of laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That fellow,&rdquo; said Sir Miles Musgrave, &ldquo;is formed to go through the
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall think so too,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;if he can slip through M&rsquo;Callum
+      More&rsquo;s fingers as easily as he has done through ours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think,&rdquo; said the Englishman, &ldquo;that the Marquis will not respect,
+      in Captain Dalgetty&rsquo;s person, the laws of civilized war?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more than I would respect a Lowland proclamation,&rdquo; said Angus M&rsquo;Aulay.&mdash;&ldquo;But
+      come along, it is time I were returning to my guests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     . . . . In a rebellion,
+     When what&rsquo;s not meet, but what must be, was law,
+     Then were they chosen, in a better hour,
+     Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
+     And throw their power i&rsquo; the dust.&mdash;CORIOLANUS.
+In a small apartment, remote from the rest of the guests assembled at
+the castle, Sir Duncan Campbell was presented with every species of
+refreshment, and respectfully attended by Lord Menteith, and by Allan
+M&rsquo;Aulay. His discourse with the latter turned upon a sort of hunting
+campaign, in which they had been engaged together against the Children
+of the Mist, with whom the Knight of Ardenvohr, as well as the M&rsquo;Aulays,
+had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. Sir Duncan, however, speedily
+endeavoured to lead back the conversation to the subject of his present
+errand to the castle of Darnlinvarach.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It grieved him to the very heart,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to see that friends and
+      neighbours, who should stand shoulder to shoulder, were likely to be
+      engaged hand to hand in a cause which so little concerned them. What
+      signifies it,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to the Highland Chiefs, whether King or
+      Parliament got uppermost? Were it not better to let them settle their own
+      differences without interference, while the Chiefs, in the meantime, took
+      the opportunity of establishing their own authority in a manner not to be
+      called in question hereafter by either King or Parliament?&rdquo; He reminded
+      Allan M&rsquo;Aulay that the measures taken in the last reign to settle the
+      peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in fact levelled at the
+      patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentioned the celebrated
+      settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they were called, in the Lewis, as
+      part of a deliberate plan, formed to introduce strangers among the Celtic
+      tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancient customs and mode of
+      government, and to despoil them of the inheritance of their fathers. [In
+      the reign of James VI., an attempt of rather an extraordinary kind was
+      made to civilize the extreme northern part of the Hebridean Archipelago.
+      That monarch granted the property of the Island of Lewis, as if it had
+      been an unknown and savage country, to a number of Lowland gentlemen,
+      called undertakers, chiefly natives of the shire of Fife, that they might
+      colonize and settle there. The enterprise was at first successful, but the
+      natives of the island, MacLeods and MacKenzies, rose on the Lowland
+      adventurers, and put most of them to the sword.] &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; he continued,
+      addressing Allan, &ldquo;it is for the purpose of giving despotic authority to
+      the monarch by whom these designs have been nursed, that so many Highland
+      Chiefs are upon the point of quarrelling with, and drawing the sword
+      against, their neighbours, allies, and ancient confederates.&rdquo; &ldquo;It is to my
+      brother,&rdquo; said Allan, &ldquo;it is to the eldest son of my father&rsquo;s house, that
+      the Knight of Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances. I am, indeed,
+      the brother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his
+      clansmen, and bound to show an example to the others by my cheerful and
+      ready obedience to his commands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cause also,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, interposing, &ldquo;is far more general
+      than Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it. It is neither limited to
+      Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath, to Highlands nor to
+      Lowlands. The question is, if we will continue to be governed by the
+      unlimited authority assumed by a set of persons in no respect superior to
+      ourselves, instead of returning to the natural government of the Prince
+      against whom they have rebelled. And respecting the interest of the
+      Highlands in particular,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I crave Sir Duncan Campbell&rsquo;s pardon
+      for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the only effect
+      produced by the present usurpation, will be the aggrandisement of one
+      overgrown clan at the expense of every independent Chief in the
+      Highlands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not reply to you, my lord,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;because I
+      know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed; yet you will pardon
+      my saying, that being at the head of a rival branch of the House of
+      Graham, I have both read of and known an Earl of Menteith, who would have
+      disdained to have been tutored in politics, or to have been commanded in
+      war, by an Earl of Montrose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, haughtily, &ldquo;to
+      set my vanity in arms against my principles. The King gave my ancestors
+      their title and rank; and these shall never prevent my acting, in the
+      royal cause, under any one who is better qualified than myself to be a
+      commander-in-chief. Least of all, shall any miserable jealousy prevent me
+      from placing my hand and sword under the guidance of the bravest, the most
+      loyal, the most heroic spirit among our Scottish nobility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pity,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;that you cannot add to this panegyric
+      the farther epithets of the most steady, and the most consistent. But I
+      have no purpose of debating these points with you, my lord,&rdquo; waving his
+      hand, as if to avoid farther discussion; &ldquo;the die is cast with you; allow
+      me only to express my sorrow for the disastrous fate to which Angus
+      M&rsquo;Aulay&rsquo;s natural rashness, and your lordship&rsquo;s influence, are dragging my
+      gallant friend Allan here, with his father&rsquo;s clan, and many a brave man
+      besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The die is cast for us all, Sir Duncan,&rdquo; replied Allan, looking gloomy,
+      and arguing on his own hypochondriac feelings; &ldquo;the iron hand of destiny
+      branded our fate upon our forehead long ere we could form a wish, or raise
+      a finger in our own behalf. Were this otherwise, by what means does the
+      Seer ascertain the future from those shadowy presages which haunt his
+      waking and his sleeping eye? Nought can be foreseen but that which is
+      certain to happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell was about to reply, and the darkest and most contested
+      point of metaphysics might have been brought into discussion betwixt two
+      Highland disputants, when the door opened, and Annot Lyle, with her
+      clairshach in her hand, entered the apartment. The freedom of a Highland
+      maiden was in her step and in her eye; for, bred up in the closest
+      intimacy with the Laird of M&rsquo;Aulay and his brother, with Lord Menteith,
+      and other young men who frequented Darnlinvarach, she possessed none of
+      that timidity which a female, educated chiefly among her own sex, would
+      either have felt, or thought necessary to assume, on an occasion like the
+      present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her dress partook of the antique, for new fashions seldom penetrated into
+      the Highlands, nor would they easily have found their way to a castle
+      inhabited chiefly by men, whose sole occupation was war and the chase. Yet
+      Annot&rsquo;s garments were not only becoming, but even rich. Her open jacket,
+      with a high collar, was composed of blue cloth, richly embroidered, and
+      had silver clasps to fasten, when it pleased the wearer. Its sleeves,
+      which were wide, came no lower than the elbow, and terminated in a golden
+      fringe; under this upper coat, if it can be so termed, she wore an under
+      dress of blue satin, also richly embroidered, but which was several shades
+      lighter in colour than the upper garment. The petticoat was formed of
+      tartan silk, in the sett, or pattern, of which the colour of blue greatly
+      predominated, so as to remove the tawdry effect too frequently produced in
+      tartan, by the mixture and strong opposition of colours. An antique silver
+      chain hung round her neck, and supported the WREST, or key, with which she
+      turned her instrument. A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured
+      by a brooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith. Her
+      profusion of light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while, with a smile
+      and a blush, she mentioned that she had M&rsquo;Aulay&rsquo;s directions to ask them
+      if they chose music. Sir Duncan Campbell gazed with considerable surprise
+      and interest at the lovely apparition, which thus interrupted his debate
+      with Allan M&rsquo;Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can this,&rdquo; he said to him in a whisper, &ldquo;a creature so beautiful and so
+      elegant, be a domestic musician of your brother&rsquo;s establishment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means,&rdquo; answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation; &ldquo;she is
+      a&mdash;a&mdash;near relation of our family&mdash;and treated,&rdquo; he added,
+      more firmly, &ldquo;as an adopted daughter of our father&rsquo;s house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of courtesy
+      which every Highlander can assume when it suits him to practise it, he
+      resigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the same time, whatever
+      refreshments the table afforded, with an assiduity which was probably
+      designed to give Sir Duncan an impression of her rank and consequence. If
+      such was Allan&rsquo;s purpose, however, it was unnecessary. Sir Duncan kept his
+      eyes fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeper interest than
+      could have arisen from any impression that she was a person of
+      consequence. Annot even felt embarrassed under the old knight&rsquo;s steady
+      gaze; and it was not without considerable hesitation, that, tuning her
+      instrument, and receiving an assenting look from Lord Menteith and Allan,
+      she executed the following ballad, which our friend, Mr. Secundus
+      M&rsquo;Pherson, whose goodness we had before to acknowledge, has thus
+      translated into the English tongue:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ORPHAN MAID.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     November&rsquo;s hail-cloud drifts away,
+     November&rsquo;s sunbeam wan
+     Looks coldly on the castle grey,
+     When forth comes Lady Anne.
+
+     The orphan by the oak was set,
+     Her arms, her feet, were bare,
+     The hail-drops had not melted yet,
+     Amid her raven hair.
+
+     &ldquo;And, Dame,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;by all the ties
+     That child and mother know,
+     Aid one who never knew these joys,
+     Relieve an orphan&rsquo;s woe.&rdquo;
+
+     The Lady said, &ldquo;An orphan&rsquo;s state
+     Is hard and sad to bear;
+     Yet worse the widow&rsquo;d mother&rsquo;s fate,
+     Who mourns both lord and heir.
+
+     &ldquo;Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
+     Since, when from vengeance wild
+     Of fierce Strathallan&rsquo;s Chief I fled,
+     Forth&rsquo;s eddies whelm&rsquo;d my child.&rdquo;
+
+     &ldquo;Twelve times the year its course has born,&rdquo;
+      The wandering maid replied,
+     &ldquo;Since fishers on St. Bridget&rsquo;s morn
+     Drew nets on Campsie side.
+
+     &ldquo;St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;&mdash;
+     An infant, wellnigh dead,
+     They saved, and rear&rsquo;d in want and toil,
+     To beg from you her bread.&rdquo;
+
+     That orphan maid the lady kiss&rsquo;d&mdash;
+     &ldquo;My husband&rsquo;s looks you bear;
+     St. Bridget and her morn be bless&rsquo;d!
+     You are his widow&rsquo;s heir.&rdquo;
+
+     They&rsquo;ve robed that maid, so poor and pale,
+     In silk and sandals rare;
+     And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
+     Are glistening in her hair.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the elegance of the
+      above translation, may be desirous to see a literal version from the
+      original Gaelic, which we therefore subjoin; and have only to add, that
+      the original is deposited with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LITERAL TRANSLATION.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale
+     of autumn.  The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as
+     the wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when
+     the roar of battle hath passed over him.
+
+     Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her
+     maidens pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].
+
+     There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of
+     appointment.  The withered leaves fell around her, and her
+     heart was more withered than they.
+
+     The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost]
+     still congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like
+     the specks of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the
+     blackened and half-consumed oak that blazes in the hall.
+
+     And the maiden said, &ldquo;Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan
+     child.&rdquo;  And the Lady replied, &ldquo;How can I give that which I
+     have not?  I am the widow of a slain lord,&mdash;the mother of a
+     perished child.  When I fled in my fear from the vengeance
+     of my husband&rsquo;s foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide,
+     and my infant perished.  This was on St. Bridget&rsquo;s morn,
+     near the strong Lyns of Campsie.  May ill luck light upon
+     the day.&rdquo;  And the maiden answered, &ldquo;It was on St. Bridget&rsquo;s
+     morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the
+     fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor
+     salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in
+     misery, and must die, unless she is now aided.&rdquo; And the Lady
+     answered, &ldquo;Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these
+     are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and
+     thine shall be the inheritance of his widow.&rdquo;  And she
+     called for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe
+     that maiden in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which
+     they wove among her black tresses, were whiter than the
+     frozen hail-drops.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some surprise, that
+      it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon the mind of Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, than he could possibly have anticipated from his age and
+      character. He well knew that the Highlanders of that period possessed a
+      much greater sensibility both for tale and song than was found among their
+      Lowland neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardly accounted for the
+      embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyes from the
+      songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an object so
+      interesting. Still less was it to be expected, that features which
+      expressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit of authority,
+      should have been so much agitated by so trivial a circumstance. As the
+      Chief&rsquo;s brow became clouded, he drooped his large shaggy grey eyebrows
+      until they almost concealed his eyes, on the lids of which something like
+      a tear might be seen to glisten. He remained silent and fixed in the same
+      posture for a minute or two, after the last note had ceased to vibrate. He
+      then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as if purposing to
+      speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose, and was about to
+      address Allan, when the door opened, and the Lord of the Castle made his
+      appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Dark on their journey lour&rsquo;d the gloomy day,
+     Wild were the hills, and doubtful grew the way;
+     More dark, more gloomy, and more doubtful, show&rsquo;d
+     The mansion, which received them from the road.
+     &mdash;THE TRAVELLERS, A ROMANCE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Angus M&rsquo;Aulay was charged with a message which he seemed to find some
+      difficulty in communicating; for it was not till after he had framed his
+      speech several different ways, and blundered them all, that he succeeded
+      in letting Sir Duncan Campbell know, that the cavalier who was to
+      accompany him was waiting in readiness, and that all was prepared for his
+      return to Inverary. Sir Duncan Campbell rose up very indignantly; the
+      affront which this message implied immediately driving out of his
+      recollection the sensibility which had been awakened by the music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I little expected this,&rdquo; he said, looking indignantly at Angus M&rsquo;Aulay.
+      &ldquo;I little thought that there was a Chief in the West Highlands, who, at
+      the pleasure of a Saxon, would have bid the Knight of Ardenvohr leave his
+      castle, when the sun was declining from the meridian, and ere the second
+      cup had been filled. But farewell, sir, the food of a churl does not
+      satisfy the appetite; when I next revisit Darnlinvarach, it shall be with
+      a naked sword in one hand, and a firebrand in the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you so come,&rdquo; said Angus, &ldquo;I pledge myself to meet you fairly,
+      though you brought five hundred Campbells at your back, and to afford you
+      and them such entertainment, that you shall not again complain of the
+      hospitality of Darnlinvarach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Threatened men,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, &ldquo;live long. Your turn for gasconading,
+      Laird of M&rsquo;Aulay, is too well known, that men of honour should regard your
+      vaunts. To you, my lord, and to Allan, who have supplied the place of my
+      churlish host, I leave my thanks.&mdash;And to you, pretty mistress,&rdquo; he
+      said, addressing Annot Lyle, &ldquo;this little token, for having opened a
+      fountain which hath been dry for many a year.&rdquo; So saying, he left the
+      apartment, and commanded his attendants to be summoned. Angus M&rsquo;Aulay,
+      equally embarrassed and incensed at the charge of inhospitality, which was
+      the greatest possible affront to a Highlander, did not follow Sir Duncan
+      to the court-yard, where, mounting his palfrey, which was in readiness,
+      followed by six mounted attendants, and accompanied by the noble Captain
+      Dalgetty, who had also awaited him, holding Gustavus ready for action,
+      though he did not draw his girths and mount till Sir Duncan appeared, the
+      whole cavalcade left the castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey was long and toilsome, but without any of the extreme
+      privations which the Laird of M&rsquo;Aulay had prophesied. In truth, Sir Duncan
+      was very cautious to avoid those nearer and more secret paths, by means of
+      which the county of Argyle was accessible from the eastward; for his
+      relation and chief, the Marquis, was used to boast, that he would not for
+      a hundred thousand crowns any mortal should know the passes by which an
+      armed force could penetrate into his country.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/0795m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="0795m "  /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0795.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell, therefore, rather shunned the Highlands, and falling
+      into the Low-country, made for the nearest seaport in the vicinity, where
+      he had several half-decked galleys, or birlings, as they were called, at
+      his command. In one of these they embarked, with Gustavus in company, who
+      was so seasoned to adventure, that land and sea seemed as indifferent to
+      him as to his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind being favourable, they pursued their way rapidly with sails and
+      oars; and early the next morning it was announced to Captain Dalgetty,
+      then in a small cabin beneath the hall-deck, that the galley was under the
+      walls of Sir Duncan Campbell&rsquo;s castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ardenvohr, accordingly, rose high above him, when he came upon the deck of
+      the galley. It was a gloomy square tower, of considerable size and great
+      height, situated upon a headland projecting into the salt-water lake, or
+      arm of the sea, which they had entered on the preceding evening. A wall,
+      with flanking towers at each angle, surrounded the castle to landward;
+      but, towards the lake, it was built so near the brink of the precipice as
+      only to leave room for a battery of seven guns, designed to protect the
+      fortress from any insult from that side, although situated too high to be
+      of any effectual use according to the modern system of warfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eastern sun, rising behind the old tower, flung its shadow far on the
+      lake, darkening the deck of the galley, on which Captain Dalgetty now
+      walked, waiting with some impatience the signal to land. Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, as he was informed by his attendants, was already within the
+      walls of the castle; but no one encouraged the Captain&rsquo;s proposal of
+      following him ashore, until, as they stated, they should receive the
+      direct permission or order of the Knight of Ardenvohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a short time afterwards the mandate arrived, while a boat, with a piper
+      in the bow, bearing the Knight of Ardenvohr&rsquo;s crest in silver upon his
+      left arm, and playing with all his might the family march, entitled &ldquo;The
+      Campbells are coming,&rdquo; approached to conduct the envoy of Montrose to the
+      castle of Ardenvohr. The distance between the galley and the beach was so
+      short as scarce to require the assistance of the eight sturdy rowers, in
+      bonnets, short coats, and trews, whose efforts sent the boat to the little
+      creek in which they usually landed, before one could have conceived that
+      it had left the side of the birling. Two of the boatmen, in spite of
+      Dalgetty&rsquo;s resistance, horsed the Captain on the back of a third
+      Highlander, and, wading through the surf with him, landed him high and dry
+      upon the beach beneath the castle rock. In the face of this rock there
+      appeared something like the entrance of a low-browed cavern, towards which
+      the assistants were preparing to hurry our friend Dalgetty, when, shaking
+      himself loose from them with some difficulty, he insisted upon seeing
+      Gustavus safely landed before he proceeded one step farther. The
+      Highlanders could not comprehend what he meant, until one who had picked
+      up a little English, or rather Lowland Scotch, exclaimed, &ldquo;Houts! it&rsquo;s a&rsquo;
+      about her horse, ta useless baste.&rdquo; Farther remonstrance on the part of
+      Captain Dalgetty was interrupted by the appearance of Sir Duncan Campbell
+      himself, from the mouth of the cavern which we have described, for the
+      purpose of inviting Captain Dalgetty to accept of the hospitality of
+      Ardenvohr, pledging his honour, at the same time, that Gustavus should be
+      treated as became the hero from whom he derived his name, not to mention
+      the important person to whom he now belonged. Notwithstanding this
+      satisfactory guarantee, Captain Dalgetty would still have hesitated, such
+      was his anxiety to witness the fate of his companion Gustavus, had not two
+      Highlanders seized him by the arms, two more pushed him on behind, while a
+      fifth exclaimed, &ldquo;Hout awa wi&rsquo; the daft Sassenach! does she no hear the
+      Laird bidding her up to her ain castle, wi&rsquo; her special voice, and isna
+      that very mickle honour for the like o&rsquo; her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus impelled, Captain Dalgetty could only for a short space keep a
+      reverted eye towards the galley in which he had left the partner of his
+      military toils. In a few minutes afterwards he found himself involved in
+      the total darkness of a staircase, which, entering from the low-browed
+      cavern we have mentioned, winded upwards through the entrails of the
+      living rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cursed Highland salvages!&rdquo; muttered the Captain, half aloud; &ldquo;what is
+      to become of me, if Gustavus, the namesake of the invincible Lion of the
+      Protestant League, should be lamed among their untenty hands!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have no fear of that,&rdquo; said the voice of Sir Duncan, who was nearer to
+      him than he imagined; &ldquo;my men are accustomed to handle horses, both in
+      embarking and dressing them, and you will soon see Gustavus as safe as
+      when you last dismounted from his back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dalgetty knew the world too well to offer any farther
+      remonstrance, whatever uneasiness he might suppress within his own bosom.
+      A step or two higher up the stair showed light and a door, and an
+      iron-grated wicket led him out upon a gallery cut in the open face of the
+      rock, extending a space of about six or eight yards, until he reached a
+      second door, where the path re-entered the rock, and which was also
+      defended by an iron portcullis. &ldquo;An admirable traverse,&rdquo; observed the
+      Captain; &ldquo;and if commanded by a field-piece, or even a few muskets, quite
+      sufficient to ensure the place against a storming party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell made no answer at the time; but, the moment
+      afterwards, when they had entered the second cavern, he struck with the
+      stick which he had in his hand, first on the one side, and then on the
+      other of the wicket, and the sullen ringing sound which replied to the
+      blows, made Captain Dalgetty sensible that there was a gun placed on each
+      side, for the purpose of raking the gallery through which they had passed,
+      although the embrasures, through which they might be fired on occasion,
+      were masked on the outside with sods and loose stones. Having ascended the
+      second staircase, they found themselves again on an open platform and
+      gallery, exposed to a fire both of musketry and wall-guns, if, being come
+      with hostile intent, they had ventured farther. A third flight of steps,
+      cut in the rock like the former, but not caverned over, led them finally
+      into the battery at the foot of the tower. This last stair also was narrow
+      and steep, and, not to mention the fire which might be directed on it from
+      above, one or two resolute men, with pikes and battle-axes, could have
+      made the pass good against hundreds; for the staircase would not admit two
+      persons abreast, and was not secured by any sort of balustrade, or
+      railing, from the sheer and abrupt precipice, on the foot of which the
+      tide now rolled with a voice of thunder. So that, under the jealous
+      precautions used to secure this ancient Celtic fortress, a person of weak
+      nerves, and a brain liable to become dizzy, might have found it something
+      difficult to have achieved the entrance to the castle, even supposing no
+      resistance had been offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dalgetty, too old a soldier to feel such tremors, had no sooner
+      arrived in the court-yard, than he protested to God, the defences of Sir
+      Duncan&rsquo;s castle reminded him more of the notable fortress of Spandau,
+      situated in the March of Brandenburg, than of any place whilk it had been
+      his fortune to defend in the course of his travels. Nevertheless, he
+      criticised considerably the mode of placing the guns on the battery we
+      have noticed, observing, that &ldquo;where cannon were perched, like to scarts
+      or sea-gulls on the top of a rock, he had ever observed that they
+      astonished more by their noise than they dismayed by the skaith or damage
+      which they occasioned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan, without replying, conducted the soldier into the tower; the
+      defences of which were a portcullis and ironclenched oaken door, the
+      thickness of the wall being the space between them. He had no sooner
+      arrived in a hall hung with tapestry, than the Captain prosecuted his
+      military criticism. It was indeed suspended by the sight of an excellent
+      breakfast, of which he partook with great avidity; but no sooner had he
+      secured this meal, than he made the tour of the apartment, examining the
+      ground around the Castle very carefully from each window in the room. He
+      then returned to his chair, and throwing himself back into it at his
+      length, stretched out one manly leg, and tapping his jack-boot with the
+      riding-rod which he carried in his hand, after the manner of a half-bred
+      man who affects ease in the society of his betters, he delivered his
+      unasked opinion as follows:&mdash;&ldquo;This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan,
+      is a very pretty defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such
+      as a cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding
+      out for many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your
+      house is overcrowed, and slighted, or commanded, as we military men say,
+      by yonder round hillock to the landward, whereon an enemy might stell such
+      a battery of cannon as would make ye glad to beat a chamade within
+      forty-eight hours, unless it pleased the Lord extraordinarily to show
+      mercy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no road,&rdquo; replied Sir Duncan, somewhat shortly, &ldquo;by which cannon
+      can be brought against Ardenvohr. The swamps and morasses around my house
+      would scarce carry your horse and yourself, excepting by such paths as
+      could be rendered impassable within a few hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Duncan,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;it is your pleasure to suppose so; and
+      yet we martial men say, that where there is a sea-coast there is always a
+      naked side, seeing that cannon and munition, where they cannot be
+      transported by land, may be right easily brought by sea near to the place
+      where they are to be put in action. Neither is a castle, however secure in
+      its situation, to be accounted altogether invincible, or, as they say,
+      impregnable; for I protest t&rsquo;ye, Sir Duncan, that I have known twenty-five
+      men, by the mere surprise and audacity of the attack, win, at point of
+      pike, as strong a hold as this of Ardenvohr, and put to the sword,
+      captivate, or hold to the ransom, the defenders, being ten times their own
+      number.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding Sir Duncan Campbell&rsquo;s knowledge of the world, and his
+      power of concealing his internal emotion, he appeared piqued and hurt at
+      these reflections, which the Captain made with the most unconscious
+      gravity, having merely selected the subject of conversation as one upon
+      which he thought himself capable of shining, and, as they say, of laying
+      down the law, without exactly recollecting that the topic might not be
+      equally agreeable to his landlord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To cut this matter short,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, with an expression of voice
+      and countenance somewhat agitated, &ldquo;it is unnecessary for you to tell me,
+      Captain Dalgetty, that a castle may be stormed if it is not valorously
+      defended, or surprised if it is not heedfully watched. I trust this poor
+      house of mine will not be found in any of these predicaments, should even
+      Captain Dalgetty himself choose to beleaguer it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For all that, Sir Duncan,&rdquo; answered the persevering commander, &ldquo;I would
+      premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce upon that round hill,
+      with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be easily accomplished by
+      compelling the labour of the boors in the vicinity; it being the custom of
+      the valorous Gustavus Adolphus to fight as much by the spade and shovel,
+      as by sword, pike, and musket. Also, I would advise you to fortify the
+      said sconce, not only by a foussie, or graffe, but also by certain
+      stackets, or palisades.&rdquo;&mdash;(Here Sir Duncan, becoming impatient, left
+      the apartment, the Captain following him to the door, and raising his
+      voice as he retreated, until he was fairly out of hearing.)&mdash;&ldquo;The
+      whilk stackets, or palisades, should be artificially framed with
+      re-entering angles and loop-holes, or crenelles, for musketry, whereof it
+      shall arise that the foeman&mdash;The Highland brute! the old Highland
+      brute! They are as proud as peacocks, and as obstinate as tups&mdash;and
+      here he has missed an opportunity of making his house as pretty an
+      irregular fortification as an invading army ever broke their teeth upon.&mdash;But
+      I see,&rdquo; he continued, looking own from the window upon the bottom of the
+      precipice, &ldquo;they have got Gustavus safe ashore&mdash;Proper fellow! I
+      would know that toss of his head among a whole squadron. I must go to see
+      what they are to make of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no sooner reached, however, the court to the seaward, and put
+      himself in the act of descending the staircase, than two Highland
+      sentinels, advancing their Lochaber axes, gave him to understand that this
+      was a service of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diavolo!&rdquo; said the soldier, &ldquo;and I have got no pass-word. I could not
+      speak a syllable of their salvage gibberish, an it were to save me from
+      the provost-marshal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be your surety, Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, who had again
+      approached him without his observing from whence; &ldquo;and we will go
+      together, and see how your favourite charger is accommodated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He conducted him accordingly down the staircase to the beach, and from
+      thence by a short turn behind a large rock, which concealed the stables
+      and other offices belonging to the castle, Captain Dalgetty became
+      sensible, at the same time, that the side of the castle to the land was
+      rendered totally inaccessible by a ravine, partly natural and partly
+      scarped with great care and labour, so as to be only passed by a
+      drawbridge. Still, however, the Captain insisted, not withstanding the
+      triumphant air with which Sir Duncan pointed out his defences, that a
+      sconce should be erected on Drumsnab, the round eminence to the east of
+      the castle, in respect the house might be annoyed from thence by burning
+      bullets full of fire, shot out of cannon, according to the curious
+      invention of Stephen Bathian, King of Poland, whereby that prince utterly
+      ruined the great Muscovite city of Moscow. This invention, Captain
+      Dalgetty owned, he had not yet witnessed, but observed, &ldquo;that it would
+      give him particular delectation to witness the same put to the proof
+      against Ardenvohr, or any other castle of similar strength;&rdquo; observing,
+      &ldquo;that so curious an experiment could not but afford the greatest delight
+      to all admirers of the military art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell diverted this conversation by carrying the soldier
+      into his stables, and suffering him to arrange Gustavus according to his
+      own will and pleasure. After this duty had been carefully performed,
+      Captain Dalgetty proposed to return to the castle, observing, it was his
+      intention to spend the time betwixt this and dinner, which, he presumed,
+      would come upon the parade about noon, in burnishing his armour, which
+      having sustained some injury from the sea-air, might, he was afraid, seem
+      discreditable in the eyes of M&rsquo;Callum More. Yet, while they were returning
+      to the castle, he failed not to warn Sir Duncan Campbell against the great
+      injury he might sustain by any sudden onfall of an enemy, whereby his
+      horses, cattle, and granaries, might be cut off and consumed, to his great
+      prejudice; wherefore he again strongly conjured him to construct a sconce
+      upon the round hill called Drumsnab, and offered his own friendly services
+      in lining out the same. To this disinterested advice Sir Duncan only
+      replied by ushering his guest to his apartment, and informing him that the
+      tolling of the castle bell would make him aware when dinner was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Is this thy castle, Baldwin?  Melancholy
+     Displays her sable banner from the donjon,
+     Darkening the foam of the whole surge beneath.
+     Were I a habitant, to see this gloom
+     Pollute the face of nature, and to hear
+     The ceaseless sound of wave, and seabird&rsquo;s scream,
+     I&rsquo;d wish me in the hut that poorest peasant
+     E&rsquo;er framed, to give him temporary shelter.&mdash;BROWN.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed his leisure in
+      studying the exterior of Sir Duncan&rsquo;s castle, and verifying his own
+      military ideas upon the nature of its defences. But a stout sentinel, who
+      mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of his apartment, gave him
+      to understand, by very significant signs, that he was in a sort of
+      honourable captivity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself, how well these salvages
+      understand the rules and practique of war. Who should have pre-supposed
+      their acquaintance with the maxim of the great and godlike Gustavus
+      Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half a spy?&mdash;And,
+      having finished burnishing his arms, he sate down patiently to compute how
+      much half a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of a six-months&rsquo;
+      campaign; and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded to the more
+      abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of two thousand
+      men on the principle of extracting the square root.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound of the dinner bell, on
+      which the Highlander, lately his guard, became his gentleman-usher, and
+      marshalled him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore ample
+      proofs of Highland hospitality. Sir Duncan entered, conducting his lady, a
+      tall, faded, melancholy female, dressed in deep mourning. They were
+      followed by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and wearing a
+      black silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that it could
+      scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an undue
+      predominance in the general aspect. This ungraceful fashion was universal
+      at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of roundheads, prick-eared
+      curs, and so forth, which the insolence of the cavaliers liberally
+      bestowed on their political enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received his
+      technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in which it could
+      scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater share. The
+      churchman, to whom he was next presented, eyed him with a glance of
+      mingled dislike and curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain, well accustomed to worse looks from more dangerous persons,
+      cared very little either for those of the lady or of the divine, but bent
+      his whole soul upon assaulting a huge piece of beef, which smoked at the
+      nether end of the table. But the onslaught, as he would have termed it,
+      was delayed, until the conclusion of a very long grace, betwixt every
+      section of which Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as he might have
+      done his musket or pike when going upon action, and as often resigned them
+      unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced another clause of his
+      benediction. Sir Duncan listened with decency, though he was supposed
+      rather to have joined the Covenanters out of devotion to his chief, than
+      real respect for the cause either of liberty or of Presbytery. His lady
+      alone attended to the blessing, with symptoms of deep acquiescence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meal was performed almost in Carthusian silence; for it was none of
+      Captain Dalgetty&rsquo;s habits to employ his mouth in talking, while it could
+      be more profitably occupied. Sir Duncan was absolutely silent, and the
+      lady and churchman only occasionally exchanged a few words, spoken low,
+      and indistinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, when the dishes were removed, and their place supplied by liquors of
+      various sorts, Captain Dalgetty no longer had, himself, the same weighty
+      reasons for silence, and began to tire of that of the rest of the company.
+      He commenced a new attack upon his landlord, upon the former ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Touching that round monticle, or hill, or eminence, termed Drumsnab, I
+      would be proud to hold some dialogue with you, Sir Duncan, on the nature
+      of the sconce to be there constructed; and whether the angles thereof
+      should be acute or obtuse&mdash;anent whilk I have heard the great
+      Velt-Mareschal Bannier hold a learned argument with General Tiefenbach
+      during a still-stand of arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; answered Sir Duncan very dryly, &ldquo;it is not our
+      Highland usage to debate military points with strangers. This castle is
+      like to hold out against a stronger enemy than any force which the
+      unfortunate gentlemen we left at Darnlinvarach are able to bring against
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A deep sigh from the lady accompanied the conclusion of her husband&rsquo;s
+      speech, which seemed to remind her of some painful circumstance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He who gave,&rdquo; said the clergyman, addressing her in a solemn tone, &ldquo;hath
+      taken away. May you, honourable lady, be long enabled to say, Blessed be
+      his name!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this exhortation, which seemed intended for her sole behoof, the lady
+      answered by an inclination of her head, more humble than Captain Dalgetty
+      had yet observed her make. Supposing he should now find her in a more
+      conversible humour, he proceeded to accost her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is indubitably very natural that your ladyship should be downcast at
+      the mention of military preparations, whilk I have observed to spread
+      perturbation among women of all nations, and almost all conditions.
+      Nevertheless, Penthesilea, in ancient times, and also Joan of Arc, and
+      others, were of a different kidney. And, as I have learned while I served
+      the Spaniard, the Duke of Alva in former times had the leaguer-lasses who
+      followed his camp marshalled into TERTIAS (whilk me call regiments), and
+      officered and commanded by those of their own feminine gender, and
+      regulated by a commander-in chief, called in German Hureweibler, or, as we
+      would say vernacularly, Captain of the Queans. True it is, they were
+      persons not to be named as parallel to your ladyship, being such QUAE
+      QUAESTUM CORPORIBUS FACIEBANT, as we said of Jean Drochiels at
+      Mareschal-College; the same whom the French term CURTISANNES, and we in
+      Scottish&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady will spare you the trouble of further exposition, Captain
+      Dalgetty,&rdquo; said his host, somewhat sternly; to which the clergyman added,
+      &ldquo;that such discourse better befitted a watch-tower guarded by profane
+      soldiery than the board of an honourable person, and the presence of a
+      lady of quality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Craving your pardon, Dominie, or Doctor, AUT QUOCUNQUE ALIO NOMINE
+      GAUDES, for I would have you to know I have studied polite letters,&rdquo; said
+      the unabashed envoy, filling a great cup of wine, &ldquo;I see no ground for
+      your reproof, seeing I did not speak of those TURPES PERSONAE, as if their
+      occupation or character was a proper subject of conversation for this
+      lady&rsquo;s presence, but simply PAR ACCIDENS, as illustrating the matter in
+      hand, namely, their natural courage and audacity, much enhanced,
+      doubtless, by the desperate circumstances of their condition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell, &ldquo;to break short this
+      discourse, I must acquaint you, that I have some business to dispatch
+      to-night, in order to enable me to ride with you to-morrow towards
+      Inverary; and therefore&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To ride with this person to-morrow!&rdquo; exclaimed his lady; &ldquo;such cannot be
+      your purpose, Sir Duncan, unless you have forgotten that the morrow is a
+      sad anniversary, and dedicated to as sad a solemnity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had not forgotten,&rdquo; answered Sir Duncan; &ldquo;how is it possible I can ever
+      forget? but the necessity of the times requires I should send this officer
+      onward to Inverary, without loss of time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet, surely, not that you should accompany him in person?&rdquo; enquired the
+      lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were better I did,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan; &ldquo;yet I can write to the Marquis,
+      and follow on the subsequent day.&mdash;Captain Dalgetty, I will dispatch
+      a letter for you, explaining to the Marquis of Argyle your character and
+      commission, with which you will please to prepare to travel to Inverary
+      early to-morrow morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Duncan Campbell,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;I am doubtless at your
+      discretionary disposal in this matter; not the less, I pray you to
+      remember the blot which will fall upon your own escutcheon, if you do in
+      any way suffer me, being a commissionate flag of truce, to be circumvented
+      in this matter, whether CLAM, VI, VEL PRECARIO; I do not say by your
+      assent to any wrong done to me, but even through absence of any due care
+      on your part to prevent the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are under the safeguard of my honour, sir,&rdquo; answered Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, &ldquo;and that is more than a sufficient security. And now,&rdquo;
+       continued he, rising, &ldquo;I must set the example of retiring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty saw himself under the necessity of following the hint, though the
+      hour was early; but, like a skilful general, he availed himself of every
+      instant of delay which circumstances permitted. &ldquo;Trusting to your
+      honourable parole,&rdquo; said he, filling his cup, &ldquo;I drink to you, Sir Duncan,
+      and to the continuance of your honourable-house.&rdquo; A sigh from Sir Duncan
+      was the only reply. &ldquo;Also, madam,&rdquo; said the soldier, replenishing the
+      quaigh with all possible dispatch, &ldquo;I drink to your honourable health, and
+      fulfilment of all your virtuous desires&mdash;and, reverend sir&rdquo; (not
+      forgetting to fit the action to the words), &ldquo;I fill this cup to the
+      drowning of all unkindness betwixt you and Captain Dalgetty&mdash;I should
+      say Major&mdash;and, in respect the flagon contains but one cup more, I
+      drink to the health of all honourable cavaliers and brave soldados&mdash;and,
+      the flask being empty, I am ready, Sir Duncan, to attend your functionary
+      or sentinel to my place of private repose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He received a formal permission to retire, and an assurance, that as the
+      wine seemed to be to his taste, another measure of the same vintage should
+      attend him presently, in order to soothe the hours of his solitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the Captain reached the apartment than this promise was
+      fulfilled; and, in a short time afterwards, the added comforts of a pasty
+      of red-deer venison rendered him very tolerant both of confinement and
+      want of society. The same domestic, a sort of chamberlain, who placed this
+      good cheer in his apartment, delivered to Dalgetty a packet, sealed and
+      tied up with a silken thread, according to the custom of the time,
+      addressed with many forms of respect to the High and Mighty Prince,
+      Archibald, Marquis of Argyle, Lord of Lorne, and so forth. The chamberlain
+      at the same time apprized the Ritt-master, that he must take horse at an
+      early hour for Inverary, where the packet of Sir Duncan would be at once
+      his introduction and his passport. Not forgetting that it was his object
+      to collect information as well as to act as an envoy, and desirous, for
+      his own sake, to ascertain Sir Duncan&rsquo;s reasons for sending him onward
+      without his personal attendance, the Ritt-master enquired the domestic,
+      with all the precaution that his experience suggested, what were the
+      reasons which detained Sir Duncan at home on the succeeding day. The man,
+      who was from the Lowlands, replied, &ldquo;that it was the habit of Sir Duncan
+      and his lady to observe as a day of solemn fast and humiliation the
+      anniversary on which their castle had been taken by surprise, and their
+      children, to the number of four, destroyed cruelly by a band of Highland
+      freebooters during Sir Duncan&rsquo;s absence upon an expedition which the
+      Marquis of Argyle had undertaken against the Macleans of the Isle of
+      Mull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly,&rdquo; said the soldier, &ldquo;your lord and lady have some cause for fast
+      and humiliation. Nevertheless, I will venture to pronounce, that if he had
+      taken the advice of any experienced soldier, having skill in the
+      practiques of defending places of advantage, he would have built a sconce
+      upon the small hill which is to the left of the draw-brigg. And this I can
+      easily prove to you, mine honest friend; for, holding that pasty to be the
+      castle&mdash;What&rsquo;s your name, friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lorimer, sir,&rdquo; replied the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is to your health, honest Lorimer.&mdash;I say, Lorimer&mdash;holding
+      that pasty to be the main body or citadel of the place to be defended, and
+      taking the marrow-bone for the sconce to be erected&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry, sir,&rdquo; said Lorimer, interrupting him, &ldquo;that I cannot stay to
+      hear the rest of your demonstration; but the bell will presently ring. As
+      worthy Mr. Graneangowl, the Marquis&rsquo;s own chaplain, does family worship,
+      and only seven of our household out of sixty persons understand the
+      Scottish tongue, it would misbecome any one of them to be absent, and
+      greatly prejudice me in the opinion of my lady. There are pipes and
+      tobacco, sir, if you please to drink a whiff of smoke, and if you want
+      anything else, it shall be forthcoming two hours hence, when prayers are
+      over.&rdquo; So saying, he left the apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was he gone, than the heavy toll of the castle-bell summoned its
+      inhabitants together; and was answered by the shrill clamour of the
+      females, mixed with the deeper tones of the men, as, talking Earse at the
+      top of their throats, they hurried from different quarters by a long but
+      narrow gallery, which served as a communication to many rooms, and, among
+      others, to that in which Captain Dalgetty was stationed. There they go as
+      if they were beating to the roll-call, thought the soldier to himself; if
+      they all attend the parade, I will look out, take a mouthful of fresh air,
+      and make mine own observations on the practicabilities of this place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, when all was quiet, he opened his chamber door, and prepared
+      to leave it, when he saw his friend with the axe advancing towards him
+      from the distant end of the gallery, half whistling, a Gaelic tune. To
+      have shown any want of confidence, would have been at once impolitic, and
+      unbecoming his military character; so the Captain, putting the best face
+      upon his situation he could, whistled a Swedish retreat, in a tone still
+      louder than the notes of his sentinel; and retreating pace by pace, with
+      an air of indifference, as if his only purpose had been to breathe a
+      little fresh air, he shut the door in the face of his guard, when the
+      fellow had approached within a few paces of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very well, thought the Ritt-master to himself; he annuls my parole
+      by putting guards upon me, for, as we used to say at Mareschal-College,
+      FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA [See Note I]; and if he does not trust my
+      word, I do not see how I am bound to keep it, if any motive should occur
+      for my desiring to depart from it. Surely the moral obligation of the
+      parole is relaxed, in as far as physical force is substituted instead
+      thereof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus comforting himself in the metaphysical immunities which he deduced
+      from the vigilance of his sentinel, Ritt-master Dalgetty retired to his
+      apartment, where, amid the theoretical calculations of tactics, and the
+      occasional more practical attacks on the flask and pasty, he consumed the
+      evening until it was time to go to repose. He was summoned by Lorimer at
+      break of day, who gave him to understand, that, when he had broken his
+      fast, for which he produced ample materials, his guide and horse were in
+      attendance for his journey to Inverary. After complying with the
+      hospitable hint of the chamberlain, the soldier proceeded to take horse.
+      In passing through the apartments, he observed that domestics were busily
+      employed in hanging the great hall with black cloth, a ceremony which, he
+      said, he had seen practised when the immortal Gustavus Adolphus lay in
+      state in the Castle of Wolgast, and which, therefore, he opined, was a
+      testimonial of the strictest and deepest mourning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dalgetty mounted his steed, he found himself attended, or perhaps
+      guarded, by five or six Campbells, well armed, commanded by one, who, from
+      the target at his shoulder, and the short cock&rsquo;s feather in his bonnet, as
+      well as from the state which he took upon himself, claimed the rank of a
+      Dunniewassel, or clansman of superior rank; and indeed, from his dignity
+      of deportment, could not stand in a more distant degree of relationship to
+      Sir Duncan, than that of tenth or twelfth cousin at farthest. But it was
+      impossible to extract positive information on this or any other subject,
+      inasmuch as neither this commander nor any of his party spoke English. The
+      Captain rode, and his military attendants walked; but such was their
+      activity, and so numerous the impediments which the nature of the road
+      presented to the equestrian mode of travelling, that far from being
+      retarded by the slowness of their pace, his difficulty was rather in
+      keeping up with his guides. He observed that they occasionally watched him
+      with a sharp eye, as if they were jealous of some effort to escape; and
+      once, as he lingered behind at crossing a brook, one of the gillies began
+      to blow the match of his piece, giving him to understand that he would run
+      some risk in case of an attempt to part company. Dalgetty did not augur
+      much good from the close watch thus maintained upon his person; but there
+      was no remedy, for an attempt to escape from his attendants in an
+      impervious and unknown country, would have been little short of insanity.
+      He therefore plodded patiently on through a waste and savage wilderness,
+      treading paths which were only known to the shepherds and cattle-drivers,
+      and passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those
+      sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from
+      every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur, and
+      mortify their palates upon Highland fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length they arrived on the southern verge of that noble lake upon which
+      Inverary is situated; and a bugle, which the Dunniewassel winded till rock
+      and greenwood rang, served as a signal to a well-manned galley, which,
+      starting from a creek where it lay concealed, received the party on board,
+      including Gustavus; which sagacious quadruped, an experienced traveller
+      both by water and land, walked in and out of the boat with the discretion
+      of a Christian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Embarked on the bosom of Loch Fine, Captain Dalgetty might have admired
+      one of the grandest scenes which nature affords. He might have noticed the
+      rival rivers Aray and Shiray, which pay tribute to the lake, each issuing
+      from its own dark and wooded retreat. He might have marked, on the soft
+      and gentle slope that ascends from the shores, the noble old Gothic
+      castle, with its varied outline, embattled walls, towers, and outer and
+      inner courts, which, so far as the picturesque is concerned, presented an
+      aspect much more striking than the present massive and uniform mansion. He
+      might have admired those dark woods which for many a mile surrounded this
+      strong and princely dwelling, and his eye might have dwelt on the
+      picturesque peak of Duniquoich, starting abruptly from the lake, and
+      raising its scathed brow into the mists of middle sky, while a solitary
+      watch-tower, perched on its top like an eagle&rsquo;s nest, gave dignity to the
+      scene by awakening a sense of possible danger. All these, and every other
+      accompaniment of this noble scene, Captain Dalgetty might have marked, if
+      he had been so minded. But, to confess the truth, the gallant Captain, who
+      had eaten nothing since daybreak, was chiefly interested by the smoke
+      which ascended from the castle chimneys, and the expectations which this
+      seemed to warrant of his encountering an abundant stock of provant, as he
+      was wont to call supplies of this nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat soon approached the rugged pier, which abutted into the loch from
+      the little town of Inverary, then a rude assemblage of huts, with a very
+      few stone mansions interspersed, stretching upwards from the banks of Loch
+      Fine to the principal gate of the castle, before which a scene presented
+      itself that might easily have quelled a less stout heart, and turned a
+      more delicate stomach, than those of Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty, titular
+      of Drumthwacket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
+     Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
+     Restless, unfix&rsquo;d in principle and place,
+     In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace.
+     &mdash;ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The village of Inverary, now a neat country town, then partook of the
+      rudeness of the seventeenth century, in the miserable appearance of the
+      houses, and the irregularity of the unpaved street. But a stronger and
+      more terrible characteristic of the period appeared in the market-place,
+      which was a space of irregular width, half way betwixt the harbour, or
+      pier, and the frowning castle-gate, which terminated with its gloomy
+      archway, portcullis, and flankers, the upper end of the vista. Midway this
+      space was erected a rude gibbet, on which hung five dead bodies, two of
+      which from their dress seemed to have been Lowlanders, and the other three
+      corpses were muffled in their Highland plaids. Two or three women sate
+      under the gallows, who seemed to be mourning, and singing the coronach of
+      the deceased in a low voice. But the spectacle was apparently of too
+      ordinary occurrence to have much interest for the inhabitants at large,
+      who, while they thronged to look at the military figure, the horse of an
+      unusual size, and the burnished panoply of Captain Dalgetty, seemed to
+      bestow no attention whatever on the piteous spectacle which their own
+      market-place afforded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The envoy of Montrose was not quite so indifferent; and, hearing a word or
+      two of English escape from a Highlander of decent appearance, he
+      immediately halted Gustavus and addressed him, &ldquo;The Provost-Marshal has
+      been busy here, my friend. May I crave of you what these delinquents have
+      been justified for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked towards the gibbet as he spoke; and the Gael, comprehending his
+      meaning rather by his action than his words, immediately replied, &ldquo;Three
+      gentlemen caterans,&mdash;God sain them,&rdquo; (crossing himself)&mdash;&ldquo;twa
+      Sassenach bits o&rsquo; bodies, that wadna do something that M&rsquo;Callum More bade
+      them;&rdquo; and turning from Dalgetty with an air of indifference, away he
+      walked, staying no farther question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, for Sir Duncan Campbell&rsquo;s
+      tenth or twelfth cousin had already shown some signs of impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the gate of the castle another terrible spectacle of feudal power
+      awaited him. Within a stockade or palisade, which seemed lately to have
+      been added to the defences of the gate, and which was protected by two
+      pieces of light artillery, was a small enclosure, where stood a huge
+      block, on which lay an axe. Both were smeared with recent blood, and a
+      quantity of saw-dust strewed around, partly retained and partly
+      obliterated the marks of a very late execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Dalgetty looked on this new object of terror, his principal guide
+      suddenly twitched him by the skirt of his jerkin, and having thus
+      attracted his attention, winked and pointed with his finger to a pole
+      fixed on the stockade, which supported a human head, being that,
+      doubtless, of the late sufferer. There was a leer on the Highlander&rsquo;s
+      face, as he pointed to this ghastly spectacle, which seemed to his
+      fellow-traveller ominous of nothing good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty dismounted from his horse at the gateway, and Gustavus was taken
+      from him without his being permitted to attend him to the stable,
+      according to his custom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave the soldier a pang which the apparatus of death had not
+      conveyed.&mdash;&ldquo;Poor Gustavus!&rdquo; said he to himself, &ldquo;if anything but good
+      happens to me, I had better have left him at Darnlinvarach than brought
+      him here among these Highland salvages, who scarce know the head of a
+      horse from his tail. But duty must part a man from his nearest and dearest&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;When the cannons are roaring, lads, and the colours are flying,
+     The lads that seek honour must never fear dying;
+     Then, stout cavaliers, let us toil our brave trade in,
+     And fight for the Gospel and the bold King of Sweden.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Thus silencing his apprehensions with the but-end of a military ballad, he
+      followed his guide into a sort of guard-room filled with armed
+      Highlanders. It was intimated to him that he must remain here until his
+      arrival was communicated to the Marquis. To make this communication the
+      more intelligible, the doughty Captain gave to the Dunniewassel Sir Duncan
+      Campbell&rsquo;s packet, desiring, as well as he could, by signs, that it should
+      be delivered into the Marquis&rsquo;s own hand. His guide nodded, and withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain was left about half an hour in this place, to endure with
+      indifference, or return with scorn, the inquisitive, and, at the same
+      time, the inimical glances of the armed Gael, to whom his exterior and
+      equipage were as much subject of curiosity, as his person and country
+      seemed matter of dislike. All this he bore with military nonchalance,
+      until, at the expiration of the above period, a person dressed in black
+      velvet, and wearing a gold chain like a modern magistrate of Edinburgh,
+      but who was, in fact, steward of the household to the Marquis of Argyle,
+      entered the apartment, and invited, with solemn gravity, the Captain to
+      follow him to his master&rsquo;s presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suite of apartments through which he passed, were filled with
+      attendants or visitors of various descriptions, disposed, perhaps, with
+      some ostentation, in order to impress the envoy of Montrose with an idea
+      of the superior power and magnificence belonging to the rival house of
+      Argyle. One ante-room was filled with lacqueys, arrayed in brown and
+      yellow, the colours of the family, who, ranged in double file, gazed in
+      silence upon Captain Dalgetty as he passed betwixt their ranks. Another
+      was occupied by Highland gentlemen and chiefs of small branches, who were
+      amusing themselves with chess, backgammon, and other games, which they
+      scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger. A third was
+      filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers, who seemed also in attendance;
+      and, lastly, the presence-chamber of the Marquis himself showed him
+      attended by a levee which marked his high importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This apartment, the folding doors of which were opened for the reception
+      of Captain Dalgetty, was a long gallery, decorated with tapestry and
+      family portraits, and having a vaulted ceiling of open wood-work, the
+      extreme projections of the beams being richly carved and gilded. The
+      gallery was lighted by long lanceolated Gothic casements, divided by heavy
+      shafts, and filled with painted glass, where the sunbeams glimmered dimly
+      through boars&rsquo;-heads, and galleys, and batons, and swords, armorial
+      bearings of the powerful house of Argyle, and emblems of the high
+      hereditary offices of Justiciary of Scotland, and Master of the Royal
+      Household, which they long enjoyed. At the upper end of this magnificent
+      gallery stood the Marquis himself, the centre of a splendid circle of
+      Highland and Lowland gentlemen, all richly dressed, among whom were two or
+      three of the clergy, called in, perhaps, to be witnesses of his lordship&rsquo;s
+      zeal for the Covenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis himself was dressed in the fashion of the period, which
+      Vandyke has so often painted, but his habit was sober and uniform in
+      colour, and rather rich than gay. His dark complexion, furrowed forehead,
+      and downcast look, gave him the appearance of one frequently engaged in
+      the consideration of important affairs, and who has acquired, by long
+      habit, an air of gravity and mystery, which he cannot shake off even where
+      there is nothing to be concealed. The cast with his eyes, which had
+      procured him in the Highlands the nickname of Gillespie Grumach (or the
+      grim), was less perceptible when he looked downward, which perhaps was one
+      cause of his having adopted that habit. In person, he was tall and thin,
+      but not without that dignity of deportment and manners, which became his
+      high rank. Something there was cold in his address, and sinister in his
+      look, although he spoke and behaved with the usual grace of a man of such
+      quality. He was adored by his own clan, whose advancement he had greatly
+      studied, although he was in proportion disliked by the Highlanders of
+      other septs, some of whom he had already stripped of their possessions,
+      while others conceived themselves in danger from his future schemes, and
+      all dreaded the height to which he was elevated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have already noticed, that in displaying himself amidst his
+      councillors, his officers of the household, and his train of vassals,
+      allies, and dependents, the Marquis of Argyle probably wished to make an
+      impression on the nervous system of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. But that
+      doughty person had fought his way, in one department or another, through
+      the greater part of the Thirty Years&rsquo; War in Germany, a period when a
+      brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes. The King of
+      Sweden, and, after his example, even the haughty Princes of the Empire,
+      had found themselves fain, frequently to compound with their dignity, and
+      silence, when they could not satisfy the pecuniary claims of their
+      soldiers, by admitting them to unusual privileges and familiarity. Captain
+      Dugald Dalgetty had it to boast, that he had sate with princes at feasts
+      made for monarchs, and therefore was not a person to be brow-beat even by
+      the dignity which surrounded M&rsquo;Callum More. Indeed, he was naturally by no
+      means the most modest man in the world, but, on the contrary, had so good
+      an opinion of himself, that into whatever company he chanced to be thrown,
+      he was always proportionally elevated in his own conceit; so that he felt
+      as much at ease in the most exalted society as among his own ordinary
+      companions. In this high opinion of his own rank, he was greatly fortified
+      by his ideas of the military profession, which, in his phrase, made a
+      valiant cavalier a camarade to an emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When introduced, therefore, into the Marquis&rsquo;s presence-chamber, he
+      advanced to the upper end with an air of more confidence than grace, and
+      would have gone close up to Argyle&rsquo;s person before speaking, had not the
+      latter waved his hand, as a signal to him to stop short. Captain Dalgetty
+      did so accordingly, and having made his military congee with easy
+      confidence, he thus accosted the Marquis: &ldquo;Give you good morrow, my lord&mdash;or
+      rather I should say, good even; BESO A USTED LOS MANOS, as the Spaniard
+      says.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you, sir, and what is your business?&rdquo; demanded the Marquis, in a
+      tone which was intended to interrupt the offensive familiarity of the
+      soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a fair interrogative, my lord,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty, &ldquo;which I shall
+      forthwith answer as becomes a cavalier, and that PEREMPTORIE, as we used
+      to say at Mareschal-College.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See who or what he is, Neal,&rdquo; said the Marquis sternly, to a gentleman
+      who stood near him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will save the honourable gentleman the labour of investigation,&rdquo;
+       continued the Captain. &ldquo;I am Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, that should
+      be, late Ritt-master in various services, and now Major of I know not what
+      or whose regiment of Irishes; and I am come with a flag of truce from a
+      high and powerful lord, James Earl of Montrose, and other noble persons
+      now in arms for his Majesty. And so, God save King Charles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know where you are, and the danger of dallying with us, sir,&rdquo;
+       again demanded the Marquis, &ldquo;that you reply to me as if I were a child or
+      a fool? The Earl of Montrose is with the English malignants; and I suspect
+      you are one of those Irish runagates, who are come into this country to
+      burn and slay, as they did under Sir Phelim O&rsquo;Neale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; replied Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;I am no renegade, though a Major of
+      Irishes, for which I might refer your lordship to the invincible Gustavus
+      Adolphus the Lion of the North, to Bannier, to Oxenstiern, to the warlike
+      Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Tilly, Wallenstein, Piccolomini, and other great
+      captains, both dead and living; and touching the noble Earl of Montrose, I
+      pray your lordship to peruse these my full powers for treating with you in
+      the name of that right honourable commander.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis looked slightingly at the signed and sealed paper which
+      Captain Dalgetty handed to him, and, throwing it with contempt upon a
+      table, asked those around him what he deserved who came as the avowed
+      envoy and agent of malignant traitors, in arms against the state?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A high gallows and a short shrift,&rdquo; was the ready answer of one of the
+      bystanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will crave of that honourable cavalier who hath last spoken,&rdquo; said
+      Dalgetty, &ldquo;to be less hasty in forming his conclusions, and also of your
+      lordship to be cautelous in adopting the same, in respect such threats are
+      to be held out only to base bisognos, and not to men of spirit and action,
+      who are bound to peril themselves as freely in services of this nature, as
+      upon sieges, battles, or onslaughts of any sort. And albeit I have not
+      with me a trumpet, or a white flag, in respect our army is not yet
+      equipped with its full appointments, yet the honourable cavaliers and your
+      lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an envoy who cometh on
+      matter of truth or parle, consisteth not in the fanfare of a trumpet,
+      whilk is but a sound, or in the flap of a white flag, whilk is but an old
+      rag in itself, but in the confidence reposed by the party sending, and the
+      party sent, in the honour of those to whom the message is to be carried,
+      and their full reliance that they will respect the JUS GENTIUM, as weel as
+      the law of arms, in the person of the commissionate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not come hither to lecture us upon the law of arms, sir,&rdquo; said
+      the Marquis, &ldquo;which neither does nor can apply to rebels and insurgents;
+      but to suffer the penalty of your insolence and folly for bringing a
+      traitorous message to the Lord Justice General of Scotland, whose duty
+      calls upon him to punish such an offence with death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said the Captain, who began much to dislike the turn which
+      his mission seemed about to take, &ldquo;I pray you to remember, that the Earl
+      of Montrose will hold you and your possessions liable for whatever injury
+      my person, or my horse, shall sustain by these unseemly proceedings, and
+      that he will be justified in executing retributive vengeance on your
+      persons and possessions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This menace was received with a scornful laugh, while one of the Campbells
+      replied, &ldquo;It is a far cry to Lochow;&rdquo; proverbial expression of the tribe,
+      meaning that their ancient hereditary domains lay beyond the reach of an
+      invading enemy. &ldquo;But, gentlemen,&rdquo; further urged the unfortunate Captain,
+      who was unwilling to be condemned, without at least the benefit of a full
+      hearing, &ldquo;although it is not for me to say how far it may be to Lochow, in
+      respect I am a stranger to these parts, yet, what is more to the purpose,
+      I trust you will admit that I have the guarantee of an honourable
+      gentleman of your own name, Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, for my
+      safety on this mission; and I pray you to observe, that in breaking the
+      truce towards me, you will highly prejudicate his honour and fair fame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed to be new information to many of the gentlemen, for they spoke
+      aside with each other, and the Marquis&rsquo;s face, notwithstanding his power
+      of suppressing all external signs of his passions, showed impatience and
+      vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr pledge his honour for this person&rsquo;s safety,
+      my lord?&rdquo; said one of the company, addressing the Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not believe it,&rdquo; answered the Marquis; &ldquo;but I have not yet had time
+      to read his letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will pray your lordship to do so,&rdquo; said another of the Campbells; &ldquo;our
+      name must not suffer discredit through the means of such a fellow as
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dead fly,&rdquo; said a clergyman, &ldquo;maketh the ointment of the apothecary to
+      stink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reverend sir,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;in respect of the use to be
+      derived, I forgive you the unsavouriness of your comparison; and also
+      remit to the gentleman in the red bonnet, the disparaging epithet of
+      FELLOW, which he has discourteously applied to me, who am no way to be
+      distinguished by the same, unless in so far as I have been called
+      fellow-soldier by the great Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and
+      other choice commanders, both in Germany and the Low Countries. But,
+      touching Sir Duncan Campbell&rsquo;s guarantee of my safety, I will gage my life
+      upon his making my words good thereanent, when he comes hither to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Sir Duncan be soon expected, my Lord,&rdquo; said one of the intercessors,
+      &ldquo;it would be a pity to anticipate matters with this poor man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides that,&rdquo; said another, &ldquo;your lordship&mdash;I speak with reverence&mdash;should,
+      at least, consult the Knight of Ardenvohr&rsquo;s letter, and learn the terms on
+      which this Major Dalgetty, as he calls himself, has been sent hither by
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They closed around the Marquis, and conversed together in a low tone, both
+      in Gaelic and English. The patriarchal power of the Chiefs was very great,
+      and that of the Marquis of Argyle, armed with all his grants of hereditary
+      jurisdiction, was particularly absolute. But there interferes some check
+      of one kind or other even in the most despotic government. That which
+      mitigated the power of the Celtic Chiefs, was the necessity which they lay
+      under of conciliating the kinsmen who, under them, led out the lower
+      orders to battle, and who formed a sort of council of the tribe in time of
+      peace. The Marquis on this occasion thought himself under the necessity of
+      attending to the remonstrances of this senate, or more properly
+      COUROULTAI, of the name of Campbell, and, slipping out of the circle, gave
+      orders for the prisoner to be removed to a place of security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prisoner!&rdquo; exclaimed Dalgetty, exerting himself with such force as
+      wellnigh to shake off two Highlanders, who for some minutes past had
+      waited the signal to seize him, and kept for that purpose close at his
+      back. Indeed the soldier had so nearly attained his liberty, that the
+      Marquis of Argyle changed colour, and stepped back two paces, laying,
+      however, his hand on his sword, while several of his clan, with ready
+      devotion, threw themselves betwixt him and the apprehended vengeance of
+      the prisoner. But the Highland guards were too strong to be shaken off,
+      and the unlucky Captain, after having had his offensive weapons taken from
+      him, was dragged off and conducted through several gloomy passages to a
+      small side-door grated with iron, within which was another of wood. These
+      were opened by a grim old Highlander with a long white beard, and
+      displayed a very steep and narrow flight of steps leading downward. The
+      Captain&rsquo;s guards pushed him down two or three steps, then, unloosing his
+      arms, left him to grope his way to the bottom as he could; a task which
+      became difficult and even dangerous, when the two doors being successively
+      locked left the prisoner in total darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Whatever stranger visits here,
+     We pity his sad case,
+     Unless to worship he draw near
+     The King of Kings&mdash;his Grace.
+     &mdash;BURNS&rsquo;S  EPIGRAM ON A VISIT TO INVERARY.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Captain, finding himself deprived of light in the manner we have
+      described, and placed in a very uncertain situation, proceeded to descend
+      the narrow and broken stair with all the caution in his power, hoping that
+      he might find at the bottom some place to repose himself. But with all his
+      care he could not finally avoid making a false step, which brought him
+      down the four or five last steps too hastily to preserve his equilibrium.
+      At the bottom he stumbled over a bundle of something soft, which stirred
+      and uttered a groan, so deranging the Captain&rsquo;s descent, that he
+      floundered forward, and finally fell upon his hands and knees on the floor
+      of a damp and stone-paved dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over whom he had
+      stumbled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was a man a month since,&rdquo; answered a hollow and broken voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is he now, then,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;that he thinks it fitting to
+      lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew&rsquo;d up like a hurchin, that
+      honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their noses
+      over him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is he now?&rdquo; replied the same voice; &ldquo;he is a wretched trunk, from
+      which the boughs have one by one been lopped away, and which cares little
+      how soon it is torn up and hewed into billets for the furnace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as the
+      Spaniard says. If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you call
+      yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands and knees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a soldier,&rdquo; replied his fellow-prisoner; &ldquo;do you complain on
+      account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A soldier?&rdquo; said the Captain; &ldquo;and how do you know, in this cursed dark
+      cavern, that I am a soldier?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard your armour clash as you fell,&rdquo; replied the prisoner, &ldquo;and now I
+      see it glimmer. When you have remained as long as I in this darkness, your
+      eyes will distinguish the smallest eft that crawls on the floor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had rather the devil picked them out!&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;if this be the
+      case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a soldier&rsquo;s prayer, and a
+      leap from a ladder. But what sort of provant have you got here&mdash;what
+      food, I mean, brother in affliction?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bread and water once a day,&rdquo; replied the voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;I hope we shall
+      play good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable pit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The loaf and jar of water,&rdquo; answered the other prisoner, &ldquo;stand in the
+      corner, two steps to your right hand. Take them, and welcome. With earthly
+      food I have wellnigh done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the
+      provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much
+      heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This bread,&rdquo; he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time),
+      &ldquo;is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which
+      we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus foiled
+      all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero, who had
+      driven two kings out of the field&mdash;namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia and
+      Christian of Denmark. And anent this water, which is none of the most
+      sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade, not
+      forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or humming
+      Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue,
+      and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or
+      indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his voracity.
+      When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and
+      seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could obtain a
+      support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of elbow-chairs,
+      he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to question his
+      fellow-captive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine honest friend,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you and I, being comrades at bed and
+      board, should be better acquainted. I am Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket,
+      and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes, and Envoy
+      Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of Montrose.&mdash;Pray,
+      what may your name be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will avail you little to know,&rdquo; replied his more taciturn companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me judge of that matter,&rdquo; answered the soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then&mdash;Ranald MacEagh is my name&mdash;that is, Ranald Son of
+      the Mist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Son of the Mist!&rdquo; ejaculated Dalgetty. &ldquo;Son of utter darkness, say I.
+      But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in possession of the
+      provost&rsquo;s court of guard? what the devil brought you here, that is to
+      say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My misfortunes and my crimes,&rdquo; answered Ranald. &ldquo;Know ye the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do know that honourable person,&rdquo; replied Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But know ye where he now is?&rdquo; replied Ranald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fasting this day at Ardenvohr,&rdquo; answered the Envoy, &ldquo;that he may feast
+      to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance to fail, my
+      lease of human service will be something precarious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe and
+      his best friend,&rdquo; answered Ranald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message,&rdquo; answered
+      Dalgetty, &ldquo;Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading riddles with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Craven Saxon,&rdquo; said the prisoner, &ldquo;tell him I am the raven that, fifteen
+      years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the pledges he had left
+      there&mdash;I am the hunter that found out the wolfs den on the rock, and
+      destroyed his offspring&mdash;I am the leader of the band which surprised
+      Ardenvohr yesterday was fifteen years, and gave his four children to the
+      sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, my honest friend,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;if that is your best
+      recommendation to Sir Duncan&rsquo;s favour, I would pretermit my pleading
+      thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the animal creation are
+      incensed against those who intromit with their offspring forcibly, much
+      more any rational and Christian creatures, who have had violence done upon
+      their small family. But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether you
+      assailed the castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold to be
+      the true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a sconce.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings,&rdquo; said the
+      prisoner, &ldquo;drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six
+      months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. The
+      owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared
+      against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man&rsquo;s
+      heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there
+      had been peace and joy at the sunset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very sufficient
+      onslaught, and not unworthily discharged. Nevertheless, I would have
+      pressed the house from that little hillock called Drumsnab. But yours is a
+      pretty irregular Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald, much resembling that
+      of Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.&mdash;But the reason, my
+      friend, the cause of this war&mdash;the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I may say?
+      Deliver me that, Ranald.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had been pushed at by the M&rsquo;Aulays, and other western tribes,&rdquo; said
+      Ranald, &ldquo;till our possessions became unsafe for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ha!&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;I have faint remembrance of having heard of that
+      matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man&rsquo;s mouth, when he had
+      never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have heard, then,&rdquo; said Ranald, &ldquo;the tale of our revenge on the
+      haughty forester?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bethink me that I have,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;and that not of an old date.
+      It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man&rsquo;s mouth,
+      but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation, besides
+      wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a leaguer,
+      Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald, for that
+      crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were attacked by Sir Duncan,&rdquo; continued MacEagh, &ldquo;and my brother was
+      slain&mdash;his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled&mdash;I
+      vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be so,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;and every thorough-bred soldier will
+      confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story will
+      interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move him to
+      intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from hanging, or
+      simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or wheel, with the
+      coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death by torture,
+      surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be for miskenning
+      Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly by suffocation,
+      like your ancestors before you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet hearken, stranger,&rdquo; said the Highlander. &ldquo;Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr had
+      four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives; and
+      more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which remains,
+      than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost indulgence
+      of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his day of
+      humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing, and
+      breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the child
+      Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than ten sons
+      who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume, Ranald,&rdquo; continued Dalgetty, &ldquo;that the three pretty fellows
+      whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like rizzer&rsquo;d
+      haddocks, claimed some interest in you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong
+      emotion,&mdash;&ldquo;They were my sons, stranger&mdash;they were my sons!&mdash;blood
+      of my blood&mdash;bone of my bone!&mdash;fleet of foot&mdash;unerring in
+      aim&mdash;unvanquished by foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by
+      numbers! Why do I wish to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the
+      rending up of its roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful
+      boughs. But Kenneth must be trained to revenge&mdash;the young eagle must
+      learn from the old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake
+      my life and my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may attain your end more easily,&rdquo; said a third voice, mingling in the
+      conference, &ldquo;by entrusting it to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All Highlanders are superstitious. &ldquo;The Enemy of Mankind is among us!&rdquo;
+       said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he
+      rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the quarter
+      whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree communicated
+      itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort of polyglot
+      gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without being able to
+      remember more than a word or two of each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College&mdash;SANTISSMA MADRE
+      DI DIOS, as the Spaniard has it&mdash;ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN,
+      saith the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther&rsquo;s translation&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A truce with your exorcisms,&rdquo; said the voice they had heard before;
+      &ldquo;though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my
+      assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too
+      proud to be counselled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern, by
+      whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who had
+      thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in their
+      conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the Marquis.
+      His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven foot which
+      Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse&rsquo;s hoof by which
+      he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how the stranger
+      had come among them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had
+      the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly,
+      sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a
+      regiment of living men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reserve my secret,&rdquo; answered the stranger, &ldquo;until you shall merit the
+      discovery by communicating to me some of yours. It may be that I shall be
+      moved to let you out where I myself came in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot be through the keyhole, then,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty, &ldquo;for my
+      corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece
+      could get through. As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few
+      appertaining to others. But impart to us what secrets you desire to know;
+      or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the Mareschal-College,
+      Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not with you I have first to do,&rdquo; replied the stranger, turning his
+      light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of the
+      Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of the
+      dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you something, my friend,&rdquo; said the stranger, in a more
+      soothing tone, &ldquo;to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no
+      reason wherefore you should not live to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None at all&mdash;no reason in the creation,&rdquo; replied the ready Captain
+      Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a small basket
+      which the stranger had brought under his cloak, while the Highlander,
+      either in suspicion or disdain, paid no attention to the good cheer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s to thee, my friend,&rdquo; said the Captain, who, having already
+      dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a pull at the
+      wine-flask. &ldquo;What is thy name, my good friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdoch Campbell, sir,&rdquo; answered the servant, &ldquo;a lackey of the Marquis of
+      Argyle, and occasionally acting as under-warden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then here is to thee once more, Murdoch,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;drinking to you
+      by your proper name for the better luck sake. This wine I take to be
+      Calcavella. Well, honest Murdoch, I take it on me to say, thou deservest
+      to be upper-warden, since thou showest thyself twenty times better
+      acquainted with the way of victualling honest gentlemen that are under
+      misfortune, than thy principal. Bread and water? out upon him! It was
+      enough, Murdoch, to destroy the credit of the Marquis&rsquo;s dungeon. But I see
+      you would converse with my friend, Ranald MacEagh here. Never mind my
+      presence; I&rsquo;ll get me into this corner with the basket, and I will warrant
+      my jaws make noise enough to prevent my ears from hearing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding this promise, however, the veteran listened with all the
+      attention he could to gather their discourse, or, as he described it
+      himself, &ldquo;laid his ears back in his neck, like Gustavus, when he heard the
+      key turn in the girnell-kist.&rdquo; He could, therefore, owing to the
+      narrowness of the dungeon, easily overhear the following dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you aware, Son of the Mist,&rdquo; said the Campbell, &ldquo;that you will never
+      leave this place excepting for the gibbet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those who are dearest to me,&rdquo; answered MacEagh, &ldquo;have trode that path
+      before me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you would do nothing,&rdquo; asked the visitor, &ldquo;to shun following them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would do much,&rdquo; at length he said; &ldquo;not for my own life, but for the
+      sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?&rdquo; again
+      demanded Murdoch; &ldquo;I care not for what cause ye mean to shun it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call yourself a man,&rdquo; said the interrogator, &ldquo;who have done the
+      deeds of a wolf?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do,&rdquo; answered the outlaw; &ldquo;I am a man like my forefathers&mdash;while
+      wrapt in the mantle of peace, we were lambs&mdash;it was rent from us, and
+      ye now call us wolves. Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom
+      ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved&mdash;collect from the
+      gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses, and whitened skulls of our
+      kinsmen&mdash;bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and
+      brothers&mdash;till then, let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a
+      dark veil of division between us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will then do nothing for your liberty,&rdquo; said the Campbell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything&mdash;but call myself the friend of your tribe,&rdquo; answered
+      MacEagh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans,&rdquo; retorted Murdoch, &ldquo;and
+      would not stoop to accept it.&mdash;What I demand to know from you, in
+      exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the
+      Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be found?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master,&rdquo; said
+      Ranald, &ldquo;after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid! Does not the valley
+      of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence offered to a
+      helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the court of the
+      Sovereign? Were not her escort compelled to hide her beneath a cauldron,
+      round which they fought till not one remained to tell the tale? and was
+      not the girl brought to this fatal castle, and afterwards wedded to the
+      brother of M&rsquo;Callum More, and all for the sake of her broad lands?&rdquo; [Such
+      a story is told of the heiress of the clan of Calder, who was made
+      prisoner in the manner described, and afterwards wedded to Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, from which union the Campbells of Cawdor have their descent.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the tale be true,&rdquo; said Murdoch, &ldquo;she had a preferment beyond what
+      the King of Scots would have conferred on her. But this is far from the
+      purpose. The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own blood, not
+      a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as M&rsquo;Callum More,
+      the chief of her clan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is on his part, then, that you demand it!&rdquo; said the outlaw. The
+      domestic of the Marquis assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will practise no evil against the maiden?&mdash;I have done her
+      wrong enough already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No evil, upon the word of a Christian man,&rdquo; replied Murdoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?&rdquo; said the Child of the Mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such is our paction,&rdquo; replied the Campbell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the spoiling
+      of her father&rsquo;s tower of strength, was bred as an adopted daughter of our
+      tribe, until we were worsted at the pass of Ballenduthil, by the fiend
+      incarnate and mortal enemy of our tribe, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay of the Bloody hand,
+      and by the horsemen of Lennox, under the heir of Menteith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand,&rdquo; said Murdoch, &ldquo;and
+      she a reputed daughter of thy tribe? Then her blood has gilded the dirk,
+      and thou hast said nothing to rescue thine own forfeited life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If my life rest on hers,&rdquo; answered the outlaw, &ldquo;it is secure, for she
+      still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance&mdash;the frail
+      promise of a son of Diarmid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That promise shall not fail you,&rdquo; said the Campbell, &ldquo;if you can assure
+      me that she survives, and where she is to be found.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the Castle of Darlinvarach,&rdquo; said Ranald MacEagh, &ldquo;under the name of
+      Annot Lyle. I have often heard of her from my kinsmen, who have again
+      approached their native woods, and it is not long since mine old eyes
+      beheld her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; said Murdoch, in astonishment, &ldquo;you, a chief among the Children of
+      the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Son of Diarmid, I did more,&rdquo; replied the outlaw; &ldquo;I was in the hall of
+      the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianach. My
+      purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the M&rsquo;Aulay with the
+      Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles, and to have taken thereafter
+      what fate God should send me. But I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand was
+      on the hilt of my dagger. She touched her clairshach [Harp] to a song of
+      the Children of the Mist, which she had learned when her dwelling was
+      amongst us. The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly, rustled their
+      green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with the sound of all
+      their waters. My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains of mine eyes were
+      opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.&mdash;And now, Son of
+      Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; replied Murdoch, &ldquo;if your tale be true; but what proof can you
+      assign for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bear witness, heaven and earth,&rdquo; exclaimed the outlaw, &ldquo;he already looks
+      how he may step over his word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; replied Murdoch; &ldquo;every promise shall be kept to you when I am
+      assured you have told me the truth.&mdash;But I must speak a few words
+      with your companion in captivity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fair and false&mdash;ever fair and false,&rdquo; muttered the prisoner, as he
+      threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of this
+      dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private. &ldquo;What the HENKER
+      can this sly fellow have to say to me? I have no child, either of my own,
+      so far as I know, or of any other person, to tell him a tale about. But
+      let him come on&mdash;he will have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank
+      of the old soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach, he waited
+      with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Murdoch Campbell,
+      &ldquo;and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-GAF, [In old
+      English, KA ME KA THEE, i.e. mutually serving each other.] which goes
+      through all nations and all services.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I should know something of it,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;for, except the
+      Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served; and I have
+      sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem Gabor, or with the
+      Janizaries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will understand me
+      at once,&rdquo; said Murdoch, &ldquo;when I say, I mean that your freedom shall depend
+      on your true and up right answer to a few trifling questions respecting
+      the gentlemen you have left; their state of preparation; the number of
+      their men, and nature of their appointments; and as much as you chance to
+      know about their plan of operations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just to satisfy your curiosity,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;and without any farther
+      purpose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None in the world,&rdquo; replied Murdoch; &ldquo;what interest should a poor devil
+      like me take in their operations?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make your interrogations, then,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;and I will answer
+      them PREREMTORIE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many Irish may be on their march to join James Graham the
+      delinquent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably ten thousand,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten thousand!&rdquo; replied Murdoch angrily; &ldquo;we know that scarce two thousand
+      landed at Ardnamurchan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you know more about them than I do,&rdquo; answered Captain Dalgetty, with
+      great composure. &ldquo;I never saw them mustered yet, or even under arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how many men of the clans may be expected?&rdquo; demanded Murdoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As many as they can make,&rdquo; replied the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are answering from the purpose, sir,&rdquo; said Murdoch &ldquo;speak plainly,
+      will there be five thousand men?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There and thereabouts,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are playing with your life, sir, if you trifle with me,&rdquo; replied the
+      catechist; &ldquo;one whistle of mine, and in less than ten minutes your head
+      hangs on the drawbridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But to speak candidly, Mr. Murdoch,&rdquo; replied the Captain &ldquo;do you think it
+      is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our army, and I
+      engaged to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat
+      Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and chance of booty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you,&rdquo; said Campbell, &ldquo;that if you be stubborn, your campaign shall
+      begin and end in a march to the block at the castle-gate, which stands
+      ready for such land-laufers; but if you answer my questions faithfully, I
+      will receive you into my&mdash;into the service of M&rsquo;Callum More.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the service afford good pay?&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act under his
+      direction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him,&rdquo; said Dalgetty,
+      appearing to meditate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now,&rdquo; said the
+      Campbell; &ldquo;always supposing that you are faithful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose,&rdquo; answered the
+      Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faithful to the cause of religion and good order,&rdquo; answered Murdoch,
+      &ldquo;which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Marquis of Argyle&mdash;should I incline to enter his service, is
+      he a kind master?&rdquo; demanded Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never man kinder,&rdquo; quoth Campbell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And bountiful to his officers?&rdquo; pursued the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The most open hand in Scotland,&rdquo; replied Murdoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True and faithful to his engagements?&rdquo; continued Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As honourable a nobleman as breathes,&rdquo; said the clansman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never heard so much good of him before,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;you must know
+      the Marquis well,&mdash;or rather you must be the Marquis himself!&mdash;Lord
+      of Argyle,&rdquo; he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised nobleman,
+      &ldquo;I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If you venture to
+      call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle&rsquo;s person was so sudden and
+      unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon, and
+      held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis&rsquo;s
+      throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for
+      assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord of Argyle,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it is now my turn to lay down the terms of
+      capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you entered
+      the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM TENENS, as
+      we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits his prisoners.
+      But if not, I will first strangle you&mdash;I learned the art from a
+      Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman seraglio&mdash;and
+      then seek out a mode of retreat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness,&rdquo; murmured Argyle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for your kindness, my lord,&rdquo; replied Dalgetty: &ldquo;but first, to teach
+      your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under
+      safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing
+      dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to become
+      false to his standard during the term of his service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spare my life,&rdquo; said Argyle, &ldquo;and I will do as you require.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis&rsquo;s throat, compressing it a
+      little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him the
+      power of answering them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the secret door into the dungeon?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern
+      the iron which covers the spring,&rdquo; replied the Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far so good.&mdash;Where does the passage lead to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my private apartment behind the tapestry,&rdquo; answered the prostrate
+      nobleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From thence how shall I reach the gateway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys&rsquo; waiting hall, the
+      grand guardroom&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?&mdash;that will
+      never do for me, my lord;&mdash;have you no secret passage to the gate, as
+      you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a passage through the chapel,&rdquo; said the Marquis, &ldquo;opening from
+      my apartment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is the pass-word at the gate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sword of Levi,&rdquo; replied the Marquis; &ldquo;but if you will receive my
+      pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard, and
+      set you at full liberty with a passport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the
+      grasp of my fingers&mdash;as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the
+      Spaniard says. Yet you may grant me a passport;&mdash;are there writing
+      materials in your apartment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you there,&rdquo;
+       said the Marquis, &ldquo;instantly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were too much honour for the like of me,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;your
+      lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh;
+      therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.&mdash;Honest
+      Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I doubt
+      not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do; clap your
+      hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under his ruff,
+      and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy Ranald, to
+      squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that is, till he
+      swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your gullet and mine
+      to still harder usage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he offer at speech or struggle,&rdquo; said Ranald, &ldquo;he dies by my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is right, Ranald&mdash;very spirited:&mdash;A thorough-going friend
+      that understands a hint is worth a million!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate, Dalgetty
+      pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open, though so well
+      were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the slightest noise
+      in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured by very strong
+      bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys, designed apparently to
+      undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending up through the thickness
+      of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had truly informed him, behind
+      the tapestry of his private apartment. Such communications were frequent
+      in old feudal castles, as they gave the lord of the fortress, like a
+      second Dionysius, the means of hearing the conversation of his prisoners,
+      or, if he pleased, of visiting them in disguise, an experiment which had
+      terminated so unpleasantly on the present occasion for Gillespie Grumach.
+      Having examined previously whether there was any one in the apartment, and
+      finding the coast clear, the Captain entered, and hastily possessing
+      himself of a blank passport, several of which lay on the table, and of
+      writing materials, securing, at the same time, the Marquis&rsquo;s dagger, and a
+      silk cord from the hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where,
+      listening a moment at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of
+      the Marquis making great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer
+      him to give an alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for a forest of deer&mdash;not for a thousand head of cattle,&rdquo;
+       answered the freebooter; &ldquo;not for all the lands that ever called a son of
+      Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted to him of the
+      iron-garment!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He of the iron-garment,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, entering, &ldquo;is bounden unto you,
+      MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but first he must fill
+      up this passport with the names of Major Dugald Dalgetty and his guide, or
+      he is like to have a passport to another world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark lantern, as
+      the soldier prescribed to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Ranald,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;strip thy upper garment&mdash;thy plaid
+      I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M&rsquo;Callum More, and make of
+      him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;&mdash;Nay, I must bring it over
+      your head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.&mdash;So,
+      now he is sufficiently muffled;&mdash;hold down your hands, or, by Heaven,
+      I will stab you to the heart with your own dagger!&mdash;nay, you shall be
+      bound with nothing less than silk, as your quality deserves.&mdash;So, now
+      he is secure till some one comes to relieve him. If he ordered us a late
+      dinner, Ranald, he is like to be the sufferer;&mdash;at what hour, my good
+      Ranald, did the jailor usually appear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never till the sun was beneath the western wave,&rdquo; said MacEagh. &ldquo;Then, my
+      friend, we shall have three hours good,&rdquo; said the cautious Captain. &ldquo;In
+      the meantime, let us labour for your liberation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To examine Ranald&rsquo;s chain was the next occupation. It was undone by means
+      of one of the keys which hung behind the private door, probably deposited
+      there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased, dismiss a prisoner, or
+      remove him elsewhere without the necessity of summoning the warden. The
+      outlaw stretched his benumbed arms, and bounded from the floor of the
+      dungeon in all the ecstasy of recovered freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner,&rdquo; said Captain Dalgetty; &ldquo;put
+      it on, and follow close at my heels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The outlaw obeyed. They ascended the private stair, having first secured
+      the door behind them, and thus safely reached the apartment of the
+      Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great deal of
+      espionage into their castles. Sir Robert Carey mentions his having put on
+      the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a confession from the mouth
+      of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom he caused presently to be hanged in
+      return for the frankness of his communication. The fine old Border castle
+      of Naworth contains a private stair from the apartment of the Lord William
+      Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is alleged in the
+      preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis of Argyle.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     This was the entry then, these stairs&mdash;but whither after?
+     Yet he that&rsquo;s sure to perish on the land
+     May quit the nicety of card and compass,
+     And trust the open sea without a pilot.&mdash;TRAGEDY OF BENNOVALT.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look out for the private way through the chapel, Ranald,&rdquo; said the
+      Captain, &ldquo;while I give a hasty regard to these matters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus speaking, he seized with one hand a bundle of Argyle&rsquo;s most private
+      papers, and with the other a purse of gold, both of which lay in a drawer
+      of a rich cabinet, which stood invitingly open. Neither did he neglect to
+      possess himself of a sword and pistols, with powder-flask and balls, which
+      hung in the apartment. &ldquo;Intelligence and booty,&rdquo; said the veteran, as he
+      pouched the spoils, &ldquo;each honourable cavalier should look to, the one on
+      his general&rsquo;s behalf, and the other on his own. This sword is an Andrew
+      Ferrara, and the pistols better than mine own. But a fair exchange is no
+      robbery. Soldados are not to be endangered, and endangered gratuitously,
+      my Lord of Argyle.&mdash;But soft, soft, Ranald; wise Man of the Mist,
+      whither art thou bound?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh&rsquo;s proceedings; for, not finding
+      the private passage readily, and impatient, it would seem, of farther
+      delay, he had caught down a sword and target, and was about to enter the
+      great gallery, with the purpose, doubtless, of fighting his way through
+      all opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold, while you live,&rdquo; whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him. &ldquo;We must
+      be perdue, if possible. So bar we this door, that it may be thought
+      M&rsquo;Callum More would be private&mdash;and now let me make a reconnaissance
+      for the private passage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length
+      discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated
+      by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel. But what was his
+      disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door, the
+      sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This made the villain,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;recommend this to us as a private
+      passage. I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery
+      used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps
+      with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance
+      upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular
+      affairs. There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the
+      Marquis,&mdash;such was the high state maintained in those days,&mdash;sate
+      during service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the
+      great man himself. This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to
+      ensconce himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon listened to
+      with more impatience, and less edification, on the part of one, at least,
+      of the audience. The Captain heard SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY
+      and TO CONCLUDE, with a sort of feeling like protracted despair. But no
+      man can lecture (for the service was called a lecture) for ever; and the
+      discourse was at length closed, the clergyman not failing to make a
+      profound bow towards the latticed gallery, little suspecting whom he
+      honoured by that reverence. To judge from the haste with which they
+      dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis were scarce more pleased with
+      their late occupation than the anxious Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of
+      them being Highlandmen, had the excuse of not understanding a single word
+      which the clergyman spoke, although they gave their attendance on his
+      doctrine by the special order of M&rsquo;Callum More, and would have done so had
+      the preacher been a Turkish Imaum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine remained
+      behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its Gothic precincts,
+      seemed either to be meditating on what he had just been delivering, or
+      preparing a fresh discourse for the next opportunity. Bold as he was,
+      Dalgetty hesitated what he ought to do. Time, however, pressed, and every
+      moment increased the chance of their escape being discovered by the jailor
+      visiting the dungeon perhaps before his wonted time, and discovering the
+      exchange which had been made there. At length, whispering Ranald, who
+      watched all his motions, to follow him and preserve his countenance,
+      Captain Dalgetty, with a very composed air, descended a flight of steps
+      which led from the gallery into the body of the chapel. A less experienced
+      adventurer would have endeavoured to pass the worthy clergyman rapidly, in
+      hopes to escape unnoticed. But the Captain, who foresaw the manifest
+      danger of failing in such an attempt, walked gravely to meet the divine
+      upon his walk in the midst of the chancel, and, pulling off his cap, was
+      about to pass him after a formal reverence. But what was his surprise to
+      view in the preacher the very same person with whom he had dined in the
+      castle of Ardenvohr! Yet he speedily recovered his composure; and ere the
+      clergyman could speak, was the first to address him. &ldquo;I could not,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;leave this mansion without bequeathing to you, my very reverend
+      sir, my humble thanks for the homily with which you have this evening
+      favoured us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not observe, sir,&rdquo; said the clergyman, &ldquo;that you were in the
+      chapel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It pleased the honourable Marquis,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, modestly, &ldquo;to grace me
+      with a seat in his own gallery.&rdquo; The divine bowed low at this intimation,
+      knowing that such an honour was only vouchsafed to persons of very high
+      rank. &ldquo;It has been my fate, sir,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;in the sort of
+      wandering life which I have led, to have heard different preachers of
+      different religions&mdash;as for example, Lutheran, Evangelical, Reformed,
+      Calvinistical, and so forth, but never have I listened to such a homily as
+      yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it a lecture, worthy sir,&rdquo; said the divine, &ldquo;such is the phrase of
+      our church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lecture or homily,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;it was, as the High Germans say, GANZ
+      FORTRE FLICH; and I could not leave this place without testifying unto you
+      what inward emotions I have undergone during your edifying prelection; and
+      how I am touched to the quick, that I should yesterday, during the
+      refection, have seemed to infringe on the respect due to such a person as
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! my worthy sir,&rdquo; said the clergyman, &ldquo;we meet in this world as in
+      the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not knowing against whom we may chance
+      to encounter. In truth, it is no matter of marvel, if we sometimes jostle
+      those, to whom, if known, we would yield all respect. Surely, sir, I would
+      rather have taken you for a profane malignant than for such a devout
+      person as you prove, who reverences the great Master even in the meanest
+      of his servants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is always my custom to do so, learned sir,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty; &ldquo;for in
+      the service of the immortal Gustavus&mdash;but I detain you from your
+      meditations,&rdquo;&mdash;his desire to speak of the King of Sweden being for
+      once overpowered by the necessity of his circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By no means, my worthy sir,&rdquo; said the clergyman. &ldquo;What was, I pray you,
+      the order of that great Prince, whose memory is so dear to every
+      Protestant bosom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly as for
+      parade; and if a soldier passed without saluting the chaplain, he had an
+      hour&rsquo;s ride on the wooden mare for his pains. Sir, I wish you a very good
+      evening&mdash;I am obliged to depart the castle under M&rsquo;Callum More&rsquo;s
+      passport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay one instant, sir,&rdquo; said the preacher; &ldquo;is there nothing I can do to
+      testify my respect for the pupil of the great Gustavus, and so admirable a
+      judge of preaching?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, sir,&rdquo; said the Captain, &ldquo;but to shew me the nearest way to the
+      gate&mdash;and if you would have the kindness,&rdquo; he added, with great
+      effrontery, &ldquo;to let a servant bring my horse with him, the dark grey
+      gelding&mdash;call him Gustavus, and he will prick up his ears&mdash;for I
+      know not where the castle-stables are situated, and my guide,&rdquo; he added,
+      looking at Ranald, &ldquo;speaks no English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hasten to accommodate you,&rdquo; said the clergyman; &ldquo;your way lies through
+      that cloistered passage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Heaven&rsquo;s blessing upon your vanity!&rdquo; said the Captain to himself. &ldquo;I
+      was afraid I would have had to march off without Gustavus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, so effectually did the chaplain exert himself in behalf of so
+      excellent a judge of composition, that while Dalgetty was parleying with
+      the sentinels at the drawbridge, showing his passport, and giving the
+      watchword, a servant brought him his horse, ready saddled for the journey.
+      In another place, the Captain&rsquo;s sudden appearance at large after having
+      been publicly sent to prison, might have excited suspicion and enquiry;
+      but the officers and domestics of the Marquis were accustomed to the
+      mysterious policy of their master, and never supposed aught else than that
+      he had been liberated and intrusted with some private commission by their
+      master. In this belief, and having received the parole, they gave him free
+      passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty rode slowly through the town of Inverary, the outlaw attending
+      upon him like a foot-page at his horse&rsquo;s shoulder. As they passed the
+      gibbet, the old man looked on the bodies and wrung his hands. The look and
+      gesture was momentary, but expressive of indescribable anguish. Instantly
+      recovering himself, Ranald, in passing, whispered somewhat to one of the
+      females, who, like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, seemed engaged in watching
+      and mourning the victims of feudal injustice and cruelty. The woman
+      started at his voice, but immediately collected herself and returned for
+      answer a slight inclination of the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty continued his way out of the town, uncertain whether he should
+      try to seize or hire a boat and cross the lake, or plunge into the woods,
+      and there conceal himself from pursuit. In the former event he was liable
+      to be instantly pursued by the galleys of the Marquis, which lay ready for
+      sailing, their long yard-arms pointing to the wind, and what hope could he
+      have in an ordinary Highland fishing-boat to escape from them? If he made
+      the latter choice, his chance either of supporting or concealing himself
+      in those waste and unknown wildernesses, was in the highest degree
+      precarious. The town lay now behind him, yet what hand to turn to for
+      safety he was unable to determine, and began to be sensible, that in
+      escaping from the dungeon at Inverary, desperate as the matter seemed, he
+      had only accomplished the easiest part of a difficult task. If retaken,
+      his fate was now certain; for the personal injury he had offered to a man
+      so powerful and so vindictive, could be atoned for only by instant death.
+      While he pondered these distressing reflections, and looked around with a
+      countenance which plainly expressed indecision, Ranald MacEagh suddenly
+      asked him, &ldquo;which way he intended to journey?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that, honest comrade,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty, &ldquo;is precisely the question
+      which I cannot answer you. Truly I begin to hold the opinion, Ranald, that
+      we had better have stuck by the brown loaf and water-pitcher until Sir
+      Duncan arrived, who, for his own honour, must have made some fight for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saxon,&rdquo; answered MacEagh, &ldquo;do not regret having exchanged the foul breath
+      of yonder dungeon for the free air of heaven. Above all, repent not that
+      you have served a Son of the Mist. Put yourself under my guidance, and I
+      will warrant your safety with my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the army of
+      Montrose?&rdquo; said Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can,&rdquo; answered MacEagh; &ldquo;there lives not a man to whom the mountain
+      passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the corries are known,
+      as they are to the Children of the Mist. While others crawl on the level
+      ground, by the sides of lakes and streams, ours are the steep hollows of
+      the inaccessible mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs. Not all
+      the bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I can
+      guide you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say&rsquo;st thou so, honest Ranald?&rdquo; replied Dalgetty; &ldquo;then have on with
+      thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own pilotage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the castle is
+      surrounded for several miles, walking with so much dispatch as kept
+      Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a number of cross cuts and
+      turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily lost all idea where he might be, and
+      all knowledge of the points of the compass. At length, the path, which had
+      gradually become more difficult, altogether ended among thickets and
+      underwood. The roaring of a torrent was heard in the neighbourhood, the
+      ground became in some places broken, in others boggy, and everywhere unfit
+      for riding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the foul fiend,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;is to be done here? I must part
+      with Gustavus, I fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take no care for your horse,&rdquo; said the outlaw; &ldquo;he shall soon be restored
+      to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in tartan,
+      half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong of leather,
+      to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean, and half-starved
+      in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten times the
+      proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept out, as a
+      wild beast might have done, from a thicket of brambles and briars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give your horse to the gillie,&rdquo; said Ranald MacEagh; &ldquo;your life depends
+      upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Och! och!&rdquo; exclaimed the despairing veteran; &ldquo;Eheu! as we used to say at
+      Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such grooming!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you frantic, to lose time thus!&rdquo; said his guide; &ldquo;do we stand on
+      friends&rsquo; ground, that you should part with your horse as if he were your
+      brother? I tell you, you shall have him again; but if you never saw the
+      animal, is not life better than the best colt ever mare foaled?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is true too, mine honest friend,&rdquo; sighed Dalgetty; &ldquo;yet if you
+      knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have done and
+      suffered together&mdash;See, he turns back to look at me!&mdash;Be kind to
+      him, my good breechless friend, and I will requite you well.&rdquo; So saying,
+      and withal sniffling a little to swallow his grief, he turned from the
+      heart-rending spectacle in order to follow his guide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more agility
+      than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first plunge after he had
+      parted from his charger, carried him, with little assistance from a few
+      overhanging boughs, or projecting roots of trees, eight foot sheer down
+      into the course of a torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.
+      Huge stones, over which they scrambled,&mdash;thickets of them and
+      brambles, through which they had to drag themselves,&mdash;rocks which
+      were to be climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the
+      purpose of an equally precarious descent upon the other; all these, and
+      many such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-footed and
+      half-naked mountaineer with an ease and velocity which excited the
+      surprise and envy of Captain Dalgetty, who, encumbered by his head-piece,
+      corslet, and other armour, not to mention his ponderous jack-boots, found
+      himself at length so much exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of
+      the road, that he sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath,
+      while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
+      EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were understood at
+      Mareschal-College, Aberdeen. The sole answer of the mountaineer was to lay
+      his hand on the soldier&rsquo;s arm, and point backward in the direction of the
+      wind. Dalgetty could spy nothing, for evening was closing fast, and they
+      were at the bottom of a dark ravine. But at length he could distinctly
+      hear at a distance the sullen toll of a large bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;must be the alarm&mdash;the storm-clock, as the Germans
+      call it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It strikes the hour of your death,&rdquo; answered Ranald, &ldquo;unless you can
+      accompany me a little farther. For every toll of that bell a brave man has
+      yielded up his soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;I will not deny that
+      the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen (being, as I explained
+      to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been EXPEDITUS, I mind not pedestrian
+      exercise the flourish of a fife), that I think I had better ensconce
+      myself in one of these bushes, and even lie quiet there to abide what
+      fortune God shall send me. I entreat you, mine honest friend Ranald, to
+      shift for yourself, and leave me to my fortune, as the Lion of the North,
+      the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, my never-to-be-forgotten master (whom you
+      must surely have heard of, Ranald, though you may have heard of no one
+      else), said to Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburgh, when he was
+      mortally wounded on the plains of Lutzen. Neither despair altogether of my
+      safety, Ranald, seeing I have been in as great pinches as this in Germany&mdash;more
+      especially, I remember me, that at the fatal battle of Nerlingen&mdash;after
+      which I changed service&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would save your father&rsquo;s son&rsquo;s breath to help his child out of
+      trouble, instead of wasting it upon the tales of Seannachies,&rdquo; said
+      Ranald, who now grew impatient of the Captain&rsquo;s loquacity, &ldquo;or if your
+      feet could travel as fast as your tongue, you might yet lay your head on
+      an unbloody pillow to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something there is like military skill in that,&rdquo; replied the Captain,
+      &ldquo;although wantonly and irreverently spoken to an officer of rank. But I
+      hold it good to pardon such freedoms on a march, in respect of the
+      Saturnalian license indulged in such cases to the troops of all nations.
+      And now, resume thine office, friend Ranald, in respect I am
+      well-breathed; or, to be more plain, I PRAE, SEQUAR, as we used to say at
+      Mareschal-College.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Comprehending his meaning rather from his motions than his language, the
+      Son of the Mist again led the way, with an unerring precision that looked
+      like instinct, through a variety of ground the most difficult and broken
+      that could well be imagined. Dragging along his ponderous boots,
+      encumbered with thigh-pieces, gauntlets, corslet, and back-piece, not to
+      mention the buff jerkin which he wore under all these arms, talking of his
+      former exploits the whole way, though Ranald paid not the slightest
+      attention to him, Captain Dalgetty contrived to follow his guide a
+      considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a hound was
+      heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent of its prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Black hound,&rdquo; said Ranald, &ldquo;whose throat never boded good to a Child of
+      the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast thou already found
+      our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound of darkness, and the deer
+      has gained the herd.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone equally low
+      from the top of a pass, up which they had for some time been ascending.
+      Mending their pace, they reached the top, where the moon, which had now
+      risen bright and clear, showed to Dalgetty a party of ten or twelve
+      Highlanders, and about as many women and children, by whom Ranald MacEagh
+      was received with such transports of joy, as made his companion easily
+      sensible that those by whom he was surrounded, must of course be Children
+      of the Mist. The place which they occupied well suited their name and
+      habits. It was a beetling crag, round which winded a very narrow and
+      broken footpath, commanded in various places by the position which they
+      held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ranald spoke anxiously and hastily to the children of his tribe, and the
+      men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women,
+      clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his
+      garment. &ldquo;They plight their faith to you,&rdquo; said Ranald MacEagh, &ldquo;for
+      requital of the good deed you have done to the tribe this day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough said, Ranald,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;enough said&mdash;tell them
+      I love not this shaking of hands&mdash;it confuses ranks and degrees in
+      military service; and as to kissing of gauntlets, puldrons, and the like,
+      I remember that the immortal Gustavus, as he rode through the streets of
+      Nuremberg, being thus worshipped by the poulace (being doubtless far more
+      worthy of it than a poor though honourable cavalier like myself), did say
+      unto them, in the way of rebuke, &lsquo;If you idolize me thus like a god, who
+      shall assure you that the vengeance of Heaven will not soon prove me to be
+      a mortal?&rsquo;&mdash;And so here, I suppose you intend to make a stand against
+      your followers, Ranald&mdash;VOTO A DIOS, as the Spaniard says?&mdash;a
+      very pretty position&mdash;as pretty a position for a small peloton of men
+      as I have seen in my service&mdash;no enemy can come towards it by the
+      road without being at the mercy of cannon and musket.&mdash;But then,
+      Ranald, my trusty comrade, you have no cannon, I dare to aver, and I do
+      not see that any of these fellows have muskets either. So with what
+      artillery you propose making good the pass, before you come to hand blows,
+      truly, Ranald, it passeth my apprehension.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the weapons and with the courage of our fathers,&rdquo; said MacEagh; and
+      made the Captain observe, that the men of his party were armed with bows
+      and arrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bows and arrows!&rdquo; exclaimed Dalgetty; &ldquo;ha! ha! ha! have we Robin Hood and
+      Little John back again? Bows and arrows! why, the sight has not been seen
+      in civilized war for a hundred years. Bows and arrows! and why not
+      weavers&rsquo; beams, as in the days of Goliah? Ah! that Dugald Dalgetty, of
+      Drumthwacket, should live to see men fight with bows and arrows!&mdash;The
+      immortal Gustavus would never have believed it&mdash;nor Wallenstein&mdash;nor
+      Butler&mdash;nor old Tilly,&mdash;Well, Ranald, a cat can have but its
+      claws&mdash;since bows and arrows are the word, e&rsquo;en let us make the best
+      of it. Only, as I do not understand the scope and range of such
+      old-fashioned artillery, you must make the best disposition you can out of
+      your own head for MY taking the command, whilk I would have gladly done
+      had you been to fight with any Christian weapons, is out of the question,
+      when you are to combat like quivered Numidians. I will, however, play my
+      part with my pistols in the approaching melley, in respect my carabine
+      unhappily remains at Gustavus&rsquo;s saddle.&mdash;My service and thanks to
+      you,&rdquo; he continued, addressing a mountaineer who offered him a bow;
+      &ldquo;Dugald Dalgetty may say of himself, as he learned at Mareschal-College,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu,
+     Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
+     Fusce, pharetra;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      whilk is to say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ranald MacEagh a second time imposed silence on the talkative commander as
+      before, by pulling his sleeve, and pointing down the pass. The bay of the
+      bloodhound was now approaching nearer and nearer, and they could hear the
+      voices of several persons who accompanied the animal, and hallooed to each
+      other as they dispersed occasionally, either in the hurry of their
+      advance, or in order to search more accurately the thickets as they came
+      along. They were obviously drawing nearer and nearer every moment.
+      MacEagh, in the meantime, proposed to Captain Dalgetty to disencumber
+      himself of his armour, and gave him to understand that the women should
+      transport it to a place of safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I crave your pardon, sir,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;such is not the rule of our
+      foreign service in respect I remember the regiment of Finland cuirassiers
+      reprimanded, and their kettle-drums taken from them, by the immortal
+      Gustavus, because they had assumed the permission to march without their
+      corslets, and to leave them with the baggage. Neither did they strike
+      kettle-drums again at the head of that famous regiment until they behaved
+      themselves so notably at the field of Leipsic; a lesson whilk is not to be
+      forgotten, any more than that exclamation of the immortal Gustavus, &lsquo;Now
+      shall I know if my officers love me, by their putting on their armour;
+      since, if my officers are slain, who shall lead my soldiers into victory?&rsquo;
+      Nevertheless, friend Ranald, this is without prejudice to my being rid of
+      these somewhat heavy boots, providing I can obtain any other succedaneum;
+      for I presume not to say that my bare soles are fortified so as to endure
+      the flints and thorns, as seems to be the case with your followers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To rid the Captain of his cumbrous greaves, and case his feet in a pair of
+      brogues made out of deerskin, which a Highlander stripped off for his
+      accommodation, was the work of a minute, and Dalgetty found himself much
+      lightened by the exchange. He was in the act of recommending to Ranald
+      MacEagh, to send two or three of his followers a little lower to
+      reconnoitre the pass, and, at the same time, somewhat to extend his front,
+      placing two detached archers at each flank by way of posts of observation,
+      when the near cry of the hound apprised them that the pursuers were at the
+      bottom of the pass. All was then dead silence; for, loquacious as he was
+      on other occasions, Captain Dalgetty knew well the necessity of an ambush
+      keeping itself under covert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moon gleamed on the broken pathway, and on the projecting cliffs of
+      rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here and there by the
+      branches of bushes and dwarf-trees, which, finding nourishment in the
+      crevices of the rocks, in some places overshadowed the brow and ledge of
+      the precipice. Below, a thick copse-wood lay in deep and dark shadow,
+      somewhat resembling the billows of a half-seen ocean. From the bosom of
+      that darkness, and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was
+      heard at intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the
+      echoes of the woods and rocks around. At intervals, these sunk into deep
+      silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a small runnel of
+      water, which partly fell from the rock, partly found a more silent passage
+      to the bottom along its projecting surface. Voices of men were also heard
+      in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had not discovered
+      the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, or that, having
+      discovered it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the imperfect light, and
+      the uncertainty whether it might not be defended, made them hesitate to
+      attempt it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length a shadowy figure was seen, which raised itself up from the abyss
+      of darkness below, and, emerging into the pale moonlight, began cautiously
+      and slowly to ascend the rocky path. The outline was so distinctly marked,
+      that Captain Dalgetty could discover not only the person of a Highlander,
+      but the long gun which he carried in his hand, and the plume of feathers
+      which decorated his bonnet. &ldquo;TAUSEND TEIFLEN! that I should say so, and so
+      like to be near my latter end!&rdquo; ejaculated the Captain, but under his
+      breath, &ldquo;what will become of us, now they have brought musketry to
+      encounter our archers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But just as the pursuer had attained a projecting piece of rock about half
+      way up the ascent, and, pausing, made a signal for those who were still at
+      the bottom to follow him, an arrow whistled from the bow of one of the
+      Children of the Mist, and transfixed him with so fatal a wound, that,
+      without a single effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and fell
+      headlong from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below. The
+      crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of his fall
+      from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of horror and surprise,
+      which burst from his followers. The Children of the Mist, encouraged in
+      proportion to the alarm this first success had caused among the pursuers,
+      echoed back the clamour with a loud and shrill yell of exultation, and,
+      showing themselves on the brow of the precipice, with wild cries and
+      vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their enemies a sense at
+      once of their courage, their numbers, and their state of defence. Even
+      Captain Dalgetty&rsquo;s military prudence did not prevent his rising up, and
+      calling out to Ranald, more loud than prudence warranted, &ldquo;CAROCCO,
+      comrade, as the Spaniard says! The long-bow for ever! In my poor
+      apprehension now, were you to order a file to advance and take position&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Sassenach!&rdquo; cried a voice from beneath, &ldquo;mark the Sassenach sidier! I
+      see the glitter of his breastplate.&rdquo; At the same time three muskets were
+      discharged; and while one ball rattled against the corslet of proof, to
+      the strength of which our valiant Captain had been more than once indebted
+      for his life, another penetrated the armour which covered the front of his
+      left thigh, and stretched him on the ground. Ranald instantly seized him
+      in his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the precipice, while he
+      dolefully ejaculated, &ldquo;I always told the immortal Gustavus, Wallenstein,
+      Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my poor mind, taslets ought to
+      be made musket-proof.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the wounded
+      man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of his little
+      party, and was then about to return to the contest. But Dalgetty detained
+      him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.&mdash;&ldquo;I know not how this matter
+      may end&mdash;but I request you will inform Montrose, that I died like a
+      follower of the immortal Gustavus&mdash;and I pray you, take heed how you
+      quit your present strength, even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy, if
+      you gain any advantage&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Dalgetty&rsquo;s breath and eyesight began to fail him through loss of
+      blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this circumstance, extricated from
+      his grasp the end of his own mantle, and substituted that of a female, by
+      which the Captain held stoutly, thereby securing, as he conceived, the
+      outlaw&rsquo;s attention to the military instructions which he continued to pour
+      forth while he had any breath to utter them, though they became gradually
+      more and more incoherent&mdash;&ldquo;And, comrade, you will be sure to keep
+      your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes, Lochaber-axes, and
+      two-handed swords&mdash;Stand fast, dragoons, on the left flank!&mdash;where
+      was I?&mdash;Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded to retreat, leave some
+      lighted matches burning on the branches of the trees&mdash;it shows as if
+      they were lined with shot&mdash;But I forget&mdash;ye have no match-locks
+      nor habergeons&mdash;only bows and arrows&mdash;bows and arrows! ha! ha!
+      ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable to
+      resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he
+      connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war. It was a long
+      time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in
+      the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in
+      reality, as they were wild and uncouth in outward appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     But if no faithless action stain
+     Thy true and constant word,
+     I&rsquo;ll make thee famous by my pen,
+     And glorious by my sword.
+
+     I&rsquo;ll serve thee in such noble ways
+     As ne&rsquo;er were known before;
+     I&rsquo;ll deck and crown thy head with bays,
+     And love thee more and more.&mdash;MONTROSE&rsquo;S LINES.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We must now leave, with whatever regret, the valiant Captain Dalgetty, to
+      recover of his wounds or otherwise as fate shall determine, in order
+      briefly to trace the military operations of Montrose, worthy as they are
+      of a more important page, and a better historian. By the assistance of the
+      chieftains whom we have commemorated, and more especially by the junction
+      of the Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were peculiarly
+      zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army of two or three
+      thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully united the Irish under
+      Colkitto. This last leader, who, to the great embarrassment of Milton&rsquo;s
+      commentators, is commemorated in one of that great poet&rsquo;s sonnets, was
+      properly named Alister, or Alexander M&rsquo;Donnell, by birth a Scottish
+      islesman, and related to the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage he owed
+      the command assigned him in the Irish troops. In many respects he merited
+      this distinction. He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to
+      insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely master of his
+      weapons, and always ready to show the example in the extremity of danger.
+      To counterbalance these good qualities, it must be recorded, that he was
+      inexperienced in military tactics, and of a jealous and presumptuous
+      disposition, which often lost to Montrose the fruits of Colkitto&rsquo;s
+      gallantry. Yet such is the predominance of outward personal qualities in
+      the eyes of a mild people, that the feats of strength and courage shown by
+      this champion, seem to have made a stronger impression upon the minds of
+      the Highlanders, than the military skill and chivalrous spirit of the
+      great Marquis of Montrose. Numerous traditions are still preserved in the
+      Highland glens concerning Alister M&rsquo;Donnell, though the name of Montrose
+      is rarely mentioned among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [Milton&rsquo;s book, entitled TETRACHORDON, had been ridiculed, it would seem,
+      by the divines assembled at Westminster, and others, on account of the
+      hardness of the title; and Milton in his sonnet retaliates upon the
+      barbarous Scottish names which the Civil War had made familiar to English
+      ears:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     . . . . why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
+     COLKITTO or M&rsquo;Donald, or Gallasp?
+     These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
+     That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may suppose,&rdquo; says Bishop Newton, &ldquo;that these were persons of note
+      among the Scotch ministers, who were for pressing and enforcing the
+      Covenant;&rdquo; whereas Milton only intends to ridicule the barbarism of
+      Scottish names in general, and quotes, indiscriminately, that of
+      Gillespie, one of the Apostles of the Covenant, and those of Colkitto and
+      M&rsquo;Donnell (both belonging to one person), one of its bitterest enemies.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The point upon which Montrose finally assembled his little army, was in
+      Strathearn, on the verge of the Highlands of Perthshire, so as to menace
+      the principal town of that county.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His enemies were not unprepared for his reception. Argyle, at the head of
+      his Highlanders, was dogging the steps of the Irish from the west to the
+      east, and by force, fear, or influence, had collected an army nearly
+      sufficient to have given battle to that under Montrose. The Lowlands were
+      also prepared, for reasons which we assigned at the beginning of this
+      tale. A body of six thousand infantry, and six or seven thousand cavalry,
+      which profanely assumed the title of God&rsquo;s army, had been hastily
+      assembled from the shires of Fife, Angus, Perth, Stirling, and the
+      neighbouring counties. A much less force in former times, nay, even in the
+      preceding reign, would have been sufficient to have secured the Lowlands
+      against a more formidable descent of Highlanders, than those united under
+      Montrose; but times had changed strangely within the last half century.
+      Before that period, the Lowlanders were as constantly engaged in war as
+      the mountaineers, and were incomparably better disciplined and armed. The
+      favourite Scottish order of battle somewhat resembled the Macedonian
+      phalanx. Their infantry formed a compact body, armed with long spears,
+      impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the age, though well mounted, and
+      arrayed in complete proof. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that
+      their ranks could not be broken by the disorderly charge of Highland
+      infantry armed for close combat only, with swords, and ill furnished with
+      missile weapons, and having no artillery whatever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the introduction of
+      muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which, not being as yet
+      combined with the bayonet, was a formidable weapon at a distance, but gave
+      no assurance against the enemy who rushed on to close quarters. The pike,
+      indeed, was not wholly disused in the Scottish army; but it was no longer
+      the favourite weapon, nor was it relied upon as formerly by those in whose
+      hands it was placed; insomuch that Daniel Lupton, a tactician of the day,
+      has written a book expressly upon the superiority of the musket. This
+      change commenced as early as the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, whose marches
+      were made with such rapidity, that the pike was very soon thrown aside in
+      his army, and exchanged for fire-arms. A circumstance which necessarily
+      accompanied this change, as well as the establishment of standing armies,
+      whereby war became a trade, was the introduction of a laborious and
+      complicated system of discipline, combining a variety of words of command
+      with corresponding operations and manoeuvres, the neglect of any one of
+      which was sure to throw the whole into confusion. War therefore, as
+      practised among most nations of Europe, had assumed much more than
+      formerly the character of a profession or mystery, to which previous
+      practice and experience were indispensable requisites. Such was the
+      natural consequence of standing armies, which had almost everywhere, and
+      particularly in the long German wars, superseded what may be called the
+      natural discipline of the feudal militia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Scottish Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double
+      disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders. They were divested of the spear,
+      a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had so often repelled the
+      impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and they were subjected to a new
+      and complicated species of discipline, well adapted, perhaps, to the use
+      of regular troops, who could be rendered completely masters of it, but
+      tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen soldiers, by whom it was
+      rarely practised, and imperfectly understood. So much has been done in our
+      own time in bringing back tactics to their first principles, and in
+      getting rid of the pedantry of war, that it is easy for us to estimate the
+      disadvantages under which a half-trained militia laboured, who were taught
+      to consider success as depending upon their exercising with precision a
+      system of tactics, which they probably only so far comprehended as to find
+      out when they were wrong, but without the power of getting right again.
+      Neither can it be denied, that, in the material points of military habits
+      and warlike spirit, the Lowlanders of the seventeenth century had sunk far
+      beneath their Highland countrymen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the earliest period down to the union of the crowns, the whole
+      kingdom of Scotland, Lowlands as well as Highlands, had been the constant
+      scene of war, foreign and domestic; and there was probably scarce one of
+      its hardy inhabitants, between the age of sixteen and sixty, who was not
+      as willing in point of fact as he was literally bound in law, to assume
+      arms at the first call of his liege lord, or of a royal proclamation. The
+      law remained the same in sixteen hundred and forty-five as a hundred years
+      before, but the race of those subjected to it had been bred up under very
+      different feelings. They had sat in quiet under their vine and under their
+      fig-tree, and a call to battle involved a change of life as new as it was
+      disagreeable. Such of them, also, who lived near unto the Highlands, were
+      in continual and disadvantageous contact with the restless inhabitants of
+      those mountains, by whom their cattle were driven off, their dwellings
+      plundered, and their persons insulted, and who had acquired over them that
+      sort of superiority arising from a constant system of aggression. The
+      Lowlanders, who lay more remote, and out of reach of these depredations,
+      were influenced by the exaggerated reports circulated concerning the
+      Highlanders, whom, as totally differing in laws, language, and dress, they
+      were induced to regard as a nation of savages, equally void of fear and of
+      humanity. These various prepossessions, joined to the less warlike habits
+      of the Lowlanders, and their imperfect knowledge of the new and
+      complicated system of discipline for which they had exchanged their
+      natural mode of fighting, placed them at great disadvantage when opposed
+      to the Highlander in the field of battle. The mountaineers, on the
+      contrary, with the arms and courage of their fathers, possessed also their
+      simple and natural system of tactics, and bore down with the fullest
+      confidence upon an enemy, to whom anything they had been taught of
+      discipline was, like Saul&rsquo;s armour upon David, a hinderance rather than a
+      help, &ldquo;because they had not proved it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with such disadvantages on the one side, and such advantages on the
+      other, to counterbalance the difference of superior numbers and the
+      presence of artillery and cavalry, that Montrose encountered the army of
+      Lord Elcho upon the field of Tippermuir. The Presbyterian clergy had not
+      been wanting in their efforts to rouse the spirit of their followers, and
+      one of them, who harangued the troops on the very day of battle, hesitated
+      not to say, that if ever God spoke by his mouth, he promised them, in His
+      name, that day, a great and assured victory. The cavalry and artillery
+      were also reckoned sure warrants of success, as the novelty of their
+      attack had upon former occasions been very discouraging to the
+      Highlanders. The place of meeting was an open heath, and the ground
+      afforded little advantage to either party, except that it allowed the
+      horse of the Covenanters to act with effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A battle upon which so much depended, was never more easily decided. The
+      Lowland cavalry made a show of charging; but, whether thrown into disorder
+      by the fire of musketry, or deterred by a disaffection to the service said
+      to have prevailed among the gentlemen, they made no impression on the
+      Highlanders whatever, and recoiled in disorder from ranks which had
+      neither bayonets nor pikes to protect them. Montrose saw, and instantly
+      availed himself of this advantage. He ordered his whole army to charge,
+      which they performed with the wild and desperate valour peculiar to
+      mountaineers. One officer of the Covenanters alone, trained in the Italian
+      wars, made a desperate defence upon the right wing. In every other point
+      their line was penetrated at the first onset; and this advantage once
+      obtained, the Lowlanders were utterly unable to contend at close quarters
+      with their more agile and athletic enemies. Many were slain on the held,
+      and such a number in the pursuit, that above one-third of the Covenanters
+      were reported to have fallen; in which number, however, must be computed a
+      great many fat burgesses who broke their wind in the flight, and thus died
+      without stroke of sword. [We choose to quote our authority for a fact so
+      singular:&mdash;&ldquo;A great many burgesses were killed&mdash;twenty-five
+      householders in St. Andrews&mdash;many were bursten in the flight, and
+      died without stroke.&rdquo;&mdash;See Baillie&rsquo;s Letters, vol. ii. page 92.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victors obtained possession of Perth, and obtained considerable sums
+      of money, as well as ample supplies of arms and ammunition. But those
+      advantages were to be balanced against an almost insurmountable
+      inconvenience that uniformly attended a Highland army. The clans could be
+      in no respect induced to consider themselves as regular soldiers, or to
+      act as such. Even so late as the year 1745-6, when the Chevalier Charles
+      Edward, by way of making an example, caused a soldier to be shot for
+      desertion, the Highlanders, who composed his army, were affected as much
+      by indignation as by fear. They could not conceive any principle of
+      justice upon which a man&rsquo;s life could be taken, for merely going home when
+      it did not suit him to remain longer with the army. Such had been the
+      uniform practice of their fathers. When a battle was over, the campaign
+      was, in their opinion, ended; if it was lost, they sought safety in their
+      mountains&mdash;if won, they returned there to secure their booty. At
+      other times they had their cattle to look after, and their harvests to sow
+      or reap, without which their families would have perished for want. In
+      either case, there was an end of their services for the time; and though
+      they were easily enough recalled by the prospect of fresh adventures and
+      more plunder, yet the opportunity of success was, in the meantime, lost,
+      and could not afterwards be recovered. This circumstance serves to show,
+      even if history had not made us acquainted with the same fact, that the
+      Highlanders had never been accustomed to make war with the view of
+      permanent conquest, but only with the hope of deriving temporary
+      advantage, or deciding some immediate quarrel. It also explains the reason
+      why Montrose, with all his splendid successes, never obtained any secure
+      or permanent footing in the Lowlands, and why even those Lowland noblemen
+      and gentlemen, who were inclined to the royal cause, showed diffidence and
+      reluctance to join an army of a character so desultory and irregular, as
+      might lead them at all times to apprehend that the Highlanders securing
+      themselves by a retreat to their mountains, would leave whatever
+      Lowlanders might have joined them to the mercy of an offended and
+      predominant enemy. The same consideration will also serve to account for
+      the sudden marches which Montrose was obliged to undertake, in order to
+      recruit his army in the mountains, and for the rapid changes of fortune,
+      by which we often find him obliged to retreat from before those enemies
+      over whom he had recently been victorious. If there should be any who read
+      these tales for any further purpose than that of immediate amusement, they
+      will find these remarks not unworthy of their recollection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was owing to such causes, the slackness of the Lowland loyalists and
+      the temporary desertion of his Highland followers, that Montrose found
+      himself, even after the decisive victory of Tippermuir, in no condition to
+      face the second army with which Argyle advanced upon him from the
+      westward. In this emergency, supplying by velocity the want of strength,
+      he moved suddenly from Perth to Dundee, and being refused admission into
+      that town, fell northward upon Aberdeen, where he expected to be joined by
+      the Gordons and other loyalists. But the zeal of these gentlemen was, for
+      the time, effectually bridled by a large body of Covenanters, commanded by
+      the Lord Burleigh, and supposed to amount to three thousand men. These
+      Montrose boldly attacked with half their number. The battle was fought
+      under the walls Of the city, and the resolute valour of Montrose&rsquo;s
+      followers was again successful against every disadvantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was the fate of this great commander, always to gain the glory, but
+      seldom to reap the fruits of victory. He had scarcely time to repose his
+      small army in Aberdeen, ere he found, on the one hand, that the Gordons
+      were likely to be deterred from joining him, by the reasons we have
+      mentioned, with some others peculiar to their chief, the Marquis of
+      Huntly; on the other hand, Argyle, whose forces had been augmented by
+      those of several Lowland noblemen, advanced towards Montrose at the head
+      of an army much larger than he had yet had to cope with. These troops
+      moved, indeed, with slowness, corresponding to the cautious character of
+      their commander; but even that caution rendered Argyle&rsquo;s approach
+      formidable, since his very advance implied, that he was at the head of an
+      army irresistibly superior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There remained one mode of retreat open to Montrose, and he adopted it. He
+      threw himself into the Highlands, where he could set pursuit at defiance,
+      and where he was sure, in every glen, to recover those recruits who had
+      left his standard to deposit their booty in their native fastnesses. It
+      was thus that the singular character of the army which Montrose commanded,
+      while, on the one hand, it rendered his victory in some degree nugatory,
+      enabled him, on the other, under the most disadvantageous circumstances,
+      to secure his retreat, recruit his forces, and render himself more
+      formidable than ever to the enemy, before whom he had lately been unable
+      to make a stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the present occasion he threw himself into Badenoch, and rapidly
+      traversing that district, as well as the neighbouring country of Athole,
+      he alarmed the Covenanters by successive attacks upon various unexpected
+      points, and spread such general dismay, that repeated orders were
+      dispatched by the Parliament to Argyle, their commander, to engage, and
+      disperse Montrose at all rates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These commands from his superiors neither suited the haughty spirit, nor
+      the temporizing and cautious policy, of the nobleman to whom they were
+      addressed. He paid, accordingly, no regard to them, but limited his
+      efforts to intrigues among Montrose&rsquo;s few Lowland followers, many of whom
+      had become disgusted with the prospect of a Highland campaign, which
+      exposed their persons to intolerable fatigue, and left their estates at
+      the Covenanters&rsquo; mercy. Accordingly, several of them left Montrose&rsquo;s camp
+      at this period. He was joined, however, by a body of forces of more
+      congenial spirit, and far better adapted to the situation in which he
+      found himself. This reinforcement consisted of a large body of
+      Highlanders, whom Colkitto, dispatched for that purpose, had levied in
+      Argyleshire. Among the most distinguished was John of Moidart, called the
+      Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts of Appin, the Clan Gregor, the
+      Clan M&rsquo;Nab, and other tribes of inferior distinction. By these means,
+      Montrose&rsquo;s army was so formidably increased, that Argyle cared no longer
+      to remain in the command of that opposed to him, but returned to
+      Edinburgh, and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his army
+      was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner in which
+      they ought to have been. From thence the Marquis returned to Inverary,
+      there, in full security, to govern his feudal vassals, and patriarchal
+      followers, and to repose himself in safety on the faith of the Clan
+      proverb already quoted&mdash;&ldquo;It is a far cry to Lochow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Such mountains steep, such craggy hills,
+     His army on one side enclose:
+     The other side, great griesly gills
+     Did fence with fenny mire and moss.
+
+     Which when the Earl understood,
+     He council craved of captains all,
+     Who bade set forth with mournful mood,
+     And take such fortune as would fall.
+     &mdash;FLODDEN FIELD, AN ANCIENT POEM.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Montrose had now a splendid career in his view, provided he could obtain
+      the consent of his gallant, but desultory troops, and their independent
+      chieftains. The Lowlands lay open before him without an army adequate to
+      check his career; for Argyle&rsquo;s followers had left the Covenanters&rsquo; host
+      when their master threw up his commission, and many other troops, tired of
+      the war, had taken the same opportunity to disband themselves. By
+      descending Strath-Tay, therefore, one of the most convenient passes from
+      the Highlands, Montrose had only to present himself in the Lowlands, in
+      order to rouse the slumbering spirit of chivalry and of loyalty which
+      animated the gentlemen to the north of the Forth. The possession of these
+      districts, with or without a victory, would give him the command of a
+      wealthy and fertile part of the kingdom, and would enable him, by regular
+      pay, to place his army on a permanent footing, to penetrate as far as the
+      capital, perhaps from thence to the Border, where he deemed it possible to
+      communicate with the yet unsubdued forces of King Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the plan of operations by which the truest glory was to be
+      acquired, and the most important success insured for the royal cause.
+      Accordingly it did not escape the ambitious and daring spirit of him whose
+      services had already acquired him the title of the Great Marquis. But
+      other motives actuated many of his followers, and perhaps were not without
+      their secret and unacknowledged influence upon his own feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Western Chiefs in Montrose&rsquo;s army, almost to a man, regarded the
+      Marquis of Argyle as the most direct and proper object of hostilities.
+      Almost all of them had felt his power; almost all, in withdrawing their
+      fencible men from their own glens, left their families and property
+      exposed to his vengeance; all, without exception, were desirous of
+      diminishing his sovereignty; and most of them lay so near his territories,
+      that they might reasonably hope to be gratified by a share of his spoil.
+      To these Chiefs the possession of Inverary and its castle was an event
+      infinitely more important and desirable than the capture of Edinburgh. The
+      latter event could only afford their clansmen a little transitory pay or
+      plunder; the former insured to the Chiefs themselves indemnity for the
+      past, and security for the future. Besides these personal reasons, the
+      leaders, who favoured this opinion, plausibly urged, that though, at his
+      first descent into the Lowlands, Montrose might be superior to the enemy,
+      yet every day&rsquo;s march he made from the hills must diminish his own forces,
+      and expose him to the accumulated superiority of any army which the
+      Covenanters could collect from the Lowland levies and garrisons. On the
+      other hand, by crushing Argyle effectually, he would not only permit his
+      present western friends to bring out that proportion of their forces which
+      they must otherwise leave at home for protection of their families; but
+      farther, he would draw to his standard several tribes already friendly to
+      his cause, but who were prevented from joining him by fear of M&rsquo;Callum
+      More.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These arguments, as we have already hinted, found something responsive in
+      Montrose&rsquo;s own bosom, not quite consonant with the general heroism of his
+      character. The houses of Argyle and Montrose had been in former times,
+      repeatedly opposed to each other in war and in politics, and the superior
+      advantages acquired by the former, had made them the subject of envy and
+      dislike to the neighbouring family, who, conscious of equal desert, had
+      not been so richly rewarded. This was not all. The existing heads of these
+      rival families had stood in the most marked opposition to each other since
+      the commencement of the present troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose, conscious of the superiority of his talents, and of having
+      rendered great service to the Covenanters at the beginning of the war, had
+      expected from that party the supereminence of council and command, which
+      they judged it safer to intrust to the more limited faculties, and more
+      extensive power, of his rival Argyle. The having awarded this preference,
+      was an injury which Montrose never forgave the Covenanters; and he was
+      still less likely to extend his pardon to Argyle, to whom he had been
+      postponed. He was therefore stimulated by every feeling of hatred which
+      could animate a fiery temper in a fierce age, to seek for revenge upon the
+      enemy of his house and person; and it is probable that these private
+      motives operated not a little upon his mind, when he found the principal
+      part of his followers determined rather to undertake an expedition against
+      the territories of Argyle, than to take the far more decisive step of
+      descending at once into the Lowlands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet whatever temptation Montrose found to carry into effect his attack
+      upon Argyleshire, he could not easily bring himself to renounce the
+      splendid achievement of a descent upon the Lowlands. He held more than one
+      council with the principal Chiefs, combating, perhaps, his own secret
+      inclination as well as theirs. He laid before them the extreme difficulty
+      of marching even a Highland army from the eastward into Argyleshire,
+      through passes scarcely practicable for shepherds and deer-stalkers, and
+      over mountains, with which even the clans lying nearest to them did not
+      pretend to be thoroughly acquainted. These difficulties were greatly
+      enhanced by the season of the year, which was now advancing towards
+      December, when the mountain-passes, in themselves so difficult, might be
+      expected to be rendered utterly impassable by snowstorms. These objections
+      neither satisfied nor silenced the Chiefs, who insisted upon their ancient
+      mode of making war, by driving the cattle, which, according to the Gaelic
+      phrase, &ldquo;fed upon the grass of their enemy.&rdquo; The council was dismissed
+      late at night, and without coming to any decision, excepting that the
+      Chiefs, who supported the opinion that Argyle should be invaded, promised
+      to seek out among their followers those who might be most capable of
+      undertaking the office of guides upon the expedition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose had retired to the cabin which served him for a tent, and
+      stretched himself upon a bed of dry fern, the only place of repose which
+      it afforded. But he courted sleep in vain, for the visions of ambition
+      excluded those of Morpheus. In one moment he imagined himself displaying
+      the royal banner from the reconquered Castle of Edinburgh, detaching
+      assistance to a monarch whose crown depended upon his success, and
+      receiving in requital all the advantages and preferments which could be
+      heaped upon him whom a king delighteth to honour. At another time this
+      dream, splendid as it was, faded before the vision of gratified vengeance,
+      and personal triumph over a personal enemy. To surprise Argyle in his
+      stronghold of Inverary&mdash;to crush in him at once the rival of his own
+      house and the chief support of the Presbyterians&mdash;to show the
+      Covenanters the difference between the preferred Argyle and the postponed
+      Montrose, was a picture too flattering to feudal vengeance to be easily
+      relinquished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he lay thus busied with contradictory thoughts and feelings, the
+      soldier who stood sentinel upon his quarters announced to the Marquis that
+      two persons desired to speak with his Excellency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Their names?&rdquo; answered Montrose, &ldquo;and the cause of their urgency at such
+      a late hour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On these points, the sentinel, who was one of Colkitto&rsquo;s Irishmen, could
+      afford his General little information; so that Montrose, who at such a
+      period durst refuse access to no one, lest he might have been neglecting
+      some important intelligence, gave directions, as a necessary precaution,
+      to put the guard under arms, and then prepared to receive his untimely
+      visitors. His groom of the chambers had scarce lighted a pair of torches,
+      and Montrose himself had scarce risen from his couch, when two men
+      entered, one wearing a Lowland dress, of shamoy leather worn almost to
+      tatters; the other a tall upright old Highlander, of a complexion which
+      might be termed iron-grey, wasted and worn by frost and tempest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What may be your commands with me, my friends?&rdquo; said the Marquis, his
+      hand almost unconsciously seeking the but of one of his pistols; for the
+      period, as well as the time of night, warranted suspicions which the good
+      mien of his visitors was not by any means calculated to remove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray leave to congratulate you,&rdquo; said the Lowlander, &ldquo;my most noble
+      General, and right honourable lord, upon the great battles which you have
+      achieved since I had the fortune to be detached from you, It was a pretty
+      affair that tuilzie at Tippermuir; nevertheless, if I might be permitted
+      to counsel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before doing so,&rdquo; said the Marquis, &ldquo;will you be pleased to let me know
+      who is so kind as to favour me with his opinion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, my lord,&rdquo; replied the man, &ldquo;I should have hoped that was
+      unnecessary, seeing it is not so long since I took on in your service,
+      under promise of a commission as Major, with half a dollar of daily pay
+      and half a dollar of arrears; and I am to trust your lordship has nut
+      forgotten my pay as well as my person?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My good friend, Major Dalgetty,&rdquo; said Montrose, who by this time
+      perfectly recollected his man, &ldquo;you must consider what important things
+      have happened to put my friends&rsquo; faces out of my memory, besides this
+      imperfect light; but all conditions shall be kept.&mdash;And what news
+      from Argyleshire, my good Major? We have long given you up for lost, and I
+      was now preparing to take the most signal vengeance upon the old fox who
+      infringed the law of arms in your person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, my noble lord,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;I have no desire that my return
+      should put any stop to so proper and becoming an intention; verily it is
+      in no shape in the Earl of Argyle&rsquo;s favour or mercy that I now stand
+      before you, and I shall be no intercessor for him. But my escape is, under
+      Heaven, and the excellent dexterity which, as an old and accomplished
+      cavalier, I displayed in effecting the same,&mdash;I say, under these, it
+      is owing to the assistance of this old Highlander, whom I venture to
+      recommend to your lordship&rsquo;s special favour, as the instrument of saving
+      your lordship&rsquo;s to command, Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thankworthy service,&rdquo; said the Marquis, gravely, &ldquo;which shall certainly
+      be requited in the manner it deserves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kneel down, Ranald,&rdquo; said Major Dalgetty (as we must now call him),
+      &ldquo;kneel down, and kiss his Excellency&rsquo;s hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The prescribed form of acknowledgment not being according to the custom of
+      Ranald&rsquo;s country, he contented himself with folding his arms on his bosom,
+      and making a low inclination of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This poor man, my lord,&rdquo; said Major Dalgetty, continuing his speech with
+      a dignified air of protection towards Ranald M&rsquo;Eagh, &ldquo;has strained all his
+      slender means to defend my person from mine enemies, although having no
+      better weapons of a missile sort than bows and arrows, whilk your lordship
+      will hardly believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see a great many such weapons in my camp,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;and
+      we find them serviceable.&rdquo; [In fact, for the admirers of archery it may be
+      stated, not only that many of the Highlanders in Montrose&rsquo;s army used
+      these antique missiles, but even in England the bow and quiver, once the
+      glory of the bold yeomen of that land, were occasionally used during the
+      great civil wars.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Serviceable, my lord!&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;I trust your lordship will permit
+      me to be surprised&mdash;bows and arrows!&mdash;I trust you will forgive
+      my recommending the substitution of muskets, the first convenient
+      opportunity. But besides defending me, this honest Highlander also was at
+      the pains of curing me, in respect that I had got a touch of the wars in
+      my retreat, which merits my best requital in this special introduction of
+      him to your lordship&rsquo;s notice and protection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your name, my friend?&rdquo; said Montrose, turning to the Highlander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may not be spoken,&rdquo; answered the mountaineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is to say,&rdquo; interpreted Major Dalgetty, &ldquo;he desires to have his name
+      concealed, in respect he hath in former days taken a castle, slain certain
+      children, and done other things, whilk, as your good lordship knows, are
+      often practised in war time, but excite no benevolence towards the
+      perpetrator in the friends of those who sustain injury. I have known, in
+      my military experience, many brave cavaliers put to death by the boors,
+      simply for having used military license upon the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said Montrose: &ldquo;This person is at feud with some of our
+      followers. Let him retire to the court of guard, and we will think of the
+      best mode of protecting him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear, Ranald,&rdquo; said Major Dalgetty, with an air of superiority, &ldquo;his
+      Excellency wishes to hold privy council with me, you must go to the court
+      of guard.&mdash;He does not know where that is, poor fellow!&mdash;he is a
+      young soldier for so old a man; I will put him under the charge of a
+      sentinel, and return to your lordship incontinent.&rdquo; He did so, and
+      returned accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose&rsquo;s first enquiry respected the embassy to Inverary; and he
+      listened with attention to Dalgetty&rsquo;s reply, notwithstanding the prolixity
+      of the Major&rsquo;s narrative. It required an effort from the Marquis to
+      maintain his attention; but no one better knew, that where information is
+      to be derived from the report of such agents as Dalgetty, it can only be
+      obtained by suffering them to tell their story in their own way.
+      Accordingly the Marquis&rsquo;s patience was at length rewarded. Among other
+      spoils which the Captain thought himself at liberty to take, was a packet
+      of Argyle&rsquo;s private papers. These he consigned to the hands of his
+      General; a humour of accounting, however, which went no farther, for I do
+      not understand that he made any mention of the purse of gold which he had
+      appropriated at the same time that he made seizure of the papers
+      aforesaid. Snatching a torch from the wall, Montrose was in an instant
+      deeply engaged in the perusal of these documents, in which it is probable
+      he found something to animate his personal resentment against his rival
+      Argyle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he not fear me?&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;then he shall feel me. Will he fire my
+      castle of Murdoch?&mdash;Inverary shall raise the first smoke.&mdash;O for
+      a guide through the skirts of Strath-Fillan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever might be Dalgetty&rsquo;s personal conceit, he understood his business
+      sufficiently to guess at Montrose&rsquo;s meaning. He instantly interrupted his
+      own prolix narration of the skirmish which had taken place, and the wound
+      he had received in his retreat, and began to speak to the point which he
+      saw interested his General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;your Excellency wishes to make an infall into Argyleshire,
+      this poor man, Ranald, of whom I told you, together with his children and
+      companions, know every pass into that land, both leading from the east and
+      from the north.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;what reason have you to believe their knowledge
+      so extensive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So please your Excellency,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty, &ldquo;during the weeks that I
+      remained with them for cure of my wound, they were repeatedly obliged to
+      shift their quarters, in respect of Argyle&rsquo;s repeated attempts to
+      repossess himself of the person of an officer who was honoured with Your
+      Excellency&rsquo;s confidence; so that I had occasion to admire the singular
+      dexterity and knowledge of the face of the country with which they
+      alternately achieved their retreat and their advance; and when, at length,
+      I was able to repair to your Excellency&rsquo;s standard, this honest simple
+      creature, Ranald MacEagh, guided me by paths which my steed Gustavus
+      (which your lordship may remember) trode with perfect safety, so that I
+      said to myself, that where guides, spies, or intelligencers, were required
+      in a Highland campaign in that western country, more expert persons than
+      he and his attendants could not possibly be desired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And can you answer for this man&rsquo;s fidelity?&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;what is his
+      name and condition?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an outlaw and robber by profession, something also of a homicide or
+      murderer,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty; &ldquo;and by name, called Ranald MacEagh; whilk
+      signifies, Ranald, the Son of the Mist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should remember something of that name,&rdquo; said Montrose, pausing: &ldquo;Did
+      not these Children of the Mist perpetrate some act of cruelty upon the
+      M&rsquo;Aulays?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Dalgetty mentioned the circumstance of the murder of the forester,
+      and Montrose&rsquo;s active memory at once recalled all the circumstances of the
+      feud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is most unlucky,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;this inexpiable quarrel between
+      these men and the M&rsquo;Aulays. Allan has borne himself bravely in these wars,
+      and possesses, by the wild mystery of his behaviour and language, so much
+      influence over the minds of his countrymen, that the consequences of
+      disobliging him might be serious. At the same time, these men being so
+      capable of rendering useful service, and being as you say, Major Dalgetty,
+      perfectly trustworthy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will pledge my pay and arrears, my horse and arms, my head and neck,
+      upon their fidelity,&rdquo; said the Major; &ldquo;and your Excellency knows, that a
+      soldado could say no more for his own father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;but as this is a matter of particular moment, I
+      would willingly know the grounds of so positive an assurance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Concisely then, my lord,&rdquo; said the Major, &ldquo;not only did they disdain to
+      profit by a handsome reward which Argyle did me the honour to place upon
+      this poor head of mine, and not only did they abstain from pillaging my
+      personal property, whilk was to an amount that would have tempted regular
+      soldiers in any service of Europe; and not only did they restore me my
+      horse, whilk your Excellency knows to be of value, but I could not prevail
+      on them to accept one stiver, doit, or maravedi, for the trouble and
+      expenses of my sick bed. They actually refused my coined money when freely
+      offered,&mdash;a tale seldom to be told in a Christian land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit,&rdquo; said Montrose, after a moment&rsquo;s reflection, &ldquo;that their conduct
+      towards you is good evidence of their fidelity; but how to secure against
+      the breaking out of this feud?&rdquo; He paused, and then suddenly added, &ldquo;I had
+      forgot I have supped, while you, Major, have been travelling by
+      moonlight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He called to his attendants to fetch a stoup of wine and some
+      refreshments. Major Dalgetty, who had the appetite of a convalescent
+      returned from Highland quarters, needed not any pressing to partake of
+      what was set before him, but proceeded to dispatch his food with such
+      alacrity, that the Marquis, filling a cup of wine, and drinking to his
+      health, could not help remarking, that coarse as the provisions of his
+      camp were, he was afraid Major Dalgetty had fared much worse during his
+      excursion into Argyleshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency may take your corporal oath upon that,&rdquo; said the worthy
+      Major, speaking with his mouth full; &ldquo;for Argyle&rsquo;s bread and water are yet
+      stale and mouldy in my recollection, and though they did their best, yet
+      the viands that the Children of the Mist procured for me, poor helpless
+      creatures as they were, were so unrefreshful to my body, that when
+      enclosed in my armour, whilk I was fain to leave behind me for
+      expedition&rsquo;s sake, I rattled therein like the shrivelled kernel in a nut
+      that hath been kept on to a second Hallowe&rsquo;en.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must take the due means to repair these losses, Major Dalgetty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In troth,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;I shall hardly be able to compass that,
+      unless my arrears are to be exchanged for present pay; for I protest to
+      your Excellency, that the three stone weight which I have lost were simply
+      raised upon the regular accountings of the States of Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; said the Marquis, &ldquo;you are only reduced to good marching
+      order. As for the pay, let us once have victory&mdash;victory, Major, and
+      your wishes, and all our wishes, shall be amply fulfilled. Meantime, help
+      yourself to another cup of wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To your Excellency&rsquo;s health,&rdquo; said the Major, filling a cup to the brim,
+      to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, &ldquo;and victory over all our
+      enemies, and particularly over Argyle! I hope to twitch another handful
+      from his board myself&mdash;I have had one pluck at it already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very true,&rdquo; answered Montrose; &ldquo;but to return to those men of the Mist.
+      You understand, Dalgetty, that their presence here, and the purpose for
+      which we employ them, is a secret between you and me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Delighted, as Montrose had anticipated, with this mark of his General&rsquo;s
+      confidence, the Major laid his hand upon his nose, and nodded
+      intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many may there be of Ranald&rsquo;s followers?&rdquo; continued the Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are reduced, so far as I know, to some eight or ten men,&rdquo; answered
+      Major Dalgetty, &ldquo;and a few women and children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are they now?&rdquo; demanded Montrose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a valley, at three miles&rsquo; distance,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;awaiting
+      your Excellency&rsquo;s command; I judged it not fit to bring them to your
+      leaguer without your Excellency&rsquo;s orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You judged very well,&rdquo; said Montrose; &ldquo;it would be proper that they
+      remain where they are, or seek some more distant place of refuge. I will
+      send them money, though it is a scarce article with me at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is quite unnecessary,&rdquo; said Major Dalgetty; &ldquo;your Excellency has only
+      to hint that the M&rsquo;Aulays are going in that direction, and my friends of
+      the Mist will instantly make volte-face, and go to the right about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That were scarce courteous,&rdquo; said the Marquis. &ldquo;Better send them a few
+      dollars to purchase them some cattle for the support of the women and
+      children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They know how to come by their cattle at a far cheaper rate,&rdquo; said the
+      Major; &ldquo;but let it be as your Excellency wills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let Ranald MacEagh,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;select one or two of his followers,
+      men whom he can trust, and who are capable of keeping their own secret and
+      ours; these, with their chief for scout-master-general, shall serve for
+      our guides. Let them be at my tent to-morrow at daybreak, and see, if
+      possible, that they neither guess my purpose, nor hold any communication
+      with each other in private.&mdash;This old man, has he any children?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have been killed or hanged,&rdquo; answered the Major, &ldquo;to the number of a
+      round dozen, as I believe&mdash;but he hath left one grand-child, a smart
+      and hopeful youth, whom I have noted to be never without a pebble in his
+      plaid-nook, to fling at whatsoever might come in his way; being a symbol,
+      that, like David, who was accustomed to sling smooth stones taken from the
+      brook, he may afterwards prove an adventurous warrior.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That boy, Major Dalgetty,&rdquo; said the Marquis, &ldquo;I will have to attend upon
+      my own person. I presume he will have sense enough to keep his name
+      secret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency need not fear that,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty; &ldquo;these Highland
+      imps, from the moment they chip the shell&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; interrupted Montrose, &ldquo;that boy shall be pledge for the fidelity
+      of his parent, and if he prove faithful, the child&rsquo;s preferment shall be
+      his reward.&mdash;And now, Major Dalgetty, I will license your departure
+      for the night; tomorrow you will introduce this MacEagh, under any name or
+      character he may please to assume. I presume his profession has rendered
+      him sufficiently expert in all sort of disguises; or we may admit John of
+      Moidart into our schemes, who has sense, practicability, and intelligence,
+      and will probably allow this man for a time to be disguised as one of his
+      followers. For you, Major, my groom of the chambers will be your
+      quarter-master for this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Dalgetty took his leave with a joyful heart greatly elated with the
+      reception he had met with, and much pleased with the personal manners of
+      his new General, which, as he explained at great length to Ranald MacEagh,
+      reminded him in many respects of the demeanour of the immortal Gustavus
+      Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and Bulwark of the Protestant Faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     The march begins in military state,
+     And nations on his eyes suspended wait;
+     Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
+     And winter barricades the realms of frost.
+     He comes,&mdash;nor want, nor cold, his course delay.
+     &mdash;VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By break of day Montrose received in his cabin old MacEagh, and questioned
+      him long and particularly as to the means of approaching the country of
+      Argyle. He made a note of his answers, which he compared with those of two
+      of his followers, whom he introduced as the most prudent and experienced.
+      He found them to correspond in all respects; but, still unsatisfied where
+      precaution was so necessary, the Marquis compared the information he had
+      received with that he was able to collect from the Chiefs who lay most
+      near to the destined scene of invasion, and being in all respects
+      satisfied of its accuracy, he resolved to proceed in full reliance upon
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one point Montrose changed his mind. Having judged it unfit to take the
+      boy Kenneth into his own service, lest, in case of his birth being
+      discovered, it should be resented as an offence by the numerous clans who
+      entertained a feudal enmity to this devoted family, he requested the Major
+      to take him in attendance upon himself; and as he accompanied this request
+      with a handsome DOUCEUR, under pretence of clothing and equipping the lad,
+      this change was agreeable to all parties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about breakfast-time, when Major Dalgetty, being dismissed by
+      Montrose, went in quest of his old acquaintances, Lord Menteith and the
+      M&rsquo;Aulays, to whom he longed to communicate his own adventures, as well as
+      to learn from them the particulars of the campaign. It may be imagined he
+      was received with great glee by men to whom the late uniformity of their
+      military life had rendered any change of society an interesting novelty.
+      Allan M&rsquo;Aulay alone seemed to recoil from his former acquaintance,
+      although, when challenged by his brother, he could render no other reason
+      than a reluctance to be familiar with one who had been so lately in the
+      company of Argyle, and other enemies. Major Dalgetty was a little alarmed
+      by this sort of instinctive consciousness which Allan seemed to entertain
+      respecting the society he had been lately keeping; he was soon satisfied,
+      however, that the perceptions of the seer in this particular were not
+      infallible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Ranald MacEagh was to be placed under Major Dalgetty&rsquo;s protection and
+      superintendence, it was necessary he should present him to those persons
+      with whom he was most likely to associate. The dress of the old man had,
+      in the meantime, been changed from the tartan of his clan to a sort of
+      clothing peculiar to the men of the distant Isles, resembling a waistcoat
+      with sleeves, and a petticoat, all made in one piece. This dress was laced
+      from top to bottom in front, and bore some resemblance to that called
+      Polonaise, still worn by children in Scotland of the lower rank. The
+      tartan hose and bonnet completed the dress, which old men of the last
+      century remembered well to have seen worn by the distant Islesmen who came
+      to the Earl of Mar&rsquo;s standard in the year 1715.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Dalgetty, keeping his eye on Allan as he spoke, introduced Ranald
+      MacEagh under the fictitious name of Ranald MacGillihuron in Benbecula,
+      who had escaped with him out of Argyle&rsquo;s prison. He recommended him as a
+      person skilful in the arts of the harper and the senachie, and by no means
+      contemptible in the quality of a second-sighted person or seer. While
+      making this exposition, Major Dalgetty stammered and hesitated in a way so
+      unlike the usual glib forwardness of his manner, that he could not have
+      failed to have given suspicion to Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, had not that person&rsquo;s
+      whole attention been engaged in steadily perusing the features of the
+      person thus introduced to him. This steady gaze so much embarrassed Ranald
+      MacEagh, that his hand was beginning to sink down towards his dagger, in
+      expectation of a hostile assault, when Allan, suddenly crossing the floor
+      of the hut, extended his hand to him in the way of friendly greeting. They
+      sat down side by side, and conversed in a low mysterious tone of voice.
+      Menteith and Angus M&rsquo;Aulay were not surprised at this, for there prevailed
+      among the Highlanders who pretended to the second-sight, a sort of
+      Freemasonry, which generally induced them, upon meeting, to hold
+      communication with each other on the nature and extent of their visionary
+      experiences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the sight come gloomy upon your spirits?&rdquo; said Allan to his new
+      acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As dark as the shadow upon the moon,&rdquo; replied Ranald, &ldquo;when she is
+      darkened in her mid-course in heaven, and prophets foretell of evil
+      times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come hither,&rdquo; said Allan, &ldquo;come more this way, I would converse with you
+      apart; for men say that in your distant islands the sight is poured forth
+      with more clearness and power than upon us, who dwell near the Sassenach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were plunged into their mystic conference, the two English
+      cavaliers entered the cabin in the highest possible spirits, and announced
+      to Angus M&rsquo;Aulay that orders had been issued that all should hold
+      themselves in readiness for an immediate march to the westward. Having
+      delivered themselves of their news with much glee, they paid their
+      compliments to their old acquaintance Major Dalgetty, whom they instantly
+      recognised, and enquired after the health of his charger, Gustavus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I humbly thank you, gentlemen,&rdquo; answered the soldier, &ldquo;Gustavas is well,
+      though, like his master, somewhat barer on the ribs than when you offered
+      to relieve me of him at Darnlinvarach; and let me assure you, that before
+      you have made one or two of those marches which you seem to contemplate
+      with so much satisfaction in prospect, you will leave, my good knights,
+      some of your English beef, and probably an English horse or two, behind
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both exclaimed that they cared very little what they found or what they
+      left, provided the scene changed from dogging up and down Angus and
+      Aberdeenshire, in pursuit of an enemy who would neither fight nor run
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If such be the case,&rdquo; said Angus M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;I must give orders to my
+      followers, and make provision too for the safe conveyance of Annot Lyle;
+      for an advance into M&rsquo;Callum More&rsquo;s country will be a farther and fouler
+      road than these pinks of Cumbrian knighthood are aware of.&rdquo; So saying, he
+      left the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Annot Lyle!&rdquo; repeated Dalgetty, &ldquo;is she following the campaign?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; replied Sir Giles Musgrave, his eye glancing slightly from Lord
+      Menteith to Allan M&rsquo;Aulay; &ldquo;we could neither march nor fight, advance nor
+      retreat, without the influence of the Princess of Harps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Princess of Broadswords and Targets, I say,&rdquo; answered his companion;
+      &ldquo;for the Lady of Montrose herself could not be more courteously waited
+      upon; she has four Highland maidens, and as many bare-legged gillies, to
+      wait upon her orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what would you have, gentlemen?&rdquo; said Allan, turning suddenly from
+      the Highlander with whom he was in conversation; &ldquo;would you yourselves
+      have left an innocent female, the companion of your infancy, to die by
+      violence, or perish by famine? There is not, by this time, a roof upon the
+      habitation of my fathers&mdash;our crops have been destroyed, and our
+      cattle have been driven&mdash;and you, gentlemen, have to bless God, that,
+      coming from a milder and more civilized country, you expose only your own
+      lives in this remorseless war, without apprehension that your enemies will
+      visit with their vengeance the defenceless pledges you may have left
+      behind you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishmen cordially agreed that they had the superiority in this
+      respect; and the company, now dispersing, went each to his several charge
+      or occupation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan lingered a moment behind, still questioning the reluctant Ranald
+      MacEagh upon a point in his supposed visions, by which he was greatly
+      perplexed. &ldquo;Repeatedly,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;have I had the sight of a Gael, who
+      seemed to plunge his weapon into the body of Menteith,&mdash;of that young
+      nobleman in the scarlet laced cloak, who has just now left the bothy. But
+      by no effort, though I have gazed till my eyes were almost fixed in the
+      sockets, can I discover the face of this Highlander, or even conjecture
+      who he may be, although his person and air seem familiar to me.&rdquo; [See Note
+      II.&mdash;Wraiths.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you reversed your own plaid,&rdquo; said Ranald, &ldquo;according to the rule of
+      the experienced Seers in such case?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; answered Allan, speaking low, and shuddering as if with internal
+      agony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And in what guise did the phantom then appear to you?&rdquo; said Ranald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With his plaid also reversed,&rdquo; answered Allan, in the same low and
+      convulsed tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then be assured,&rdquo; said Ranald, &ldquo;that your own hand, and none other, will
+      do the deed of which you have witnessed the shadow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So has my anxious soul a hundred times surmised,&rdquo; replied Allan. &ldquo;But it
+      is impossible! Were I to read the record in the eternal book of fate, I
+      would declare it impossible&mdash;we are bound by the ties of blood, and
+      by a hundred ties more intimate&mdash;we have stood side by side in
+      battle, and our swords have reeked with the blood of the same enemies&mdash;it
+      is IMPOSSIBLE I should harm him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you WILL do so,&rdquo; answered Ranald, &ldquo;is certain, though the cause be
+      hid in the darkness of futurity. You say,&rdquo; he continued, suppressing his
+      own emotions with difficulty, &ldquo;that side by side you have pursued your
+      prey like bloodhounds&mdash;have you never seen bloodhounds turn their
+      fangs against each other, and fight over the body of a throttled deer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is false!&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay, starting up, &ldquo;these are not the forebodings
+      of fate, but the temptation of some evil spirit from the bottomless pit!&rdquo;
+       So saying, he strode out of the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast it!&rdquo; said the Son of the Mist, looking after him with an air of
+      exultation; &ldquo;the barbed arrow is in thy side! Spirits of the slaughtered,
+      rejoice! soon shall your murderers&rsquo; swords be dyed in each other&rsquo;s blood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the succeeding morning all was prepared, and Montrose advanced by rapid
+      marches up the river Tay, and poured his desultory forces into the
+      romantic vale around the lake of the same name, which lies at the head of
+      that river. The inhabitants were Campbells, not indeed the vassals of
+      Argyle, but of the allied and kindred house of Glenorchy, which now bears
+      the name of Breadalbane. Being taken by surprise, they were totally
+      unprepared for resistance, and were compelled to be passive witnesses of
+      the ravages which took place among their flocks and herds. Advancing in
+      this manner to the vale of Loch Dochart, and laying waste the country
+      around him, Montrose reached the most difficult point of his enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a modern army, even with the assistance of the good military road which
+      now leads up by Teinedrum to the head of Loch Awe, the passage of these
+      extensive wilds would seem a task of some difficulty. But at this period,
+      and for long afterwards, there was no road or path whatsoever; and to add
+      to the difficulty, the mountains were already covered with snow. It was a
+      sublime scene to look up to them, piled in great masses, one upon another,
+      the front rank of dazzling whiteness, while those which arose behind them
+      caught a rosy tint from the setting of a clear wintry sun. Ben Cruachan,
+      superior in magnitude, and seeming the very citadel of the Genius of the
+      Region, rose high above the others, showing his glimmering and scathed
+      peak to the distance of many miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The followers of Montrose were men not to be daunted by the sublime, yet
+      terrible prospect before them. Many of them were of that ancient race of
+      Highlanders, who not only willingly made their couch in the snow, but
+      considered it as effeminate luxury to use a snowball for a pillow. Plunder
+      and revenge lay beyond the frozen mountains which they beheld, and they
+      did not permit themselves to be daunted by the difficulty of traversing
+      them. Montrose did not allow their spirits time to subside. He ordered the
+      pipes to play in the van the ancient pibroch entitled, &ldquo;HOGGIL NAM BO,&rdquo;
+       etc. (that is, We come through snow-drift to drive the prey), the
+      shrilling sounds of which had often struck the vales of the Lennox with
+      terror. [It is the family-march of the M&rsquo;Farlanes, a warlike and predatory
+      clan, who inhabited the western banks of Loch-Lomond. See WAVERLY, Note
+      XV.] The troops advanced with the nimble alacrity of mountaineers, and
+      were soon involved in the dangerous pass, through which Ranald acted as
+      their guide, going before them with a select party, to track out the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The power of man at no time appears more contemptible than when it is
+      placed in contrast with scenes of natural terror and dignity. The
+      victorious army of Montrose, whose exploits had struck terror into all
+      Scotland, when ascending up this terrific pass, seemed a contemptible
+      handful of stragglers, in the act of being devoured by the jaws of the
+      mountain, which appeared ready to close upon them. Even Montrose half
+      repented the boldness of his attempt, as he looked down from the summit of
+      the first eminence which he attained, upon the scattered condition of his
+      small army. The difficulty of getting forward was so great, that
+      considerable gaps began to occur in the line of march, and the distance
+      between the van, centre, and rear, was each moment increased in a degree
+      equally incommodious and dangerous. It was with great apprehension that
+      Montrose looked upon every point of advantage which the hill afforded, in
+      dread it might be found occupied by an enemy prepared for defence; and he
+      often afterwards was heard to express his conviction, that had the passes
+      of Strath-Fillan been defended by two hundred resolute men, not only would
+      his progress have been effectually stopped, but his army must have been in
+      danger of being totally cut off. Security, however, the bane of many a
+      strong country and many a fortress, betrayed, on this occasion, the
+      district of Argyle to his enemies. The invaders had only to contend with
+      the natural difficulties of the path, and with the snow, which,
+      fortunately, had not fallen in any great quantity. The army no sooner
+      reached the summit of the ridge of hills dividing Argyleshire from the
+      district of Breadalbane, than they rushed down upon the devoted vales
+      beneath them with a fury sufficiently expressive of the motives which had
+      dictated a movement so difficult and hazardous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose divided his army into three bodies, in order to produce a wider
+      and more extensive terror, one of which was commanded by the Captain of
+      Clan Ranald, one intrusted to the leading of Colkitto, and the third
+      remained under his own direction. He was thus enabled to penetrate the
+      country of Argyle at three different points. Resistance there was none.
+      The flight of the shepherds from the hills had first announced in the
+      peopled districts this formidable irruption, and wherever the clansmen
+      were summoned out, they were killed, disarmed, and dispersed, by an enemy
+      who had anticipated their motions. Major Dalgetty, who had been sent
+      forward against Inverary with the few horse of the army that were fit for
+      service, managed his matters so well, that he had very nearly surprised
+      Argyle, as he expressed it, INTER POCULA; and it was only a rapid flight
+      by water which saved that chief from death or captivity. But the
+      punishment which Argyle himself escaped fell heavily upon his country and
+      clan, and the ravages committed by Montrose on that devoted land, although
+      too consistent with the genius of the country and times, have been
+      repeatedly and justly quoted as a blot on his actions and character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Argyle in the meantime had fled to Edinburgh, to lay his complaints before
+      the Convention of Estates. To meet the exigence of the moment, a
+      considerable army was raised under General Baillie, a Presbyterian officer
+      of skill and fidelity, with whom was joined in command the celebrated Sir
+      John Urrie, a soldier of fortune like Dalgetty, who had already changed
+      sides twice during the Civil War, and was destined to turn his coat a
+      third time before it was ended. Argyle also, burning with indignation,
+      proceeded to levy his own numerous forces, in order to avenge himself of
+      his feudal enemy. He established his head-quarters at Dunbarton, where he
+      was soon joined by a considerable force, consisting chiefly of his own
+      clansmen and dependants. Being there joined by Baillie and Urrie, with a
+      very considerable army of regular forces, he prepared to march into
+      Argyleshire, and chastise the invader of his paternal territories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Montrose, while these two formidable armies were forming a junction,
+      had been recalled from that ravaged country by the approach of a third,
+      collected in the north under the Earl of Seaforth, who, after some
+      hesitation, having embraced the side of the Covenanters, had now, with the
+      assistance of the veteran garrison of Inverness, formed a considerable
+      army, with which he threatened Montrose from Inverness-shire. Enclosed in
+      a wasted and unfriendly country, and menaced on each side by advancing
+      enemies of superior force, it might have been supposed that Montrose&rsquo;s
+      destruction was certain. But these were precisely the circumstances under
+      which the active and enterprising genius of the Great Marquis was
+      calculated to excite the wonder and admiration of his friends, the
+      astonishment and terror of his enemies. As if by magic, he collected his
+      scattered forces from the wasteful occupation in which they had been
+      engaged; and scarce were they again united, ere Argyle and his associate
+      generals were informed, that the royalists, having suddenly disappeared
+      from Argyleshire, had retreated northwards among the dusky and
+      impenetrable mountains of Lochaber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sagacity of the generals opposed to Montrose immediately conjectured,
+      that it was the purpose of their active antagonist to fight with, and, if
+      possible, to destroy Seaforth, ere they could come to his assistance. This
+      occasioned a corresponding change in their operations. Leaving this
+      chieftain to make the best defence he could, Urrie and Baillie again
+      separated their forces from those of Argyle; and, having chiefly horse and
+      Lowland troops under their command, they kept the southern side of the
+      Grampian ridge, moving along eastward into the county of Angus, resolving
+      from thence to proceed into Aberdeenshire, in order to intercept Montrose,
+      if he should attempt to escape in that direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Argyle, with his own levies and other troops, undertook to follow
+      Montrose&rsquo;s march; so that, in case he should come to action either with
+      Seaforth, or with Baillie and Urrie, he might be placed between two fires
+      by this third army, which, at a secure distance, was to hang upon his
+      rear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this purpose, Argyle once more moved towards Inverary, having an
+      opportunity, at every step, to deplore the severities which the hostile
+      clans had exercised on his dependants and country. Whatever noble
+      qualities the Highlanders possessed, and they had many, clemency in
+      treating a hostile country was not of the number; but even the ravages of
+      hostile troops combined to swell the number of Argyle&rsquo;s followers. It is
+      still a Highland proverb, He whose house is burnt must become a soldier;
+      and hundreds of the inhabitants of these unfortunate valleys had now no
+      means of maintenance, save by exercising upon others the severities they
+      had themselves sustained, and no future prospect of happiness, excepting
+      in the gratification of revenge. His bands were, therefore, augmented by
+      the very circumstances which had desolated his country, and Argyle soon
+      found himself at the head of three thousand determined men, distinguished
+      for activity and courage, and commanded by gentlemen of his own name, who
+      yielded to none in those qualities. Under himself, he conferred the
+      principal command upon Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, and another Sir
+      Duncan Campbell of Auchenbreck, [This last character is historical] an
+      experienced and veteran soldier, whom he had recalled from the wars of
+      Ireland for this purpose. The cold spirit of Argyle himself, however,
+      clogged the military councils of his more intrepid assistants; and it was
+      resolved, notwithstanding their increased force, to observe the same plan
+      of operations, and to follow Montrose cautiously, in whatever direction he
+      should march, avoiding an engagement until an opportunity should occur of
+      falling upon his rear, while he should be engaged with another enemy in
+      front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Piobracht au Donuil-dhu,
+     Piobrachet au Donuil,
+     Piobrachet agus S&rsquo;breittach
+     Feacht an Innerlochy.
+
+     The war-tune of Donald the Black,
+     The war-tune of Black Donald,
+     The pipes and the banner
+     Are up in the rendezvous of Inverlochy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The military road connecting the chains of forts, as it is called, and
+      running in the general line of the present Caledonian Canal, has now
+      completely opened the great glen, or chasm, extending almost across the
+      whole island, once doubtless filled by the sea, and still affording basins
+      for that long line of lakes, by means of which modern art has united the
+      German and Atlantic Oceans. The paths or tracks by which the natives
+      traversed this extensive valley, were, in 1645-6, in the same situation as
+      when they awaked the strain of an Irish engineer officer, who had been
+      employed in converting them into practicable military roads, and whose
+      eulogium begins, and, for aught I know, ends, as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had you seen but these roads before they were made, You would have held up
+      your hands and bless&rsquo;d General Wade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, bad as the ordinary paths were, Montrose avoided them, and led his
+      army, like a herd of wild deer, from mountain to mountain, and from forest
+      to forest, where his enemies could learn nothing of his motions, while he
+      acquired the most perfect knowledge respecting theirs from the friendly
+      clans of Cameron and M&rsquo;Donnell, whose mountainous districts he now
+      traversed. Strict orders had been given that Argyle&rsquo;s advance should be
+      watched, and that all intelligence respecting his motions should be
+      communicated instantly to the General himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a moonlight night, and Montrose, worn out by the fatigues of the
+      day, was laid down to sleep in a miserable shieling. He had only slumbered
+      two hours, when some one touched his shoulder. He looked up, and, by the
+      stately form and deep voice, easily recognised the Chief of the Camerons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have news for you,&rdquo; said that leader, &ldquo;which is worth while to arise
+      and listen to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M&rsquo;Ilduy [Mhich-Connel Dhu, the descendant of Black Donald.] can bring no
+      other,&rdquo; said Montrose, addressing the Chief by his patronymic title&mdash;&ldquo;are
+      they good or bad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you may take them,&rdquo; said the Chieftain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they certain?&rdquo; demanded Montrose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered M&rsquo;Ilduy, &ldquo;or another messenger should have brought them.
+      Know that, tired with the task imposed upon me of accompanying that
+      unhappy Dalgetty and his handful of horse, who detained me for hours on
+      the march at the pace of a crippled badger, I made a stretch of four miles
+      with six of my people in the direction of Inverlochy, and there met with
+      Ian of Glenroy, who had been out for intelligence. Argyle is moving upon
+      Inverlochy with three thousand chosen men, commanded by the flower of the
+      sons of Diarmid.&mdash;These are my news&mdash;they are certain&mdash;it
+      is for you to construe their purport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Their purport must be good,&rdquo; answered Montrose, readily and cheerfully;
+      &ldquo;the voice of M&rsquo;Ilduy is ever pleasant in the ears of Montrose, and most
+      pleasant when it speaks of some brave enterprise at hand&mdash;What are
+      our musters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then called for light, and easily ascertained that a great part of his
+      followers having, as usual, dispersed to secure their booty, he had not
+      with him above twelve or fourteen hundred men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much above a third,&rdquo; said Montrose, pausing, &ldquo;of Argyle&rsquo;s force, and
+      Highlanders opposed to Highlanders.&mdash;With the blessing of God upon
+      the royal cause, I would not hesitate were the odds but one to two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then do not hesitate,&rdquo; said Cameron; &ldquo;for when your trumpets shall sound
+      to attack M&rsquo;Callum More, not a man of these glens will remain deaf to the
+      summons. Glengarry&mdash;Keppoch&mdash;I myself&mdash;would destroy, with
+      fire and sword, the wretch who should remain behind under any pretence
+      whatsoever. To-morrow, or the next day, shall be a day of battle to all
+      who bear the name of M&rsquo;Donnell or Cameron, whatever be the event.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is gallantly said, my noble friend,&rdquo; said Montrose, grasping his hand,
+      &ldquo;and I were worse than a coward did I not do justice to such followers, by
+      entertaining the most indubitable hopes of success. We will turn back on
+      this M&rsquo;Callum More, who follows us like a raven to devour the relics of
+      our army, should we meet braver men who may be able to break its strength!
+      Let the Chiefs and leaders be called together as quickly as possible; and
+      you, who have brought us the first news of this joyful event,&mdash;for
+      such it shall be,&mdash;you, M&rsquo;Ilduy, shall bring it to a joyful issue, by
+      guiding us the best and nearest road against our enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will I willingly do,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Ilduy; &ldquo;if I have shown you paths by
+      which to retreat through these dusky wilds, with far more readiness will I
+      teach you how to advance against your foe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A general bustle now prevailed, and the leaders were everywhere startled
+      from the rude couches on which they had sought temporary repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought,&rdquo; said Major Dalgetty, when summoned up from a handful of
+      rugged heather roots, &ldquo;to have parted from a bed as hard as a stable-broom
+      with such bad will; but, indubitably, having but one man of military
+      experience in his army, his Excellency the Marquis may be vindicated in
+      putting him upon hard duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he repaired to the council, where, notwithstanding his
+      pedantry, Montrose seemed always to listen to him with considerable
+      attention; partly because the Major really possessed military knowledge
+      and experience, and often made suggestions which were found of advantage,
+      and partly because it relieved the General from the necessity of deferring
+      entirely to the opinion of the Highland Chiefs, and gave him additional
+      ground for disputing it when it was not agreeable to his own. On the
+      present occasion, Dalgetty joyfully acquiesced in the proposal of marching
+      back and confronting Argyle, which he compared to the valiant resolution
+      of the great Gustavus, who moved against the Duke of Bavaria, and enriched
+      his troops by the plunder of that fertile country, although menaced from
+      the northward by the large army which Wallenstein had assembled in
+      Bohemia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chiefs of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Lochiel, whose clans, equal in
+      courage and military fame to any in the Highlands, lay within the
+      neighbourhood of the scene of action, dispatched the fiery cross through
+      their vassals, to summon every one who could bear arms to meet the King&rsquo;s
+      lieutenant, and to join the standards of their respective Chiefs, as they
+      marched towards Inverlochy. As the order was emphatically given, it was
+      speedily and willingly obeyed. Their natural love of war, their zeal for
+      the royal cause,&mdash;for they viewed the King in the light of a chief
+      whom his clansmen had deserted,&mdash;as well as their implicit obedience
+      to their own patriarch, drew in to Montrose&rsquo;s army not only all in the
+      neighbourhood who were able to bear arms, but some who, in age at least,
+      might have been esteemed past the use of them. During the next day&rsquo;s
+      march, which, being directed straight through the mountains of Lochaber,
+      was unsuspected by the enemy, his forces were augmented by handfuls of men
+      issuing from each glen, and ranging themselves under the banners of their
+      respective Chiefs. This was a circumstance highly inspiriting to the rest
+      of the army, who, by the time they approached the enemy, found their
+      strength increased considerably more than one-fourth, as had been
+      prophesied by the valiant leader of the Camerons.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/0651m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="0651m "  /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0651.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      While Montrose executed this counter-march, Argyle had, at the head of his
+      gallant army, advanced up the southern side of Loch-Eil, and reached the
+      river Lochy, which combines that lake with Loch-Lochy. The ancient Castle
+      of Inverlochy, once, as it is said, a royal fortress, and still, although
+      dismantled, a place of some strength and consideration, offered convenient
+      head-quarters, and there was ample room for Argyle&rsquo;s army to encamp around
+      him in the valley, where the Lochy joins Loch-Eil. Several barges had
+      attended, loaded with provisions, so that they were in every respect as
+      well accommodated as such an army wished or expected to be. Argyle, in
+      council with Auchenbreck and Ardenvohr, expressed his full confidence that
+      Montrose was now on the brink of destruction; that his troops must
+      gradually diminish as he moved eastward through such uncouth paths; that
+      if he went westward, he must encounter Urrie and Baillie; if northward,
+      fall into the hands of Seaforth; or should he choose any halting-place, he
+      would expose himself to be attacked by three armies at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot rejoice in the prospect, my lord,&rdquo; said Auchebreck, &ldquo;that James
+      Grahame will be crushed with little assistance of ours. He has left a
+      heavy account in Argyleshire against him, and I long to reckon with him
+      drop of blood for drop of blood. I love not the payment of such debts by
+      third hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too scrupulous,&rdquo; said Argyle; &ldquo;what signifies it by whose hands
+      the blood of the Grahames is spilt? It is time that of the sons of Diarmid
+      should cease to flow.&mdash;What say you, Ardenvohr?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, my lord,&rdquo; replied Sir Duncan, &ldquo;that I think Auchenbreck will be
+      gratified, and will himself have a personal opportunity of settling
+      accounts with Montrose for his depredations. Reports have reached our
+      outposts that the Camerons are assembling their full strength on the
+      skirts of Ben-Nevis; this must be to join the advance of Montrose, and not
+      to cover his retreat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be some scheme of harassing and depredation,&rdquo; said Argyle,
+      &ldquo;devised by the inveterate malignity of M&rsquo;Ilduy, which he terms loyalty.
+      They can intend no more than an attack on our outposts, or some annoyance
+      to to-morrow&rsquo;s march.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sent out scouts,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, &ldquo;in every direction, to procure
+      intelligence; and we must soon hear whether they really do assemble any
+      force, upon what point, or with what purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late ere any tidings were received; but when the moon had arisen, a
+      considerable bustle in the camp, and a noise immediately after heard in
+      the castle, announced the arrival of important intelligence. Of the scouts
+      first dispersed by Ardenvohr, some had returned without being able to
+      collect anything, save uncertain rumours concerning movements in the
+      country of the Camerons. It seemed as if the skirts of Ben-Nevis were
+      sending forth those unaccountable and portentous sounds with which they
+      sometimes announce the near approach of a storm. Others, whose zeal
+      carried them farther upon their mission, were entrapped and slain, or made
+      prisoners, by the inhabitants of the fastnesses into which they
+      endeavoured to penetrate. At length, on the rapid advance of Montrose&rsquo;s
+      army, his advanced guard and the outposts of Argyle became aware of each
+      other&rsquo;s presence, and after exchanging a few musket-shots and arrows, fell
+      back to their respective main bodies, to convey intelligence and receive
+      orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell, and Auchenbreck, instantly threw themselves on
+      horseback, in order to visit the state of the outposts; and Argyle
+      maintained his character of commander-in-chief with reputation, by making
+      a respectable arrangement of his forces in the plain, as it was evident
+      that they might now expect a night alarm, or an attack in the morning at
+      farthest. Montrose had kept his forces so cautiously within the defiles of
+      the mountain, that no effort which Auchenbreck or Ardenvohr thought it
+      prudent to attempt, could ascertain his probable strength. They were
+      aware, however, that, at the utmost computation, it must be inferior to
+      their own, and they returned to Argyle to inform him of the amount of
+      their observations; but that nobleman refused to believe that Montrose
+      could be in presence himself. He said, &ldquo;It was a madness, of which even
+      James Grahame, in his height of presumptuous frenzy, was incapable; and he
+      doubted not that their march was only impeded by their ancient enemies,
+      Glencoe, Keppoch, and Glengarry; and perhaps M&rsquo;Vourigh, with his
+      M&rsquo;Phersons, might have assembled a force, which he knew must be greatly
+      inferior in numbers to his own, and whom, therefore, he doubted not to
+      disperse by force, or by terms of capitulation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirit of Argyle&rsquo;s followers was high, breathing vengeance for the
+      disasters which their country had so lately undergone; and the night
+      passed in anxious hopes that the morning might dawn upon their vengeance.
+      The outposts of either army kept a careful watch, and the soldiers of
+      Argyle slept in the order of battle which they were next day to occupy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pale dawn had scarce begun to tinge the tops of these immense mountains,
+      when the leaders of both armies prepared for the business of the day. It
+      was the second of February, 1645-6. The clansmen of Argyle were arranged
+      in two lines, not far from the angle between the river and the lake, and
+      made an appearance equally resolute and formidable. Auchenbreck would
+      willingly have commenced the battle by an attack on the outposts of the
+      enemy, but Argyle, with more cautious policy, preferred receiving to
+      making the onset. Signals were soon heard, that they would not long wait
+      for it in vain. The Campbells could distinguish, in the gorge of the
+      mountains, the war-tunes of various clans as they advanced to the onset.
+      That of the Camerons, which bears the ominous words, addressed to the
+      wolves and ravens, &ldquo;Come to me, and I will give you flesh,&rdquo; was loudly
+      re-echoed from their native glens. In the language of the Highland bards,
+      the war voice of Glengarry was not silent; and the gathering tunes of
+      other tribes could be plainly distinguished, as they successively came up
+      to the extremity of the passes from which they were to descend into the
+      plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; said Argyle to his kinsmen, &ldquo;it is as I said, we have only to
+      deal with our neighbours; James Grahame has not ventured to show us his
+      banner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment there resounded from the gorge of the pass a lively
+      flourish of trumpets, in that note with which it was the ancient Scottish
+      fashion to salute the royal standard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may hear, my lord, from yonder signal,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan Campbell,
+      &ldquo;that he who pretends to be the King&rsquo;s Lieutenant, must be in person among
+      these men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And has probably horse with him,&rdquo; said Auchenbreck, &ldquo;which I could not
+      have anticipated. But shall we look pale for that, my lord, when we have
+      foes to fight, and wrongs to revenge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Argyle was silent, and looked upon his arm, which hung in a sash, owing to
+      a fall which he had sustained in a preceding march.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true,&rdquo; interrupted Ardenvohr, eagerly, &ldquo;my Lord of Argyle, you are
+      disabled from using either sword or pistol; you must retire on board the
+      galleys&mdash;your life is precious to us as a head&mdash;your hand cannot
+      be useful to us as a soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Argyle, pride contending with irresolution, &ldquo;it shall never be
+      said that I fled before Montrose; if I cannot fight, I will at least die
+      in the midst of my children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Several other principal Chiefs of the Campbells, with one voice, conjured
+      and obtested their Chieftain to leave them for that day to the leading of
+      Ardenvohr and Auchenbreck, and to behold the conflict from a distance and
+      in safety.&mdash;We dare not stigmatize Argyle with poltroonery; for,
+      though his life was marked by no action of bravery, yet he behaved with so
+      much composure and dignity in the final and closing scene, that his
+      conduct upon the present and similar occasions, should be rather imputed
+      to indecision than to want of courage. But when the small still voice
+      within a man&rsquo;s own breast, which tells him that his life is of consequence
+      to himself, is seconded by that of numbers around him, who assure him that
+      it is of equal advantage to the public, history affords many examples of
+      men more habitually daring than Argyle, who have consulted
+      self-preservation when the temptations to it were so powerfully increased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See him on board, if you will, Sir Duncan,&rdquo; said Auchenbreck to his
+      kinsman; &ldquo;It must be my duty to prevent this spirit from spreading farther
+      among us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he threw himself among the ranks, entreating, commanding, and
+      conjuring the soldiers, to remember their ancient fame and their present
+      superiority; the wrongs they had to revenge, if successful, and the fate
+      they had to dread, if vanquished; and imparting to every bosom a portion
+      of the fire which glowed in his own. Slowly, meanwhile, and apparently
+      with reluctance, Argyle suffered himself to be forced by his officious
+      kinsmen to the verge of the lake, and was transported on board of a
+      galley, from the deck of which he surveyed with more safety than credit
+      the scene which ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, notwithstanding the urgency of the
+      occasion, stood with his eyes riveted on the boat which bore his Chieftain
+      from the field of battle. There were feelings in his bosom which could not
+      be expressed; for the character of a Chief was that of a father, and the
+      heart of a clansman durst not dwell upon his failings with critical
+      severity as upon those of other men. Argyle, too, harsh and severe to
+      others, was generous and liberal among his kinsmen, and the noble heart
+      of, Ardenvohr was wrung with bitter anguish, when he reflected to what
+      interpretation his present conduct might subject him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is better it should be so,&rdquo; said he to himself, devouring his own
+      emotion; &ldquo;but&mdash;of his line of a hundred sires, I know not one who
+      would have retired while the banner of Diarmid waved in the wind, in the
+      face of its most inveterate foes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud shout now compelled him to turn, and to hasten with all dispatch to
+      his post, which was on the right flank of Argyle&rsquo;s little army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The retreat of Argyle had not passed unobserved by his watchful enemy,
+      who, occupying the superior ground, could mark every circumstance which
+      passed below. The movement of three or four horsemen to the rear showed
+      that those who retreated were men of rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are going,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;to put their horses out of danger, like
+      prudent cavaliers. Yonder goes Sir Duncan Campbell, riding a brown bay
+      gelding, which I had marked for my own second charger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wrong, Major,&rdquo; said Montrose, with a bitter smile, &ldquo;they are
+      saving their precious Chief&mdash;Give the signal for assault instantly&mdash;send
+      the word through the ranks.&mdash;Gentlemen, noble Chiefs, Glengarry,
+      Keppoch, M&rsquo;Vourigh, upon them instantly!&mdash;Ride to M&rsquo;Ilduy, Major
+      Dalgetty, and tell him to charge as he loves Lochaber&mdash;return and
+      bring our handful of horse to my standard. They shall be placed with the
+      Irish as a reserve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Lochlin.
+     &mdash;OSSIAN.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The trumpets and bagpipes, those clamorous harbingers of blood and death,
+      at once united in the signal for onset, which was replied to by the cry of
+      more than two thousand warriors, and the echoes of the mountain glens
+      behind them. Divided into three bodies, or columns, the Highland followers
+      of Montrose poured from the defiles which had hitherto concealed them from
+      their enemies, and rushed with the utmost determination upon the
+      Campbells, who waited their charge with the greatest firmness. Behind
+      these charging columns marched in line the Irish, under Colkitto, intended
+      to form the reserve. With them was the royal standard, and Montrose
+      himself; and on the flanks were about fifty horse, under Dalgetty, which
+      by wonderful exertions had been kept in some sort fit for service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The right column of Royalists was led by Glengarry, the left by Lochiel,
+      and the centre by the Earl of Menteith, who preferred fighting on foot in
+      a Highland dress to remaining with the cavalry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Highlanders poured on with the proverbial fury of their country,
+      firing their guns, and discharging their arrows, at a little distance from
+      the enemy, who received the assault with the most determined gallantry.
+      Better provided with musketry than their enemies, stationary also, and
+      therefore taking the more decisive aim, the fire of Argyle&rsquo;s followers was
+      more destructive than that which they sustained. The royal clans,
+      perceiving this, rushed to close quarters, and succeeded on two points in
+      throwing their enemies into disorder. With regular troops this must have
+      achieved a victory; but here Highlanders were opposed to Highlanders, and
+      the nature of the weapons, as well as the agility of those who wielded
+      them, was equal on both sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their strife was accordingly desperate; and the clash of the swords and
+      axes, as they encountered each other, or rung upon the targets, was
+      mingled with the short, wild, animating shrieks with which Highlanders
+      accompany the battle, the dance, or indeed violent exertion of any kind.
+      Many of the foes opposed were personally acquainted, and sought to match
+      themselves with each other from motives of hatred, or a more generous
+      emulation of valour. Neither party would retreat an inch, while the place
+      of those who fell (and they fell fast on both sides) was eagerly supplied
+      by others, who thronged to the front of danger. A steam, like that which
+      arises from a seething cauldron, rose into the thin, cold, frosty air, and
+      hovered above the combatants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So stood the fight on the right and the centre, with no immediate
+      consequence, except mutual wounds and death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the right of the Campbells, the Knight of Ardenvohr obtained some
+      advantage, through his military skill and by strength of numbers. He had
+      moved forward obliquely the extreme flank of his line at the instant the
+      Royalists were about to close, so that they sustained a fire at once on
+      front and in flank, and, despite the utmost efforts of their leader, were
+      thrown into some confusion. At this instant, Sir Duncan Campbell gave the
+      word to charge, and thus unexpectedly made the attack at the very moment
+      he seemed about to receive it. Such a change of circumstances is always
+      discouraging, and often fatal. But the disorder was remedied by the
+      advance of the Irish reserve, whose heavy and sustained fire compelled the
+      Knight of Ardenvohr to forego his advantage, and content himself with
+      repulsing the enemy. The Marquis of Montrose, in the meanwhile, availing
+      himself of some scattered birch trees, as well as of the smoke produced by
+      the close fire of the Irish musketry, which concealed the operation,
+      called upon Dalgetty to follow him with the horse, and wheeling round so
+      as to gain the right flank and even the rear of the enemy, he commanded
+      his six trumpets to sound the charge. The clang of the cavalry trumpets,
+      and the noise of the galloping of the horse, produced an effect upon
+      Argyle&rsquo;s right wing which no other sounds could have impressed them with.
+      The mountaineers of that period had a superstitious dread of the
+      war-horse, like that entertained by the Peruvians, and had many strange
+      ideas respecting the manner in which that animal was trained to combat.
+      When, therefore, they found their ranks unexpectedly broken, and that the
+      objects of their greatest terror were suddenly in the midst of them, the
+      panic, in spite of Sir Duncan&rsquo;s attempts to stop it, became universal.
+      Indeed, the figure of Major Dalgetty alone, sheathed in impenetrable
+      armour, and making his horse caracole and bound, so as to give weight to
+      every blow which he struck, would have been a novelty in itself sufficient
+      to terrify those who had never seen anything more nearly resembling such a
+      cavalier, than a SHELTY waddling under a Highlander far bigger than
+      itself. The repulsed Royalists returned to the charge; the Irish, keeping
+      their ranks, maintained a fire equally close and destructive. There was no
+      sustaining the fight longer. Argyle&rsquo;s followers began to break and fly,
+      most towards the lake, the remainder in different directions. The defeat
+      of the right wing, of itself decisive, was rendered irreparable by the
+      death of Auchenbreck, who fell while endeavouring to restore order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Knight of Ardenvohr, with two or three hundred men, all gentlemen of
+      descent and distinguished gallantry,&mdash;for the Campbells are supposed
+      to have had more gentlemen in their ranks than any of the Highland clans,
+      endeavoured, with unavailing heroism, to cover the tumultuary retreat of
+      the common file. Their resolution only proved fatal to themselves, as they
+      were charged again and again by fresh adversaries, and forced to separate
+      from each other, until at length their aim seemed only to be to purchase
+      an honourable death by resisting to the very last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good quarter, Sir Duncan,&rdquo; called out Major Dalgetty, when he discovered
+      his late host, with one or two others, defending himself against several
+      Highlanders; and, to enforce his offer, he rode up to him with his sword
+      uplifted. Sir Duncan&rsquo;s reply was the discharge of a reserved pistol, which
+      took effect not on the person of the rider, but on that of his gallant
+      horse, which, shot through the heart, fell dead under him. Ranald MacEagh,
+      who was one of those who had been pressing Sir Duncan hard, took the
+      opportunity to cut him down with his broadsword, as he turned from him in
+      the act of firing the pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan M&rsquo;Aulay came up at this moment. They were, excepting Ranald,
+      followers of his brother who were engaged on that part of the field,
+      &ldquo;Villains!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;which of you has dared to do this, when it was my
+      positive order that the Knight of Ardenvohr should be taken alive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-a-dozen of busy hands, which were emulously employed in plundering
+      the fallen knight, whose arms and accoutrements were of a magnificence
+      befitting his quality, instantly forbore the occupation, and half the
+      number of voices exculpated themselves, by laying the blame on the
+      Skyeman, as they called Ranald MacEagh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dog of an Islander!&rdquo; said Allan, forgetting, in his wrath, their
+      prophetic brotherhood, &ldquo;follow the chase, and harm him no farther, unless
+      you mean to die by my hand.&rdquo; They were at this moment left almost alone;
+      for Allan&rsquo;s threats had forced his own clan from the spot, and all around
+      had pressed onwards toward the lake, carrying before them noise, terror,
+      and confusion, and leaving behind only the dead and dying. The moment was
+      tempting to MacEagh&rsquo;s vengeful spirit.&mdash;&ldquo;That I should die by your
+      hand, red as it is with the blood of my kindred,&rdquo; said he, answering the
+      threat of Allan in a tone as menacing as his own, &ldquo;is not more likely than
+      that you should fall by mine.&rdquo; With that, he struck at M&rsquo;Aulay with such
+      unexpected readiness, that he had scarce time to intercept the blow with
+      his target.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Villain!&rdquo; said Allan, in astonishment, &ldquo;what means this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Ranald of the Mist!&rdquo; answered the Islesman, repeating the blow; and
+      with that word, they engaged in close and furious conflict. It seemed to
+      be decreed, that in Allan M&rsquo;Aulay had arisen the avenger of his mother&rsquo;s
+      wrongs upon this wild tribe, as was proved by the issue of the present, as
+      well as of former combats. After exchanging a few blows, Ranald MacEagh
+      was prostrated by a deep wound on the skull; and M&rsquo;Aulay, setting his foot
+      on him, was about to pass the broadsword through his body, when the point
+      of the weapon was struck up by a third party, who suddenly interposed.
+      This was no other than Major Dalgetty, who, stunned by the fall, and
+      encumbered by the dead body of his horse, had now recovered his legs and
+      his understanding. &ldquo;Hold up your sword,&rdquo; said he to M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;and
+      prejudice this person no farther, in respect that he is here in my
+      safeconduct, and in his Excellency&rsquo;s service; and in regard that no
+      honourable cavalier is at liberty, by the law martial, to avenge his own
+      private injuries, FLAGRANTE BELLO, MULTO MAJUS FLAGRANTE PRAELIO.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool!&rdquo; said Allan, &ldquo;stand aside, and dare not to come between the tiger
+      and his prey!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, far from quitting his point, Dalgetty stept across the fallen body of
+      MacEagh, and gave Allan to understand, that if he called himself a tiger,
+      he was likely, at present, to find a lion in his path. There required no
+      more than the gesture and tone of defiance to turn the whole rage of the
+      military Seer against the person who was opposing the course of his
+      vengeance, and blows were instantly exchanged without farther ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strife betwixt Allan and MacEagh had been unnoticed by the stragglers
+      around, for the person of the latter was known to few of Montrose&rsquo;s
+      followers; but the scuffle betwixt Dalgetty and him, both so well known,
+      attracted instant attention; and fortunately, among others, that of
+      Montrose himself, who had come for the purpose of gathering together his
+      small body of horse, and following the pursuit down Loch-Eil. Aware of the
+      fatal consequences of dissension in his little army, he pushed his horse
+      up to the spot, and seeing MacEagh on the ground, and Dalgetty in the
+      attitude of protecting him against M&rsquo;Aulay, his quick apprehension
+      instantly caught the cause of quarrel, and as instantly devised means to
+      stop it. &ldquo;For shame,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;gentlemen cavaliers, brawling together in
+      so glorious a field of victory!&mdash;Are you mad? Or are you intoxicated
+      with the glory which you have both this day gained?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not my fault, so please your Excellency,&rdquo; said Dalgetty. &ldquo;I have
+      been known a BONUS SOCIUS, A BON CAMARADO, in all the services of Europe;
+      but he that touches a man under my safeguard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he,&rdquo; said Allan, speaking at the same time, &ldquo;who dares to bar the
+      course of my just vengeance&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For shame, gentlemen!&rdquo; again repeated Montrose; &ldquo;I have other business
+      for you both,&mdash;business of deeper importance than any private
+      quarrel, which you may easily find a more fitting time to settle. For you,
+      Major Dalgetty, kneel down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kneel!&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;I have not learned to obey that word of command,
+      saving when it is given from the pulpit. In the Swedish discipline, the
+      front rank do indeed kneel, but only when the regiment is drawn up six
+      file deep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless,&rdquo; repeated Montrose,&mdash;&ldquo;kneel down, in the name of King
+      Charles and of his representative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dalgetty reluctantly obeyed, Montrose struck him lightly on the neck
+      with the flat of his sword, saying,&mdash;&ldquo;In reward of the gallant
+      service of this day, and in the name and authority of our Sovereign, King
+      Charles, I dub thee knight; be brave, loyal, and fortunate. And now, Sir
+      Dugald Dalgetty, to your duty. Collect what horsemen you can, and pursue
+      such of the enemy as are flying down the side of the lake. Do not disperse
+      your force, nor venture too far; but take heed to prevent their rallying,
+      which very little exertion may do. Mount, then, Sir Dugald, and do your
+      duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what shall I mount?&rdquo; said the new-made chevalier. &ldquo;Poor Gustavus
+      sleeps in the bed of honour, like his immortal namesake! and I am made a
+      knight, a rider, as the High Dutch have it, just when I have not a horse
+      left to ride upon.&rdquo; [In German, as in Latin, the original meaning of the
+      word Ritter, corresponding to Eques, is merely a horseman.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That shall not be said,&rdquo; answered Montrose, dismounting; &ldquo;I make you a
+      present of my own, which has been thought a good one; only, I pray you,
+      resume the duty you discharge so well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With many acknowledgments, Sir Dugald mounted the steed so liberally
+      bestowed upon him; and only beseeching his Excellency to remember that
+      MacEagh was under his safe-conduct, immediately began to execute the
+      orders assigned to him, with great zeal and alacrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay,&rdquo; said Montrose, addressing the Highlander, who,
+      leaning his sword-point on the ground, had regarded the ceremony of his
+      antagonist&rsquo;s knighthood with a sneer of sullen scorn,&mdash;&ldquo;you, who are
+      superior to the ordinary men led by the paltry motives of plunder, and
+      pay, and personal distinction,&mdash;you, whose deep knowledge renders you
+      so valuable a counsellor,&mdash;is it YOU whom I find striving with a man
+      like Dalgetty, for the privilege of trampling the remains of life out of
+      so contemptible an enemy as lies there? Come, my friend, I have other work
+      for you. This victory, skilfully improved, shall win Seaforth to our
+      party. It is not disloyalty, but despair of the good cause, that has
+      induced him to take arms against us. These arms, in this moment of better
+      augury, he may be brought to unite with ours. I shall send my gallant
+      friend, Colonel Hay, to him, from this very field of battle, but he must
+      be united in commission with a Highland gentleman of rank, befitting that
+      of Seaforth, and of talents and of influence such as may make an
+      impression upon him. You are not only in every respect the fittest for
+      this most important mission, but, having no immediate command, your
+      presence may be more easily spared than that of a Chief whose following is
+      in the field. You know every pass and glen in the Highlands, as well as
+      the manners and customs of every tribe. Go therefore to Hay, on the right
+      wing; he has instructions, and expects you. You will find him with
+      Glenmorrison&rsquo;s men; be his guide, his interpreter, and his colleague.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan M&rsquo;Aulay bent on the Marquis a dark and penetrating glance, as if to
+      ascertain whether this sudden mission was not conferred for some latent
+      and unexplained purpose. But Montrose, skilful in searching the motives of
+      others, was an equal adept in concealing his own. He considered it as of
+      the last consequence, in this moment of enthusiasm and exalted passion, to
+      remove Allan from the camp for a few days, that he might provide, as his
+      honour required, for the safety of those who had acted as his guides, when
+      he trusted the Seer&rsquo;s quarrel with Dalgetty might be easily made up.
+      Allan, at parting, only recommended to the Marquis the care of Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, whom Montrose instantly directed to be conveyed to a place of
+      safety. He took the same precaution for MacEagh, committing the latter,
+      however, to a party of the Irish, with directions that he should be taken
+      care of, but that no Highlander, of any clan, should have access to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis then mounted a led horse, which was held by one of his
+      attendants, and rode on to view the scene of his victory, which was more
+      decisive than even his ardent hopes had anticipated. Of Argyle&rsquo;s gallant
+      army of three thousand men, fully one-half fell in the battle, or in the
+      flight. They had been chiefly driven back upon that part of the plain
+      where the river forms an angle with the lake, so that there was no free
+      opening either for retreat or escape. Several hundreds were forced into
+      the lake and drowned. Of the survivors, about one-half escaped by swimming
+      the river, or by an early flight along the left bank of the lake. The
+      remainder threw themselves into the old Castle of Inverlochy; but being
+      without either provisions or hopes of relief, they were obliged to
+      surrender, on condition of being suffered to return to their homes in
+      peace. Arms, ammunition, standards, and baggage, all became the prey of
+      the conquerors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the greatest disaster that ever befell the race of Diarmid, as
+      the Campbells were called in the Highlands; it being generally remarked
+      that they were as fortunate in the issue of their undertakings, as they
+      were sagacious in planning, and courageous in executing them. Of the
+      number slain, nearly five hundred were dunniwassels, or gentlemen claiming
+      descent from known and respected houses. And, in the opinion of many of
+      the clan, even this heavy loss was exceeded by the disgrace arising from
+      the inglorious conduct of their Chief, whose galley weighed anchor when
+      the day was lost, and sailed down the lake with all the speed to which
+      sails and oars could impel her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Faint the din of battle bray&rsquo;d,
+     Distant down the hollow wind;
+     War and terror fled before,
+     Wounds and death remain&rsquo;d behind.&mdash;PENROSE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Montrose&rsquo;s splendid success over his powerful rival was not attained
+      without some loss, though not amounting to the tenth of what he inflicted.
+      The obstinate valour of the Campbells cost the lives of many brave men of
+      the opposite party; and more were wounded, the Chief of whom was the brave
+      young Earl of Menteith, who had commanded the centre. He was but slightly
+      touched, however, and made rather a graceful than a terrible appearance
+      when he presented to his general the standard of Argyle, which he had
+      taken from the standard-bearer with his own hand, and slain him in single
+      combat. Montrose dearly loved his noble kinsman, in whom there was
+      conspicuous a flash of the generous, romantic, disinterested chivalry of
+      the old heroic times, entirely different from the sordid, calculating, and
+      selfish character, which the practice of entertaining mercenary troops had
+      introduced into most parts of Europe, and of which degeneracy Scotland,
+      which furnished soldiers of fortune for the service of almost every
+      nation, had been contaminated with a more than usual share. Montrose,
+      whose native spirit was congenial, although experience had taught him how
+      to avail himself of the motives of others, used to Menteith neither the
+      language of praise nor of promise, but clasped him to his bosom as he
+      exclaimed, &ldquo;My gallant kinsman!&rdquo; And by this burst of heartfelt applause
+      was Menteith thrilled with a warmer glow of delight, than if his praises
+      had been recorded in a report of the action sent directly to the throne of
+      his sovereign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my lord, now seems to remain in which I can render
+      any assistance; permit me to look after a duty of humanity&mdash;the
+      Knight of Ardenvohr, as I am told, is our prisoner, and severely wounded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And well he deserves to be so,&rdquo; said Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who came up to
+      them at that moment with a prodigious addition of acquired importance,
+      &ldquo;since he shot my good horse at the time that I was offering him
+      honourable quarter, which, I must needs say, was done more like an
+      ignorant Highland cateran, who has not sense enough to erect a sconce for
+      the protection of his old hurley-house of a castle, than like a soldier of
+      worth and quality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we to condole with you then,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith, &ldquo;upon the loss of
+      the famed Gustavus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, my lord,&rdquo; answered the soldier, with a deep sigh, &ldquo;DIEM CLAUSIT
+      SUPREMUM, as we said at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen. Better so than
+      be smothered like a cadger&rsquo;s pony in some flow-moss, or snow-wreath, which
+      was like to be his fate if this winter campaign lasted longer. But it has
+      pleased his Excellency&rdquo; (making an inclination to Montrose) &ldquo;to supply his
+      place by the gift of a noble steed, whom I have taken the freedom to name
+      &lsquo;LOYALTY&rsquo;S REWARD,&rsquo; in memory of this celebrated occasion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; said the Marquis, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll find Loyalty&rsquo;s Reward, since you call
+      him so, practised in all the duties of the field,&mdash;but I must just
+      hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty is more frequently
+      rewarded with a halter than with a horse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ahem! your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty&rsquo;s Reward is as
+      perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a far finer figure.
+      Marry! his social qualities are less cultivated, in respect he has kept
+      till now inferior company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith. &ldquo;For
+      shame, Sir Dugald!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; answered the knight gravely, &ldquo;I am incapable to mean anything
+      so utterly unbecoming. What I asseverate is, that his Excellency, having
+      the same intercourse with his horse during his exercise, that he hath with
+      his soldiers when training them, may form and break either to every feat
+      of war which he chooses to practise, and accordingly that this noble
+      charger is admirably managed. But as it is the intercourse of private life
+      that formeth the social character, so I do not apprehend that of the
+      single soldier to be much polished by the conversation of the corporal or
+      the sergeant, or that of Loyalty&rsquo;s Reward to have been much dulcified, or
+      ameliorated, by the society of his Excellency&rsquo;s grooms, who bestow more
+      oaths, and kicks, and thumps, than kindness or caresses, upon the animals
+      intrusted to their charge; whereby many a generous quadruped, rendered as
+      it were misanthropic, manifests during the rest of his life a greater
+      desire to kick and bite his master, than to love and to honour him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spoken like an oracle,&rdquo; said Montrose. &ldquo;Were there an academy for the
+      education of horses to be annexed to the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen,
+      Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the chair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, being an ass,&rdquo; said Menteith, aside to the General, &ldquo;there would
+      be some distant relation between the professor and the students.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, with your Excellency&rsquo;s permission,&rdquo; said the new-made knight, &ldquo;I
+      am going to pay my last visit to the remains of my old companion in arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not with the purpose of going through the ceremonial of interment?&rdquo; said
+      the Marquis, who did not know how far Sir Dugald&rsquo;s enthusiasm might lead
+      him; &ldquo;consider our brave fellows themselves will have but a hasty burial.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency will pardon me,&rdquo; said Dalgetty; &ldquo;my purpose is less
+      romantic. I go to divide poor Gustavus&rsquo;s legacy with the fowls of heaven,
+      leaving the flesh to them, and reserving to myself his hide; which, in
+      token of affectionate remembrance, I purpose to form into a cassock and
+      trowsers, after the Tartar fashion, to be worn under my armour, in respect
+      my nether garments are at present shamefully the worse of the wear.&mdash;Alas!
+      poor Gustavus, why didst thou not live at least one hour more, to have
+      borne the honoured weight of knighthood upon thy loins!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now turning away, when the Marquis called after him,&mdash;&ldquo;As you
+      are not likely to be anticipated in this act of kindness, Sir Dugald, to
+      your old friend and companion, I trust,&rdquo; said the Marquis, &ldquo;you will first
+      assist me, and our principal friends, to discuss some of Argyle&rsquo;s good
+      cheer, of which we have found abundance in the Castle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most willingly, please your Excellency,&rdquo; said Sir Dugald; &ldquo;as meat and
+      mass never hinder work. Nor, indeed, am I afraid that the wolves or eagles
+      will begin an onslaught on Gustavus to-night, in regard there is so much
+      better cheer lying all around. But,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;as I am to meet two
+      honourable knights of England, with others of the knightly degree in your
+      lordship&rsquo;s army, I pray it may be explained to them, that now, and in
+      future, I claim precedence over them all, in respect of my rank as a
+      Banneret, dubbed in a field of stricken battle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil confound him!&rdquo; said Montrose, speaking aside; &ldquo;he has contrived
+      to set the kiln on fire as fast as I put it out.&mdash;&lsquo;This is a point,
+      Sir Dugald,&rdquo; said he, gravely addressing him, &ldquo;which I shall reserve for
+      his Majesty&rsquo;s express consideration; in my camp, all must be upon
+      equality, like the Knights of the Round Table; and take their places as
+      soldiers should, upon the principle of,&mdash;first come, first served.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall take care,&rdquo; said Menteith, apart to the Marquis, &ldquo;that Don
+      Dugald is not first in place to-day.&mdash;Sir Dugald,&rdquo; added he, raising
+      his voice, &ldquo;as you say your wardrobe is out of repair, had you not better
+      go to the enemy&rsquo;s baggage yonder, over which there is a guard placed? I
+      saw them take out an excellent buff suit, embroidered in front in silk and
+      silver.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;VOTO A DIOS! as the Spaniard says,&rdquo; exclaimed the Major, &ldquo;and some
+      beggarly gilly may get it while I stand prating here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The prospect of booty having at once driven out of his head both Gustavus
+      and the provant, he set spurs to Loyalty&rsquo;s Reward, and rode off through
+      the field of battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There goes the hound,&rdquo; said Menteith, &ldquo;breaking the face, and trampling
+      on the body, of many a better man than himself; and as eager on his sordid
+      spoil as a vulture that stoops upon carrion. Yet this man the world calls
+      a soldier&mdash;and you, my lord, select him as worthy of the honours of
+      chivalry, if such they can at this day be termed. You have made the collar
+      of knighthood the decoration of a mere bloodhound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I do?&rdquo; said Montrose. &ldquo;I had no half-picked bones to give him,
+      and bribed in some manner he must be,&mdash;I cannot follow the chase
+      alone. Besides, the dog has good qualities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If nature has given him such,&rdquo; said Menteith, &ldquo;habit has converted them
+      into feelings of intense selfishness. He may be punctilious concerning his
+      reputation, and brave in the execution of his duty, but it is only because
+      without these qualities he cannot rise in the service;&mdash;nay, his very
+      benevolence is selfish; he may defend his companion while he can keep his
+      feet, but the instant he is down, Sir Dugald will be as ready to ease him
+      of his purse, as he is to convert the skin of Gustavus into a buff
+      jerkin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet, if all this were true, cousin,&rdquo; answered Montrose, &ldquo;there is
+      something convenient in commanding a soldier, upon whose motives and
+      springs of action you can calculate to a mathematical certainty. A fine
+      spirit like yours, my cousin, alive to a thousand sensations to which this
+      man&rsquo;s is as impervious as his corslet,&mdash;it is for such that thy
+      friend must feel, while he gives his advice.&rdquo; Then, suddenly changing his
+      tone, he asked Menteith when he had seen Annot Lyle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Earl coloured deeply, and answered, &ldquo;Not since last evening,&mdash;excepting,&rdquo;
+       he added, with hesitation, &ldquo;for one moment, about half an hour before the
+      battle began.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Menteith,&rdquo; said Montrose, very kindly, &ldquo;were you one of the gay
+      cavaliers of Whitehall, who are, in their way, as great self-seekers as
+      our friend Dalgetty, should I need to plague you with enquiring into such
+      an amourette as this? it would be an intrigue only to be laughed at. But
+      this is the land of enchantment, where nets strong as steel are wrought
+      out of ladies&rsquo; tresses, and you are exactly the destined knight to be so
+      fettered. This poor girl is exquisitely beautiful, and has talents formed
+      to captivate your romantic temper. You cannot think of injuring her&mdash;you
+      cannot think of marrying her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; replied Menteith, &ldquo;you have repeatedly urged this jest, for so
+      I trust it is meant, somewhat beyond bounds. Annot Lyle is of unknown
+      birth,&mdash;a captive,&mdash;the daughter, probably, of some obscure
+      outlaw; a dependant on the hospitality of the M&rsquo;Aulays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be angry, Menteith,&rdquo; said the Marquis, interrupting him; &ldquo;you love
+      the classics, though not educated at Mareschal-College; and you may
+      remember how many gallant hearts captive beauty has subdued:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Movit Ajacem, Telamone natum,
+     Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In a word, I am seriously anxious about this&mdash;I should not have time,
+      perhaps,&rdquo; he added very gravely, &ldquo;to trouble you with my lectures on the
+      subject, were your feelings, and those of Annot, alone interested; but you
+      have a dangerous rival in Allan M&rsquo;Aulay; and there is no knowing to what
+      extent he may carry his resentment. It is my duty to tell you that the
+      King&rsquo;s service may be much prejudiced by dissensions betwixt you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Menteith, &ldquo;I know what you mean is kind and friendly; I
+      hope you will be satisfied when I assure you, that Allan M&rsquo;Aulay and I
+      have discussed this circumstance; and that I have explained to him, that
+      it is utterly remote from my character to entertain dishonourable views
+      concerning this unprotected female; so, on the other hand, the obscurity
+      of her birth prevents my thinking of her upon other terms. I will not
+      disguise from your lordship, what I have not disguised from M&rsquo;Aulay,&mdash;that
+      if Annot Lyle were born a lady, she should share my name and rank; as
+      matters stand, it is impossible. This explanation, I trust, will satisfy
+      your lordship, as it has satisfied a less reasonable person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;And, like true champions in romance,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;you have agreed, that you are both to worship the same mistress, as
+      idolaters do the same image, and that neither shall extend his pretensions
+      farther?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not go so far, my lord,&rdquo; answered Menteith&mdash;&ldquo;I only said in
+      the present circumstances&mdash;and there is no prospect of their being
+      changed,&mdash;I could, in duty to myself and family, stand in no relation
+      to Annot Lyle, but as that of friend or brother&mdash;But your lordship
+      must excuse me; I have,&rdquo; said he, looking at his arm, round which he had
+      tied his handkerchief, &ldquo;a slight hurt to attend to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A wound?&rdquo; said Montrose, anxiously; &ldquo;let me see it.&mdash;Alas!&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;I should have heard nothing of this, had I not ventured to tent and sound
+      another more secret and more rankling one, Menteith; I am sorry for you&mdash;I
+      too have known&mdash;But what avails it to awake sorrows which have long
+      slumbered!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he shook hands with his noble kinsman, and walked into the
+      castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle, as was not unusual for females in the Highlands, was possessed
+      of a slight degree of medical and even surgical skill. It may readily be
+      believed, that the profession of surgery, or medicine, as a separate art,
+      was unknown; and the few rude rules which they observed were intrusted to
+      women, or to the aged, whom constant casualties afforded too much
+      opportunity of acquiring experience. The care and attention, accordingly,
+      of Annot Lyle, her attendants, and others acting under her direction, had
+      made her services extremely useful during this wild campaign. And most
+      readily had these services been rendered to friend and foe, wherever they
+      could be most useful. She was now in an apartment of the castle, anxiously
+      superintending the preparation of vulnerary herbs, to be applied to the
+      wounded; receiving reports from different females respecting those under
+      their separate charge, and distributing what means she had for their
+      relief, when Allan M&rsquo;Aulay suddenly entered the apartment. She started,
+      for she had heard that he had left the camp upon a distant mission; and,
+      however accustomed she was to the gloom of his countenance, it seemed at
+      present to have even a darker shade than usual. He stood before her
+      perfectly silent, and she felt the necessity of being the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought,&rdquo; she said, with some effort, &ldquo;you had already set out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My companion awaits me,&rdquo; said Allan; &ldquo;I go instantly.&rdquo; Yet still he stood
+      before her, and held her by the arm, with a pressure which, though
+      insufficient to give her pain, made her sensible of his great personal
+      strength, his hand closing on her like the gripe of a manacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I take the harp?&rdquo; she said, in a timid voice; &ldquo;is&mdash;is the
+      shadow falling upon you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of replying, he led her to the window of the apartment, which
+      commanded a view of the field of the slain, with all its horrors. It was
+      thick spread with dead and wounded, and the spoilers were busy tearing the
+      clothes from the victims of war and feudal ambition, with as much
+      indifference as if they had not been of the same species, and themselves
+      exposed, perhaps to-morrow, to the same fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the sight please you?&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hideous!&rdquo; said Annot, covering her eyes with her hands; &ldquo;how can
+      you bid me look upon it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be inured to it,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if you remain with this destined
+      host&mdash;you will soon have to search such a field for my brother&rsquo;s
+      corpse&mdash;for Menteith&rsquo;s&mdash;for mine&mdash;-but that will be a more
+      indifferent task&mdash;You do not love me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the first time you have taxed me with unkindness,&rdquo; said Annot,
+      weeping. &ldquo;You are my brother&mdash;my preserver&mdash;my protector&mdash;and
+      can I then BUT love you?&mdash;But your hour of darkness is approaching,
+      let me fetch my harp&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remain,&rdquo; said Allan, still holding her fast; &ldquo;be my visions from heaven
+      or hell, or from the middle sphere of disembodied spirits&mdash;or be
+      they, as the Saxons hold, but the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they
+      do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the
+      visible world.&mdash;You love not me, Annot&mdash;you love Menteith&mdash;by
+      him you are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the
+      corpses which encumber yonder heath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It cannot be supposed that this strange speech conveyed any new
+      information to her who was thus addressed. No woman ever lived who could
+      not, in the same circumstances, have discerned long since the state of her
+      lover&rsquo;s mind. But by thus suddenly tearing off the veil, thin as it was,
+      Allan prepared her to expect consequences violent in proportion to the
+      enthusiasm of his character. She made an effort to repel the charge he had
+      stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;your own worth and nobleness when you insult so
+      very helpless a being, and one whom fate has thrown so totally into your
+      power. You know who and what I am, and how impossible it is that Menteith
+      or you can use language of affection to me, beyond that of friendship. You
+      know from what unhappy race I have too probably derived my existence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not believe it,&rdquo; said Allan, impetuously; &ldquo;never flowed crystal
+      drop from a polluted spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet the very doubt,&rdquo; pleaded Annot, &ldquo;should make you forbear to use this
+      language to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;it places a bar between us&mdash;but I know also
+      that it divides you not so inseparably from Menteith.&mdash;Hear me, my
+      beloved Annot!&mdash;leave this scene of terrors and danger&mdash;go with
+      me to Kintail&mdash;I will place you in the house of the noble Lady of
+      Seaforth&mdash;or you shall be removed in safety to Icolmkill, where some
+      women yet devote themselves to the worship of God, after the custom of our
+      ancestors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You consider not what you ask of me,&rdquo; replied Annot; &ldquo;to undertake such a
+      journey under your sole guardianship, were to show me less scrupulous than
+      maiden ought. I will remain here, Allan&mdash;here under the protection of
+      the noble Montrose; and when his motions next approach the Lowlands, I
+      will contrive some proper means to relieve you of one, who has, she knows
+      not how, become an object of dislike to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan stood as if uncertain whether to give way to sympathy with her
+      distress, or to anger at her resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Annot,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you know too well how little your words apply to my
+      feelings towards you&mdash;but you avail yourself of your power, and you
+      rejoice in my departure, as removing a spy upon your intercourse with
+      Menteith. But beware both of you,&rdquo; he added, in a stern tone; &ldquo;for when
+      was it ever heard that an injury was offered to Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, for which
+      he exacted not tenfold vengeance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he pressed her arm forcibly, pulled the bonnet over his brows,
+      and strode out of the apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &mdash;After you&rsquo;re gone,
+     I grew acquainted with my heart, and search&rsquo;d,
+     What stirr&rsquo;d it so.&mdash;Alas!  I found it love.
+     Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived
+     In presence of you, I had had my end.&mdash;PHILASTER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle had now to contemplate the terrible gulf which Allan M&rsquo;Aulay&rsquo;s
+      declaration of love and jealousy had made to open around her. It seemed as
+      if she was tottering on the very brink of destruction, and was at once
+      deprived of every refuge, and of all human assistance. She had long been
+      conscious that she loved Menteith dearer than a brother; indeed, how could
+      it be otherwise, considering their early intimacy, the personal merit of
+      the young nobleman, his assiduous attentions,&mdash;and his infinite
+      superiority in gentleness of disposition, and grace of manners, over the
+      race of rude warriors with whom she lived? But her affection was of that
+      quiet, timid, meditative character, which sought rather a reflected share
+      in the happiness of the beloved object, than formed more presumptuous or
+      daring hopes. A little Gaelic song, in which she expressed her feelings,
+      has been translated by the ingenious and unhappy Andrew M&rsquo;Donald; and we
+      willingly transcribe the lines:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Wert thou, like me, in life&rsquo;s low vale,
+     With thee how blest, that lot I&rsquo;d share;
+     With thee I&rsquo;d fly wherever gale
+     Could waft, or bounding galley bear.
+     But parted by severe decree,
+     Far different must our fortunes prove;
+     May thine be joy&mdash;enough for me
+     To weep and pray for him I love.
+
+     The pangs this foolish heart must feel,
+     When hope shall be forever flown,
+     No sullen murmur shall reveal,
+     No selfish murmurs ever own.
+     Nor will I through life&rsquo;s weary years,
+     Like a pale drooping mourner move,
+     While I can think my secret tears
+     May wound the heart of him I love.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The furious declaration of Allan had destroyed the romantic plan which she
+      had formed, of nursing in secret her pensive tenderness, without seeking
+      any other requital. Long before this, she had dreaded Allan, as much as
+      gratitude, and a sense that he softened towards her a temper so haughty
+      and so violent, could permit her to do; but now she regarded him with
+      unalloyed terror, which a perfect knowledge of his disposition, and of his
+      preceding history, too well authorised her to entertain. Whatever was in
+      other respects the nobleness of his disposition, he had never been known
+      to resist the wilfulness of passion,&mdash;he walked in the house, and in
+      the country of his fathers, like a tamed lion, whom no one dared to
+      contradict, lest they should awaken his natural vehemence of passion. So
+      many years had elapsed since he had experienced contradiction, or even
+      expostulation, that probably nothing but the strong good sense, which, on
+      all points, his mysticism excepted, formed the ground of his character,
+      prevented his proving an annoyance and terror to the whole neighbourhood.
+      But Annot had no time to dwell upon her fears, being interrupted by the
+      entrance of Sir Dugald Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may well be supposed, that the scenes in which this person had passed
+      his former life, had not much qualified him to shine in female society. He
+      himself felt a sort of consciousness that the language of the barrack,
+      guard-room, and parade, was not proper to entertain ladies. The only
+      peaceful part of his life had been spent at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen;
+      and he had forgot the little he had learned there, except the arts of
+      darning his own hose, and dispatching his commons with unusual celerity,
+      both which had since been kept in good exercise by the necessity of
+      frequent practice. Still it was from an imperfect recollection of what he
+      had acquired during this pacific period, that he drew his sources of
+      conversation when in company with women; in other words, his language
+      became pedantic when it ceased to be military.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Annot Lyle,&rdquo; said he, upon the present occasion, &ldquo;I am just now
+      like the half-pike, or spontoon of Achilles, one end of which could wound
+      and the other cure&mdash;a property belonging neither to Spanish pike,
+      brown-bill, partizan, halberd, Lochaber-axe, or indeed any other modern
+      staff-weapon whatever.&rdquo; This compliment he repeated twice; but as Annot
+      scarce heard him the first time, and did not comprehend him the second, he
+      was obliged to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Mistress Annot Lyle, that having been the means of an
+      honourable knight receiving a severe wound in this day&rsquo;s conflict,&mdash;he
+      having pistolled, somewhat against the law of arms, my horse, which was
+      named after the immortal King of Sweden,&mdash;I am desirous of procuring
+      him such solacement as you, madam, can supply, you being like the heathen
+      god Esculapius&rdquo; (meaning possibly Apollo), &ldquo;skilful not only in song and
+      in music, but in the more noble art of chirurgery-OPIFERQUE PER ORBEM
+      DICOR.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would have the goodness to explain,&rdquo; said Annot, too sick at heart
+      to be amused by Sir Dugald&rsquo;s airs of pedantic gallantry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That, madam,&rdquo; replied the Knight, &ldquo;may not be so easy, as I am out of the
+      habit of construing&mdash;but we shall try. DICOR, supply EGO&mdash;I am
+      called,&mdash;OPIFER? OPIFER?&mdash;I remember SIGNIFER and FURCIFER&mdash;but
+      I believe OPIFER stands in this place for M.D., that is, Doctor of
+      Physic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is a busy day with us all,&rdquo; said Annot; &ldquo;will you say at once what
+      you want with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely,&rdquo; replied Sir Dugald, &ldquo;that you will visit my brother knight, and
+      let your maiden bring some medicaments for his wound, which threatens to
+      be what the learned call a DAMNUM FATALE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle never lingered in the cause of humanity. She informed herself
+      hastily of the nature of the injury, and interesting herself for the
+      dignified old Chief whom she had seen at Darnlinvarach, and whose presence
+      had so much struck her, she hastened to lose the sense of her own sorrow
+      for a time, in the attempt to be useful to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald with great form ushered Annot Lyle to the chamber of her
+      patient, in which, to her surprise, she found Lord Menteith. She could not
+      help blushing deeply at the meeting, but, to hide her confusion, proceeded
+      instantly to examine the wound of the Knight of Ardenvohr, and easily
+      satisfied herself that it was beyond her skill to cure it. As for Sir
+      Dugald, he returned to a large outhouse, on the floor of which, among
+      other wounded men, was deposited the person of Ranald of the Mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine old friend,&rdquo; said the Knight, &ldquo;as I told you before, I would
+      willingly do anything to pleasure you, in return for the wound you have
+      received while under my safe-conduct. I have, therefore, according to your
+      earnest request, sent Mrs. Annot Lyle to attend upon the wound of the
+      knight of Ardenvohr, though wherein her doing so should benefit you, I
+      cannot imagine.&mdash;I think you once spoke of some blood relationship
+      between them; but a soldado, in command and charge like me, has other
+      things to trouble his head with than Highland genealogies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed, to do the worthy Major justice, he never enquired after,
+      listened to, or recollected, the business of other people, unless it
+      either related to the art military, or was somehow or other connected with
+      his own interest, in either of which cases his memory was very tenacious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, my good friend of the Mist,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;can you tell me what has
+      become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him since he assisted
+      me to disarm after the action, a negligence which deserveth the strapado?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not far from hence,&rdquo; said the wounded outlaw&mdash;&ldquo;lift not your
+      hand upon him, for he is man enough to pay a yard of leathern scourge with
+      a foot of tempered steel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A most improper vaunt,&rdquo; said Sir Dugald; &ldquo;but I owe you some favours,
+      Ranald, and therefore shall let it pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you think you owe me anything,&rdquo; said the outlaw, &ldquo;it is in your
+      power to requite me by granting me a boon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend Ranald,&rdquo; answered Dalgetty, &ldquo;I have read of these boons in silly
+      story-books, whereby simple knights were drawn into engagements to their
+      great prejudice; wherefore, Ranald, the more prudent knights of this day
+      never promise anything until they know that they may keep their word anent
+      the premises, without any displeasure or incommodement to themselves. It
+      may be, you would have me engage the female chirurgeon to visit your
+      wound; though you ought to consider, Ranald, that the uncleanness of the
+      place where you are deposited may somewhat soil the gaiety of her
+      garments, concerning the preservation of which, you may have observed,
+      women are apt to be inordinately solicitous. I lost the favour of the lady
+      of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam, by touching with the sole of my boot
+      the train of her black velvet gown, which I mistook for a foot-cloth, it
+      being half the room distant from her person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not to bring Annot Lyle hither,&rdquo; answered MacEagh, &ldquo;but to
+      transport me into the room where she is in attendance upon the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr. Somewhat I have to say of the last consequence to them both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is something out of the order of due precedence,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;to
+      carry a wounded outlaw into the presence of a knight; knighthood having
+      been of yore, and being, in some respects, still, the highest military
+      grade, independent always of commissioned officers, who rank according to
+      their patents; nevertheless, as your boon, as you call it, is so slight, I
+      shall not deny compliance with the same.&rdquo; So saying, he ordered three
+      files of men to transport MacEagh on their shoulders to Sir Duncan
+      Campbell&rsquo;s apartment, and he himself hastened before to announce the cause
+      of his being brought thither. But such was the activity of the soldiers
+      employed, that they followed him close at the heels, and, entering with
+      their ghastly burden, laid MacEagh on the floor of the apartment. His
+      features, naturally wild, were now distorted by pain; his hands and scanty
+      garments stained with his own blood, and those of others, which no kind
+      hand had wiped away, although the wound in his side had been secured by a
+      bandage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you,&rdquo; he said, raising his head painfully towards the couch where lay
+      stretched his late antagonist, &ldquo;he whom men call the Knight of Ardenvohr?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same,&rdquo; answered Sir Duncan,&mdash;&ldquo;what would you with one whose
+      hours are now numbered?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My hours are reduced to minutes,&rdquo; said the outlaw; &ldquo;the more grace, if I
+      bestow them in the service of one, whose hand has ever been against me, as
+      mine has been raised higher against him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thine higher against me!&mdash;Crushed worm!&rdquo; said the Knight, looking
+      down on his miserable adversary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered the outlaw, in a firm voice, &ldquo;my arm hath been highest. In
+      the deadly contest betwixt us, the wounds I have dealt have been deepest,
+      though thine have neither been idle nor unfelt.&mdash;I am Ranald MacEagh&mdash;I
+      am Ranald of the Mist&mdash;the night that I gave thy castle to the winds
+      in one huge blaze of fire, is now matched with the day in which you have
+      fallen under the sword of my fathers.&mdash;Remember the injuries thou
+      hast done our tribe&mdash;never were such inflicted, save by one, beside
+      thee. HE, they say, is fated and secure against our vengeance&mdash;a
+      short time will show.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Menteith,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, raising himself out of his bed, &ldquo;this
+      is a proclaimed villain, at once the enemy of King and Parliament, of God
+      and man&mdash;one of the outlawed banditti of the Mist; alike the enemy of
+      your house, of the M&rsquo;Aulays, and of mine. I trust you will not suffer
+      moments, which are perhaps my last, to be embittered by his barbarous
+      triumph.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall have the treatment he merits,&rdquo; said Menteith; &ldquo;let him be
+      instantly removed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald here interposed, and spoke of Ranald&rsquo;s services as a guide, and
+      his own pledge for his safety; but the high harsh tones of the outlaw
+      drowned his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;be rack and gibbet the word! let me wither between heaven
+      and earth, and gorge the hawks and eagles of Ben-Nevis; and so shall this
+      haughty Knight, and this triumphant Thane, never learn the secret I alone
+      can impart; a secret which would make Ardenvohr&rsquo;s heart leap with joy,
+      were he in the death agony, and which the Earl of Menteith would purchase
+      at the price of his broad earldom.&mdash;Come hither, Annot Lyle,&rdquo; he
+      said, raising himself with unexpected strength; &ldquo;fear not the sight of him
+      to whom thou hast clung in infancy. Tell these proud men, who disdain thee
+      as the issue of mine ancient race, that thou art no blood of ours,&mdash;no
+      daughter of the race of the Mist, but born in halls as lordly, and cradled
+      on couch as soft, as ever soothed infancy in their proudest palaces.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of God,&rdquo; said Menteith, trembling with emotion, &ldquo;if you know
+      aught of the birth of this lady, do thy conscience the justice to
+      disburden it of the secret before departing from this world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And bless my enemies with my dying breath?&rdquo; said MacEagh, looking at him
+      malignantly.&mdash;&ldquo;Such are the maxims your priests preach&mdash;but
+      when, or towards whom, do you practise them? Let me know first the worth
+      of my secret ere I part with it&mdash;What would you give, Knight of
+      Ardenvohr, to know that your superstitious fasts have been vain, and that
+      there still remains a descendant of your house?&mdash;I pause for an
+      answer&mdash;without it, I speak not one word more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could,&rdquo; said Sir Duncan, his voice struggling between the emotions of
+      doubt, hatred, and anxiety&mdash;&ldquo;I could&mdash;but that I know thy race
+      are like the Great Enemy, liars and murderers from the beginning&mdash;but
+      could it be true thou tellest me, I could almost forgive thee the injuries
+      thou hast done me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear it!&rdquo; said Ranald; &ldquo;he hath wagered deeply for a son of Diarmid&mdash;And
+      you, gentle Thane&mdash;the report of the camp says, that you would
+      purchase with life and lands the tidings that Annot Lyle was no daughter
+      of proscription, but of a race noble in your estimation as your own&mdash;Well&mdash;It
+      is for no love I tell you&mdash;The time has been that I would have
+      exchanged this secret against liberty; I am now bartering it for what is
+      dearer than liberty or life.&mdash;Annot Lyle is the youngest, the sole
+      surviving child of the Knight of Ardenvohr, who alone was saved when all
+      in his halls besides was given to blood and ashes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can this man speak truth?&rdquo; said Annot Lyle, scarce knowing what she said;
+      &ldquo;or is this some strange delusion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maiden,&rdquo; replied Ranald, &ldquo;hadst thou dwelt longer with us, thou wouldst
+      have better learnt to know how to distinguish the accents of truth. To
+      that Saxon lord, and to the Knight of Ardenvohr, I will yield such proofs
+      of what I have spoken, that incredulity shall stand convinced. Meantime,
+      withdraw&mdash;I loved thine infancy, I hate not thy youth&mdash;no eye
+      hates the rose in its blossom, though it groweth upon a thorn, and for
+      thee only do I something regret what is soon to follow. But he that would
+      avenge him of his foe must not reck though the guiltless be engaged in the
+      ruin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He advises well, Annot,&rdquo; said Lord Menteith; &ldquo;in God&rsquo;s name retire! if&mdash;if
+      there be aught in this, your meeting with Sir Duncan must be more prepared
+      for both your sakes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not part from my father, if I have found one!&rdquo; said Annot&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      will not part from him under circumstances so terrible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a father you shall ever find in me,&rdquo; murmured Sir Duncan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Menteith, &ldquo;I will have MacEagh removed into an adjacent
+      apartment, and will collect the evidence of his tale myself. Sir Dugald
+      Dalgetty will give me his attendance and assistance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure, my lord,&rdquo; answered Sir Dugald.&mdash;&ldquo;I will be your
+      confessor, or assessor&mdash;either or both. No one can be so fit, for I
+      had heard the whole story a month ago at Inverary castle&mdash;but
+      onslaughts like that of Ardenvohr confuse each other in my memory, which
+      is besides occupied with matters of more importance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon hearing this frank declaration, which was made as they left the
+      apartment with the wounded man, Lord Menteith darted upon Dalgetty a look
+      of extreme anger and disdain, to which the self-conceit of the worthy
+      commander rendered him totally insensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     I am as free as nature first made man,
+     Ere the base laws of servitude began,
+     When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
+     &mdash;CONQUEST OF GRANADA
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Earl of Menteith, as he had undertaken, so he proceeded to investigate
+      more closely the story told by Ranald of the Mist, which was corroborated
+      by the examination of his two followers, who had assisted in the capacity
+      of guides. These declarations he carefully compared with such
+      circumstances concerning the destruction of his castle and family as Sir
+      Duncan Campbell was able to supply; and it may be supposed he had
+      forgotten nothing relating to an event of such terrific importance. It was
+      of the last consequence to prove that this was no invention of the
+      outlaw&rsquo;s, for the purpose of passing an impostor as the child and heiress
+      of Ardenvohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps Menteith, so much interested in believing the tale, was not
+      altogether the fittest person to be intrusted with the investigation of
+      its truth; but the examinations of the Children of the Mist were simple,
+      accurate, and in all respects consistent with each other. A personal mark
+      was referred to, which was known to have been borne by the infant child of
+      Sir Duncan, and which appeared upon the left shoulder of Annot Lyle. It
+      was also well remembered, that when the miserable relics of the other
+      children had been collected, those of the infant had nowhere been found.
+      Other circumstances of evidence, which it is unnecessary to quote, brought
+      the fullest conviction not only to Menteith, but to the unprejudiced mind
+      of Montrose, that in Annot Lyle, an humble dependant, distinguished only
+      by beauty and talent, they were in future to respect the heiress of
+      Ardenvohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Menteith hastened to communicate the result of these enquiries to
+      the persons most interested, the outlaw demanded to speak with his
+      grandchild, whom he usually called his son. &ldquo;He would be found,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;in the outer apartment, in which he himself had been originally
+      deposited.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, the young savage, after a close search, was found lurking in
+      a corner, coiled up among some rotten straw, and brought to his grandsire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kenneth,&rdquo; said the old outlaw, &ldquo;hear the last words of the sire of thy
+      father. A Saxon soldier, and Allan of the Red-hand, left this camp within
+      these few hours, to travel to the country to Caberfae. Pursue them as the
+      bloodhound pursues the hurt deer&mdash;swim the lake-climb the mountain&mdash;thread
+      the forest&mdash;tarry not until you join them;&rdquo; and then the countenance
+      of the lad darkened as his grandfather spoke, and he laid his hand upon a
+      knife which stuck in the thong of leather that confined his scanty plaid.
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; said the old man; &ldquo;it is not by thy hand he must fall. They will ask
+      the news from the camp&mdash;say to them that Annot Lyle of the Harp is
+      discovered to be the daughter of Duncan of Ardenvohr; that the Thane of
+      Menteith is to wed her before the priest; and that you are sent to bid
+      guests to the bridal. Tarry not their answer, but vanish like the
+      lightning when the black cloud swallows it.&mdash;And now depart, beloved
+      son of my best beloved! I shall never more see thy face, nor hear the
+      light sound of thy footstep&mdash;yet tarry an instant and hear my last
+      charge. Remember the fate of our race, and quit not the ancient manners of
+      the Children of the Mist. We are now a straggling handful, driven from
+      every vale by the sword of every clan, who rule in the possessions where
+      their forefathers hewed the wood, and drew the water for ours. But in the
+      thicket of the wilderness, and in the mist of the mountain, Kenneth, son
+      of Eracht, keep thou unsoiled the freedom which I leave thee as a
+      birthright. Barter it not neither for the rich garment, nor for the
+      stone-roof, nor for the covered board, nor for the couch of down&mdash;on
+      the rock or in the valley, in abundance or in famine&mdash;in the leafy
+      summer, and in the days of the iron winter&mdash;Son of the Mist! be free
+      as thy forefathers. Own no lord&mdash;receive no law&mdash;take no hire&mdash;give
+      no stipend&mdash;build no hut&mdash;enclose no pasture&mdash;sow no grain;&mdash;let
+      the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and herds&mdash;if these fail thee,
+      prey upon the goods of our oppressors&mdash;of the Saxons, and of such
+      Gael as are Saxons in their souls, valuing herds and flocks more than
+      honour and freedom. Well for us that they do so&mdash;it affords the
+      broader scope for our revenge. Remember those who have done kindness to
+      our race, and pay their services with thy blood, should the hour require
+      it. If a MacIan shall come to thee with the head of the king&rsquo;s son in his
+      hand, shelter him, though the avenging army of the father were behind him;
+      for in Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, we have dwelt in peace in the years that
+      have gone by. The sons of Diarmid&mdash;the race of Darnlinvarach&mdash;the
+      riders of Menteith&mdash;my curse on thy head, Child of the Mist, if thou
+      spare one of those names, when the time shall offer for cutting them off!
+      and it will come anon, for their own swords shall devour each other, and
+      those who are scattered shall fly to the Mist, and perish by its Children.
+      Once more, begone&mdash;shake the dust from thy feet against the
+      habitations of men, whether banded together for peace or for war.
+      Farewell, beloved! and mayst thou die like thy forefathers, ere infirmity,
+      disease, or age, shall break thy spirit&mdash;Begone!&mdash;begone!&mdash;live
+      free&mdash;requite kindness&mdash;avenge the injuries of thy race!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young savage stooped, and kissed the brow of his dying parent; but
+      accustomed from infancy to suppress every exterior sign of emotion, he
+      parted without tear or adieu, and was soon far beyond the limits of
+      Montrose&rsquo;s camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who was present during the latter part of this scene,
+      was very little edified by the conduct of MacEagh upon the occasion. &ldquo;I
+      cannot think, my friend Ranald,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that you are in the best
+      possible road for a dying man. Storms, onslaughts, massacres, the burning
+      of suburbs, are indeed a soldier&rsquo;s daily work, and are justified by the
+      necessity of the case, seeing that they are done in the course of duty;
+      for burning of suburbs, in particular, it may be said that they are
+      traitors and cut-throats to all fortified towns. Hence it is plain, that a
+      soldier is a profession peculiarly favoured by Heaven, seeing that we may
+      hope for salvation, although we daily commit actions of so great violence.
+      But then, Ranald, in all services of Europe, it is the custom of the dying
+      soldier not to vaunt him of such doings, or to recommend them to his
+      fellows; but, on the contrary, to express contrition for the same, and to
+      repeat, or have repeated to him, some comfortable prayer; which, if you
+      please, I will intercede with his Excellency&rsquo;s chaplain to prefer on your
+      account. It is otherwise no point of my duty to put you in mind of those
+      things; only it may be for the ease of your conscience to depart more like
+      a Christian, and less like a Turk, than you seem to be in a fair way of
+      doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The only answer of the dying man&mdash;(for as such Ranald MacEagh might
+      now be considered)&mdash;was a request to be raised to such a position
+      that he might obtain a view from the window of the Castle. The deep frost
+      mist, which had long settled upon the top of the mountains, was now
+      rolling down each rugged glen and gully, where the craggy ridges showed
+      their black and irregular outline, like desert islands rising above the
+      ocean of vapour. &ldquo;Spirit of the Mist!&rdquo; said Ranald MacEagh, &ldquo;called by our
+      race our father, and our preserver&mdash;receive into thy tabernacle of
+      clouds, when this pang is over, him whom in life thou hast so often
+      sheltered.&rdquo; So saying, he sunk back into the arms of those who upheld him,
+      spoke no further word, but turned his face to the wall for a short space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; said Dalgetty, &ldquo;my friend Ranald will be found in his heart
+      to be little better than a heathen.&rdquo; And he renewed his proposal to
+      procure him the assistance of Dr. Wisheart, Montrose&rsquo;s military chaplain;
+      &ldquo;a man,&rdquo; said Sir Dugald, &ldquo;very clever in his exercise, and who will do
+      execution on your sins in less time than I could smoke a pipe of tobacco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saxon,&rdquo; said the dying man, &ldquo;speak to me no more of thy priest&mdash;I
+      die contented. Hadst thou ever an enemy against whom weapons were of no
+      avail&mdash;whom the ball missed, and against whom the arrow shivered, and
+      whose bare skin was as impenetrable to sword and dirk as thy steel garment&mdash;Heardst
+      thou ever of such a foe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very frequently, when I served in Germany,&rdquo; replied Sir Dugald. &ldquo;There
+      was such a fellow at Ingolstadt; he was proof both against lead and steel.
+      The soldiers killed him with the buts of their muskets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This impassible foe,&rdquo; said Ranald, without regarding the Major&rsquo;s
+      interruption, &ldquo;who has the blood dearest to me upon his hands&mdash;to
+      this man I have now bequeathed agony of mind, jealousy, despair, and
+      sudden death,&mdash;or a life more miserable than death itself. Such shall
+      be the lot of Allan of the Red-hand, when he learns that Annot weds
+      Menteith and I ask no more than the certainty that it is so, to sweeten my
+      own bloody end by his hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that be the case,&rdquo; said the Major, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s no more to be said; but I
+      shall take care as few people see you as possible, for I cannot think your
+      mode of departure can be at all creditable or exemplary to a Christian
+      army.&rdquo; So saying, he left the apartment, and the Son of the Mist soon
+      after breathed his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Menteith, in the meanwhile, leaving the new-found relations to their
+      mutual feelings of mingled emotion, was eagerly discussing with Montrose
+      the consequences of this discovery. &ldquo;I should now see,&rdquo; said the Marquis,
+      &ldquo;even had I not before observed it, that your interest in this discovery,
+      my dear Menteith, has no small reference to your own happiness. You love
+      this new-found lady,&mdash;your affection is returned. In point of birth,
+      no exceptions can be made; in every other respect, her advantages are
+      equal to those which you yourself possess&mdash;think, however, a moment.
+      Sir Duncan is a fanatic&mdash;Presbyterian, at least&mdash;in arms against
+      the King; he is only with us in the quality of a prisoner, and we are, I
+      fear, but at the commencement of a long civil war. Is this a time, think
+      you, Menteith, for you to make proposals for his heiress? Or what chance
+      is there that he will now listen to it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Passion, an ingenious, as well as an eloquent advocate, supplied the young
+      nobleman with a thousand answers to these objections. He reminded Montrose
+      that the Knight of Ardenvohr was neither a bigot in politics nor religion.
+      He urged his own known and proved zeal for the royal cause, and hinted
+      that its influence might be extended and strengthened by his wedding the
+      heiress of Ardenvohr. He pleaded the dangerous state of Sir Duncan&rsquo;s
+      wound, the risk which must be run by suffering the young lady to be
+      carried into the country of the Campbells, where, in case of her father&rsquo;s
+      death, or continued indisposition, she must necessarily be placed under
+      the guardianship of Argyle, an event fatal to his (Menteith&rsquo;s) hopes,
+      unless he could stoop to purchase his favour by abandoning the King&rsquo;s
+      party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose allowed the force of these arguments, and owned, although the
+      matter was attended with difficulty, yet it seemed consistent with the
+      King&rsquo;s service that it should be concluded as speedily as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could wish,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that it were all settled in one way or another,
+      and that this fair Briseis were removed from our camp before the return of
+      our Highland Achilles, Allan M&rsquo;Aulay.&mdash;I fear some fatal feud in that
+      quarter, Menteith&mdash;and I believe it would be best that Sir Duncan be
+      dismissed on his parole, and that you accompany him and his daughter as
+      his escort. The journey can be made chiefly by water, so will not greatly
+      incommode his wound&mdash;and your own, my friend, will be an honourable
+      excuse for the absence of some time from my camp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; said Menteith. &ldquo;Were I to forfeit the very hope that has so
+      lately dawned upon me, never will I leave your Excellency&rsquo;s camp while the
+      royal standard is displayed. I should deserve that this trifling scratch
+      should gangrene and consume my sword-arm, were I capable of holding it as
+      an excuse for absence at this crisis of the King&rsquo;s affairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On this, then, you are determined?&rdquo; said Montrose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As fixed as Ben-Nevis,&rdquo; said the young nobleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must, then,&rdquo; said Montrose, &ldquo;lose no time in seeking an explanation
+      with the Knight of Ardenvohr. If this prove favourable, I will talk myself
+      with the elder M&rsquo;Aulay, and we will devise means to employ his brother at
+      a distance from the army until he shall be reconciled to his present
+      disappointment. Would to God some vision would descend upon his
+      imagination fair enough to obliterate all traces of Annot Lyle! That
+      perhaps you think impossible, Menteith?&mdash;Well, each to his service;
+      you to that of Cupid, and I to that of Mars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They parted, and in pursuance of the scheme arranged, Menteith, early on
+      the ensuing morning, sought a private interview with the wounded Knight of
+      Ardenvohr, and communicated to him his suit for the hand of his daughter.
+      Of their mutual attachment Sir Duncan was aware, but he was not prepared
+      for so early a declaration on the part of Menteith. He said, at first,
+      that he had already, perhaps, indulged too much in feelings of personal
+      happiness, at a time when his clan had sustained so great a loss and
+      humiliation, and that he was unwilling, therefore, farther to consider the
+      advancement of his own house at a period so calamitous. On the more urgent
+      suit of the noble lover, he requested a few hours to deliberate and
+      consult with his daughter, upon a question so highly important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of this interview and deliberation was favourable to Menteith.
+      Sir Duncan Campbell became fully sensible that the happiness of his
+      new-found daughter depended upon a union with her lover; and unless such
+      were now formed, he saw that Argyle would throw a thousand obstacles in
+      the way of a match in every respect acceptable to himself. Menteith&rsquo;s
+      private character was so excellent, and such was the rank and
+      consideration due to his fortune and family, that they outbalanced, in Sir
+      Duncan&rsquo;s opinion, the difference in their political opinions. Nor could he
+      have resolved, perhaps, had his own opinion of the match been less
+      favourable, to decline an opportunity of indulging the new-found child of
+      his hopes. There was, besides, a feeling of pride which dictated his
+      determination. To produce the Heiress of Ardenvohr to the world as one who
+      had been educated a poor dependant and musician in the family of
+      Darnlinvarach, had something in it that was humiliating. To introduce her
+      as the betrothed bride, or wedded wife, of the Earl of Menteith, upon an
+      attachment formed during her obscurity, was a warrant to the world that
+      she had at all times been worthy of the rank to which she was elevated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was under the influence of these considerations that Sir Duncan
+      Campbell announced to the lovers his consent that they should be married
+      in the chapel of the Castle, by Montrose&rsquo;s chaplain, and as privately as
+      possible. But when Montrose should break up from Inverlochy, for which
+      orders were expected in the course of a very few days, it was agreed that
+      the young Countess should depart with her father to his Castle, and remain
+      there until the circumstances of the nation permitted Menteith to retire
+      with honour from his present military employment. His resolution being
+      once taken, Sir Duncan Campbell would not permit the maidenly scruples of
+      his daughter to delay its execution; and it was therefore resolved that
+      the bridal should take place the next evening, being the second after the
+      battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     My maid&mdash;my blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
+     Due to the toils of many a bloody day.&mdash;ILLIAD.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M&rsquo;Aulay, so long the kind
+      protector of Annot Lyle, should be made acquainted with the change in the
+      fortunes of his late protege; and Montrose, as he had undertaken,
+      communicated to him these remarkable events. With the careless and
+      cheerful indifference of his character, he expressed much more joy than
+      wonder at Annot&rsquo;s good fortune; had no doubt whatever she would merit it,
+      and as she had always been bred in loyal principles, would convey the
+      whole estate of her grim fanatical father to some honest fellow who loved
+      the king. &ldquo;I should have no objection that my brother Allan should try his
+      chance,&rdquo; added he, &ldquo;notwithstanding that Sir Duncan Campbell was the only
+      man who ever charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality. Annot Lyle could
+      always charm Allan out of the sullens, and who knows whether matrimony
+      might not make him more a man of this world?&rdquo; Montrose hastened to
+      interrupt the progress of his castle-building, by informing him that the
+      lady was already wooed and won, and, with her father&rsquo;s approbation, was
+      almost immediately to be wedded to his kinsman, the Earl of Menteith; and
+      that in testimony of the high respect due to M&rsquo;Aulay, so long the lady&rsquo;s
+      protector, he was now to request his presence at the ceremony. M&rsquo;Aulay
+      looked very grave at this intimation, and drew up his person with the air
+      of one who thought that he had been neglected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He contrived,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that his uniform kind treatment of the young
+      lady, while so many years under his roof, required something more upon
+      such an occasion than a bare compliment of ceremony. He might,&rdquo; he
+      thought, &ldquo;without arrogance, have expected to have been consulted. He
+      wished his kinsman of Menteith well, no man could wish him better; but he
+      must say he thought he had been hasty in this matter. Allan&rsquo;s sentiments
+      towards the young lady had been pretty well understood, and he, for one,
+      could not see why the superior pretensions which he had upon her gratitude
+      should have been set aside, without at least undergoing some previous
+      discussion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed, entreated M&rsquo;Aulay to be
+      reasonable, and to consider what probability there was that the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr could be brought to confer the hand of his sole heiress upon
+      Allan, whose undeniable excellent qualities were mingled with others, by
+      which they were overclouded in a manner that made all tremble who
+      approached him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Angus M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;my brother Allan has, as God made us all,
+      faults as well as merits; but he is the best and bravest man of your army,
+      be the other who he may, and therefore ill deserved that his happiness
+      should have been so little consulted by your Excellency&mdash;by his own
+      near kinsman&mdash;and by a young person who owes all to him and to his
+      family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose in vain endeavoured to place the subject in a different view;
+      this was the point in which Angus was determined to regard it, and he was
+      a man of that calibre of understanding, who is incapable of being
+      convinced when he has once adopted a prejudice. Montrose now assumed a
+      higher tone, and called upon Angus to take care how he nourished any
+      sentiments which might be prejudicial to his Majesty&rsquo;s service. He pointed
+      out to him, that he was peculiarly desirous that Allan&rsquo;s efforts should
+      not be interrupted in the course of his present mission; &ldquo;a mission,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;highly honourable for himself, and likely to prove most
+      advantageous to the King&rsquo;s cause. He expected his brother would hold no
+      communication with him upon other subjects, nor stir up any cause of
+      dissension, which might divert his mind from a matter of such importance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that &ldquo;he was no makebate, or stirrer-up
+      of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker. His brother knew as well as
+      most men how to resent his own quarrels&mdash;as for Allan&rsquo;s mode of
+      receiving information, it was generally believed he had other sources than
+      those of ordinary couriers. He should not be surprised if they saw him
+      sooner than they expected.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A promise that he would not interfere, was the farthest to which Montrose
+      could bring this man, thoroughly good-tempered as he was on all occasions,
+      save when his pride, interest, or prejudices, were interfered with. And at
+      this point the Marquis was fain to leave the matter for the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A more willing guest at the bridal ceremony, certainly a more willing
+      attendant at the marriage feast, was to be expected in Sir Dugald
+      Dalgetty, whom Montrose resolved to invite, as having been a confidant to
+      the circumstances which preceded it. But even Sir Dugald hesitated, looked
+      on the elbows of his doublet, and the knees of his leather breeches, and
+      mumbled out a sort of reluctant acquiescence in the invitation, providing
+      he should find it possible, after consulting with the noble bridegroom.
+      Montrose was somewhat surprised, but scorning to testify displeasure, he
+      left Sir Dugald to pursue his own course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This carried him instantly to the chamber of the bride-groom, who, amidst
+      the scanty wardrobe which his camp-equipage afforded, was seeking for such
+      articles as might appear to the best advantage upon the approaching
+      occasion. Sir Dugald entered, and paid his compliments, with a very grave
+      face, upon his approaching happiness, which, he said, &ldquo;he was very sorry
+      he was prevented from witnessing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In plain truth,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I should but disgrace the ceremony, seeing
+      that I lack a bridal garment. Rents, and open seams, and tatters at elbows
+      in the apparel of the assistants, might presage a similar solution of
+      continuity in your matrimonial happiness&mdash;and to say truth, my lord,
+      you yourself must partly have the blame of this disappointment, in respect
+      you sent me upon a fool&rsquo;s errand to get a buff-coat out of the booty taken
+      by the Camerons, whereas you might as well have sent me to fetch a pound
+      of fresh butter out of a black dog&rsquo;s throat. I had no answer, my lord, but
+      brandished dirks and broadswords, and a sort of growling and jabbering in
+      what they call their language. For my part, I believe these Highlanders to
+      be no better than absolute pagans, and have been much scandalized by the
+      manner in which my acquaintance, Ranald MacEagh, was pleased to beat his
+      final march, a little while since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In Menteith&rsquo;s state of mind, disposed to be pleased with everything, and
+      everybody, the grave complaint of Sir Dugald furnished additional
+      amusement. He requested his acceptance of a very handsome buff-dress which
+      was lying on the floor. &ldquo;I had intended it,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;for my own
+      bridal-garment, as being the least formidable of my warlike equipments,
+      and I have here no peaceful dress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald made the necessary apologies&mdash;would not by any means
+      deprive&mdash;and so forth, until it happily occurred to him that it was
+      much more according to military rule that the Earl should be married in
+      his back and breast pieces, which dress he had seen the bridegroom wear at
+      the union of Prince Leo of Wittlesbach with the youngest daughter of old
+      George Frederick, of Saxony, under the auspices of the gallant Gustavus
+      Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and so forth. The good-natured young Earl
+      laughed, and acquiesced; and thus having secured at least one merry face
+      at his bridal, he put on a light and ornamented cuirass, concealed partly
+      by a velvet coat, and partly by a broad blue silk scarf, which he wore
+      over his shoulder, agreeably to his rank, and the fashion of the times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was now arranged; and it had been settled that, according to
+      the custom of the country, the bride and bridegroom should not again meet
+      until they were before the altar. The hour had already struck that
+      summoned the bridegroom thither, and he only waited in a small anteroom
+      adjacent to the chapel, for the Marquis, who condescended to act as
+      bride&rsquo;s-man upon the occasion. Business relating to the army having
+      suddenly required the Marquis&rsquo;s instant attention, Menteith waited his
+      return, it may be supposed, in some impatience; and when he heard the door
+      of the apartment open, he said, laughing, &ldquo;You are late upon parade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will find I am too early,&rdquo; said Allan M&rsquo;Aulay, who burst into the
+      apartment. &ldquo;Draw, Menteith, and defend yourself like a man, or die like a
+      dog!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mad, Allan!&rdquo; answered Menteith, astonished alike at his sudden
+      appearance, and at the unutterable fury of his demeanour. His cheeks were
+      livid&mdash;his eyes started from their sockets&mdash;his lips were
+      covered with foam, and his gestures were those of a demoniac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie, traitor!&rdquo; was his frantic reply&mdash;&ldquo;you lie in that, as you
+      lie in all you have said to me. Your life is a lie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I not speak my thoughts when I called you mad,&rdquo; said Menteith,
+      indignantly, &ldquo;your own life were a brief one. In what do you charge me
+      with deceiving you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told me,&rdquo; answered M&rsquo;Aulay, &ldquo;that you would not marry Annot Lyle!&mdash;False
+      traitor!&mdash;she now waits you at the altar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is you who speak false,&rdquo; retorted Menteith. &ldquo;I told you the obscurity
+      of her birth was the only bar to our union&mdash;that is now removed; and
+      whom do you think yourself, that I should yield up my pretensions in your
+      favour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Draw then,&rdquo; said M&rsquo;Aulay; &ldquo;we understand each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; said Menteith, &ldquo;and not here. Allan, you know me well&mdash;wait
+      till to-morrow, and you shall have fighting enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This hour&mdash;this instant&mdash;or never,&rdquo; answered M&rsquo;Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your triumph shall not go farther than the hour which is stricken.
+      Menteith, I entreat you by our relationship&mdash;by our joint conflicts
+      and labours&mdash;draw your sword, and defend your life!&rdquo; As he spoke, he
+      seized the Earl&rsquo;s hand, and wrung it with such frantic earnestness, that
+      his grasp forced the blood to start under the nails. Menteith threw him
+      off with violence, exclaiming, &ldquo;Begone, madman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, be the vision accomplished!&rdquo; said Allan; and, drawing his dirk,
+      struck with his whole gigantic force at the Earl&rsquo;s bosom. The temper of
+      the corslet threw the point of the weapon upwards, but a deep wound took
+      place between the neck and shoulder; and the force of the blow prostrated
+      the bridegroom on the floor. Montrose entered at one side of the anteroom.
+      The bridal company, alarmed at the noise, were in equal apprehension and
+      surprise; but ere Montrose could almost see what had happened, Allan
+      M&rsquo;Aulay had rushed past him, and descended the castle stairs like
+      lightning. &ldquo;Guards, shut the gate!&rdquo; exclaimed Montrose&mdash;&ldquo;Seize him&mdash;kill
+      him, if he resists!&mdash;He shall die, if he were my brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Allan prostrated, with a second blow of his dagger, a sentinel who was
+      upon duty&mdash;-traversed the camp like a mountain-deer, though pursued
+      by all who caught the alarm&mdash;threw himself into the river, and,
+      swimming to the opposite side, was soon lost among the woods. In the
+      course of the same evening, his brother Angus and his followers left
+      Montrose&rsquo;s camp, and, taking the road homeward, never again rejoined him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of Allan himself it is said, that, in a wonderfully short space after the
+      deed was committed, he burst into a room in the Castle of Inverary, where
+      Argyle was sitting in council, and flung on the table his bloody dirk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it the blood of James Grahame?&rdquo; said Argyle, a ghastly expression of
+      hope mixing with the terror which the sudden apparition naturally excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the blood of his minion,&rdquo; answered M&rsquo;Aulay&mdash;&ldquo;It is the blood
+      which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have spilt my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+      <img src="images/0669m.jpg" style="width:100%;"  alt="0669m "  /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0669.jpg" style="width:100%;" ><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from that moment
+      nothing certain is known of his fate. As the boy Kenneth, with three of
+      the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards to cross Lochfine, it
+      is supposed they dogged his course, and that he perished by their hand in
+      some obscure wilderness. Another opinion maintains, that Allan M&rsquo;Aulay
+      went abroad and died a monk of the Carthusian order. But nothing beyond
+      bare presumption could ever be brought in support of either opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His vengeance was much less complete than he probably fancied; for
+      Menteith, though so severely wounded as to remain long in a dangerous
+      state, was, by having adopted Major Dalgetty&rsquo;s fortunate recommendation of
+      a cuirass as a bridal-garment, happily secured from the worst consequences
+      of the blow. But his services were lost to Montrose; and it was thought
+      best, that he should be conveyed with his intended countess, now truly a
+      mourning bride, and should accompany his wounded father-in-law to the
+      castle of Sir Duncan at Ardenvohr. Dalgetty followed them to the water&rsquo;s
+      edge, reminding Menteith of the necessity of erecting a sconce on Drumsnab
+      to cover his lady&rsquo;s newly-acquired inheritance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They performed their voyage in safety, and Menteith was in a few weeks so
+      well in health, as to be united to Annot in the castle of her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Highlanders were somewhat puzzled to reconcile Menteith&rsquo;s recovery
+      with the visions of the second sight, and the more experienced Seers were
+      displeased with him for not having died. But others thought the credit of
+      the vision sufficiently fulfilled, by the wound inflicted by the hand, and
+      with the weapon, foretold; and all were of opinion, that the incident of
+      the ring, with the death&rsquo;s head, related to the death of the bride&rsquo;s
+      father, who did not survive her marriage many months. The incredulous
+      held, that all this was idle dreaming, and that Allan&rsquo;s supposed vision
+      was but a consequence of the private suggestions of his own passion,
+      which, having long seen in Menteith a rival more beloved than himself,
+      struggled with his better nature, and impressed upon him, as it were
+      involuntarily, the idea of killing his competitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Menteith did not recover sufficiently to join Montrose during his brief
+      and glorious career; and when that heroic general disbanded his army and
+      retired from Scotland, Menteith resolved to adopt the life of privacy,
+      which he led till the Restoration. After that happy event, he occupied a
+      situation in the land befitting his rank, lived long, happy alike in
+      public regard and in domestic affection, and died at a good old age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our DRAMATIS PERSONAE have been so limited, that, excepting Montrose,
+      whose exploits and fate are the theme of history, we have only to mention
+      Sir Dugald Dalgetty. This gentleman continued, with the most rigorous
+      punctuality, to discharge his duty, and to receive his pay, until he was
+      made prisoner, among others, upon the field of Philiphaugh. He was
+      condemned to share the fate of his fellow-officers upon that occasion, who
+      were doomed to death rather by denunciations from the pulpit, than the
+      sentence either of civil or military tribunal; their blood being
+      considered as a sort of sin-offering to take away the guilt of the land,
+      and the fate imposed upon the Canaanites, under a special dispensation,
+      being impiously and cruelly applied to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several Lowland officers, in the service of the Covenanters, interceded
+      for Dalgetty on this occasion, representing him as a person whose skill
+      would be useful in their army, and who would be readily induced to change
+      his service. But on this point they found Sir Dugald unexpectedly
+      obstinate. He had engaged with the King for a certain term, and, till that
+      was expired, his principles would not permit any shadow of changing. The
+      Covenanters, again, understood no such nice distinction, and he was in the
+      utmost danger of falling a martyr, not to this or that political
+      principle, but merely to his own strict ideas of a military enlistment.
+      Fortunately, his friends discovered, by computation, that there remained
+      but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which,
+      though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make
+      him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short
+      space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any
+      engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates
+      accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker&rsquo;s
+      corps, commonly called the Kirk&rsquo;s Own Regiment of Horse. Of his farther
+      history we know nothing, until we find him in possession of his paternal
+      estate of Drumthwacket, which he acquired, not by the sword, but by a
+      pacific intermarriage with Hannah Strachan, a matron somewhat stricken in
+      years, the widow of the Aberdeenshire Covenanter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald is supposed to have survived the Revolution, as traditions of
+      no very distant date represent him as cruising about in that country, very
+      old, very deaf, and very full of interminable stories about the immortal
+      Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
+      Protestant Faith.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      READER! THE TALES OF MY LANDLORD ARE NOW FINALLY CLOSED, closed, and it
+      was my purpose to have addressed thee in the vein of Jedediah
+      Cleishbotham; but, like Horam the son of Asmar, and all other imaginary
+      story-tellers, Jedediah has melted into thin air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Cleishbotham bore the same resemblance to Ariel, as he at whose voice
+      he rose doth to the sage Prospero; and yet, so fond are we of the fictions
+      of our own fancy, that I part with him, and all his imaginary localities,
+      with idle reluctance. I am aware this is a feeling in which the reader
+      will little sympathize; but he cannot be more sensible than I am, that
+      sufficient varieties have now been exhibited of the Scottish character, to
+      exhaust one individual&rsquo;s powers of observation, and that to persist would
+      be useless and tedious. I have the vanity to suppose, that the popularity
+      of these Novels has shown my countrymen, and their peculiarities, in
+      lights which were new to the Southern reader; and that many, hitherto
+      indifferent upon the subject, have been induced to read Scottish history,
+      from the allusions to it in these works of fiction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I retire from the field, conscious that there remains behind not only a
+      large harvest, but labourers capable of gathering it in. More than one
+      writer has of late displayed talents of this description; and if the
+      present author, himself a phantom, may be permitted to distinguish a
+      brother, or perhaps a sister shadow, he would mention, in particular, the
+      author of the very lively work entitled MARRIAGE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV. APPENDIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      No. I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scarcity of my late friend&rsquo;s poem may be an excuse for adding the
+      spirited conclusion of Clan Alpin&rsquo;s vow. The Clan Gregor has met in the
+      ancient church of Balquidder. The head of Drummond-Ernoch is placed on the
+      altar, covered for a time with the banner of the tribe. The Chief of the
+      tribe advances to the altar:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     And pausing, on the banner gazed;
+     Then cried in scorn, his finger raised,
+     &ldquo;This was the boon of Scotland&rsquo;s king;&rdquo;
+      And, with a quick and angry fling,
+     Tossing the pageant screen away,
+     The dead man&rsquo;s head before him lay.
+     Unmoved he scann&rsquo;d the visage o&rsquo;er,
+     The clotted locks were dark with gore,
+     The features with convulsion grim,
+     The eyes contorted, sunk, and dim.
+     But unappall&rsquo;d, in angry mood,
+     With lowering brow, unmoved he stood.
+     Upon the head his bared right hand
+     He laid, the other grasp&rsquo;d his brand:
+     Then kneeling, cried, &ldquo;To Heaven I swear
+     This deed of death I own, and share;
+     As truly, fully mine, as though
+     This my right hand had dealt the blow:
+     Come then, our foeman, one, come all;
+     If to revenge this caitiffs fall
+     One blade is bared, one bow is drawn,
+     Mine everlasting peace I pawn,
+     To claim from them, or claim from him,
+     In retribution, limb for limb.
+     In sudden fray, or open strife,
+     This steel shall render life for life.&rdquo;
+      He ceased; and at his beckoning nod,
+     The clansmen to the altar trod;
+     And not a whisper breathed around,
+     And nought was heard of mortal sound,
+     Save from the clanking arms they bore,
+     That rattled on the marble floor;
+     And each, as he approach&rsquo;d in haste,
+     Upon the scalp his right hand placed;
+     With livid lip, and gather&rsquo;d brow,
+     Each uttered, in his turn, the vow.
+     Fierce Malcolm watch&rsquo;d the passing scene,
+     And search&rsquo;d them through with glances keen;
+     Then dash&rsquo;d a tear-drop from his eye;
+     Unhid it came&mdash;he knew not why.
+     Exulting high, he towering stood:
+     &ldquo;Kinsmen,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;of Alpin&rsquo;s blood,
+     And worthy of Clan Alpin&rsquo;s name,
+     Unstain&rsquo;d by cowardice and shame,
+     E&rsquo;en do, spare nocht, in time of ill
+     Shall be Clan Alpin&rsquo;s legend still!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      No. II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It has been disputed whether the Children of the Mist were actual
+      MacGregors, or whether they were not outlaws named MacDonald, belonging to
+      Ardnamurchan. The following act of the Privy Council seems to decide the
+      question:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Edinburgh, 4th February, 1589.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same day, the Lords of Secret Council being crediblie informed of ye
+      cruel and mischievous proceeding of ye wicked Clangrigor, so lang
+      continueing in blood, slaughters, herships, manifest reifts, and stouths
+      committed upon his Hieness&rsquo; peaceable and good subjects; inhabiting ye
+      countries ewest ye brays of ye Highlands, thir money years bybgone; but
+      specially heir after ye cruel murder of umqll Jo. Drummond of
+      Drummoneyryuch, his Majesties proper tennant and ane of his fosters of
+      Glenartney, committed upon ye day of last bypast, be certain of ye said
+      clan, be ye council and determination of ye haill, avow and to defend ye
+      authors yrof qoever wald persew for revenge of ye same, qll ye said Jo.
+      was occupied in seeking of venison to his Hieness, at command of Pat. Lord
+      Drummond, stewart of Stratharne, and principal forrester of Clenartney;
+      the Queen, his Majesties dearest spouse, being yn shortlie looked for to
+      arrive in this realm. Likeas, after ye murder committed, ye authors yrof
+      cutted off ye said umqll Jo. Drummond&rsquo;s head, and carried the same to the
+      Laird of M&rsquo;Grigor, who, and the haill surname of M&rsquo;Grigors, purposely
+      conveined upon the Sunday yrafter, at the Kirk of Buchquhidder; qr they
+      caused ye said umqll John&rsquo;s head to be pnted to ym, and yr avowing ye sd
+      murder to have been committed by yr communion, council, and determination,
+      laid yr hands upon the pow, and in eithnik, and barbarous manner, swear to
+      defend ye authors of ye sd murder, in maist proud contempt of our sovrn
+      Lord and his authoritie, and in evil example to others wicked limmaris to
+      do ye like, give ys sall be suffered to remain unpunished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then follows a commission to the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Athole,
+      Montrose, Pat. Lord Drummond, Ja. Commendator of Incheffray, And. Campbel
+      of Lochinnel, Duncan Campbel of Ardkinglas, Lauchlane M&rsquo;Intosh of
+      Dunnauchtane, Sir Jo. Murray of Tullibarden, knt., Geo. Buchanan of that
+      Ilk, and And. M&rsquo;Farlane of Ariquocher, to search for and apprehend Alaster
+      M&rsquo;Grigor of Glenstre (and a number of others nominatim), &ldquo;and all others
+      of the said Clangrigor, or ye assistars, culpable of the said odious
+      murther, or of thift, reset of thift, herships, and sornings, qrever they
+      may be apprehended. And if they refuse to be taken, or flees to strengths
+      and houses, to pursue and assege them with fire and sword; and this
+      commission to endure for the space of three years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the system of police in 1589; and such the state of Scotland
+      nearly thirty years after the Reformation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V. NOTES.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Note I.&mdash;FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The military men of the times agreed upon dependencies of honour, as they
+      called them, with all the metaphysical argumentation of civilians, or
+      school divines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The English officer, to whom Sir James Turner was prisoner after the rout
+      at Uttoxeter, demanded his parole of honour not to go beyond the wall of
+      Hull without liberty. &ldquo;He brought me the message himself,&mdash;I told him
+      I was ready to do so, provided he removed his guards from me, for FIDES ET
+      FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA; and, if he took my word for my fidelity, he was
+      obliged to trust it, otherwise, it was needless for him to seek it, either
+      to give trust to my word, which I would not break, or his own guards, who
+      I supposed would not deceive him. In this manner I dealt with him, because
+      I knew him to be a scholar.&rdquo;&mdash;TURNER&rsquo;S MEMOIRS, p. 80. The English
+      officer allowed the strength of the reasoning; but that concise reasoner,
+      Cromwell, soon put an end to the dilemma: &ldquo;Sir James Turner must give his
+      parole, or be laid in irons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Note II.&mdash;WRAITHS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A species of apparition, similar to what the Germans call a Double-Ganger,
+      was believed in by the Celtic tribes, and is still considered as an emblem
+      of misfortune or death. Mr. Kirke (See Note to ROB ROY,), the minister of
+      Aberfoil, who will no doubt be able to tell us more of the matter should
+      he ever come back from Fairy-land, gives us the following:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some men of that exalted sight, either by art or nature, have told me
+      they have seen at these meetings a double man, or the shape of some man in
+      two places, that is, a superterranean and a subterranean inhabitant
+      perfectly resembling one another in all points, whom he, notwithstanding,
+      could easily distinguish one fro another by some secret tokens and
+      operations, and so go speak to the man his neighbour and familiar, passing
+      by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch that every element
+      and different state of being have animals resembling those of another
+      element, as there be fishes at sea resembling Monks of late order in all
+      their hoods and dresses, so as the Roman invention of good and bad daemons
+      and guardian angels particularly assigned, is called by them ane ignorant
+      mistake, springing only from this originall. They call this reflex man a
+      Co-Walker, every way like the man, as a twin-brother and companion
+      haunting him as his shadow, as is that seen and known among men resembling
+      the originall, both before and after the originall is dead, and was also
+      often seen of old to enter a hous, by which the people knew that the
+      person of that liknes was to visit them within a few days. This copy,
+      echo, or living picture, goes at last to his own herd. It accompanied that
+      person so long and frequently for ends best known to its selve, whether to
+      guard him from the secret assaults of some of its own folks, or only as an
+      sportfull ape to counterfeit all his actions.&rdquo;&mdash;KIRKE&rsquo;S SECRET
+      COMMOMWEALTH, p. 3.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two following apparitions, resembling the vision of Allan M&rsquo;Aulay in
+      the text, occur in Theophilus Insulanus (Rev. Mr. Fraser&rsquo;s Treatise on the
+      Second Sight, Relations x. and xvii.):&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Barbara Macpherson, relict of the deceased Mr. Alexander MacLeod, late
+      minister of St. Kilda, informed me the natives of that island had a
+      particular kind of second sight, which is always a forerunner of their
+      approaching end. Some months before they sicken, they are haunted with an
+      apparition, resembling themselves in all respects as to their person,
+      features, or clothing. This image, seemingly animated, walks with them in
+      the field in broad daylight; and if they are employed in delving,
+      harrowing, seed-sowing, or any other occupation, they are at the same time
+      mimicked by this ghostly visitant. My informer added further that having
+      visited a sick person of the inhabitants, she had the curiosity to enquire
+      of him, if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself as above
+      described; he answered in the affirmative, and told her, that to make
+      farther trial, as he was going out of his house of a morning, he put on
+      straw-rope garters instead of those he formerly used, and having gone to
+      the fields, his other self appeared in such garters. The conclusion was,
+      the sick man died of that ailment, and she no longer questioned the truth
+      of those remarkable presages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret MacLeod, an honest woman advanced in years, informed me, that
+      when she was a young woman in the family of Grishornish, a dairy-maid, who
+      daily used to herd the calves in a park close to the house, observed, at
+      different times, a woman resembling herself in shape and attire, walking
+      solitarily at no great distance from her, and being surprised at the
+      apparition, to make further trial, she put the back part of her upper
+      garment foremost, and anon the phantom was dressed in the same manner,
+      which made her uneasy, believing it portended some fatal consequence to
+      herself. In a short time thereafter she was seized with a fever, which
+      brought her to her end, and before her sickness and on her deathbed,
+      declared the second sight to several.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg&rsquo;s A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1461-h.htm or 1461-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/1461/
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&ldquo;the Foundation&rdquo;
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; appears, or with which the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo; is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+&ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original &ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, &ldquo;Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.&rdquo;
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+&ldquo;Defects,&rdquo; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &ldquo;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&rdquo; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &lsquo;AS-IS&rsquo; WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm&rsquo;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation&rsquo;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state&rsquo;s laws.
+
+The Foundation&rsquo;s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation&rsquo;s web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0651.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0651.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1cf52f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0651.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0651m.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0651m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ceef40a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0651m.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0669.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0669.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..646799c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0669.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0669m.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0669m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c75fe07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0669m.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0681.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0681.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..289756f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0681.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0681m.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0681m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5997c5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0681m.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0795.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0795.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..510877f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0795.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461-h/images/0795m.jpg b/old/1461-h/images/0795m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b01ed1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461-h/images/0795m.jpg
diff --git a/old/1461.txt b/old/1461.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..68fa40b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9733 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Legend of Montrose
+
+Author: Sir Walter Scott
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2006 [EBook #1461]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF MONTROSE
+
+by
+
+Sir Walter Scott
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+     I.      Introduction to A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+     II.     Introduction (Supplement).  Sergeant More M'Alpin.
+     III.    Main text of A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+     IV.     Appendix    No. I       Clan Alpin's Vow.
+     No. II      The Children of the Mist.
+     V.      Notes       Note I      Fides et Fiducia sunt relativa.
+     Note II     Wraiths.
+
+     Note: Footnotes in the printed book have been inserted in the
+     etext in square brackets ("[]") close to the place where
+     they were referenced by a suffix in the original text.
+
+
+
+I. INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+
+The Legend of Montrose was written chiefly with a view to place before
+the reader the melancholy fate of John Lord Kilpont, eldest son of
+William Earl of Airth and Menteith, and the singular circumstances
+attending the birth and history of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, by
+whose hand the unfortunate nobleman fell.
+
+Our subject leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin with
+one still more ancient than that to which our story relates. During
+the reign of James IV., a great feud between the powerful families
+of Drummond and Murray divided Perthshire. The former, being the most
+numerous and powerful, cooped up eight score of the Murrays in the kirk
+of Monivaird, and set fire to it. The wives and the children of the
+ill-fated men, who had also found shelter in the church, perished by the
+same conflagration. One man, named David Murray, escaped by the humanity
+of one of the Drummonds, who received him in his arms as he leaped from
+amongst the flames. As King James IV. ruled with more activity than most
+of his predecessors, this cruel deed was severely revenged, and several
+of the perpetrators were beheaded at Stirling. In consequence of the
+prosecution against his clan, the Drummond by whose assistance David
+Murray had escaped, fled to Ireland, until, by means of the person whose
+life he had saved, he was permitted to return to Scotland, where he and
+his descendants were distinguished by the name of Drummond-Eirinich, or
+Ernoch, that is, Drummond of Ireland; and the same title was bestowed on
+their estate.
+
+The Drummond-ernoch of James the Sixth's time was a king's forester in
+the forest of Glenartney, and chanced to be employed there in search of
+venison about the year 1588, or early in 1589. This forest was adjacent
+to the chief haunts of the MacGregors, or a particular race of them,
+known by the title of MacEagh, or Children of the Mist. They considered
+the forester's hunting in their vicinity as an aggression, or perhaps
+they had him at feud, for the apprehension or slaughter of some of their
+own name, or for some similar reason. This tribe of MacGregors were
+outlawed and persecuted, as the reader may see in the Introduction to
+ROB ROY; and every man's hand being against them, their hand was of
+course directed against every man. In short, they surprised and slew
+Drummond-ernoch, cut off his head, and carried it with them, wrapt in
+the corner of one of their plaids.
+
+In the full exultation of vengeance, they stopped at the house of
+Ardvoirlich and demanded refreshment, which the lady, a sister of the
+murdered Drummond-ernoch (her husband being absent), was afraid or
+unwilling to refuse. She caused bread and cheese to be placed before
+them, and gave directions for more substantial refreshments to be
+prepared. While she was absent with this hospitable intention, the
+barbarians placed the head of her brother on the table, filling the
+mouth with bread and cheese, and bidding him eat, for many a merry meal
+he had eaten in that house.
+
+The poor woman returning, and beholding this dreadful sight, shrieked
+aloud, and fled into the woods, where, as described in the romance,
+she roamed a raving maniac, and for some time secreted herself from all
+living society. Some remaining instinctive feeling brought her at length
+to steal a glance from a distance at the maidens while they milked the
+cows, which being observed, her husband, Ardvoirlich, had her conveyed
+back to her home, and detained her there till she gave birth to a child,
+of whom she had been pregnant; after which she was observed gradually to
+recover her mental faculties.
+
+Meanwhile the outlaws had carried to the utmost their insults against
+the regal authority, which indeed, as exercised, they had little reason
+for respecting. They bore the same bloody trophy, which they had so
+savagely exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich, into the old church of
+Balquidder, nearly in the centre of their country, where the Laird of
+MacGregor and all his clan being convened for the purpose, laid their
+hands successively on the dead man's head, and swore, in heathenish
+and barbarous manner, to defend the author of the deed. This fierce and
+vindictive combination gave the author's late and lamented friend,
+Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart., subject for a spirited poem, entitled
+"Clan-Alpin's Vow," which was printed, but not, I believe, published, in
+1811 [See Appendix No. I].
+
+The fact is ascertained by a proclamation from the Privy Council, dated
+4th February, 1589, directing letters of fire and sword against the
+MacGregors [See Appendix No. II]. This fearful commission was executed
+with uncommon fury. The late excellent John Buchanan of Cambusmore
+showed the author some correspondence between his ancestor, the Laird of
+Buchanan, and Lord Drummond, about sweeping certain valleys with their
+followers, on a fixed time and rendezvous, and "taking sweet revenge for
+the death of their cousin, Drummond-ernoch." In spite of all, however,
+that could be done, the devoted tribe of MacGregor still bred up
+survivors to sustain and to inflict new cruelties and injuries.
+
+[I embrace the opportunity given me by a second mention of this tribe,
+to notice an error, which imputes to an individual named Ciar Mohr
+MacGregor, the slaughter of the students at the battle of Glenfruin.
+I am informed from the authority of John Gregorson, Esq., that the
+chieftain so named was dead nearly a century before the battle
+in question, and could not, therefore, have done the cruel action
+mentioned. The mistake does not rest with me, as I disclaimed being
+responsible for the tradition while I quoted it, but with vulgar fame,
+which is always disposed to ascribe remarkable actions to a remarkable
+name.--See the erroneous passage, ROB ROY, Introduction; and so soft
+sleep the offended phantom of Dugald Ciar Mohr.
+
+It is with mingled pleasure and shame that I record the more important
+error, of having announced as deceased my learned acquaintance, the Rev.
+Dr. Grahame, minister of Aberfoil.--See ROB ROY, p.360. I cannot now
+recollect the precise ground of my depriving my learned and excellent
+friend of his existence, unless, like Mr. Kirke, his predecessor in the
+parish, the excellent Doctor had made a short trip to Fairyland, with
+whose wonders he is so well acquainted. But however I may have been
+misled, my regret is most sincere for having spread such a rumour; and
+no one can be more gratified than I that the report, however I have been
+induced to credit and give it currency, is a false one, and that Dr.
+Grahame is still the living pastor of Aberfoil, for the delight and
+instruction of his brother antiquaries.]
+
+Meanwhile Young James Stewart of Ardvoirlich grew up to manhood
+uncommonly tall, strong, and active, with such power in the grasp of his
+hand in particular, as could force the blood from beneath the nails of
+the persons who contended with him in this feat of strength. His temper
+was moody, fierce, and irascible; yet he must have had some ostensible
+good qualities, as he was greatly beloved by Lord Kilpont, the eldest
+son of the Earl of Airth and Menteith.
+
+This gallant young nobleman joined Montrose in the setting up his
+standard in 1644, just before the decisive battle at Tippermuir, on the
+1st September in that year. At that time, Stewart of Ardvoirlich shared
+the confidence of the young Lord by day, and his bed by night, when,
+about four or five days after the battle, Ardvoirlich, either from a fit
+of sudden fury or deep malice long entertained against his unsuspecting
+friend, stabbed Lord Kilpont to the heart, and escaped from the camp of
+Montrose, having killed a sentinel who attempted to detain him. Bishop
+Guthrie gives us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont
+had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to assassinate
+Montrose. But it does not appear that there is any authority for this
+charge, which rests on mere suspicion. Ardvoirlich, the assassin,
+certainly did fly to the Covenanters, and was employed and promoted by
+them. He obtained a pardon for the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, confirmed
+by Parliament in 1634, and was made Major of Argyle's regiment in 1648.
+Such are the facts of the tale here given as a Legend of Montrose's
+wars. The reader will find they are considerably altered in the
+fictitious narrative.
+
+The author has endeavoured to enliven the tragedy of the tale by the
+introduction of a personage proper to the time and country. In this
+he has been held by excellent judges to have been in some degree
+successful. The contempt of commerce entertained by young men having
+some pretence to gentility, the poverty of the country of Scotland, the
+national disposition to wandering and to adventure, all conduced to lead
+the Scots abroad into the military service of countries which were at
+war with each other. They were distinguished on the Continent by
+their bravery; but in adopting the trade of mercenary soldiers, they
+necessarily injured their national character. The tincture of learning,
+which most of them possessed, degenerated into pedantry; their good
+breeding became mere ceremonial; their fear of dishonour no longer kept
+them aloof from that which was really unworthy, but was made to depend
+on certain punctilious observances totally apart from that which was
+in itself deserving of praise. A cavalier of honour, in search of his
+fortune, might, for example, change his service as he would his shirt,
+fight, like the doughty Captain Dalgetty, in one cause after another,
+without regard to the justice of the quarrel, and might plunder the
+peasantry subjected to him by the fate of war with the most unrelenting
+rapacity; but he must beware how he sustained the slightest reproach,
+even from a clergyman, if it had regard to neglect on the score of duty.
+The following occurrence will prove the truth of what I mean:--
+
+"Here I must not forget the memory of one preacher, Master William
+Forbesse, a preacher for souldiers, yea, and a captaine in neede
+to leade souldiers on a good occasion, being full of courage, with
+discretion and good conduct, beyond some captaines I have knowne, that
+were not so capable as he. At this time he not onely prayed for us, but
+went on with us, to remarke, as I thinke, men's carriage; and having
+found a sergeant neglecting his dutie and his honour at such a time
+(whose name I will not expresse), having chidden him, did promise to
+reveale him unto me, as he did after their service. The sergeant being
+called before me, and accused, did deny his accusation, alleaging, if he
+were no pasteur that had alleaged it, he would not lie under the injury,
+The preacher offered to fight with him, [in proof] that it was truth
+he had spoken of him; whereupon I cashiered the sergeant, and gave his
+place to a worthier, called Mungo Gray, a gentleman of good worth,
+and of much courage. The sergeant being cashiered, never called Master
+William to account, for which he was evill thought of; so that he
+retired home, and quit the warres."
+
+The above quotation is taken from a work which the author repeatedly
+consulted while composing the following sheets, and which is in great
+measure written in the humour of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. It bears the
+following formidable title:--"MONRO his Expedition with the worthy
+Scots Regiment, called MacKeye's Regiment, levied in August 1626, by Sir
+Donald MacKeye Lord Rees Colonel, for his Majestie's service of Denmark,
+and reduced after the battle of Nerling, in September 1634, at Wormes,
+in the Palz: Discharged in several duties and observations of service,
+first, under the magnanimous King of Denmark, during his wars against
+the Empire; afterwards under the invincible King of Sweden, during
+his Majestie's lifetime; and since under the Director-General, the
+Rex-Chancellor Oxensterne, and his Generals: collected and gathered
+together, at spare hours, by Colonel Robert Monro, as First Lieutenant
+under the said Regiment, to the noble and worthy Captain Thomas
+MacKenzie of Kildon, brother to the noble Lord, the Lord Earl of
+Seaforth, for the use of all noble Cavaliers favouring the laudable
+profession of arms. To which is annexed, the Abridgement of Exercise,
+and divers Practical Observations for the Younger Officer, his
+consideration. Ending with the Soldier's Meditations on going on
+Service."--London, 1637.
+
+Another worthy of the same school, and nearly the same views of the
+military character, is Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, who
+rose to considerable rank in the reign of Charles II., had a command in
+Galloway and Dumfries-shire, for the suppression of conventicles, and
+was made prisoner by the insurgent Covenanters in that rising which
+was followed by the battle of Pentland. Sir James is a person even
+of superior pretensions to Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, having written
+a Military Treatise on the Pike-Exercise, called "Pallas Armata."
+Moreover, he was educated at Glasgow College, though he escaped to
+become an Ensign in the German wars, instead of taking his degree of
+Master of Arts at that learned seminary.
+
+In latter times, he was author of several discourses on historical and
+literary subjects, from which the Bannatyne Club have extracted and
+printed such passages as concern his Life and Times, under the title
+of SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS. From this curious book I extract the
+following passage, as an example of how Captain Dalgetty might have
+recorded such an incident had he kept a journal, or, to give it a more
+just character, it is such as the genius of De Foe would have devised,
+to give the minute and distinguishing features of truth to a fictitious
+narrative:--
+
+"Heere I will set doun ane accident befell me; for thogh it was not
+a very strange one, yet it was a very od one in all its parts. My tuo
+brigads lay in a village within halfe a mile of Applebie; my own quarter
+was in a gentleman's house, ho was a Ritmaster, and at that time with
+Sir Marmaduke; his wife keepd her chamber readie to be brought to bed.
+The castle being over, and Lambert farre enough, I resolved to goe to
+bed everie night, haveing had fatigue enough before. 'The first night
+I sleepd well enough; and riseing nixt morning, I misd one linnen
+stockine, one halfe silke one, and one boothose, the accoustrement under
+a boote for one leg; neither could they be found for any search. Being
+provided of more of the same kind, I made myselfe reddie, and rode to
+the head-quarters. At my returne, I could heare no news of my stockins.
+That night I went to bed, and nixt morning found myselfe just so used;
+missing the three stockins for one leg onlie, the other three being left
+intire as they were the day before. A narrower search then the first
+was made, bot without successe. I had yet in reserve one paire of whole
+stockings, and a paire of boothose, greater then the former. These I put
+on my legs. The third morning I found the same usage, the stockins for
+one leg onlie left me. It was time for me then, and my servants too, to
+imagine it must be rats that had shard my stockins so inequallie with
+me; and this the mistress of the house knew well enough, but would not
+tell it me. The roome, which was a low parlour, being well searched with
+candles, the top of my great boothose was found at a hole, in which
+they had drawne all the rest. I went abroad and ordered the boards to be
+raised, to see how the rats had disposed of my moveables. The mistress
+sent a servant of her oune to be present at this action, which she knew
+concerned her. One board being bot a litle opend, a litle boy of mine
+thrust in his hand, and fetchd with him foure and tuentie old peeces of
+gold, and one angell. The servant of the house affirmed it appertained
+to his mistres. The boy bringing the gold to me, I went immediatlie to
+the gentlewomans chamber, and told her, it was probable Lambert haveing
+quarterd in that house, as indeed he had, some of his servants might
+have hid that gold; and if so, it was lawfullie mine; bot if she could
+make it appeare it belongd to her, I should immediatlie give it her. The
+poore gentlewoman told me with many teares, that her husband being none
+of the frugallest men (and indeed he was a spendthrift), she had hid
+that gold without his, knowledge, to make use of it as she had occasion,
+especiallie when she lay in; and conjured me, as I lovd the King (for
+whom her husband and she had suffered much), not to detaine her gold.
+She said, if there was either more or lesse then foure and tuentie whole
+peeces, and two halfe ones, it sould be none of hers; and that they were
+put by her in a red velvet purse. After I had given her assureance of
+her gold, a new search is made, the other angell is found, the velvet
+purse all gnawd in bits, as my stockins were, and the gold instantlie
+restord to the gentlewoman. I have often heard that the eating or
+gnawing of cloths by rats is ominous, and portends some mischance
+to fall on those to whom the cloths belong. I thank God I was never
+addicted to such divinations, or heeded them. It is true, that more
+misfortunes then one fell on me shortlie after; bot I am sure I could
+have better forseene them myselfe then rats or any such vermine, and yet
+did it not. I have heard indeed many fine stories told of rats, how they
+abandon houses and ships, when the first are to be burnt and the second
+dround. Naturalists say they are very sagacious creatures, and I beleeve
+they are so; bot I shall never be of the opinion they can forsee future
+contingencies, which I suppose the divell himselfe can neither forknow
+nor fortell; these being things which the Almightie hath keepd hidden
+in the bosome of his divine prescience. And whither the great God hath
+preordained or predestinated these things, which to us are contingent,
+to fall out by ane uncontrollable and unavoidable necessitie, is a
+question not yet decided." [SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS, Bannatyne
+edition, p. 59.]
+
+In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more modern
+sketch of a Scottish soldier of the old fashion, by a masterhand, in
+the character of Lesmahagow, since the existence of that doughty
+Captain alone must deprive the present author of all claim to absolute
+originality. Still Dalgetty, as the production of his own fancy, has
+been so far a favourite with its parent, that he has fallen into the
+error of assigning to the Captain too prominent a part in the story.
+This is the opinion of a critic who encamps on the highest pinnacles of
+literature; and the author is so far fortunate in having incurred his
+censure, that it gives his modesty a decent apology for quoting the
+praise, which it would have ill-befited him to bring forward in an
+unmingled state. The passage occurs in the EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 55,
+containing a criticism on IVANHOE:--
+
+"There is too much, perhaps, of Dalgetty,--or, rather, he engrosses
+too great a proportion of the work,--for, in himself, we think he is
+uniformly entertaining;--and the author has nowhere shown more affinity
+to that matchless spirit who could bring out his Falstaffs and his
+Pistols, in act after act, and play after play, and exercise them every
+time with scenes of unbounded loquacity, without either exhausting their
+humour, or varying a note from its characteristic tone, than in his
+large and reiterated specimens of the eloquence of the redoubted
+Ritt-master. The general idea of the character is familiar to our comic
+dramatists after the Restoration--and may be said in some measure to
+be compounded of Captain Fluellen and Bobadil;--but the
+ludicrous combination of the SOLDADO with the Divinity student of
+Mareschal-College, is entirely original; and the mixture of talent,
+selfishness, courage, coarseness, and conceit, was never so happily
+exemplified. Numerous as his speeches are, there is not one that is not
+characteristic--and, to our taste, divertingly ludicrous."
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+While these pages were passing through the press, the author received
+a letter from the present Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich, favouring him
+with the account of the unhappy slaughter of Lord Kilpont, differing
+from, and more probable than, that given by Bishop Wishart, whose
+narrative infers either insanity or the blackest treachery on the part
+of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, the ancestor of the present family of
+that name. It is but fair to give the entire communication as received
+from my respected correspondent, which is more minute than the histories
+of the period.
+
+"Although I have not the honour of being personally known to you, I hope
+you will excuse the liberty I now take, in addressing you on the subject
+of a transaction more than once alluded to by you, in which an ancestor
+of mine was unhappily concerned. I allude to the slaughter of Lord
+Kilpont, son of the Earl of Airth and Monteith, in 1644, by James
+Stewart of Ardvoirlich. As the cause of this unhappy event, and the
+quarrel which led to it, have never been correctly stated in any history
+of the period in which it took place, I am induced, in consequence of
+your having, in the second series of your admirable Tales on the History
+of Scotland, adopted Wishart's version of the transaction, and being
+aware that your having done so will stamp it with an authenticity which
+it does not merit, and with a view, as far as possible, to do justice to
+the memory of my unfortunate ancestor, to send you the account of this
+affair as it has been handed down in the family.
+
+"James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who lived in the early part of the 17th
+century, and who was the unlucky cause of the slaughter of Lord Kilpont,
+as before mentioned, was appointed to the command of one of several
+independent companies raised in the Highlands at the commencement of
+the troubles in the reign of Charles I.; another of these companies was
+under the command of Lord Kilpont, and a strong intimacy, strengthened
+by a distant relationship, subsisted between them. When Montrose raised
+the royal standard, Ardvoirlich was one of the first to declare for him,
+and is said to have been a principal means of bringing over Lord Kilpont
+to the same cause; and they accordingly, along with Sir John Drummond
+and their respective followers, joined Montrose, as recorded by Wishart,
+at Buchanty. While they served together, so strong was their intimacy,
+that they lived and slept in the same tent.
+
+"In the meantime, Montrose had been joined by the Irish under the
+command of Alexander Macdonald; these, on their march to join Montrose,
+had committed some excesses on lands belonging to Ardvoirlich, which
+lay in the line of their march from the west coast. Of this Ardvoirlich
+complained to Montrose, who, probably wishing as much as possible to
+conciliate his new allies, treated it in rather an evasive manner.
+Ardvoirlich, who was a man of violent passions, having failed to receive
+such satisfaction as he required, challenged Macdonald to single combat.
+Before they met, however, Montrose, on the information and by advice,
+as it is said, of Kilpont, laid them both under arrest. Montrose, seeing
+the evils of such a feud at such a critical time, effected a sort of
+reconciliation between them, and forced them to shake hands in his
+presence; when, it was said, that Ardvoirlich, who was a very powerful
+man, took such a hold of Macdonald's hand as to make the blood start
+from his fingers. Still, it would appear, Ardvoirlich was by no means
+reconciled.
+
+"A few days after the battle of Tippermuir, when Montrose with his
+army was encamped at Collace, an entertainment was given by him to his
+officers, in honour of the victory he had obtained, and Kilpont and
+his comrade Ardvoirlich were of the party. After returning to their
+quarters, Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to brood over his quarrel with
+Macdonald, and being heated with drink, began to blame Lord Kilpont
+for the part he had taken in preventing his obtaining redress, and
+reflecting against Montrose for not allowing him what he considered
+proper reparation. Kilpont of course defended the conduct of himself
+and his relative Montrose, till their argument came to high words; and
+finally, from the state they were both in, by an easy transition, to
+blows, when Ardvoirlich, with his dirk, struck Kilpont dead on the
+spot. He immediately fled, and under the cover of a thick mist escaped
+pursuit, leaving his eldest son Henry, who had been mortally wounded at
+Tippermuir, on his deathbed.
+
+"His followers immediately withdrew from Montrose, and no course
+remained for him but to throw himself into the arms of the opposite
+faction, by whom he was well received. His name is frequently mentioned
+in Leslie's campaigns, and on more than one occasion he is mentioned as
+having afforded protection to several of his former friends through his
+interest with Leslie, when the King's cause became desperate.
+
+"The foregoing account of this unfortunate transaction, I am well aware,
+differs materially from the account given by Wishart, who alleges that
+Stewart had laid a plot for the assassination of Montrose, and that he
+murdered Lord Kilpont in consequence of his refusal to participate in
+his design. Now, I may be allowed to remark, that besides Wishart having
+always been regarded as a partial historian, and very questionable
+authority on any subject connected with the motives or conduct of those
+who differed from him in opinion, that even had Stewart formed such a
+design, Kilpont, from his name and connexions, was likely to be the
+very last man of whom Stewart would choose to make a confidant and
+accomplice. On the other hand, the above account, though never, that I
+am aware, before hinted at, has been a constant tradition in the family;
+and, from the comparative recent date of the transaction, and the
+sources from which the tradition has been derived, I have no reason to
+doubt its perfect authenticity. It was most circumstantially detailed as
+above, given to my father, Mr. Stewart, now of Ardvoirlich, many years
+ago, by a man nearly connected with the family, who lived to the age of
+100. This man was a great-grandson of James Stewart, by a natural son
+John, of whom many stories are still current in this country, under his
+appellation of JOHN DHU MHOR. This John was with his father at the time,
+and of course was a witness of the whole transaction; he lived till
+a considerable time after the Revolution, and it was from him that
+my father's informant, who was a man before his grandfather, John dhu
+Mhor's death, received the information as above stated.
+
+"I have many apologies to offer for trespassing so long on your
+patience; but I felt a natural desire, if possible, to correct what I
+conceive to be a groundless imputation on the memory of my ancestor,
+before it shall come to be considered as a matter of History. That he
+was a man of violent passions and singular temper, I do not pretend to
+deny, as many traditions still current in this country amply verify;
+but that he was capable of forming a design to assassinate Montrose, the
+whole tenor of his former conduct and principles contradict. That he was
+obliged to join the opposite party, was merely a matter of safety, while
+Kilpont had so many powerful friends and connexions able and ready to
+avenge his death.
+
+"I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make what use
+of this communication you please, and either to reject it altogether, or
+allow it such credit as you think it deserves; and I shall be ready at
+all times to furnish you with any further information on this subject
+which you may require, and which it may be in my power to afford.
+
+"ARDVOIRLICH, 15TH JANUARY, 1830."
+
+The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so correct,
+is a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the victim, it would
+seem, of his own violent passions, but perhaps incapable of an act of
+premeditated treachery.
+
+ABBOTSFORD, 1ST AUGUST, 1830.
+
+
+
+
+II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement).
+
+Sergeant More M'Alpin was, during his residence among us, one of the
+most honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh. No one thought of disputing
+his title to the great leathern chair on the "cosiest side of the
+chimney," in the common room of the Wallace Arms, on a Saturday evening.
+No less would our sexton, John Duirward, have held it an unlicensed
+intrusion, to suffer any one to induct himself into the corner of
+the left-hand pew nearest to the pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly
+occupied on Sundays. There he sat, his blue invalid uniform brushed
+with the most scrupulous accuracy. Two medals of merit displayed at his
+button-hole, as well as the empty sleeve which should have been occupied
+by his right arm, bore evidence of his hard and honourable service.
+His weatherbeaten features, his grey hair tied in a thin queue in the
+military fashion of former days, and the right side of his head a little
+turned up, the better to catch the sound of the clergyman's voice, were
+all marks of his profession and infirmities. Beside him sat his sister
+Janet, a little neat old woman, with a Highland curch and tartan plaid,
+watching the very looks of her brother, to her the greatest man upon
+earth, and actively looking out for him, in his silver-clasped Bible,
+the texts which the minister quoted or expounded.
+
+I believe it was the respect that was universally paid to this worthy
+veteran by all ranks in Gandercleugh which induced him to choose
+our village for his residence, for such was by no means his original
+intention.
+
+He had risen to the rank of sergeant-major of artillery, by hard service
+in various quarters of the world, and was reckoned one of the most tried
+and trusty men of the Scotch Train. A ball, which shattered his arm in
+a peninsular campaign, at length procured him an honourable discharge.
+with an allowance from Chelsea, and a handsome gratuity from the
+patriotic fund. Moreover, Sergeant More M'Alpin had been prudent as well
+as valiant; and, from prize-money and savings, had become master of a
+small sum in the three per cent consols.
+
+He retired with the purpose of enjoying this income in the wild Highland
+glen, in which, when a boy, he had herded black cattle and goats, ere
+the roll of the drum had made him cock his bonnet an inch higher, and
+follow its music for nearly forty years. To his recollection, this
+retired spot was unparalleled in beauty by the richest scenes he had
+visited in his wanderings. Even the Happy Valley of Rasselas would have
+sunk into nothing upon the comparison. He came--he revisited the loved
+scene; it was but a sterile glen, surrounded with rude crags, and
+traversed by a northern torrent. This was not the worst. The fires had
+been quenched upon thirty hearths--of the cottage of his fathers
+he could but distinguish a few rude stones--the language was almost
+extinguished--the ancient race from which he boasted his descent
+had found a refuge beyond the Atlantic. One southland farmer, three
+grey-plaided shepherds, and six dogs, now tenanted the whole glen, which
+in his youth had maintained, in content, if not in competence, upwards
+of two hundred inhabitants.
+
+In the house of the new tenant, Sergeant M'Alpin found, however, an
+unexpected source of pleasure, and a means of employing his social
+affections. His sister Janet had fortunately entertained so strong a
+persuasion that her brother would one day return, that she had refused
+to accompany her kinsfolk upon their emigration. Nay, she had consented,
+though not without a feeling of degradation, to take service with the
+intruding Lowlander, who, though a Saxon, she said, had proved a kind
+man to her. This unexpected meeting with his sister seemed a cure
+for all the disappointments which it had been Sergeant More's lot to
+encounter, although it was not without a reluctant tear that he
+heard told, as a Highland woman alone could ten it, the story of the
+expatriation of his kinsmen.
+
+She narrated at great length the vain offers they had made of advanced
+rent, the payment of which must have reduced them to the extremity of
+poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for permission to live
+and die on their native soil. Nor did Janet forget the portents which
+had announced the departure of the Celtic race, and the arrival of the
+strangers. For two years previous to the emigration, when the night wind
+howled dawn the pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled
+to the tune of "HA TIL MI TULIDH" (we return no more), with which the
+emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores. The uncouth cries
+of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of their dogs, were often
+heard in the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival.
+A bard, the last of his race, had commemorated the expulsion of the
+natives of the glen in a tune, which brought tears into the aged eyes of
+the veteran, and of which the first stanza may be thus rendered:--
+
+     Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander,
+     Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border?
+     Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander,
+     Wasting the glen that was once in fair order?
+
+What added to Sergeant More M'Alpin's distress upon the occasion was,
+that the chief by whom this change had been effected, was, by tradition
+and common opinion, held to represent the ancient leaders and fathers of
+the expelled fugitives; and it had hitherto been one of Sergeant More's
+principal subjects of pride to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what
+degree of kindred he stood to this personage. A woful change was now
+wrought in his sentiments towards him.
+
+"I cannot curse him," he said, as he rose and strode through the room,
+when Janet's narrative was finished--"I will not curse him; he is the
+descendant and representative of my fathers. But never shall mortal man
+hear me name his name again." And he kept his word; for, until his dying
+day, no man heard him mention his selfish and hard-hearted chieftain.
+
+After giving a day to sad recollections, the hardy spirit which had
+carried him through so many dangers, manned the Sergeant's bosom against
+this cruel disappointment. "He would go," he said, "to Canada to his
+kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic valley after the glen of
+their fathers. Janet," he said, "should kilt her coats like a leaguer
+lady; d--n the distance! it was a flea's leap to the voyages and marches
+he had made on a slighter occasion."
+
+With this purpose he left the Highlands, and came with his sister as far
+as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage to Canada.
+But winter was now set in, and as he thought it advisable to wait for a
+spring passage, when the St. Lawrence should be open, he settled among
+us for the few months of his stay in Britain. As we said before, the
+respectable old man met with deference and attention from all ranks
+of society; and when spring returned, he was so satisfied with his
+quarters, that he did not renew the purpose of his voyage. Janet was
+afraid of the sea, and he himself felt the infirmities of age and hard
+service more than he had at first expected. And, as he confessed to the
+clergyman, and my worthy principal, Mr. Cleishbotham, "it was better
+staying with kend friends, than going farther, and faring worse."
+
+He therefore established himself and his domicile at Gandercleugh, to
+the great satisfaction, as we have already said, of all its inhabitants,
+to whom he became, in respect of military intelligence, and able
+commentaries upon the newspapers, gazettes, and bulletins, a very
+oracle, explanatory of all martial events, past, present, or to come.
+
+It is true, the Sergeant had his inconsistencies. He was a steady
+jacobite, his father and his four uncles having been out in the
+forty-five; but he was a no less steady adherent of King George, in
+whose service he had made his little fortune, and lost three brothers;
+so that you were in equal danger to displease him, in terming Prince
+Charles, the Pretender, or by saying anything derogatory to the dignity
+of King George. Further, it must not be denied, that when the day of
+receiving his dividends came round, the Sergeant was apt to tarry longer
+at the Wallace Arms of an evening, than was consistent with strict
+temperance, or indeed with his worldly interest; for upon these
+occasions, his compotators sometimes contrived to flatter his
+partialities by singing jacobite songs, and drinking confusion to
+Bonaparte, and the health of the Duke of Wellington, until the Sergeant
+was not only flattered into paying the whole reckoning, but occasionally
+induced to lend small sums to his interested companions. After such
+sprays, as he called them, were over, and his temper once more cool, he
+seldom failed to thank God, and the Duke of York, who had made it much
+more difficult for an old soldier to ruin himself by his folly, than had
+been the case in his younger days.
+
+It was not on such occasions that I made a part of Sergeant More
+M'Alpin's society. But often, when my leisure would permit, I used to
+seek him, on what he called his morning and evening parade, on which,
+when the weather was fair, he appeared as regularly as if summoned by
+tuck of drum. His morning walk was beneath the elms in the churchyard;
+"for death," he said, "had been his next-door neighbour for so many
+years, that he had no apology for dropping the acquaintance." His
+evening promenade was on the bleaching-green by the river-side, where
+he was sometimes to be seen on an open bench, with spectacles on
+nose, conning over the newspapers to a circle of village politicians,
+explaining military terms, and aiding the comprehension of his hearers
+by lines drawn on the ground with the end of his rattan. On other
+occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of school-boys, whom he sometimes
+drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with less approbation on the part
+of their parents, instructed in the mystery of artificial fire-works;
+for in the case of public rejoicings, the Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as
+the Encyclopedia calls it) to the village of Gandercleugh.
+
+It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the veteran.
+And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath, overshadowed by
+the row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his upright form advancing
+towards me with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me
+the military salute--but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
+under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
+corner of the churchyard.
+
+The delight which I had in Sergeant M'Alpin's conversation, related
+not only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the
+course of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous
+Highland traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his
+parents, and of which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of
+heresy to question the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars
+of Montrose, in which some of the Sergeant's ancestry had, it seems,
+taken a distinguished part. It has happened, that, although these civil
+commotions reflect the highest honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed
+the first occasion upon which they showed themselves superior, or even
+equal to their Low-country neighbours in military encounters, they have
+been less commemorated among them than any one would have expected,
+judging from the abundance of traditions which they have preserved upon
+less interesting subjects. It was, therefore, with great pleasure, that
+I extracted from my military friend some curious particulars respecting
+that time; they are mixed with that measure of the wild and wonderful
+which belongs to the period and the narrator, but which I do not in the
+least object to the reader's treating with disbelief, providing he
+will be so good as to give implicit credit to the natural events of the
+story, which, like all those which I have had the honour to put under
+his notice, actually rest upon a basis of truth.
+
+
+
+
+III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     Such as do build their faith upon
+     The holy text of pike and gun,
+     Decide all controversies by
+     Infallible artillery,
+     And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+     By apostolic blows and knocks.--BUTLER.
+
+It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which
+agitated Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale has its
+commencement. Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of
+intestine war, although its inhabitants were much divided in political
+opinions; and many of them, tired of the control of the Estates of
+Parliament, and disapproving of the bold measure which they had
+adopted, by sending into England a large army to the assistance of
+the Parliament, were determined on their part to embrace the earliest
+opportunity of declaring for the King, and making such a diversion
+as should at least compel the recall of General Leslie's army out of
+England, if it did not recover a great part of Scotland to the King's
+allegiance. This plan was chiefly adopted by the northern nobility, who
+had resisted with great obstinacy the adoption of the Solemn League and
+Covenant, and by many of the chiefs of the Highland clans, who conceived
+their interest and authority to be connected with royalty, who had,
+besides, a decided aversion to the Presbyterian form of religion, and
+who, finally, were in that half savage state of society, in which war is
+always more welcome than peace.
+
+Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these concurrent
+causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation, which the Scotch
+Highlanders at all times exercised upon the Lowlands, began to assume a
+more steady, avowed, and systematic form, as part of a general military
+system.
+
+Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of the
+moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel it. They
+considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader or name of
+consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of royalists,
+or even to direct the efforts of those desultory bands, whom love of
+plunder, perhaps, as much as political principle, had hurried into
+measures of hostility. It was generally hoped that the quartering a
+sufficient number of troops in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland
+line, would have the effect of restraining the mountain chieftains;
+while the power of various barons in the north, who had espoused the
+Covenant, as, for example, the Earl Mareschal, the great families of
+Forbes, Leslie, and Irvine, the Grants, and other Presbyterian clans,
+might counterbalance and bridle, not only the strength of the Ogilvies
+and other cavaliers of Angus and Kincardine, but even the potent family
+of the Gordons, whose extensive authority was only equalled by their
+extreme dislike to the Presbyterian model.
+
+In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but the
+power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken, and the
+spirit of their chieftains intimidated, by the predominating influence
+of the Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the confidence of the Convention
+of Estates was reposed with the utmost security; and whose power in
+the Highlands, already exorbitant, had been still farther increased
+by concessions extorted from the King at the last pacification. It was
+indeed well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise
+than personal courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue
+of state, than to control the tribes of hostile mountaineers; yet the
+numbers of his clan, and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it
+was led, might, it was supposed, atone for the personal deficiencies of
+their chief; and as the Campbells had already severely humbled several
+of the neighbouring tribes, it was supposed these would not readily
+again provoke an encounter with a body so powerful.
+
+Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,
+indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,--Fifeshire being in a
+peculiar manner their own, and possessing many and powerful friends even
+north of the Forth and Tay,--the Scottish Convention of Estates saw no
+danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had
+adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the
+English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means
+of which accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the
+defensive, when in full career of triumph and success.
+
+The causes which moved the Convention of Estates at this time to take
+such an immediate and active interest in the civil war of England, are
+detailed in our historians, but may be here shortly recapitulated. They
+had indeed no new injury or aggression to complain of at the hand of the
+King, and the peace which had been made between Charles and his subjects
+of Scotland had been carefully observed; but the Scottish rulers were
+well aware that this peace had been extorted from the King, as well by
+the influence of the parliamentary party in England, as by the terror
+of their own arms. It is true, King Charles had since then visited the
+capital of his ancient kingdom, had assented to the new organization of
+the church, and had distributed honours and rewards among the leaders of
+the party which had shown themselves most hostile to his interests; but
+it was suspected that distinctions so unwillingly conferred would be
+resumed as soon as opportunity offered. The low state of the English
+Parliament was seen in Scotland with deep apprehension; and it was
+concluded, that should Charles triumph by force of arms against his
+insurgent subjects of England, he would not be long in exacting from the
+Scotch the vengeance which he might suppose due to those who had set
+the example of taking up arms against him. Such was the policy of the
+measure which dictated the sending the auxiliary army into England; and
+it was avowed in a manifesto explanatory of their reasons for giving
+this timely and important aid to the English Parliament. The English
+Parliament, they said, had been already friendly to them, and might
+be so again; whereas the King, although he had so lately established
+religion among them according to their desires, had given them no ground
+to confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had found his promises
+and actions inconsistent with each other. "Our conscience," they
+concluded, "and God, who is greater than our conscience, beareth us
+record, that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of both
+nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing in a legal
+way, those who are the troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell, the
+Korahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs,
+the Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither
+have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean for
+compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which we could
+think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us, ULTIMUM ET
+UNICUM REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy."
+
+Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party is
+justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion that, in
+certain future contingencies, it might be infringed by the other, we
+shall proceed to mention two other circumstances that had at least equal
+influence with the Scottish rulers and nation, with any doubts which
+they entertained of the King's good faith.
+
+The first of these was the nature and condition of their army; headed by
+a poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was officered chiefly
+by Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served in the German wars until
+they had lost almost all distinction of political principle, and even
+of country, in the adoption of the mercenary faith, that a soldier's
+principal duty was fidelity to the state or sovereign from whom he
+received his pay, without respect either to the justice of the quarrel,
+or to their own connexion with either of the contending parties. To men
+of this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character--NULLUM VITAE GENUS
+ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE CONDUCTI,
+MILITANT. To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to the needy gentry
+with whom they were mixed in command, and who easily imbibed the same
+opinions, the success of the late short invasion of England in 1641 was
+a sufficient reason for renewing so profitable an experiment. The good
+pay and free quarters of England had made a feeling impression upon the
+recollection of these military adventurers, and the prospect of again
+levying eight hundred and fifty pounds a-day, came in place of all
+arguments, whether of state or of morality.
+
+Another cause inflamed the minds of the nation at large, no less than
+the tempting prospect of the wealth of England animated the soldiery.
+So much had been written and said on either side concerning the form
+of church government, that it had become a matter of infinitely more
+consequence in the eyes of the multitude than the doctrines of
+that gospel which both churches had embraced. The Prelatists and
+Presbyterians of the more violent kind became as illiberal as the
+Papists, and would scarcely allow the possibility of salvation beyond
+the pale of their respective churches. It was in vain remarked to
+these zealots, that had the Author of our holy religion considered any
+peculiar form of church government as essential to salvation, it would
+have been revealed with the same precision as under the Old Testament
+dispensation. Both parties continued as violent as if they could have
+pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to justify their intolerance,
+Laud, in the days of his domination, had fired the train, by attempting
+to impose upon the Scottish people church ceremonies foreign to their
+habits and opinions. The success with which this had been resisted, and
+the Presbyterian model substituted in its place, had endeared the latter
+to the nation, as the cause in which they had triumphed. The Solemn
+League and Covenant, adopted with such zeal by the greater part of the
+kingdom, and by them forced, at the sword's point, upon the others, bore
+in its bosom, as its principal object, the establishing the doctrine and
+discipline of the Presbyterian church, and the putting down all error
+and heresy; and having attained for their own country an establishment
+of this golden candlestick, the Scots became liberally and fraternally
+anxious to erect the same in England. This they conceived might be
+easily attained by lending to the Parliament the effectual assistance of
+the Scottish forces. The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in
+the English Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the
+King; while the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards, under
+Cromwell, resumed the power of the sword, and overset the Presbyterian
+model both in Scotland and England, were as yet contented to lurk under
+the shelter of the wealthier and more powerful party. The prospect
+of bringing to a uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in
+discipline and worship, seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.
+
+The celebrated Sir Henry Vane, one of the commissioners who negotiated
+the alliance betwixt England and Scotland, saw the influence which this
+bait had upon the spirits of those with whom he dealt; and although
+himself a violent Independent, he contrived at once to gratify and
+to elude the eager desires of the Presbyterians, by qualifying the
+obligation to reform the Church of England, as a change to be executed
+"according to the word of God, and the best reformed churches." Deceived
+by their own eagerness, themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS
+DIVINUM of their own ecclesiastical establishments, and not holding
+it possible such doubts could be adopted by others, the Convention
+of Estates and the Kirk of Scotland conceived, that such expressions
+necessarily inferred the establishment of Presbytery; nor were they
+undeceived, until, when their help was no longer needful, the sectaries
+gave them to understand, that the phrase might be as well applied to
+Independency, or any other mode of worship, which those who were at the
+head of affairs at the time might consider as agreeable "to the word
+of God, and the practice of the reformed churches." Neither were the
+outwitted Scottish less astonished to find, that the designs of the
+English sectaries struck against the monarchial constitution of Britain,
+it having been their intention to reduce the power of the King, but by
+no means to abrogate the office. They fared, however, in this respect,
+like rash physicians, who commence by over-physicking a patient, until
+he is reduced to a state of weakness, from which cordials are afterwards
+unable to recover him.
+
+But these events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the Scottish
+Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice,
+prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to
+their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax
+and Manchester, enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to
+fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert
+and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated. The Scottish auxiliaries,
+indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen
+could desire. David Leslie, with their cavalry, fought bravely, and to
+them, as well as to Cromwell's brigade of Independents, the honour of
+the day belonged; but the old Earl of Leven, the covenanting general,
+was driven out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert,
+and was thirty miles distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he
+was overtaken by the news that his party had gained a complete victory.
+
+The absence of these auxiliary troops, upon this crusade for the
+establishment of Presbyterianism in England, had considerably diminished
+the power of the Convention of Estates in Scotland, and had given rise
+to those agitations among the anti-covenanters, which we have noticed at
+the beginning of this chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     His mother could for him as cradle set
+     Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
+     Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,
+     That never plain'd of his uneasy nest;
+     Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,
+     And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.--HALL'S SATIRES
+
+It was towards the close of a summer's evening, during the anxious
+period which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman of quality,
+well mounted and armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom led
+a sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep passes, by which the
+Highlands are accessible from the Lowlands of Perthshire. [The beautiful
+pass of Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects,
+answer this description.] Their course had lain for some time along the
+banks of a lake, whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the
+western sun. The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty,
+was in some places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees, and in
+others overhung by fragments of huge rock. Elsewhere, the hill, which
+formed the northern side of this beautiful sheet of water, arose in
+steep, but less precipitous acclivity, and was arrayed in heath of the
+darkest purple. In the present times, a scene so romantic would have
+been judged to possess the highest charms for the traveller; but
+those who journey in days of doubt and dread, pay little attention to
+picturesque scenery.
+
+The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one or both
+of his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with them, probably
+because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who
+are made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions of the leading
+men who inhabit this wild country, and the probability of their taking
+part in the political convulsions that were soon expected, were the
+subjects of their conversation.
+
+They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young
+gentleman was pointing to his attendants the spot where their intended
+road turned northwards, and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a
+ravine to the right hand, when they discovered a single horseman coming
+down the shore, as if to meet them. The gleam of the sunbeams upon his
+head-piece and corslet showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of
+the other travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned.
+"We must know who he is," said the young gentleman, "and whither he is
+going." And putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the
+rugged state of the road would permit, followed by his two attendants,
+until he reached the point where the pass along the side of the lake
+was intersected by that which descended from the ravine, securing thus
+against the possibility of the stranger eluding them, by turning into
+the latter road before they came up with him.
+
+The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed the
+three riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw them halt and
+form a front, which completely occupied the path, he checked his
+horse, and advanced with great deliberation; so that each party had an
+opportunity to take a full survey of the other. The solitary stranger
+was mounted upon an able horse, fit for military service, and for
+the great weight which he had to carry, and his rider occupied his
+demipique, or war-saddle, with an air that showed it was his familiar
+seat. He had a bright burnished head-piece, with a plume of feathers,
+together with a cuirass, thick enough to resist a musket-ball, and a
+back-piece of lighter materials. These defensive arms he wore over a
+buff jerkin, along with a pair of gauntlets, or steel gloves, the
+tops of which reached up to his elbow, and which, like the rest of his
+armour, were of bright steel. At the front of his military saddle hung
+a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size, nearly two feet in
+length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the pound. A buff belt, with a
+broad silver buckle, sustained on one side a long straight double-edged
+broadsword, with a strong guard, and a blade calculated either to strike
+or push. On the right side hung a dagger of about eighteen inches
+in length; a shoulder-belt sustained at his back a musketoon or
+blunderbuss, and was crossed by a bandelier containing his charges of
+ammunition. Thigh-pieces of steel, then termed taslets, met the tops of
+his huge jack-boots, and completed the equipage of a well-armed trooper
+of the period.
+
+The appearance of the horseman himself corresponded well with his
+military equipage, to which he had the air of having been long inured.
+He was above the middle size, and of strength sufficient to bear with
+ease the weight of his weapons, offensive and defensive. His age
+might be forty and upwards, and his countenance was that of a resolute
+weather-beaten veteran, who had seen many fields, and brought away
+in token more than one scar. At the distance of about thirty yards
+he halted and stood fast, raised himself on his stirrups, as if to
+reconnoitre and ascertain the purpose of the opposite party, and brought
+his musketoon under his right arm, ready for use, if occasion should
+require it. In everything but numbers, he had the advantage of those who
+seemed inclined to interrupt his passage.
+
+The leader of the party was, indeed, well mounted and clad in a buff
+coat, richly embroidered, the half-military dress of the period; but his
+domestics had only coarse jackets of thick felt, which could scarce be
+expected to turn the edge of a sword, if wielded by a strong man; and
+none of them had any weapons, save swords and pistols, without which
+gentlemen, or their attendants, during those disturbed times, seldom
+stirred abroad.
+
+When they had stood at gaze for about a minute, the younger gentleman
+gave the challenge which was then common in the mouth of all strangers
+who met in such circumstances--"For whom are you?"
+
+"Tell me first," answered the soldier, "for whom are you?--the strongest
+party should speak first."
+
+"We are for God and King Charles," answered the first speaker.--"Now
+tell your faction, you know ours."
+
+"I am for God and my standard," answered the single horseman.
+
+"And for which standard?" replied the chief of the other
+party--"Cavalier or Roundhead, King or Convention?"
+
+"By my troth, sir," answered the soldier, "I would be loath to reply to
+you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of fortune and
+a soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming veracity, it
+is necessary I should myself have resolved to whilk of the present
+divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately adhere, being a matter
+whereon my mind is not as yet preceesely ascertained."
+
+"I should have thought," answered the gentleman, "that, when loyalty and
+religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be long in
+choosing his party."
+
+"Truly, sir," replied the trooper, "if ye speak this in the way of
+vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would
+blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my single
+person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of logical
+ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the Mareschal-College
+of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye LOGICE, that my resolution
+to defer, for a certain season, the taking upon me either of these
+quarrels, not only becometh me as a gentleman and a man of honour, but
+also as a person of sense and prudence, one imbued with humane letters
+in his early youth, and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars
+under the banner of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and
+under many other heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist, Papist and
+Arminian."
+
+After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger gentleman
+replied, "I should be glad, sir, to have some conversation with you upon
+so interesting a question, and should be proud if I can determine you
+in favour of the cause I have myself espoused. I ride this evening to
+a friend's house not three miles distant, whither, if you choose to
+accompany me, you shall have good quarters for the night, and free
+permission to take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no
+inclination to join with us."
+
+"Whose word am I to take for this?" answered the cautious soldier--"A
+man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade."
+
+"I am called," answered the younger stranger, "the Earl of Menteith,
+and, I trust, you will receive my honour as a sufficient security."
+
+"A worthy nobleman," answered the soldier, "whose parole is not to be
+doubted." With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his back,
+and with another made his military salute to the young nobleman, and
+continuing to talk as he rode forward to join him--"And, I trust," said
+he, "my own assurance, that I will be BON CAMARADO to your lordship in
+peace or in peril, during the time we shall abide together, will not
+be altogether vilipended in these doubtful times, when, as they say, a
+man's head is safer in a steel-cap than in a marble palace."
+
+"I assure you, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that to judge from your
+appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort; but, I
+trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of valour, as I expect
+to conduct you to good and friendly quarters."
+
+"Good quarters, my lord," replied the soldier, "are always acceptable,
+and are only to be postponed to good pay or good booty,--not to mention
+the honour of a cavalier, or the needful points of commanded duty. And
+truly, my lord, your noble proffer is not the less welcome, in that I
+knew not preceesely this night where I and my poor companion" (patting
+his horse), "were to find lodgments."
+
+"May I be permitted to ask, then," said Lord Menteith, "to whom I have
+the good fortune to stand quarter-master?"
+
+"Truly, my lord," said the trooper, "my name is Dalgetty--Dugald
+Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your
+honourable service to command. It is a name you may have seen in GALLO
+BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High Dutch, in the
+FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord, having by unthrifty
+courses reduced a fair patrimony to a nonentity, I had no better shift,
+when I was eighteen years auld, than to carry the learning whilk I
+had acquired at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and
+designation of Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and
+legs conform, to the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier of
+fortune. My lord, my legs and arms stood me in more stead than either
+my gentle kin or my book-lear, and I found myself trailing a pike as
+a private gentleman under old Sir Ludovick Leslie, where I learned the
+rules of service so tightly, that I will not forget them in a hurry.
+Sir, I have been made to stand guard eight hours, being from twelve at
+noon to eight o'clock of the night, at the palace, armed with back and
+breast, head-piece and bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter
+frost, and the ice was as hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping
+an instant to speak to my landlady, when I should have gone to
+roll-call."
+
+"And, doubtless, sir," replied Lord Menteith, "you have gone through
+some hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk of?"
+
+"Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that hath seen
+the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to have seen pitched
+battles. And one who hath witnessed the intaking of Frankfort, and
+Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth, should know somewhat about
+leaguers, storms, onslaughts and outfalls."
+
+"But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
+promotion?"
+
+"It came slow, my lord, dooms slow," replied Dalgetty; "but as my
+Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of those
+valorous Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany, began to
+fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with the sword, why
+we, their children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir, I was six years
+first private gentleman of the company, and three years lance speisade;
+disdaining to receive a halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I
+was ultimately promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call
+it (which signifies an ancient), in the King's Leif Regiment of
+Black-Horse, and thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master,
+under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the
+Lion of the North, the terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious."
+
+"And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,--I think that rank
+corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master--"
+
+"The same grade preceesely," answered Dalgetty; "ritt-master signifying
+literally file-leader."
+
+"I was observing," continued Lord Menteith, "that, if I understood you
+right, you had left the service of this great Prince."
+
+"It was after his death--it was after his death, sir," said Dalgetty,
+"when I was in no shape bound to continue mine adherence. There are
+things, my lord, in that service, that cannot but go against the stomach
+of any cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of
+the most superabundant, being only about sixty dollars a-month to a
+ritt-master, yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of
+that sum, whilk was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when
+justly considered, it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of
+the additional two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I have seen
+some whole regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on the field of
+battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt, signifying their
+desire of pay, instead of falling to blows like our noble Scottish
+blades, who ever disdained, my lord, postponing of honour to filthy
+lucre."
+
+"But were not these arrears," said Lord Menteith, "paid to the soldiery
+at some stated period?"
+
+"My lord," said Dalgetty, "I take it on my conscience, that at no
+period, and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever be
+recovered. I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the time I
+served the invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the chance of a storm
+or victory, or the fetching in some town or doorp, when a cavalier of
+fortune, who knows the usage of wars, seldom faileth to make some small
+profit."
+
+"I begin rather to wonder, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that you should
+have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should have
+ultimately withdrawn from it."
+
+"Neither I should," answered the Ritt-master; "but that great leader,
+captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
+Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking towns,
+over-running countries, and levying contributions, whilk made his
+service irresistibly delectable to all true-bred cavaliers who follow
+the noble profession of arms. Simple as I ride here, my lord, I have
+myself commanded the whole stift of Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine,
+occupying the Palsgrave's palace, consuming his choice wines with my
+comrades, calling in contributions, requisitions, and caduacs, and not
+failing to lick my fingers, as became a good cook. But truly all this
+glory hastened to decay, after our great master had been shot with three
+bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore, finding that Fortune had
+changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings went on as before out of
+our pay, while the caduacs and casualties were all cut off, I e'en gave
+up my commission, and took service with Wallenstein, in Walter Butler's
+Irish regiment."
+
+"And may I beg to know of you," said Lord Menteith, apparently
+interested in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, "how you liked
+this change of masters?"
+
+"Indifferent well," said the Captain--"very indifferent well. I cannot
+say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For
+hard knocks, we had plenty of them. I was often obliged to run my head
+against my old acquaintances, the Swedish feathers, whilk your honour
+must conceive to be double-pointed stakes, shod with iron at each
+end, and planted before the squad of pikes to prevent an onfall of the
+cavalry. The whilk Swedish feathers, although they look gay to the eye,
+resembling the shrubs or lesser trees of ane forest, as the puissant
+pikes, arranged in battalia behind them, correspond to the tall pines
+thereof, yet, nevertheless, are not altogether so soft to encounter as
+the plumage of a goose. Howbeit, in despite of heavy blows and light
+pay, a cavalier of fortune may thrive indifferently well in the Imperial
+service, in respect his private casualties are nothing so closely looked
+to as by the Swede; and so that an officer did his duty on the field,
+neither Wallenstein nor Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before them, would
+likely listen to the objurgations of boors or burghers against any
+commander or soldado, by whom they chanced to be somewhat closely shorn.
+So that an experienced cavalier, knowing how to lay, as our Scottish
+phrase runs, 'the head of the sow to the tail of the grice,' might get
+out of the country the pay whilk he could not obtain from the Emperor."
+
+"With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest," said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"Indubitably, my lord," answered Dalgetty, composedly; "for it would be
+doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his name called in
+question for any petty delinquency."
+
+"And pray, Sir," continued Lord Menteith, "what made you leave so
+gainful a service?"
+
+"Why, truly, sir," answered the soldier, "an Irish cavalier, called
+O'Quilligan, being major of our regiment, and I having had words with
+him the night before, respecting the worth and precedence of our several
+nations, it pleased him the next day to deliver his orders to me with
+the point of his batoon advanced and held aloof, instead of declining
+and trailing the same, as is the fashion from a courteous commanding
+officer towards his equal in rank, though, it may be, his inferior in
+military grade. Upon this quarrel, sir, we fought in private rencontre;
+and as, in the perquisitions which followed, it pleased Walter
+Butler, our oberst, or colonel, to give the lighter punishment to
+his countryman, and the heavier to me, whereupon, ill-stomaching such
+partiality, I exchanged my commission for one under the Spaniard."
+
+"I hope you found yourself better off by the change?" said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"In good sooth," answered the Ritt-master, "I had but little to complain
+of. The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by the rich Flemings
+and Waloons of the Low Country. The quarters were excellent; the good
+wheaten loaves of the Flemings were better than the Provant rye-bread of
+the Swede, and Rhenish wine was more plenty with us than ever I saw the
+black-beer of Rostock in Gustavus's camp. Service there was none, duty
+there was little; and that little we might do, or leave undone, at our
+pleasure; an excellent retirement for a cavalier somewhat weary of field
+and leaguer, who had purchased with his blood as much honour as might
+serve his turn, and was desirous of a little ease and good living."
+
+"And may I ask," said Lord Menteith, "why you, Captain, being, as I
+suppose, in the situation you describe, retired from the Spanish service
+also?"
+
+"You are to consider, my lord, that your Spaniard," replied Captain
+Dalgetty, "is a person altogether unparalleled in his own conceit,
+where-through he maketh not fit account of such foreign cavaliers of
+valour as are pleased to take service with him. And a galling thing
+it is to every honourable soldado, to be put aside, and postponed, and
+obliged to yield preference to every puffing signor, who, were it the
+question which should first mount a breach at push of pike, might be
+apt to yield willing place to a Scottish cavalier. Moreover, sir, I was
+pricked in conscience respecting a matter of religion."
+
+"I should not have thought, Captain Dalgetty," said the young nobleman,
+"that an old soldier, who had changed service so often, would have been
+too scrupulous on that head."
+
+"No more I am, my lord," said the Captain, "since I hold it to be the
+duty of the chaplain of the regiment to settle those matters for me, and
+every other brave cavalier, inasmuch as he does nothing else that I know
+of for his pay and allowances. But this was a particular case, my lord,
+a CASUS IMPROVISUS, as I may say, in whilk I had no chaplain of my own
+persuasion to act as my adviser. I found, in short, that although my
+being a Protestant might be winked at, in respect that I was a man of
+action, and had more experience than all the Dons in our TERTIA put
+together, yet, when in garrison, it was expected I should go to mass
+with the regiment. Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated at
+the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the mass to be
+an act of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I was altogether
+unwilling to homologate by my presence. True it is, that I consulted on
+the point with a worthy countryman of my own, one Father Fatsides, of
+the Scottish Covenant in Wurtzburg--"
+
+"And I hope," observed Lord Menteith, "you obtained a clear opinion from
+this same ghostly father?"
+
+"As clear as it could be," replied Captain Dalgetty, "considering we had
+drunk six flasks of Rhenish, and about two mutchkins of Kirchenwasser.
+Father Fatsides informed me, that, as nearly as he could judge for a
+heretic like myself, it signified not much whether I went to mass or
+not, seeing my eternal perdition was signed and sealed at any rate,
+in respect of my impenitent and obdurate perseverance in my damnable
+heresy. Being discouraged by this response, I applied to a Dutch pastor
+of the reformed church, who told me, he thought I might lawfully go
+to mass, in respect that the prophet permitted Naaman, a mighty man of
+valour, and an honourable cavalier of Syria, to follow his master into
+the house of Rimmon, a false god, or idol, to whom he had vowed service,
+and to bow down when the king was leaning upon his hand. But neither
+was this answer satisfactory to me, both because there was an unco
+difference between an anointed King of Syria and our Spanish colonel,
+whom I could have blown away like the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly
+because I could not find the thing was required of me by any of the
+articles of war; neither was I proffered any consideration, either in
+perquisite or pay, for the wrong I might thereby do to my conscience."
+
+"So you again changed your service?" said Lord Menteith.
+
+"In troth did I, my lord; and after trying for a short while two
+or three other powers, I even took on for a time with their High
+Mightinesses the States of Holland."
+
+"And how did their service jump with your humour?" again demanded his
+companion.
+
+"O! my lord," said the soldier, in a sort of enthusiasm, "their
+behaviour on pay-day might be a pattern to all Europe--no borrowings, no
+lendings, no offsets no arrears--all balanced and paid like a
+banker's book. The quarters, too, are excellent, and the allowances
+unchallengeable; but then, sir, they are a preceese, scrupulous people,
+and will allow nothing for peccadilloes. So that if a boor complains of
+a broken head, or a beer-seller of a broken can, or a daft wench does
+but squeak loud enough to be heard above her breath, a soldier of honour
+shall be dragged, not before his own court-martial, who can best judge
+of and punish his demerits, but before a base mechanical burgo-master,
+who shall menace him with the rasp-house, the cord, and what not, as if
+he were one of their own mean, amphibious, twenty-breeched boors. So
+not being able to dwell longer among those ungrateful plebeians, who,
+although unable to defend themselves by their proper strength, will
+nevertheless allow the noble foreign cavalier who engages with them
+nothing beyond his dry wages, which no honourable spirit will put
+in competition with a liberal license and honourable countenance, I
+resolved to leave the service of the Mynheers. And hearing at this time,
+to my exceeding satisfaction, that there is something to be doing this
+summer in my way in this my dear native country, I am come hither,
+as they say, like a beggar to a bridal, in order to give my loving
+countrymen the advantage of that experience which I have acquired
+in foreign parts. So your lordship has an outline of my brief story,
+excepting my deportment in those passages of action in the field, in
+leaguers, storms, and onslaughts, whilk would be wearisome to narrate,
+and might, peradventure, better befit any other tongue than mine own."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     For pleas of right let statesmen vex their head,
+     Battle's my business, and my guerdon bread;
+     And, with the sworded Switzer, I can say,
+     The best of causes is the best of pay.--DONNE.
+
+The difficulty and narrowness of the road had by this time become such
+as to interrupt the conversation of the travellers, and Lord Menteith,
+reining back his horse, held a moment's private conversation with his
+domestics. The Captain, who now led the van of the party, after about
+a quarter of a mile's slow and toilsome advance up a broken and rugged
+ascent, emerged into an upland valley, to which a mountain stream acted
+as a drain, and afforded sufficient room upon its greensward banks for
+the travellers to pursue their journey in a more social manner.
+
+Lord Menteith accordingly resumed the conversation, which had been
+interrupted by the difficulties of the way. "I should have thought,"
+said he to Captain Dalgetty, "that a cavalier of your honourable mark,
+who hath so long followed the valiant King of Sweden, and entertains
+such a suitable contempt for the base mechanical States of Holland,
+would not have hesitated to embrace the cause of King Charles, in
+preference to that of the low-born, roundheaded, canting knaves, who are
+in rebellion against his authority?"
+
+"Ye speak reasonably, my lord," said Dalgetty, "and, CAETERIS PARIBUS,
+I might be induced to see the matter in the same light. But, my lord,
+there is a southern proverb, fine words butter no parsnips. I have heard
+enough since I came here, to satisfy me that a cavalier of honour is
+free to take any part in this civil embroilment whilk he may find
+most convenient for his own peculiar. Loyalty is your pass-word,
+my lord--Liberty, roars another chield from the other side of
+the strath--the King, shouts one war-cry--the Parliament, roars
+another--Montrose, for ever, cries Donald, waving his bonnet--Argyle
+and Leven, cries a south-country Saunders, vapouring with his hat
+and feather. Fight for the bishops, says a priest, with his gown and
+rochet--Stand stout for the Kirk, cries a minister, in a Geneva cap and
+band.--Good watchwords all--excellent watchwords. Whilk cause is the
+best I cannot say. But sure am I, that I have fought knee-deep in blood
+many a day for one that was ten degrees worse than the worst of them
+all."
+
+"And pray, Captain Dalgetty," said his lordship, "since the pretensions
+of both parties seem to you so equal, will you please to inform us by
+what circumstances your preference will be determined?"
+
+"Simply upon two considerations, my lord," answered the soldier.
+"Being, first, on which side my services would be in most honourable
+request;--And, secondly, whilk is a corollary of the first, by whilk
+party they are likely to be most gratefully requited. And, to deal
+plainly with you, my lord, my opinion at present doth on both points
+rather incline to the side of the Parliament."
+
+"Your reasons, if you please," said Lord Menteith, "and perhaps I may be
+able to meet them with some others which are more powerful."
+
+"Sir, I shall be amenable to reason," said Captain Dalgetty, "supposing
+it addresses itself to my honour and my interest. Well, then, my lord,
+here is a sort of Highland host assembled, or expected to assemble, in
+these wild hills, in the King's behalf. Now, sir, you know the nature of
+our Highlanders. I will not deny them to be a people stout in body
+and valiant in heart, and courageous enough in their own wild way of
+fighting, which is as remote from the usages and discipline of war as
+ever was that of the ancient Scythians, or of the salvage Indians of
+America that now is, They havena sae mickle as a German whistle, or a
+drum, to beat a march, an alarm, a charge, a retreat, a reveille, or the
+tattoo, or any other point of war; and their damnable skirlin' pipes,
+whilk they themselves pretend to understand, are unintelligible to the
+ears of any cavaliero accustomed to civilised warfare. So that, were I
+undertaking to discipline such a breechless mob, it were impossible for
+me to be understood; and if I were understood, judge ye, my lord, what
+chance I had of being obeyed among a band of half salvages, who are
+accustomed to pay to their own lairds and chiefs, allenarly, that
+respect and obedience whilk ought to be paid to commissionate officers.
+If I were teaching them to form battalia by extracting the square root,
+that is, by forming your square battalion of equal number of men of rank
+and file, corresponding to the square root of the full number present,
+what return could I expect for communicating this golden secret of
+military tactic, except it may be a dirk in my wame, on placing some
+M'Alister More M'Shemei or Capperfae, in the flank or rear, when he
+claimed to be in the van?--Truly, well saith holy writ, 'if ye cast
+pearls before swine, they will turn again and rend ye.'"
+
+"I believe, Anderson," said Lord Menteith, looking back to one of
+his servants, for both were close behind him, "you can assure this
+gentleman, we shall have more occasion for experienced officers, and be
+more disposed to profit by their instructions, than he seems to be aware
+of."
+
+"With your honour's permission," said Anderson, respectfully raising his
+cap, "when we are joined by the Irish infantry, who are expected, and
+who should be landed in the West Highlands before now, we shall have
+need of good soldiers to discipline our levies."
+
+"And I should like well--very well, to be employed in such service,"
+said Dalgetty; "the Irish are pretty fellows--very pretty fellows--I
+desire to see none better in the field. I once saw a brigade of Irish,
+at the taking of Frankfort upon the Oder, stand to it with sword and
+pike until they beat off the blue and yellow Swedish brigades, esteemed
+as stout as any that fought under the immortal Gustavus. And although
+stout Hepburn, valiant Lumsdale, courageous Monroe, with myself and
+other cavaliers, made entry elsewhere at point of pike, yet, had we all
+met with such opposition, we had returned with great loss and little
+profit. Wherefore these valiant Irishes, being all put to the sword,
+as is usual in such cases, did nevertheless gain immortal praise and
+honour; so that, for their sakes, I have always loved and honoured those
+of that nation next to my own country of Scotland."
+
+"A command of Irish," said Menteith, "I think I could almost promise
+you, should you be disposed to embrace the royal cause."
+
+"And yet," said Captain Dalgetty, "my second and greatest difficulty
+remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and sordid thing for a
+soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay and gelt, like the base
+cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I mentioned before; and although
+I will maintain it with my sword, that honour is to be preferred before
+pay, free quarters, and arrears, yet, EX CONTRARIO, a soldier's pay
+being the counterpart of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise
+and considerate cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive
+for his service, and from what funds it is to be paid. And truly,
+my lord, from what I can see and hear, the Convention are the
+purse-masters. The Highlanders, indeed, may be kept in humour, by
+allowing them to steal cattle; and for the Irishes, your lordship and
+your noble associates may, according to the practice of the wars in
+such cases, pay them as seldom or as little as may suit your pleasure or
+convenience; but the same mode of treatment doth not apply to a cavalier
+like me, who must keep up his horses, servants, arms, and equipage, and
+who neither can, nor will, go to warfare upon his own charges."
+
+Anderson, the domestic who had before spoken now respectfully addressed
+his master.--"I think, my lord," he said, "that, under your lordship's
+favour, I could say something to remove Captain Dalgetty's second
+objection also. He asks us where we are to collect our pay; now, in my
+poor mind, the resources are as open to us as to the Covenanters. They
+tax the country according to their pleasure, and dilapidate the estates
+of the King's friends; now, were we once in the Lowlands, with our
+Highlanders and our Irish at our backs, and our swords in our hands,
+we can find many a fat traitor, whose ill-gotten wealth shall fill our
+military chest and satisfy our soldiery. Besides, confiscations will
+fall in thick; and, in giving donations of forfeited lands to every
+adventurous cavalier who joins his standard, the King will at once
+reward his friends and punish his enemies. In short, he that joins these
+Roundhead dogs may get some miserable pittance of pay--he that joins our
+standard has a chance to be knight, lord, or earl, if luck serve him."
+
+"Have you ever served, my good friend?" said the Captain to the
+spokesman.
+
+"A little, sir, in these our domestic quarrels," answered the man,
+modestly.
+
+"But never in Germany or the Low Countries?" said Dalgetty.
+
+"I never had the honour," answered Anderson.
+
+"I profess," said Dalgetty, addressing Lord Menteith, "your lordship's
+servant has a sensible, natural, pretty idea of military matters;
+somewhat irregular, though, and smells a little too much of selling the
+bear's skin before he has hunted him.--I will take the matter, however,
+into my consideration."
+
+"Do so, Captain," said Lord Menteith; "you will have the night to think
+of it, for we are now near the house, where I hope to ensure you a
+hospitable reception."
+
+"And that is what will be very welcome," said the Captain, "for I have
+tasted no food since daybreak but a farl of oatcake, which I divided
+with my horse. So I have been fain to draw my sword-belt three bores
+tighter for very extenuation, lest hunger and heavy iron should make the
+gird slip."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Once on a time, no matter when,
+     Some Glunimies met in a glen;
+     As deft and tight as ever wore
+     A durk, a targe, and a claymore,
+     Short hose, and belted plaid or trews,
+     In Uist, Lochaber, Skye, or Lewes,
+     Or cover'd hard head with his bonnet;
+     Had you but known them, you would own it.--MESTON.
+
+A hill was now before the travellers, covered with an ancient forest
+of Scottish firs, the topmost of which, flinging their scathed branches
+across the western horizon, gleamed ruddy in the setting sun. In the
+centre of this wood rose the towers, or rather the chimneys, of the
+house, or castle, as it was called, destined for the end of their
+journey.
+
+As usual at that period, one or two high-ridged narrow buildings,
+intersecting and crossing each other, formed the CORPS DE LOGIS. A
+protecting bartizan or two, with the addition of small turrets at the
+angles, much resembling pepper-boxes, had procured for Darnlinvarach the
+dignified appellation of a castle. It was surrounded by a low court-yard
+wall, within which were the usual offices.
+
+As the travellers approached more nearly, they discovered marks of
+recent additions to the defences of the place, which had been suggested,
+doubtless, by the insecurity of those troublesome times. Additional
+loop-holes for musketry were struck out in different parts of the
+building, and of its surrounding wall. The windows had just been
+carefully secured by stancheons of iron, crossing each other athwart and
+end-long, like the grates of a prison. The door of the court-yard was
+shut; and it was only after cautious challenge that one of its leaves
+was opened by two domestics, both strong Highlanders, and both under
+arms, like Bitias and Pandarus in the AEneid, ready to defend the
+entrance if aught hostile had ventured an intrusion.
+
+When the travellers were admitted into the court, they found additional
+preparations for defence. The walls were scaffolded for the use of
+fire-arms, and one or two of the small guns, called sackers, or falcons,
+were mounted at the angles and flanking turrets.
+
+More domestics, both in the Highland and Lowland dress, instantly rushed
+from the anterior of the mansion, and some hastened to take the horses
+of the strangers, while others waited to marshal them a way into the
+dwelling-house. But Captain Dalgetty refused the proffered assistance
+of those who wished to relieve him of the charge of his horse. "It is my
+custom, my friends, to see Gustavus (for so I have called him, after
+my invincible master) accommodated myself; we are old friends and
+fellow-travellers, and as I often need the use of his legs, I always
+lend him in my turn the service of my tongue, to call for whatever he
+has occasion for;" and accordingly he strode into the stable after his
+steed without farther apology.
+
+Neither Lord Menteith nor his attendants paid the same attention to
+their horses, but, leaving them to the proffered care of the servants of
+the place, walked forward into the house, where a sort of dark vaulted
+vestibule displayed, among other miscellaneous articles, a huge barrel
+of two-penny ale, beside which were ranged two or three wooden queichs,
+or bickers, ready, it would appear, for the service of whoever thought
+proper to employ them. Lord Menteith applied himself to the spigot,
+drank without ceremony, and then handed the stoup to Anderson, who
+followed his master's example, but not until he had flung out the drop
+of ale which remained, and slightly rinsed the wooden cup.
+
+"What the deil, man," said an old Highland servant belonging to the
+family, "can she no drink after her ain master without washing the cup
+and spilling the ale, and be tamned to her!"
+
+"I was bred in France," answered Anderson, "where nobody drinks after
+another out of the same cup, unless it be after a young lady."
+
+"The teil's in their nicety!" said Donald; "and if the ale be gude, fat
+the waur is't that another man's beard's been in the queich before ye?"
+
+Anderson's companion drank without observing the ceremony which had
+given Donald so much offence, and both of them followed their master
+into the low-arched stone hall, which was the common rendezvous of a
+Highland family. A large fire of peats in the huge chimney at the upper
+end shed a dim light through the apartment, and was rendered necessary
+by the damp, by which, even during the summer, the apartment was
+rendered uncomfortable. Twenty or thirty targets, as many claymores,
+with dirks, and plaids, and guns, both match-lock and fire-lock, and
+long-bows, and cross-bows, and Lochaber axes, and coats of plate armour,
+and steel bonnets, and headpieces, and the more ancient haborgeons, or
+shirts of reticulated mail, with hood and sleeves corresponding to it,
+all hung in confusion about the walls, and would have formed a month's
+amusement to a member of a modern antiquarian society. But such things
+were too familiar, to attract much observation on the part of the
+present spectators.
+
+There was a large clumsy oaken table, which the hasty hospitality of the
+domestic who had before spoken, immediately spread with milk, butter,
+goat-milk cheese, a flagon of beer, and a flask of usquebae, designed
+for the refreshment of Lord Menteith; while an inferior servant made
+similar preparations at the bottom of the table for the benefit of his
+attendants. The space which intervened between them was, according to
+the manners of the times, sufficient distinction between master and
+servant, even though the former was, as in the present instance, of high
+rank. Meanwhile the guests stood by the fire--the young nobleman under
+the chimney, and his servants at some little distance.
+
+"What do you think, Anderson," said the former, "of our
+fellow-traveller?"
+
+"A stout fellow," replied Anderson, "if all be good that is upcome.
+I wish we had twenty such, to put our Teagues into some sort of
+discipline."
+
+"I differ from you, Anderson," said Lord Menteith; "I think this fellow
+Dalgetty is one of those horse-leeches, whose appetite for blood being
+only sharpened by what he has sucked in foreign countries, he is now
+returned to batten upon that of his own. Shame on the pack of these
+mercenary swordmen! they have made the name of Scot through all Europe
+equivalent to that of a pitiful mercenary, who knows neither honour
+nor principle but his month's pay, who transfers his allegiance from
+standard to standard, at the pleasure of fortune or the highest bidder;
+and to whose insatiable thirst for plunder and warm quarters we owe much
+of that civil dissension which is now turning our swords against our own
+bowels. I had scarce patience with the hired gladiator, and yet could
+hardly help laughing at the extremity of his impudence."
+
+"Your lordship will forgive me," said Anderson, "if I recommend to
+you, in the present circumstances, to conceal at least a part of this
+generous indignation; we cannot, unfortunately, do our work without the
+assistance of those who act on baser motives than our own. We cannot
+spare the assistance of such fellows as our friend the soldado. To use
+the canting phrase of the saints in the English Parliament, the sons of
+Zeruiah are still too many for us."
+
+"I must dissemble, then, as well as I can," said Lord Menteith, "as I
+have hitherto done, upon your hint. But I wish the fellow at the devil
+with all my heart."
+
+"Ay, but still you must remember, my lord," resumed Anderson, "that
+to cure the bite of a scorpion, you must crush another scorpion on the
+wound--But stop, we shall be overheard."
+
+From a side-door in the hall glided a Highlander into the apartment,
+whose lofty stature and complete equipment, as well as the eagle's
+feather in his bonnet, and the confidence of his demeanour, announced to
+be a person of superior rank. He walked slowly up to the table, and made
+no answer to Lord Menteith, who, addressing him by the name of Allan,
+asked him how he did.
+
+"Ye manna speak to her e'en now," whispered the old attendant.
+
+The tall Highlander, sinking down upon the empty settle next the fire,
+fixed his eyes upon the red embers and the huge heap of turf, and seemed
+buried in profound abstraction. His dark eyes, and wild and enthusiastic
+features, bore the air of one who, deeply impressed with his own
+subjects of meditation, pays little attention to exterior objects.
+An air of gloomy severity, the fruit perhaps of ascetic and solitary
+habits, might, in a Lowlander, have been ascribed to religious
+fanaticism; but by that disease of the mind, then so common both in
+England and the Lowlands of Scotland, the Highlanders of this
+period were rarely infected. They had, however, their own peculiar
+superstitions, which overclouded the mind with thick-coming fancies, as
+completely as the puritanism of their neighbours.
+
+"His lordship's honour," said the Highland servant sideling up to Lord
+Menteith, and speaking in a very low tone, "his lordship manna speak to
+Allan even now, for the cloud is upon his mind."
+
+Lord Menteith nodded, and took no farther notice of the reserved
+mountaineer.
+
+"Said I not," asked the latter, suddenly raising his stately person
+upright, and looking at the domestic--"said I not that four were to
+come, and here stand but three on the hall floor?"
+
+"In troth did ye say sae, Allan," said the old Highlander, "and here's
+the fourth man coming clinking in at the yett e'en now from the stable,
+for he's shelled like a partan, wi' airn on back and breast, haunch and
+shanks. And am I to set her chair up near the Menteith's, or down wi'
+the honest gentlemen at the foot of the table?"
+
+Lord Menteith himself answered the enquiry, by pointing to a seat beside
+his own.
+
+"And here she comes," said Donald, as Captain Dalgetty entered the hall;
+"and I hope gentlemens will all take bread and cheese, as we say in the
+glens, until better meat be ready, until the Tiernach comes back frae
+the hill wi' the southern gentlefolk, and then Dugald Cook will show
+himself wi' his kid and hill venison."
+
+In the meantime, Captain Dalgetty had entered the apartment, and walking
+up to the seat placed next Lord Menteith, was leaning on the back of it
+with his arms folded. Anderson and his companion waited at the bottom
+of the table, in a respectful attitude, until they should receive
+permission to seat themselves; while three or four Highlanders, under
+the direction of old Donald, ran hither and thither to bring additional
+articles of food, or stood still to give attendance upon the guests.
+
+In the midst of these preparations, Allan suddenly started up, and
+snatching a lamp from the hand of an attendant, held it close to
+Dalgetty's face, while he perused his features with the most heedful and
+grave attention.
+
+"By my honour," said Dalgetty, half displeased, as, mysteriously shaking
+his head, Allan gave up the scrutiny--"I trow that lad and I will ken
+each other when we meet again."
+
+Meanwhile Allan strode to the bottom of the table, and having, by
+the aid of his lamp, subjected Anderson and his companion to the same
+investigation, stood a moment as if in deep reflection; then, touching
+his forehead, suddenly seized Anderson by the arm, and before he could
+offer any effectual resistance, half led and half dragged him to the
+vacant seat at the upper end, and having made a mute intimation that
+he should there place himself, he hurried the soldado with the same
+unceremonious precipitation to the bottom of the table. The Captain,
+exceedingly incensed at this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from
+him with violence; but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle
+inferior to the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such
+violence, that after reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and
+the vaulted hall rang with the clash of his armour. When he arose, his
+first action was to draw his sword and to fly at Allan, who, with folded
+arms, seemed to await his onset with the most scornful indifference.
+Lord Menteith and his attendants interposed to preserve peace, while the
+Highlanders, snatching weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase
+the broil.
+
+"He is mad," whispered Lord Menteith, "he is perfectly mad; there is no
+purpose in quarrelling with him."
+
+"If your lordship is assured that he is NON COMPOS MENTIS," said Captain
+Dalgetty, "the whilk his breeding and behaviour seem to testify, the
+matter must end here, seeing that a madman can neither give an affront,
+nor render honourable satisfaction. But, by my saul, if I had my
+provstnt and a bottle of Rhenish under my belt, I should hive stood
+otherways up to him. And yet it's a pity he should be sae weak in the
+intellectuals, being a strong proper man of body, fit to handle pike,
+morgenstern, or any other military implement whatsoever." [This was
+a sort of club or mace, used in the earlier part of the seventeenth
+century in the defence of breaches and walls. When the Germans insulted
+a Scotch regiment then besieged in Trailsund, saying they heard there
+was a ship come from Denmark to them laden with tobacco pipes, "One of
+our soldiers," says Colonel Robert Munro, "showing them over the work a
+morgenstern, made of a large stock banded with iron, like the shaft of
+a halberd, with a round globe at the end with cross iron pikes, saith,
+'Here is one of the tobacco pipes, wherewith we will beat out your
+brains when you intend to storm us.'"]
+
+Peace was thus restored, and the party seated themselves agreeably to
+their former arrangement, with which Allan, who had now returned to his
+settle by the fire, and seemed once more immersed in meditation, did
+not again interfere. Lord Menteith, addressing the principal domestic,
+hastened to start some theme of conversation which might obliterate all
+recollection of the fray that had taken place. "The laird is at the hill
+then, Donald, I understand, and some English strangers with him?"
+
+"At the hill he is, an it like your honour, and two Saxon calabaleros
+are with him sure eneugh; and that is Sir Miles Musgrave and Christopher
+Hall, both from the Cumraik, as I think they call their country."
+
+"Hall and Musgrave?" said Lord Menteith, looking at his attendants, "the
+very men that we wished to see."
+
+"Troth," said Donald, "an' I wish I had never seen them between the een,
+for they're come to herry us out o' house and ha'."
+
+"Why, Donald," said Lord Menteith, "you did not use to be so churlish of
+your beef and ale; southland though they be, they'll scarce eat up all
+the cattle that's going on the castle mains."
+
+"Teil care an they did," said Donald, "an that were the warst o't, for
+we have a wheen canny trewsmen here that wadna let us want if there was
+a horned beast atween this and Perth. But this is a warse job--it's nae
+less than a wager."
+
+"A wager!" repeated Lord Menteith, with some surprise.
+
+"Troth," continued Donald, to the full as eager to tell his news as Lord
+Menteith was curious to hear them, "as your lordship is a friend and
+kinsman o' the house, an' as ye'll hear eneugh o't in less than an hour,
+I may as weel tell ye mysell. Ye sall be pleased then to know, that when
+our Laird was up in England where he gangs oftener than his friends can
+wish, he was biding at the house o' this Sir Miles Musgrave, an' there
+was putten on the table six candlesticks, that they tell me were twice
+as muckle as the candlesticks in Dunblane kirk, and neither airn, brass,
+nor tin, but a' solid silver, nae less;--up wi' their English pride, has
+sae muckle, and kens sae little how to guide it! Sae they began to jeer
+the Laird, that he saw nae sic graith in his ain poor country; and
+the Laird, scorning to hae his country put down without a word for its
+credit, swore, like a gude Scotsman, that he had mair candlesticks, and
+better candlesticks, in his ain castle at hame, than were ever lighted
+in a hall in Cumberland, an Cumberland be the name o' the country."
+
+"That was patriotically said," observed Lord Menteith.
+
+"Fary true," said Donald; "but her honour had better hae hauden her
+tongue: for if ye say ony thing amang the Saxons that's a wee by
+ordinar, they clink ye down for a wager as fast as a Lowland smith would
+hammer shoon on a Highland shelty. An' so the Laird behoved either to
+gae back o' his word, or wager twa hunder merks; and sa he e'en tock the
+wager, rather than be shamed wi' the like o' them. And now he's like to
+get it to pay, and I'm thinking that's what makes him sae swear to come
+hame at e'en."
+
+"Indeed," said Lord Menteith, "from my idea of your family plate,
+Donald, your master is certain to lose such a wager."
+
+"Your honour may swear that; an' where he's to get the siller I kenna,
+although he borrowed out o' twenty purses. I advised him to pit the twa
+Saxon gentlemen and their servants cannily into the pit o' the tower
+till they gae up the bagain o' free gude-will, but the Laird winna hear
+reason."
+
+Allan here started up, strode forward, and interrupted the conversation,
+saying to the domestic in a voice like thunder, "And how dared you to
+give my brother such dishonourable advice? or how dare you to say he
+will lose this or any other wager which it is his pleasure to lay?"
+
+"Troth, Allan M'Aulay," answered the old man, "it's no for my father's
+son to gainsay what your father's son thinks fit to say, an' so the
+Laird may no doubt win his wager. A' that I ken against it is, that the
+teil a candlestick, or ony thing like it, is in the house, except the
+auld airn branches that has been here since Laird Kenneth's time, and
+the tin sconces that your father gard be made by auld Willie Winkie the
+tinkler, mair be token that deil an unce of siller plate is about the
+house at a', forby the lady's auld posset dish, that wants the cover and
+ane o' the lugs."
+
+"Peace, old man!" said Allan, fiercely; "and do you, gentlemen, if your
+refection is finished, leave this apartment clear; I must prepare it for
+the reception of these southern guests."
+
+"Come away," said the domestic, pulling Lord Menteith by the sleeve;
+"his hour is on him," said he, looking towards Allan, "and he will not
+be controlled."
+
+They left the hall accordingly, Lord Menteith and the Captain being
+ushered one way by old Donald, and the two attendants conducted
+elsewhere by another Highlander. The former had scarcely reached a
+sort of withdrawing apartment ere they were joined by the lord of the
+mansion, Angus M'Aulay by name, and his English guests. Great joy was
+expressed by all parties, for Lord Menteith and the English gentlemen
+were well known to each other; and on Lord Menteith's introduction,
+Captain Dalgetty was well received by the Laird. But after the first
+burst of hospitable congratulation was over, Lord Menteith could observe
+that there was a shade of sadness on the brow of his Highland friend.
+
+"You must have heard," said Sir Christopher Hall, "that our fine
+undertaking in Cumberland is all blown up. The militia would not march
+into Scotland, and your prick-ear'd Covenanters have been too hard for
+our friends in the southern shires. And so, understanding there is some
+stirring work here, Musgrave and I, rather than sit idle at home, are
+come to have a campaign among your kilts and plaids."
+
+"I hope you have brought arms, men, and money with you," said Lord
+Menteith, smiling.
+
+"Only some dozen or two of troopers, whom we left at the last Lowland
+village," said Musgrave, "and trouble enough we had to get them so far."
+
+"As for money," said his companion, "We expect a small supply from our
+friend and host here."
+
+The Laird now, colouring highly, took Menteith a little apart, and
+expressed to him his regret that he had fallen into a foolish blunder.
+
+"I heard it from Donald," said Lord Menteith, scarce able to suppress a
+smile.
+
+"Devil take that old man," said M'Aulay, "he would tell every thing,
+were it to cost one's life; but it's no jesting matter to you neither,
+my lord, for I reckon on your friendly and fraternal benevolence, as a
+near kinsman of our house, to help me out with the money due to these
+pock-puddings; or else, to be plain wi' ye, the deil a M'Aulay will
+there be at the muster, for curse me if I do not turn Covenanter rather
+than face these fellows without paying them; and, at the best, I shall
+be ill enough off, getting both the scaith and the scorn."
+
+"You may suppose, cousin," said Lord Menteith, "I am not too well equipt
+just now; but you may be assured I shall endeavour to help you as well
+as I can, for the sake of old kindred, neighbourhood, and alliance."
+
+"Thank ye--thank ye--thank ye," reiterated M'Aulay; "and as they are to
+spend the money in the King's service, what signifies whether you, they,
+or I pay it?--we are a' one man's bairns, I hope? But you must help me
+out too with some reasonable excuse, or else I shall be for taking to
+Andrew Ferrara; for I like not to be treated like a liar or a braggart
+at my own board-end, when, God knows, I only meant to support my honour,
+and that of my family and country."
+
+Donald, as they were speaking, entered, with rather a blither face than
+he might have been expected to wear, considering the impending fate of
+his master's purse and credit. "Gentlemens, her dinner is ready, and HER
+CANDLES ARE LIGHTED TOO," said Donald, with a strong guttural emphasis
+on the last clause of his speech.
+
+"What the devil can he mean?" said Musgrave, looking to his countryman.
+
+Lord Menteith put the same question with his eyes to the Laird, which
+M'Aulay answered by shaking his head.
+
+A short dispute about precedence somewhat delayed their leaving the
+apartment. Lord Menteith insisted upon yielding up that which belonged
+to his rank, on consideration of his being in his own country, and of
+his near connexion with the family in which they found themselves. The
+two English strangers, therefore, were first ushered into the hall,
+where an unexpected display awaited them. The large oaken table was
+spread with substantial joints of meat, and seats were placed in
+order for the guests. Behind every seat stood a gigantic Highlander,
+completely dressed and armed after the fashion of his country, holding
+in his right hand his drawn sword, with the point turned downwards, and
+in the left a blazing torch made of the bog-pine. This wood, found in
+the morasses, is so full of turpentine, that, when split and dried, it
+is frequently used in the Highlands instead of candles. The unexpected
+and somewhat startling apparition was seen by the red glare of
+the torches, which displayed the wild features, unusual dress, and
+glittering arms of those who bore them, while the smoke, eddying up to
+the roof of the hall, over-canopied them with a volume of vapour. Ere
+the strangers had recovered from their surprise, Allan stept forward,
+and pointing with his sheathed broadsword to the torch-bearers, said,
+in a deep and stern tone of voice, "Behold, gentlemen cavaliers, the
+chandeliers of my brother's house, the ancient fashion of our ancient
+name; not one of these men knows any law but their Chiefs command--Would
+you dare to compare to THEM in value the richest ore that ever was dug
+out of the mine? How say you, cavaliers?--is your wager won or lost?"
+
+"Lost; lost," said Musgrave, gaily--"my own silver candlesticks are all
+melted and riding on horseback by this time, and I wish the fellows
+that enlisted were half as trusty as these.--Here, sir," he added to the
+Chief, "is your money; it impairs Hall's finances and mine somewhat, but
+debts of honour must be settled."
+
+"My father's curse upon my father's son," said Allan, interrupting him,
+"if he receive from you one penny! It is enough that you claim no right
+to exact from him what is his own."
+
+Lord Menteith eagerly supported Allan's opinion, and the elder M'Aulay
+readily joined, declaring the whole to be a fool's business, and
+not worth speaking more about. The Englishmen, after some courteous
+opposition, were persuaded to regard the whole as a joke.
+
+"And now, Allan," said the Laird, "please to remove your candles; for,
+since the Saxon gentlemen have seen them, they will eat their dinner
+as comfortably by the light of the old tin sconces, without scomfishing
+them with so much smoke."
+
+Accordingly, at a sign from Allan, the living chandeliers, recovering
+their broadswords, and holding the point erect, marched out of the hall,
+and left the guests to enjoy their refreshment. [Such a bet as that
+mentioned in the text is said to have been taken by MacDonald of
+Keppoch, who extricated himself in the manner there narrated.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     Thareby so fearlesse and so fell he grew,
+     That his own syre and maister of his guise
+     Did often tremble at his horrid view;
+     And if for dread of hurt would him advise,
+     The angry beastes not rashly to despise,
+     Nor too much to provoke; for he would learne
+     The lion stoup to him in lowly wise,
+     (A lesson hard,) and make the libbard sterne
+     Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did earne.--SPENSER.
+
+Notwithstanding the proverbial epicurism of the English,--proverbial,
+that is to say, in Scotland at the period,--the English visitors made
+no figure whatever at the entertainment, compared with the portentous
+voracity of Captain Dalgetty, although that gallant soldier had already
+displayed much steadiness and pertinacity in his attack upon the lighter
+refreshment set before them at their entrance, by way of forlorn hope.
+He spoke to no one during the time of his meal; and it was not until
+the victuals were nearly withdrawn from the table, that he gratified
+the rest of the company, who had watched him with some surprise, with an
+account of the reasons why he ate so very fast and so very long.
+
+"The former quality," he said, "he had acquired, while he filled a place
+at the bursar's table at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen; when," said
+he; "if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets, you
+were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them. And as for the
+quantity of my food, be it known to this honourable company," continued
+the Captain, "that it's the duty of every commander of a fortress, on
+all occasions which offer, to secure as much munition and vivers as
+their magazines can possibly hold, not knowing when they may have to
+sustain a siege or a blockade. Upon which principle, gentlemen," said
+he, "when a cavalier finds that provant is good and abundant, he will,
+in my estimation, do wisely to victual himself for at least three days,
+as there is no knowing when he may come by another meal."
+
+The Laird expressed his acquiescence in the prudence of this principle,
+and recommended to the veteran to add a tass of brandy and a flagon of
+claret to the substantial provisions he had already laid in, to which
+proposal the Captain readily agreed.
+
+When dinner was removed, and the servants had withdrawn, excepting the
+Laird's page, or henchman, who remained in the apartment to call for or
+bring whatever was wanted, or, in a word, to answer the purposes of a
+modern bell-wire, the conversation began to turn upon politics, and
+the state of the country; and Lord Menteith enquired anxiously and
+particularly what clans were expected to join the proposed muster of the
+King's friends.
+
+"That depends much, my lord, on the person who lifts the banner," said
+the Laird; "for you know we Highlanders, when a few clans are assembled,
+are not easily commanded by one of our own Chiefs, or, to say the truth,
+by any other body. We have heard a rumour, indeed, that Colkitto--that
+is, young Colkitto, or Alaster M'Donald, is come over the Kyle from
+Ireland, with a body of the Earl of Antrim's people, and that they had
+got as far as Ardnamurchan. They might have been here before now, but, I
+suppose, they loitered to plunder the country as they came along."
+
+"Will Colkitto not serve you for a leader, then?" said Lord Menteith.
+
+"Colkitto?" said Allan M'Aulay, scornfully; "who talks of
+Colkitto?--There lives but one man whom we will follow, and that is
+Montrose."
+
+"But Montrose, sir," said Sir Christopher Hall, "has not been heard of
+since our ineffectual attempt to rise in the north of England. It is
+thought he has returned to the King at Oxford for farther instructions."
+
+"Returned!" said Allan, with a scornful laugh; "I could tell ye, but it
+is not worth my while; ye will know soon enough."
+
+"By my honour, Allan," said Lord Menteith, "you will weary out your
+friends with this intolerable, froward, and sullen humour--But I know
+the reason," added he, laughing; "you have not seen Annot Lyle to-day."
+
+"Whom did you say I had not seen?" said Allan, sternly.
+
+"Annot Lyle, the fairy queen of song and minstrelsy," said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"Would to God I were never to see her again," said Allan, sighing, "On
+condition the same weird were laid on you!"
+
+"And why on me?" said Lord Menteith, carelessly.
+
+"Because," said Allan, "it is written on your forehead, that you are to
+be the ruin of each other." So saying, he rose up and left the room.
+
+"Has he been long in this way?" asked Lord Menteith, addressing his
+brother.
+
+"About three days," answered Angus; "the fit is wellnigh over, he will
+be better to-morrow.--But come, gentlemen, don't let the tappit-hen
+scraugh to be emptied. The King's health, King Charles's health! and
+may the covenanting dog that refuses it, go to Heaven by the road of the
+Grassmarket!"
+
+The health was quickly pledged, and as fast succeeded by another, and
+another, and another, all of a party cast, and enforced in an earnest
+manner. Captain Dalgetty, however, thought it necessary to enter a
+protest.
+
+"Gentlemen cavaliers," he said, "I drink these healths, PRIMO, both out
+of respect to this honourable and hospitable roof-tree, and, SECUNDO,
+because I hold it not good to be preceese in such matters, INTER POCULA;
+but I protest, agreeable to the warrandice granted by this honourable
+lord, that it shall be free to me, notwithstanding my present
+complaisance, to take service with the Covenanters to-morrow, providing
+I shall be so minded."
+
+M'Aulay and his English guests stared at this declaration, which would
+have certainly bred new disturbance, if Lord Menteith had not taken up
+the affair, and explained the circumstances and conditions. "I trust,"
+he concluded, "we shall be able to secure Captain Dalgetty's assistance
+to our own party."
+
+"And if not," said the Laird, "I protest, as the Captain says, that
+nothing that has passed this evening, not even his having eaten my bread
+and salt, and pledged me in brandy, Bourdeaux, or usquebaugh, shall
+prejudice my cleaving him to the neck-bone."
+
+"You shall be heartily welcome," said the Captain, "providing my sword
+cannot keep my head, which it has done in worse dangers than your fend
+is likely to make for me."
+
+Here Lord Menteith again interposed, and the concord of the company
+being with no small difficulty restored, was cemented by some deep
+carouses. Lord Menteith, however, contrived to break up the party
+earlier than was the usage of the Castle, under pretence of fatigue and
+indisposition. This was somewhat to the disappointment of the valiant
+Captain, who, among other habits acquired in the Low countries, had
+acquired both a disposition to drink, and a capacity to bear, an
+exorbitant quantity of strong liquors.
+
+Their landlord ushered them in person to a sort of sleeping gallery, in
+which there was a four-post bed, with tartan curtains, and a number
+of cribs, or long hampers, placed along the wall, three of which,
+well stuffed with blooming heather, were prepared for the reception of
+guests.
+
+"I need not tell your lordship," said M'Aulay to Lord Menteith, a little
+apart, "our Highland mode of quartering. Only that, not liking you
+should sleep in the room alone with this German land-louper, I have
+caused your servants' beds to be made here in the gallery. By G--d, my
+lord, these are times when men go to bed with a throat hale and sound as
+ever swallowed brandy, and before next morning it may be gaping like an
+oyster-shell."
+
+Lord Menteith thanked him sincerely, saying, "It was just the
+arrangement he would have requested; for, although he had not the least
+apprehension of violence from Captain Dalgetty, yet Anderson was a
+better kind of person, a sort of gentleman, whom he always liked to have
+near his person."
+
+"I have not seen this Anderson," said M'Aulay; "did you hire him in
+England?"
+
+"I did so," said Lord Menteith; "you will see the man to-morrow; in the
+meantime I wish you good-night."
+
+His host left the apartment after the evening salutation, and was about
+to pay the same compliment to Captain Dalgetty, but observing him deeply
+engaged in the discussion of a huge pitcher filled with brandy posset,
+he thought it a pity to disturb him in so laudable an employment, and
+took his leave without farther ceremony.
+
+Lord Menteith's two attendants entered the apartment almost immediately
+after his departure. The good Captain, who was now somewhat encumbered
+with his good cheer, began to find the undoing of the clasps of his
+armour a task somewhat difficult, and addressed Anderson in these words,
+interrupted by a slight hiccup,--"Anderson, my good friend, you may
+read in Scripture, that he that putteth off his armour should not boast
+himself like he that putteth it on--I believe that is not the right
+word of command; but the plain truth of it is, I am like to sleep in my
+corslet, like many an honest fellow that never waked again, unless you
+unloose this buckle."
+
+"Undo his armour, Sibbald," said Anderson to the other servant.
+
+"By St. Andrew!" exclaimed the Captain, turning round in great
+astonishment, "here's a common fellow--a stipendiary with four pounds
+a-year and a livery cloak, thinks himself too good to serve Ritt-master
+Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who has studied humanity at the
+Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, and served half the princes of Europe!"
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," said Lord Menteith, whose lot it was to stand
+peacemaker throughout the evening, "please to understand that Anderson
+waits upon no one but myself; but I will help Sibbald to undo your
+corslet with much pleasure."
+
+"Too much trouble for you, my lord," said Dalgetty; "and yet it would do
+you no harm to practise how a handsome harness is put on and put off.
+I can step in and out of mine like a glove; only to-night, although not
+EBRIUS, I am, in the classic phrase, VINO CIBOQUE GRAVATUS."
+
+By this time he was unshelled, and stood before the fire musing with a
+face of drunken wisdom on the events of the evening. What seemed chiefly
+to interest him, was the character of Allan M'Aulay. "To come over
+the Englishmen so cleverly with his Highland torch-bearers--eight
+bare-breeched Rories for six silver candlesticks!--it was a
+master-piece--a TOUR DE PASSE--it was perfect legerdemain--and to be a
+madman after all!--I doubt greatly, my lord" (shaking his head), "that
+I must allow him, notwithstanding his relationship to your lordship, the
+privileges of a rational person, and either batoon him sufficiently to
+expiate the violence offered to my person, or else bring it to a matter
+of mortal arbitrement, as becometh an insulted cavalier."
+
+"If you care to hear a long story," said Lord Menteith, "at this time of
+night, I can tell you how the circumstances of Allan's birth account so
+well for his singular character, as to put such satisfaction entirely
+out of the question."
+
+"A long story, my lord," said Captain Dalgetty, "is, next to a good
+evening draught and a warm nightcap, the best shoeinghorn for drawing on
+a sound sleep. And since your lordship is pleased to take the trouble to
+tell it, I shall rest your patient and obliged auditor."
+
+"Anderson," said Lord Menteith, "and you, Sibbald, are dying to hear,
+I suppose, of this strange man too! and I believe I must indulge your
+curiosity, that you may know how to behave to him in time of need. You
+had better step to the fire then."
+
+Having thus assembled an audience about him, Lord Menteith sat down upon
+the edge of the four-post bed, while Captain Dalgetty, wiping the relics
+of the posset from his beard and mustachoes, and repeating the first
+verse of the Lutheran psalm, ALLE GUTER GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, etc.
+rolled himself into one of the places of repose, and thrusting his shock
+pate from between the blankets, listened to Lord Menteith's relation in
+a most luxurious state, between sleeping and waking.
+
+"The father," said Lord Menteith, "of the two brothers, Angus and Allan
+M'Aulay, was a gentleman of consideration and family, being the chief
+of a Highland clan, of good account, though not numerous; his lady, the
+mother of these young men, was a gentlewoman of good family, if I may be
+permitted to say so of one nearly connected with my own. Her brother, an
+honourable and spirited young man, obtained from James the Sixth a grant
+of forestry, and other privileges, over a royal chase adjacent to
+this castle; and, in exercising and defending these rights, he was so
+unfortunate as to involve himself in a quarrel with some of our Highland
+freebooters or caterans, of whom I think, Captain Dalgetty, you must
+have heard."
+
+"And that I have," said the Captain, exerting himself to answer the
+appeal. "Before I left the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, Dugald Garr
+was playing the devil in the Garioch, and the Farquharsons on Dee-side,
+and the Clan Chattan on the Gordons' lands, and the Grants and Camerons
+in Moray-land. And since that, I have seen the Cravats and Pandours in
+Pannonia and Transylvania, and the Cossacks from the Polish frontier,
+and robbers, banditti, and barbarians of all countries besides, so that
+I have a distinct idea of your broken Highlandmen."
+
+"The clan," said Lord Menteith, "with whom the maternal uncle of the
+M'Aulays had been placed in feud, was a small sept of banditti, called,
+from their houseless state, and their incessantly wandering among the
+mountains and glens, the Children of the Mist. They are a fierce and
+hardy people, with all the irritability, and wild and vengeful passions,
+proper to men who have never known the restraint of civilized society.
+A party of them lay in wait for the unfortunate Warden of the Forest,
+surprised him while hunting alone and unattended, and slew him with
+every circumstance of inventive cruelty. They cut off his head,
+and resolved, in a bravado, to exhibit it at the castle of his
+brother-in-law. The laird was absent, and the lady reluctantly received
+as guests, men against whom, perhaps, she was afraid to shut her gates.
+Refreshments were placed before the Children of the Mist, who took an
+opportunity to take the head of their victim from the plaid in which
+it was wrapt, placed it on the table, put a piece of bread between the
+lifeless jaws, bidding them do their office now, since many a good meal
+they had eaten at that table. The lady, who had been absent for some
+household purpose, entered at this moment, and, upon beholding her
+brother's head, fled like an arrow out of the house into the woods,
+uttering shriek upon shriek. The ruffians, satisfied with this savage
+triumph, withdrew. The terrified menials, after overcoming the alarm
+to which they had been subjected, sought their unfortunate mistress in
+every direction, but she was nowhere to be found. The miserable husband
+returned next day, and, with the assistance of his people, undertook a
+more anxious and distant search, but to equally little purpose. It
+was believed universally, that, in the ecstasy of her terror, she must
+either have thrown herself over one of the numerous precipices which
+overhang the river, or into a deep lake about a mile from the castle.
+Her loss was the more lamented, as she was six months advanced in
+her pregnancy; Angus M'Aulay, her eldest son, having been born about
+eighteen months before.--But I tire you, Captain Dalgetty, and you seem
+inclined to sleep."
+
+"By no means," answered the soldier; "I am no whit somnolent; I always
+hear best with my eyes shut. It is a fashion I learned when I stood
+sentinel."
+
+"And I daresay," said Lord Menteith, aside to Anderson, "the weight of
+the halberd of the sergeant of the rounds often made him open them."
+
+Being apparently, however, in the humour of story-telling, the young
+nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his servants, without
+minding the slumbering veteran.
+
+"Every baron in the country," said he, "now swore revenge for this
+dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and brother-in-law of
+the murdered person, and the Children of the Mist were hunted down,
+I believe, with as little mercy as they had themselves manifested.
+Seventeen heads, the bloody trophies of their vengeance, were
+distributed among the allies, and fed the crows upon the gates of their
+castles. The survivors sought out more distant wildernesses, to which
+they retreated."
+
+"To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former ground,"
+said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having produced the
+correspondent word of command; and then starting up, professed he had
+been profoundly atttentive to every word that had been spoken.
+
+"It is the custom in summer," said Lord Menteith, without attending
+to his apology, "to send the cows to the upland pastures to have the
+benefit of the grass; and the maids of the village, and of the family,
+go there to milk them in the morning and evening. While thus employed,
+the females of this family, to their great terror, perceived that their
+motions were watched at a distance by a pale, thin, meagre figure,
+bearing a strong resemblance to their deceased mistress, and passing,
+of course, for her apparition. When some of the boldest resolved to
+approach this faded form, it fled from them into the woods with a wild
+shriek. The husband, informed of this circumstance, came up to the glen
+with some attendants, and took his measures so well as to intercept
+the retreat of the unhappy fugitive, and to secure the person of his
+unfortunate lady, though her intellect proved to be totally deranged.
+How she supported herself during her wandering in the woods could not be
+known--some supposed she lived upon roots and wild-berries, with which
+the woods at that season abounded; but the greater part of the vulgar
+were satisfied that she must have subsisted upon the milk of the wild
+does, or been nourished by the fairies, or supported in some manner
+equally marvellous. Her re-appearance was more easily accounted for. She
+had seen from the thicket the milking of the cows, to superintend which
+had been her favourite domestic employment, and the habit had prevailed
+even in her deranged state of mind.
+
+"In due season the unfortunate lady was delivered of a boy, who not only
+showed no appearance of having suffered from his mother's calamities,
+but appeared to be an infant of uncommon health and strength. The
+unhappy mother, after her confinement, recovered her reason--at least
+in a great measure, but never her health and spirits. Allan was her only
+joy. Her attention to him was unremitting; and unquestionably she must
+have impressed upon his early mind many of those superstitious ideas to
+which his moody and enthusiastic temper gave so ready a reception. She
+died when he was about ten years old. Her last words were spoken to him
+in private; but there is little doubt that they conveyed an injunction
+of vengeance upon the Children of the Mist, with which he has since
+amply complied.
+
+"From this moment, the habits of Allan M'Aulay were totally changed.
+He had hitherto been his mother's constant companion, listening to
+her dreams, and repeating his own, and feeding his imagination,
+which, probably from the circumstances preceding his birth, was
+constitutionally deranged, with all the wild and terrible superstitions
+so common to the mountaineers, to which his unfortunate mother had
+become much addicted since her brother's death. By living in this
+manner, the boy had gotten a timid, wild, startled look, loved to seek
+out solitary places in the woods, and was never so much terrified, as
+by the approach of children of the same age. I remember, although some
+years younger, being brought up here by my father upon a visit, nor can
+I forget the astonishment with which I saw this infant-hermit shun every
+attempt I made to engage him in the sports natural to our age. I can
+remember his father bewailing his disposition to mine, and alleging, at
+the same time, that it was impossible for him to take from his wife
+the company of the boy, as he seemed to be the only consolation that
+remained to her in this world, and as the amusement which Allan's
+society afforded her seemed to prevent the recurrence, at least in its
+full force, of that fearful malady by which she had been visited. But,
+after the death of his mother, the habits and manners of the boy seemed
+at once to change. It is true he remained as thoughtful and serious as
+before; and long fits of silence and abstraction showed plainly that
+his disposition, in this respect, was in no degree altered. But at other
+times, he sought out the rendezvous of the youth of the clan, which
+he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid. He took share in all their
+exercises; and, from his very extraordinary personal strength, soon
+excelled his brother and other youths, whose age considerably exceeded
+his own. They who had hitherto held him in contempt, now feared, if they
+did not love him; and, instead of Allan's being esteemed a dreaming,
+womanish, and feeble-minded boy, those who encountered him in sports or
+military exercise, now complained that, when heated by the strife, he
+was too apt to turn game into earnest, and to forget that he was only
+engaged in a friendly trial of strength.--But I speak to regardless
+ears," said Lord Menteith, interrupting himself, for the Captain's nose
+now gave the most indisputable signs that he was fast locked in the arms
+of oblivion.
+
+"If you mean the ears of that snorting swine, my lord," said Anderson,
+"they are, indeed, shut to anything that you can say; nevertheless, this
+place being unfit for more private conference, I hope you will have the
+goodness to proceed, for Sibbald's benefit and for mine. The history of
+this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it."
+
+"You must know, then," proceeded Lord Menteith, "that Allan continued to
+increase in strength and activity, till his fifteenth year, about which
+time he assumed a total independence of character, and impatience of
+control, which much alarmed his surviving parent. He was absent in the
+woods for whole days and nights, under pretence of hunting, though he
+did not always bring home game. His father was the more alarmed, because
+several of the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing
+troubles of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did
+he think it altogether safe to renew any attack upon them. The risk
+of Allan, in his wanderings, sustaining injury from these vindictive
+freebooters, was a perpetual source of apprehension.
+
+"I was myself upon a visit to the castle when this matter was brought
+to a crisis. Allan had been absent since day-break in the woods, where
+I had sought for him in vain; it was a dark stormy night, and he did not
+return. His father expressed the utmost anxiety, and spoke of detaching
+a party at the dawn of morning in quest of him; when, as we were sitting
+at the supper-table, the door suddenly opened, and Allan entered the
+room with a proud, firm, and confident air. His intractability of
+temper, as well as the unsettled state of his mind, had such an
+influence over his father, that he suppressed all other tokens of
+displeasure, excepting the observation that I had killed a fat buck, and
+had returned before sunset, while he supposed Allan, who had been on
+the hill till midnight, had returned with empty hands. 'Are you sure of
+that?' said Allan, fiercely; 'here is something will tell you another
+tale.'
+
+"We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots of
+blood on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when suddenly,
+undoing the corner of his plaid, he rolled down on the table a human
+head, bloody and new severed, saying at the same time, 'Lie thou where
+the head of a better man lay before ye.' From the haggard features,
+and matted red hair and beard, partly grizzled with age, his father and
+others present recognised the head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known
+leader among the outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had
+been active in the murder of the unfortunate Forester, uncle to Allan,
+and had escaped by a desperate defence and extraordinary agility,
+when so many of his companions were destroyed. We were all, it may
+be believed, struck with surprise, but Allan refused to gratify our
+curiosity; and we only conjectured that he must have overcome the outlaw
+after a desperate struggle, because we discovered that he had sustained
+several wounds from the contest. All measures were now taken to ensure
+him against the vengeance of the freebooters; but neither his wounds,
+nor the positive command of his father, nor even the locking of the
+gates of the castle and the doors of his apartment, were precautions
+adequate to prevent Allan from seeking out the very persons to whom he
+was peculiarly obnoxious. He made his escape by night from the window of
+the apartment, and laughing at his father's vain care, produced on one
+occasion the head of one, and upon another those of two, of the Children
+of the Mist. At length these men, fierce as they were, became appalled
+by the inveterate animosity and audacity with which Allan sought out
+their recesses. As he never hesitated to encounter any odds, they
+concluded that he must bear a charmed life, or fight under the
+guardianship of some supernatural influence. Neither gun, dirk, nor
+dourlach [DOURLACH--quiver; literally, satchel--of arrows.], they
+said, availed aught against him. They imputed this to the remarkable
+circumstances under which he was born; and at length five or six of the
+stoutest caterans of the Highlands would have fled at Allan's halloo, or
+the blast of his horn.
+
+"In the meanwhile, however, the Children of the Mist carried on their
+old trade, and did the M'Aulays, as well as their kinsmen and allies,
+as much mischief as they could. This provoked another expedition against
+the tribe, in which I had my share; we surprised them effectually, by
+besetting at once the upper and under passes of the country, and made
+such clean work as is usual on these occasions, burning and slaying
+right before us. In this terrible species of war, even the females and
+the helpless do not always escape. One little maiden alone, who smiled
+upon Allan's drawn dirk, escaped his vengeance upon my earnest entreaty.
+She was brought to the castle, and here bred up under the name of Annot
+Lyle, the most beautiful little fairy certainly that ever danced upon a
+heath by moonlight. It was long ere Allan could endure the presence
+of the child, until it occurred to his imagination, from her features
+perhaps, that she did not belong to the hated blood of his enemies, but
+had become their captive in some of their incursions; a circumstance
+not in itself impossible, but in which he believes as firmly as in holy
+writ. He is particularly delighted by her skill in music, which is so
+exquisite, that she far exceeds the best performers in this country in
+playing on the clairshach, or harp. It was discovered that this produced
+upon the disturbed spirits of Allan, in his gloomiest moods, beneficial
+effects, similar to those experienced by the Jewish monarch of old; and
+so engaging is the temper of Annot Lyle, so fascinating the innocence
+and gaiety of her disposition, that she is considered and treated in the
+castle rather as the sister of the proprietor, than as a dependent upon
+his charity. Indeed, it is impossible for any one to see her without
+being deeply interested by the ingenuity, liveliness, and sweetness of
+her disposition."
+
+"Take care, my lord," said Anderson, smiling; "there is danger in such
+violent commendations. Allan M'Aulay, as your lordship describes him,
+would prove no very safe rival."
+
+"Pooh! pooh!" said Lord Menteith, laughing, yet blushing at the same
+time; "Allan is not accessible to the passion of love; and for myself,"
+said he, more gravely; "Annot's unknown birth is a sufficient reason
+against serious designs, and her unprotected state precludes every
+other."
+
+"It is spoken like yourself, my lord," said Anderson.--"But I trust you
+will proceed with your interesting story."
+
+"It is wellnigh finished," said Lord Menteith; "I have only to add, that
+from the great strength and courage of Allan M'Aulay, from his
+energetic and uncontrollable disposition, and from an opinion generally
+entertained and encouraged by himself that he holds communion with
+supernatural beings, and can predict future events, the clan pay a much
+greater degree of deference to him than even to his brother, who is a
+bold-hearted rattling Highlander, but with nothing which can possibly
+rival the extraordinary character of his younger brother."
+
+"Such a character," said Anderson, "cannot but have the deepest effect
+on the minds of a Highland host. We must secure Allan, my lord, at all
+events. What between his bravery and his second sight--"
+
+"Hush!" said Lord Menteith, "that owl is awaking."
+
+"Do you talk of the second sight, or DEUTERO-SCOPIA?" said the soldier;
+"I remember memorable Major Munro telling me how Murdoch Mackenzie,
+born in Assint, a private gentleman in a company, and a pretty soldier,
+foretold the death of Donald Tough, a Lochaber man, and certain other
+persons, as well as the hurt of the major himself at a sudden onfall at
+the siege of Trailsund."
+
+"I have often heard of this faculty," observed Anderson, "but I have
+always thought those pretending to it were either enthusiasts or
+impostors."
+
+"I should be loath," said Lord Menteith, "to apply either character
+to my kinsman, Allan M'Aulay. He has shown on many occasions too much
+acuteness and sense, of which you this night had an instance, for the
+character of an enthusiast; and his high sense of honour, and manliness
+of disposition, free him from the charge of imposture."
+
+"Your lordship, then," said Anderson, "is a believer in his supernatural
+attributes?"
+
+"By no means," said the young nobleman; "I think that he persuades
+himself that the predictions which are, in reality, the result of
+judgment and reflection, are supernatural impressions on his mind, just
+as fanatics conceive the workings of their own imagination to be divine
+inspiration--at least, if this will not serve you, Anderson, I have no
+better explanation to give; and it is time we were all asleep after the
+toilsome journey of the day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     Coming events cast their shadows before.--CAMPBELL.
+
+At an early hour in the morning the guests of the castle sprung from
+their repose; and, after a moment's private conversation with his
+attendants, Lord Menteith addressed the soldier, who was seated in a
+corner burnishing his corslet with rot-stone and chamois-leather, while
+he hummed the old song in honour of the victorious Gustavus Adolphus:--
+
+     When cannons are roaring, and bullets are flying,
+     The lad that would have honour, boys, must never fear dying.
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," said Lord Menteith, "the time is come that we must
+part, or become comrades in service."
+
+"Not before breakfast, I hope?" said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+"I should have thought," replied his lordship, "that your garrison was
+victualled for three days at least."
+
+"I have still some stowage left for beef and bannocks," said the
+Captain; "and I never miss a favourable opportunity of renewing my
+supplies."
+
+"But," said Lord Menteith, "no judicious commander allows either flags
+of truce or neutrals to remain in his camp longer than is prudent; and
+therefore we must know your mind exactly, according to which you shall
+either have a safe-conduct to depart in peace, or be welcome to remain
+with us."
+
+"Truly," said the Captain, "that being the case, I will not attempt
+to protract the capitulation by a counterfeited parley, (a thing
+excellently practised by Sir James Ramsay at the siege of Hannau, in the
+year of God 1636,) but I will frankly own, that if I like your pay as
+well as your provant and your company, I care not how soon I take the
+oath to your colours."
+
+"Our pay," said Lord Menteith, "must at present be small, since it
+is paid out of the common stock raised by the few amongst us who can
+command some funds--As major and adjutant, I dare not promise Captain
+Dalgetty more than half a dollar a-day."
+
+"The devil take all halves and quarters!" said the Captain; "were it in
+my option, I could no more consent to the halving of that dollar, than
+the woman in the Judgment of Solomon to the disseverment of the child of
+her bowels."
+
+"The parallel will scarce hold, Captain Dalgetty, for I think you would
+rather consent to the dividing of the dollar, than give it up entire to
+your competitor. However, in the way of arrears, I may promise you the
+other half-dollar at the end of the campaign."
+
+"Ah! these arrearages!" said Captain Dalgetty, "that are always
+promised, and always go for nothing! Spain, Austria, and Sweden,
+all sing one song. Oh! long life to the Hoganmogans! if they were no
+officers of soldiers, they were good paymasters.--And yet, my lord, if
+I could but be made certiorate that my natural hereditament of
+Drumthwacket had fallen into possession of any of these loons of
+Covenanters, who could be, in the event of our success, conveniently
+made a traitor of, I have so much value for that fertile and pleasant
+spot, that I would e'en take on with you for the campaign."
+
+"I can resolve Captain Dalgetty's question," said Sibbald, Lord
+Menteith's second attendant; "for if his estate of Drumthwacket be, as
+I conceive, the long waste moor so called, that lies five miles south of
+Aberdeen, I can tell him it was lately purchased by Elias Strachan, as
+rank a rebel as ever swore the Covenant."
+
+"The crop-eared hound!" said Captain Dalgetty, in a rage; "What the
+devil gave him the assurance to purchase the inheritance of a family of
+four hundred years standing?--CYNTHIUS AUREM VELLET, as we used to say
+at Mareschal-College; that is to say, I will pull him out of my father's
+house by the ears. And so, my Lord Menteith, I am yours, hand and
+sword, body and soul, till death do us part, or to the end of the next
+campaign, whichever event shall first come to pass."
+
+"And I," said the young nobleman, "rivet the bargain with a month's pay
+in advance."
+
+"That is more than necessary," said Dalgetty, pocketing the money
+however. "But now I must go down, look after my war-saddle and
+abuilziements, and see that Gustavus has his morning, and tell him we
+have taken new service."
+
+"There goes your precious recruit," said Lord Menteith to Anderson, as
+the Captain left the room; "I fear we shall have little credit of him."
+
+"He is a man of the times, however," said Anderson; "and without such we
+should hardly be able to carry on our enterprise."
+
+"Let us go down," answered Lord Menteith, "and see how our muster is
+likely to thrive, for I hear a good deal of bustle in the castle."
+
+When they entered the hall, the domestics keeping modestly in the
+background, morning greetings passed between Lord Menteith, Angus
+M'Aulay, and his English guests, while Allan, occupying the same settle
+which he had filled the preceding evening, paid no attention whatever to
+any one. Old Donald hastily rushed into the apartment. "A message from
+Vich Alister More; [The patronymic of MacDonell of Glengarry.] he is
+coming up in the evening."
+
+"With how many attendants?" said M'Aulay.
+
+"Some five-and-twenty or thirty," said Donald, "his ordinary retinue."
+
+"Shake down plenty of straw in the great barn," said the Laird.
+
+Another servant here stumbled hastily in, announcing the expected
+approach of Sir Hector M'Lean, "who is arriving with a large following."
+
+"Put them in the malt-kiln," said M'Aulay; "and keep the breadth of the
+middenstead between them and the M'Donalds; they are but unfriends to
+each other."
+
+Donald now re-entered, his visage considerably lengthened--"The tell's
+i' the folk," he said; "the haill Hielands are asteer, I think. Evan
+Dhu, of Lochiel, will be here in an hour, with Lord kens how many
+gillies."
+
+"Into the great barn with them beside the M'Donalds," said the Laird.
+
+More and more chiefs were announced, the least of whom would have
+accounted it derogatory to his dignity to stir without a retinue of six
+or seven persons. To every new annunciation, Angus M'Aulay answered
+by naming some place of accommodation,--the stables, the loft, the
+cow-house, the sheds, every domestic office, were destined for the night
+to some hospitable purpose or other. At length the arrival of M'Dougal
+of Lorn, after all his means of accommodation were exhausted, reduced
+him to some perplexity. "What the devil is to be done, Donald?" said
+he; "the great barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads
+and thraws; but there would be drawn dirks amang them which should lie
+upper-most, and so we should have bloody puddings before morning!"
+
+"What needs all this?" said Allan, starting up, and coming forward with
+the stern abruptness of his usual manner; "are the Gael to-day of softer
+flesh or whiter blood than their fathers were? Knock the head out of
+a cask of usquebae; let that be their night-gear--their plaids
+their bed-clothes--the blue sky their canopy, and the heather their
+couch.--Come a thousand more, and they would not quarrel on the broad
+heath for want of room!"
+
+"Allan is right," said his brother; "it is very odd how Allan, who,
+between ourselves," said he to Musgrave, "is a little wowf, [WOWF, i.e.
+crazed.] seems at times to have more sense than us all put together.
+Observe him now."
+
+"Yes," continued Allan, fixing his eyes with a ghastly stare upon the
+opposite side of the hall, "they may well begin as they are to end; many
+a man will sleep this night upon the heath, that when the Martinmas wind
+shalt blow shall lie there stark enough, and reck little of cold or lack
+of covering."
+
+"Do not forespeak us, brother," said Angus; "that is not lucky."
+
+"And what luck is it then that you expect?" said Allan; and straining
+his eyes until they almost started from their sockets, he fell with a
+convulsive shudder into the arms of Donald and his brother, who, knowing
+the nature of his fits, had come near to prevent his fall. They seated
+him upon a bench, and supported him until he came to himself, and was
+about to speak.
+
+"For God's sake, Allan," said his brother, who knew the impression his
+mystical words were likely to make on many of the guests, "say nothing
+to discourage us."
+
+"Am I he who discourages you?" said Allan; "let every man face his world
+as I shall face mine. That which must come, will come; and we shall
+stride gallantly over many a field of victory, ere we reach yon fatal
+slaughter-place, or tread yon sable scaffolds."
+
+"What slaughter-place? what scaffolds?" exclaimed several voices; for
+Allan's renown as a seer was generally established in the Highlands.
+
+"You will know that but too soon," answered Allan. "Speak to me no more,
+I am weary of your questions." He then pressed his hand against his
+brow, rested his elbow upon his knee, and sunk into a deep reverie.
+
+"Send for Annot Lyle, and the harp," said Angus, in a whisper, to his
+servant; "and let those gentlemen follow me who do not fear a Highland
+breakfast."
+
+All accompanied their hospitable landlord excepting only Lord Menteith,
+who lingered in one of the deep embrasures formed by the windows of the
+hall. Annot Lyle shortly after glided into the room, not ill described
+by Lord Menteith as being the lightest and most fairy figure that ever
+trode the turf by moonlight. Her stature, considerably less than the
+ordinary size of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth,
+insomuch, that although she was near eighteen, she might have passed
+for four years younger. Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed upon a
+model of exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of her
+person, so that Titania herself could scarce have found a more fitting
+representative. Her hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed
+flaxen, whose clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair
+complexion, and with the playful, yet simple, expression of her
+features. When we add to these charms, that Annot, in her orphan state,
+seemed the gayest and happiest of maidens, the reader must allow us to
+claim for her the interest of almost all who looked on her. In fact, it
+was impossible to find a more universal favourite, and she often
+came among the rude inhabitants of the castle, as Allan himself, in
+a poetical mood, expressed it, "like a sunbeam on a sullen sea,"
+communicating to all others the cheerfulness that filled her own mind.
+
+Annot, such as we have described her, smiled and blushed, when, on
+entering the apartment, Lord Menteith came from his place of retirement,
+and kindly wished her good-morning.
+
+"And good-morning to you, my lord," returned she, extending her hand to
+her friend; "we have seldom seen you of late at the castle, and now I
+fear it is with no peaceful purpose."
+
+"At least, let me not interrupt your harmony, Annot," said Lord
+Menteith, "though my arrival may breed discord elsewhere. My cousin
+Allan needs the assistance of your voice and music."
+
+"My preserver," said Annot Lyle, "has a right to my poor exertions; and
+you, too, my lord,--you, too, are my preserver, and were the most
+active to save a life that is worthless enough, unless it can benefit my
+protectors."
+
+So saying, she sate down at a little distance upon the bench on which
+Allan M'Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about
+thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice. The air was
+an ancient Gaelic melody, and the words, which were supposed to be very
+old, were in the same language; but we subjoin a translation of them,
+by Secundus Macpherson, Esq. of Glenforgen, which, although submitted to
+the fetters of English rhythm, we trust will be found nearly as genuine
+as the version of Ossian by his celebrated namesake.
+
+     "Birds of omen dark and foul,
+     Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
+     Leave the sick man to his dream--
+     All night long he heard your scream--
+     Haste to cave and ruin'd tower,
+     Ivy, tod, or dingled bower,
+     There to wink and mope, for, hark!
+     In the mid air sings the lark.
+
+     "Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
+     Prowling wolf and wily fox,--
+     Hie you fast, nor turn your view,
+     Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
+     Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
+     Safety parts with parting night;
+     And on distant echo borne,
+     Comes the hunter's early horn.
+
+     "The moon's wan crescent scarcely gleams,
+     Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
+     Hie hence each peevish imp and fay,
+     That scare the pilgrim on his way:--
+     Quench, kelpy!  quench, in bog and fen,
+     Thy torch that cheats benighted men;
+     Thy dance is o'er, thy reign is done,
+     For Benyieglo hath seen the sun.
+
+     "Wild thoughts, that, sinful, dark, and deep,
+     O'erpower the passive mind in sleep,
+     Pass from the slumberer's soul away,
+     Like night-mists from the brow of day:
+     Foul hag, whose blasted visage grim
+     Smothers the pulse, unnerves the limb,
+     Spur thy dark palfrey, and begone!
+     Thou darest not face the godlike sun."
+
+As the strain proceeded, Allan M'Aulay gradually gave signs of
+recovering his presence of mind, and attention to the objects around
+him. The deep-knit furrows of his brow relaxed and smoothed themselves;
+and the rest of his features, which had seemed contorted with internal
+agony, relapsed into a more natural state. When he raised his head
+and sat upright, his countenance, though still deeply melancholy,
+was divested of its wildness and ferocity; and in its composed state,
+although by no means handsome, the expression of his features was
+striking, manly, and even noble. His thick, brown eyebrows, which had
+hitherto been drawn close together, were now slightly separated, as in
+the natural state; and his grey eyes, which had rolled and flashed
+from under them with an unnatural and portentous gleam, now recovered a
+steady and determined expression.
+
+"Thank God!" he said, after sitting silent for about a minute, until
+the very last sounds of the harp had ceased to vibrate, "my soul is no
+longer darkened--the mist hath passed from my spirit."
+
+"You owe thanks, cousin Allan," said Lord Menteith, coming forward,
+"to Annot Lyle, as well as to heaven, for this happy change in your
+melancholy mood."
+
+"My noble cousin Menteith," said Allan, rising and greeting him very
+respectfully, as well as kindly, "has known my unhappy circumstances so
+long, that his goodness will require no excuse for my being thus late in
+bidding him welcome to the castle."
+
+"We are too old acquaintances, Allan," said Lord Menteith, "and too good
+friends, to stand on the ceremonial of outward greeting; but half the
+Highlands will be here to-day, and you know, with our mountain Chiefs,
+ceremony must not be neglected. What will you give little Annot for
+making you fit company to meet Evan Dhu, and I know not how many bonnets
+and feathers?"
+
+"What will he give me?" said Annot, smiling; "nothing less, I hope, than
+the best ribbon at the Fair of Doune."
+
+"The Fair of Doune, Annot?" said Allan sadly; "there will be bloody work
+before that day, and I may never see it; but you have well reminded me
+of what I have long intended to do."
+
+Having said this, he left the room.
+
+"Should he talk long in this manner," said Lord Menteith, "you must keep
+your harp in tune, my dear Annot."
+
+"I hope not," said Annot, anxiously; "this fit has been a long one, and
+probably will not soon return. It is fearful to see a mind, naturally
+generous and affectionate, afflicted by this constitutional malady."
+
+As she spoke in a low and confidential tone, Lord Menteith naturally
+drew close, and stooped forward, that he might the better catch the
+sense of what she said. When Allan suddenly entered the apartment,
+they as naturally drew back from each other with a manner expressive of
+consciousness, as if surprised in a conversation which they wished to
+keep secret from him. This did not escape Allan's observation; he stopt
+short at the door of the apartment--his brows were contracted--his eyes
+rolled; but it was only the paroxysm of a moment. He passed his broad
+sinewy hand across his brow, as if to obliterate these signs of emotion,
+and advanced towards Annot, holding in his hand a very small box made
+of oakwood, curiously inlaid. "I take you to witness," he said, "cousin
+Menteith, that I give this box and its contents to Annot Lyle. It
+contains a few ornaments that belonged to my poor mother--of trifling
+value, you may guess, for the wife of a Highland laird has seldom a rich
+jewel-casket."
+
+"But these ornaments," said Annot Lyle, gently and timidly refusing the
+box, "belong to the family--I cannot accept--"
+
+"They belong to me alone, Annot," said Allan, interrupting her; "they
+were my mother's dying bequest. They are all I can call my own, except
+my plaid and my claymore. Take them, therefore--they are to me valueless
+trinkets--and keep them for my sake--should I never return from these
+wars."
+
+So saying, he opened the case, and presented it to Annot. "If," said he,
+"they are of any value, dispose of them for your own support, when this
+house has been consumed with hostile fire, and can no longer afford
+you protection. But keep one ring in memory of Allan, who has done, to
+requite your kindness, if not all he wished, at least all he could."
+
+Annot Lyle endeavoured in vain to restrain the gathering tears, when
+she said, "ONE ring, Allan, I will accept from you as a memorial of
+your goodness to a poor orphan, but do not press me to take more; for I
+cannot, and will not, accept a gift of such disproportioned value."
+
+"Make your choice, then," said Allan; "your delicacy may be well
+founded; the others will assume a shape in which they may be more useful
+to you."
+
+"Think not of it," said Annot, choosing from the contents of the casket
+a ring, apparently the most trifling in value which it contained; "keep
+them for your own, or your brother's bride.--But, good heavens!" she
+said, interrupting herself, and looking at the ring, "what is this that
+I have chosen?"
+
+Allan hastened to look upon it, with eyes of gloomy apprehension; it
+bore, in enamel, a death's head above two crossed daggers. When Allan
+recognised the device, he uttered a sigh so deep, that she dropped the
+ring from her hand, which rolled upon the floor. Lord Menteith picked it
+up, and returned it to the terrified Annot.
+
+"I take God to witness," said Allan, in a solemn tone, "that your hand,
+young lord, and not mine, has again delivered to her this ill-omened
+gift. It was the mourning ring worn by my mother in memorial of her
+murdered brother."
+
+"I fear no omens," said Annot, smiling through her tears; "and nothing
+coming through the hands of my two patrons," so she was wont to call
+Lord Menteith and Allan, "can bring bad luck to the poor orphan."
+
+She put the ring on her finger, and, turning to her harp, sung, to a
+lively air, the following verses of one of the fashionable songs of
+the period, which had found its way, marked as it was with the quaint
+hyperbolical taste of King Charles's time, from some court masque to the
+wilds of Perthshire:--
+
+     "Gaze not upon the stars, fond sage,
+     In them no influence lies;
+     To read the fate of youth or age,
+     Look on my Helen's eyes.
+
+     "Yet, rash astrologer, refrain!
+     Too dearly would be won
+     The prescience of another's pain,
+     If purchased by thine own."
+
+"She is right, Allan," said Lord Menteith; "and this end of an old song
+is worth all we shall gain by our attempt to look into futurity."
+
+"She is WRONG, my lord," said Allan, sternly, "though you, who treat
+with lightness the warnings I have given you, may not live to see the
+event of the omen.--laugh not so scornfully," he added, interrupting
+himself "or rather laugh on as loud and as long as you will; your term
+of laughter will find a pause ere long."
+
+"I care not for your visions, Allan," said Lord Menteith; "however short
+my span of life, the eye of no Highland seer can see its termination."
+
+"For heaven's sake," said Annot Lyle, interrupting him, "you know his
+nature, and how little he can endure--"
+
+"Fear me not," said Allan, interrupting her,--"my mind is now constant
+and calm.--But for you, young lord," said he, turning to Lord Menteith,
+"my eye has sought you through fields of battle, where Highlanders and
+Lowlanders lay strewed as thick as ever the rooks sat on those ancient
+trees," pointing to a rookery which was seen from the window--"my eye
+sought you, but your corpse was not there--my eye sought you among a
+train of unresisting and disarmed captives, drawn up within the bounding
+walls of an ancient and rugged fortress;--flash after flash--platoon
+after platoon--the hostile shot fell amongst them, They dropped like
+the dry leaves in autumn, but you were not among their ranks;--scaffolds
+were prepared--blocks were arranged, saw-dust was spread--the priest was
+ready with his book, the headsman with his axe--but there, too, mine eye
+found you not."
+
+"The gibbet, then, I suppose, must be my doom?" said Lord Menteith. "Yet
+I wish they had spared me the halter, were it but for the dignity of the
+peerage."
+
+He spoke this scornfully, yet not without a sort of curiosity, and
+a wish to receive an answer; for the desire of prying into futurity
+frequently has some influence even on the minds of those who disavow all
+belief in the possibility of such predictions.
+
+"Your rank, my lord, will suffer no dishonour in your person, or by the
+manner of your death. Three times have I seen a Highlander plant his
+dirk in your bosom--and such will be your fate."
+
+"I wish you would describe him to me," said Lord Menteith, "and I
+shall save him the trouble of fulfilling your prophecy, if his plaid be
+passible to sword or pistol."
+
+"Your weapons," said Allan, "would avail you little; nor can I give you
+the information you desire. The face of the vision has been ever averted
+from me."
+
+"So be it then," said Lord Menteith, "and let it rest in the uncertainty
+in which your augury has placed it. I shall dine not the less merrily
+among plaids, and dirks, and kilts to-day."
+
+"It may be so," said Allan; "and, it may be, you do well to enjoy these
+moments, which to me are poisoned by auguries of future evil. But I," he
+continued--"I repeat to you, that this weapon--that is, such a weapon as
+this," touching the hilt of the dirk which he wore, "carries your fate."
+"In the meanwhile," said Lord Menteith, "you, Allan, have frightened
+the blood from the cheeks of Annot Lyle--let us leave this discourse,
+my friend, and go to see what we both understand,--the progress of our
+military preparations."
+
+They joined Angus M'Aulay and his English guests, and, in the military
+discussions which immediately took place, Allan showed a clearness
+of mind, strength of judgment, and precision of thought, totally
+inconsistent with the mystical light in which his character has been
+hitherto exhibited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     When Albin her claymore indignantly draws,
+     When her bonneted chieftains around her shall crowd,
+     Clan-Ranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
+     All plaided and plumed in their tartan array--LOCHEIL'S WARNING.
+
+Whoever saw that morning, the Castle of Darnlinvarach, beheld a busy and
+a gallant sight.
+
+The various Chiefs, arriving with their different retinues, which,
+notwithstanding their numbers, formed no more than their usual equipage
+and body-guard upon occasions of solemnity, saluted the lord of the
+castle and each other with overflowing kindness, or with haughty and
+distant politeness, according to the circumstances of friendship or
+hostility in which their clans had recently stood to each other.
+Each Chief, however small his comparative importance, showed the full
+disposition to exact from the rest the deference due to a separate and
+independent prince; while the stronger and more powerful, divided among
+themselves by recent contentions or ancient feuds, were constrained in
+policy to use great deference to the feelings of their less powerful
+brethren, in order, in case of need, to attach as many well-wishers as
+might be to their own interest and standard. Thus the meeting of Chiefs
+resembled not a little those ancient Diets of the Empire, where the
+smallest FREY-GRAF, who possessed a castle perched upon a barren crag,
+with a few hundred acres around it, claimed the state and honours of a
+sovereign prince, and a seat according to his rank among the dignitaries
+of the Empire.
+
+The followers of the different leaders were separately arranged and
+accommodated, as room and circumstances best permitted, each retaining
+however his henchman, who waited, close as the shadow, upon his person,
+to execute whatever might be required by his patron.
+
+The exterior of the castle afforded a singular scene. The Highlanders,
+from different islands, glens, and straths, eyed each other at a
+distance with looks of emulation, inquisitive curiosity, or hostile
+malevolence; but the most astounding part of the assembly, at least to
+a Lowland ear, was the rival performance of the bagpipers. These warlike
+minstrels, who had the highest opinion, each, of the superiority of
+his own tribe, joined to the most overweening idea of the importance
+connected with his profession, at first, performed their various
+pibrochs in front each of his own clan. At length, however, as the
+black-cocks towards the end of the season, when, in sportsman's
+language, they are said to flock or crowd, attracted together by the
+sound of each others' triumphant crow, even so did the pipers, swelling
+their plaids and tartans in the same triumphant manner in which the
+birds ruffle up their feathers, begin to approach each other within
+such distance as might give to their brethren a sample of their skill.
+Walking within a short interval, and eyeing each other with looks in
+which self-importance and defiance might be traced, they strutted,
+puffed, and plied their screaming instruments, each playing his own
+favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had lain
+buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the dead to run
+out of hearing.
+
+The Chieftains meanwhile had assembled in close conclave in the
+great hall of the castle. Among them were the persons of the greatest
+consequence in the Highlands, some of them attracted by zeal for the
+royal cause, and many by aversion to that severe and general domination
+which the Marquis of Argyle, since his rising to such influence in
+the state, had exercised over his Highland neighbours. That statesman,
+indeed, though possessed of considerable abilities, and great power, had
+failings, which rendered him unpopular among the Highland chiefs. The
+devotion which he professed was of a morose and fanatical character; his
+ambition appeared to be insatiable, and inferior chiefs complained
+of his want of bounty and liberality. Add to this, that although a
+Highlander, and of a family distinguished for valour before and since,
+Gillespie Grumach [GRUMACH--ill-favored.] (which, from an obliquity in
+his eyes, was the personal distinction he bore in the Highlands, where
+titles of rank are unknown) was suspected of being a better man in the
+cabinet than in the field. He and his tribe were particularly obnoxious
+to the M'Donalds and the M'Leans, two numerous septs, who, though
+disunited by ancient feuds, agreed in an intense dislike to the
+Campbells, or, as they were called, the Children of Diarmid.
+
+For some time the assembled Chiefs remained silent, until some one
+should open the business of the meeting. At length one of the most
+powerful of them commenced the diet by saying,--"We have been summoned
+hither, M'Aulay, to consult of weighty matters concerning the King's
+affairs, and those of the state; and we crave to know by whom they are
+to be explained to us?"
+
+M'Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his wish
+that Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great
+modesty, and at the same time with spirit, that young lord said, "he
+wished what he was about to propose had come from some person of better
+known and more established character. Since, however, it lay with him
+to be spokesman, he had to state to the Chiefs assembled, that those who
+wished to throw off the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to
+wreath round their necks, had not a moment to lose. 'The Covenanters,'"
+he said, "after having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having
+extorted from him every request, reasonable or unreasonable, which
+they thought proper to demand--after their Chiefs had been loaded with
+dignities and favours--after having publicly declared, when his Majesty,
+after a gracious visit to the land of his nativity, was upon his
+return to England, that he returned a contented king from a contented
+people,--after all this, and without even the pretext for a national
+grievance, the same men have, upon doubts and suspicions, equally
+dishonourable to the King, and groundless in themselves, detached a
+strong army to assist his rebels in England, in a quarrel with which
+Scotland had no more to do than she has with the wars in Germany. It was
+well," he said, "that the eagerness with which this treasonable purpose
+was pursued, had blinded the junta who now usurped the government of
+Scotland to the risk which they were about to incur. The army which they
+had dispatched to England under old Leven comprehended their veteran
+soldiers, the strength of those armies which had been levied in Scotland
+during the two former wars--"
+
+Here Captain Dalgetty endeavoured to rise, for the purpose of explaining
+how many veteran officers, trained in the German wars, were, to his
+certain knowledge, in the army of the Earl of Leven. But Allan M'Aulay
+holding him down in his seat with one hand, pressed the fore-finger of
+the other upon his own lips, and, though with some difficulty, prevented
+his interference. Captain Dalgetty looked upon him with a very scornful
+and indignant air, by which the other's gravity was in no way moved, and
+Lord Menteith proceeded without farther interruption.
+
+"The moment," he said, "was most favourable for all true-hearted and
+loyal Scotchmen to show, that the reproach their country had lately
+undergone arose from the selfish ambition of a few turbulent and
+seditious men, joined to the absurd fanaticism which, disseminated from
+five hundred pulpits, had spread like a land-flood over the Lowlands of
+Scotland. He had letters from the Marquis of Huntly in the north, which
+he should show to the Chiefs separately. That nobleman, equally loyal
+and powerful was determined to exert his utmost energy in the common
+cause, and the powerful Earl of Seaforth was prepared to join the same
+standard. From the Earl of Airly, and the Ogilvies in Angusshire, he had
+had communications equally decided; and there was no doubt that these,
+who, with the Hays, Leiths, Burnets, and other loyal gentlemen, would be
+soon on horseback, would form a body far more than sufficient to overawe
+the northern Covenanters, who had already experienced their valour in
+the well-known rout which was popularly termed the Trot of Turiff. South
+of Forth and Tay," he said, "the King had many friends, who, oppressed
+by enforced oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy taxes, unjustly imposed
+and unequally levied, by the tyranny of the Committee of Estates, and
+the inquisitorial insolence of the Presbyterian divines, waited but the
+waving of the royal banner to take up arms. Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh,
+Hume, all friendly to the royal cause, would counterbalance," he said,
+"the covenanting interest in the south; and two gentlemen, of name and
+quality, here present, from the north of England, would answer for the
+zeal of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland. Against so many
+gallant gentlemen the southern Covenanters could but arm raw levies; the
+Whigamores of the western shires, and the ploughmen and mechanics of
+the Low-country. For the West Highlands, he knew no interest which the
+Covenanters possessed there, except that of one individual, as well
+known as he was odious. But was there a single man, who, on casting his
+eye round this hall, and recognising the power, the gallantry, and the
+dignity of the chiefs assembled, could entertain a moment's doubt of
+their success against the utmost force which Gillespie Grumach could
+collect against them? He had only farther to add, that considerable
+funds, both of money and ammunition, had been provided for the
+army"--(Here Dalgetty pricked up his ears)--"that officers of ability
+and experience in the foreign wars, one of whom was now present," (the
+Captain drew himself up, and looked round,) "had engaged to train such
+levies as might require to be disciplined;--and that a numerous body
+of auxiliary forces from Ireland, having been detached from the Earl of
+Antrim, from Ulster, had successfully accomplished their descent upon
+the main land, and, with the assistance of Clanranald's people, having
+taken and fortified the Castle of Mingarry, in spite of Argyle's
+attempts to intercept them, were in full march to this place of
+rendezvous. It only remained," he said, "that the noble Chiefs
+assembled, laying aside every lesser consideration, should unite, heart
+and hand, in the common cause; send the fiery cross through their clans,
+in order to collect their utmost force, and form their junction with
+such celerity as to leave the enemy no time, either for preparation, or
+recovery from the panic which would spread at the first sound of their
+pibroch. He himself," he said, "though neither among the richest nor the
+most powerful of the Scottish nobility, felt that he had to support
+the dignity of an ancient and honourable house, the independence of an
+ancient and honourable nation, and to that cause he was determined
+to devote both life and fortune. If those who were more powerful were
+equally prompt, he trusted they would deserve the thanks of their King,
+and the gratitude of posterity."
+
+Loud applause followed this speech of Lord Menteith, and testified
+the general acquiescence of all present in the sentiments which he
+had expressed; but when the shout had died away, the assembled Chiefs
+continued to gaze upon each other as if something yet remained to be
+settled. After some whispers among themselves, an aged man, whom his grey
+hairs rendered respectable, although he was not of the highest order of
+Chiefs, replied to what had been said.
+
+"Thane of Menteith," he said, "you have well spoken; nor is there one of
+us in whose bosom the same sentiments do not burn like fire. But it is
+not strength alone that wins the fight; it is the head of the commander,
+as well as the arm of the soldier, that brings victory. I ask of you who
+is to raise and sustain the banner under which we are invited to rise
+and muster ourselves? Will it be expected that we should risk our
+children, and the flower of our kinsmen, ere we know to whose guidance
+they are to be intrusted? This were leading those to slaughter, whom, by
+the laws of God and man, it is our duty to protect. Where is the royal
+commission, under which the lieges are to be convocated in arms? Simple
+and rude as we may be deemed, we know something of the established rules
+of war, as well as of the laws of our country; nor will we arm ourselves
+against the general peace of Scotland, unless by the express commands
+of the King, and under a leader fit to command such men as are here
+assembled."
+
+"Where would you find such a leader," said another Chief, starting up,
+"saving the representative of the Lord of the Isles, entitled by birth
+and hereditary descent to lead forth the array of every clan of the
+Highlands; and where is that dignity lodged, save in the house of Vich
+Alister More?"
+
+"I acknowledge," said another Chief, eagerly interrupting the speaker,
+"the truth in what has been first said, but not the inference. If Vich
+Alister More desires to be held representative of the Lord of the Isles,
+let him first show his blood is redder than mine."
+
+"That is soon tried," said Vich Alister More, laying his hand upon the
+basket hilt of his claymore. Lord Menteith threw himself between
+them, entreating and imploring each to remember that the interests of
+Scotland, the liberty of their country, and the cause of their King,
+ought to be superior in their eyes to any personal disputes respecting
+descent, rank, and precedence. Several of the Highland Chiefs, who had
+no desire to admit the claims of either chieftain, interfered to the
+same purpose, and none with more emphasis than the celebrated Evan Dhu.
+
+"I have come from my lakes," he said, "as a stream descends from the
+hills, not to turn again, but to accomplish my course. It is not by
+looking back to our own pretensions that we shall serve Scotland or King
+Charles. My voice shall be for that general whom the King shall name,
+who will doubtless possess those qualities which are necessary to
+command men like us. High-born he must be, or we shall lose our rank in
+obeying him--wise and skilful, or we shall endanger the safety of
+our people--bravest among the brave, or we shall peril our own
+honour--temperate, firm, and manly, to keep us united. Such is the man
+that must command us. Are you prepared, Thane of Menteith, to say where
+such a general is to be found?"
+
+"There is but ONE," said Allan M'Aulay; "and here," he said, laying
+his hand upon the shoulder of Anderson, who stood behind Lord Menteith,
+"here he stands!"
+
+The general surprise of the meeting was expressed by an impatient
+murmur; when Anderson, throwing back the cloak in which his face was
+muffled, and stepping forward, spoke thus:--"I did not long intend to be
+a silent spectator of this interesting scene, although my hasty friend
+has obliged me to disclose myself somewhat sooner than was my intention.
+Whether I deserve the honour reposed in me by this parchment will best
+appear from what I shall be able to do for the King's service. It is a
+commission under the great seal, to James Graham, Earl of Montrose, to
+command those forces which are to be assembled for the service of his
+Majesty in this kingdom."
+
+A loud shout of approbation burst from the assembly. There was, in fact,
+no other person to whom, in point of rank, these proud mountaineers
+would have been disposed to submit. His inveterate and hereditary
+hostility to the Marquis of Argyle insured his engaging in the war with
+sufficient energy, while his well-known military talents, and his
+tried valour, afforded every hope of his bringing it to a favourable
+conclusion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
+     constant:  a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation:
+     an excellent plot, very good friends.--HENRY IV Part I.
+
+No sooner had the general acclamation of joyful surprise subsided, than
+silence was eagerly demanded for reading the royal commission; and the
+bonnets, which hitherto each Chief had worn, probably because unwilling
+to be the first to uncover, were now at once vailed in honour of
+the royal warrant. It was couched in the most full and ample terms,
+authorizing the Earl of Montrose to assemble the subjects in arms,
+for the putting down the present rebellion, which divers traitors
+and seditious persons had levied against the King, to the manifest
+forfaulture, as it stated, of their allegiance, and to the breach of
+the pacification between the two kingdoms. It enjoined all subordinate
+authorities to be obedient and assisting to Montrose in his enterprise;
+gave him the power of making ordinances and proclamations, punishing
+misdemeanours, pardoning criminals, placing and displacing governors and
+commanders. In fine, it was as large and full a commission as any with
+which a prince could intrust a subject. As soon as it was finished,
+a shout burst from the assembled Chiefs, in testimony of their ready
+submission to the will of their sovereign. Not contented with generally
+thanking them for a reception so favourable, Montrose hastened to
+address himself to individuals, The most important Chiefs had already
+been long personally known to him, but even to those of inferior
+consequence he now introduced himself and by the acquaintance he
+displayed with their peculiar designations, and the circumstances and
+history of their clans, he showed how long he must have studied the
+character of the mountaineers, and prepared himself for such a situation
+as he now held.
+
+While he was engaged in these acts of courtesy, his graceful manner,
+expressive features, and dignity of deportment, made a singular contrast
+with the coarseness and meanness of his dress. Montrose possessed that
+sort of form and face, in which the beholder, at the first glance, sees
+nothing extraordinary, but of which the interest becomes more impressive
+the longer we gaze upon them. His stature was very little above the
+middle size, but in person he was uncommonly well-built, and capable
+both of exerting great force, and enduring much fatigue. In fact,
+he enjoyed a constitution of iron, without which he could not have
+sustained the trials of his extraordinary campaigns, through all of
+which he subjected himself to the hardships of the meanest soldier.
+He was perfect in all exercises, whether peaceful or martial, and
+possessed, of course, that graceful ease of deportment proper to those
+to whom habit has rendered all postures easy.
+
+His long brown hair, according to the custom of men of quality among the
+Royalists, was parted on the top of his head, and trained to hang down
+on each side in curled locks, one of which, descending two or three
+inches lower than the others, intimated Montrose's compliance with that
+fashion against which it pleased Mr. Prynne, the puritan, to write a
+treatise, entitled, THE UNLOVELINESS OF LOVE-LOCKS. The features which
+these tresses enclosed, were of that kind which derive their interest
+from the character of the man, rather than from the regularity of their
+form. But a high nose, a full, decided, well-opened, quick grey eye, and
+a sanguine complexion, made amends for some coarseness and irregularity
+in the subordinate parts of the face; so that, altogether, Montrose
+might be termed rather a handsome, than a hard-featured man. But those
+who saw him when his soul looked through those eyes with all the energy
+and fire of genius--those who heard him speak with the authority of
+talent, and the eloquence of nature, were impressed with an opinion
+even of his external form, more enthusiastically favourable than the
+portraits which still survive would entitle us to ascribe to it. Such,
+at least, was the impression he made upon the assembled Chiefs of the
+mountaineers, over whom, as upon all persons in their state of society,
+personal appearance has no small influence.
+
+In the discussions which followed his discovering himself, Montrose
+explained the various risks which he had run in his present undertaking.
+His first attempt had been to assemble a body of loyalists in the north
+of England, who, in obedience to the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle,
+he expected would have marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of
+the English to cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim,
+who was to have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army,
+prevented his executing this design. Other plans having in like manner
+failed, he stated that he found himself under the necessity of assuming
+a disguise to render his passage secure through the Lowlands, in which
+he had been kindly assisted by his kinsman of Menteith. By what means
+Allan M'Aulay had come to know him, he could not pretend to explain.
+Those who knew Allan's prophetic pretensions, smiled mysteriously;
+but he himself only replied, that "the Earl of Montrose need not be
+surprised if he was known to thousands, of whom he himself could retain
+no memory."
+
+"By the honour of a cavalier," said Captain Dalgetty, finding at length
+an opportunity to thrust in his word, "I am proud and happy in having an
+opportunity of drawing a sword under your lordship's command; and I do
+forgive all grudge, malecontent, and malice of my heart, to Mr. Allan
+M'Aulay, for having thrust me down to the lowest seat of the board
+yestreen. Certes, he hath this day spoken so like a man having full
+command of his senses, that I had resolved in my secret purpose that he
+was no way entitled to claim the privilege of insanity. But since I
+was only postponed to a noble earl, my future commander-in-chief, I do,
+before you all, recognise the justice of the preference, and heartily
+salute Allan as one who is to be his BON-CAMARADO."
+
+Having made this speech, which was little understood or attended to,
+without putting off his military glove, he seized on Allan's hand,
+and began to shake it with violence, which Allan, with a gripe like a
+smith's vice, returned with such force, as to drive the iron splents of
+the gauntlet into the hand of the wearer.
+
+Captain Dalgetty might have construed this into a new affront, had not
+his attention, as he stood blowing and shaking the injured member, been
+suddenly called by Montrose himself.
+
+"Hear this news," he said, "Captain Dalgetty--I should say Major
+Dalgetty,--the Irish, who are to profit by your military experience, are
+now within a few leagues of us."
+
+"Our deer-stalkers," said Angus M'Aulay, "who were abroad to bring in
+venison for this honourable party, have heard of a band of strangers,
+speaking neither Saxon nor pure Gaelic, and with difficulty making
+themselves understood by the people of the country, who are marching
+this way in arms, under the leading, it is said, of Alaster M'Donald,
+who is commonly called Young Colkitto."
+
+"These must be our men," said Montrose; "we must hasten to send
+messengers forward, both to act as guides and to relieve their wants."
+
+"The last," said Angus M'Aulay, "will be no easy matter; for I am
+informed, that, excepting muskets and a very little ammunition, they
+want everything that soldiers should have; and they are particularly
+deficient in money, in shoes, and in raiment."
+
+"There is at least no use in saying so," said Montrose, "in so loud
+a tone. The puritan weavers of Glasgow shall provide them plenty of
+broad-cloth, when we make a descent from the Highlands; and if the
+ministers could formerly preach the old women of the Scottish boroughs
+out of their webs of napery, to make tents to the fellows on Dunse Law,
+[The Covenanters encamped on Dunse Law, during the troubles of 1639.] I
+will try whether I have not a little interest both to make these godly
+dames renew their patriotic gift, and the prick-eared knaves, their
+husbands, open their purses."
+
+"And respecting arms," said Captain Dalgetty, "if your lordship will
+permit an old cavalier to speak his mind, so that the one-third have
+muskets, my darling weapon would be the pike for the remainder, whether
+for resisting a charge of horse, or for breaking the infantry. A common
+smith will make a hundred pike-heads in a day; here is plenty of wood
+for shafts; and I will uphold, that, according to the best usages of
+war, a strong battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of
+the North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx,
+of which I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied in the
+ancient town of Bon-accord; and further, I will venture to predicate--"
+
+The Captain's lecture upon tactics was here suddenly interrupted by
+Allan M'Aulay, who said, hastily,--"Room for an unexpected and unwelcome
+guest!"
+
+At the same moment, the door of the hall opened, and a grey-haired man,
+of a very stately appearance, presented himself to the assembly. There
+was much dignity, and even authority, in his manner. His stature was
+above the common size, and his looks such as were used to command. He
+cast a severe, and almost stern glance upon the assembly of Chiefs.
+Those of the higher rank among them returned it with scornful
+indifference; but some of the western gentlemen of inferior power,
+looked as if they wished themselves elsewhere.
+
+"To which of this assembly," said the stranger, "am I to address myself
+as leader? or have you not fixed upon the person who is to hold an
+office at least as perilous as it is honourable?"
+
+"Address yourself to me, Sir Duncan Campbell," said Montrose, stepping
+forward.
+
+"To you!" said Sir Duncan Campbell, with some scorn.
+
+"Yes,--to me," repeated Montrose,--"to the Earl of Montrose, if you have
+forgot him."
+
+"I should now, at least," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "have had some
+difficulty in recognising him in the disguise of a groom.--and yet I
+might have guessed that no evil influence inferior to your lordship's,
+distinguished as one who troubles Israel, could have collected together
+this rash assembly of misguided persons."
+
+"I will answer unto you," said Montrose, "in the manner of your own
+Puritans. I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house.
+But let us leave an altercation, which is of little consequence but
+to ourselves, and hear the tidings you have brought from your Chief of
+Argyle; for I must conclude that it is in his name that you have come to
+this meeting."
+
+"It is in the name of the Marquis of Argyle," said Sir Duncan
+Campbell,--"in the name of the Scottish Convention of Estates, that
+I demand to know the meaning of this singular convocation. If it is
+designed to disturb the peace of the country, it were but acting like
+neighbours, and men of honour, to give us some intimation to stand upon
+our guard."
+
+"It is a singular, and new state of affairs in Scotland," said Montrose,
+turning from Sir Duncan Campbell to the assembly, "when Scottish men of
+rank and family cannot meet in the house of a common friend without an
+inquisitorial visit and demand, on the part of our rulers, to know the
+subject of our conference. Methinks our ancestors were accustomed to
+hold Highland huntings, or other purposes of meeting, without asking
+the leave either of the great M'Callum More himself, or any of his
+emissaries or dependents."
+
+"The times have been such in Scotland," answered one of the Western
+Chiefs, "and such they will again be, when the intruders on our
+ancient possessions are again reduced to be Lairds of Lochow instead of
+overspreading us like a band of devouring locusts."
+
+"Am I to understand, then," said Sir Duncan, "that it is against my name
+alone that these preparations are directed? or are the race of Diarmid
+only to be sufferers in common with the whole of the peaceful and
+orderly inhabitants of Scotland?"
+
+"I would ask," said a wild-looking Chief, starting hastily up, "one
+question of the Knight of Ardenvohr, ere he proceeds farther in his
+daring catechism.--Has he brought more than one life to this castle,
+that he ventures to intrude among us for the purposes of insult?"
+
+"Gentlemen," said Montrose, "let me implore your patience; a messenger
+who comes among us for the purpose of embassy, is entitled to freedom of
+speech and safe-conduct. And since Sir Duncan Campbell is so pressing, I
+care not if I inform him, for his guidance, that he is in an assembly
+of the King's loyal subjects, convoked by me, in his Majesty's name and
+authority, and as empowered by his Majesty's royal commission."
+
+"We are to have, then, I presume," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "a civil
+war in all its forms? I have been too long a soldier to view its
+approach with anxiety; but it would have been for my Lord of Montrose's
+honour, if, in this matter, he had consulted his own ambition less, and
+the peace of the country more."
+
+"Those consulted their own ambition and self-interest, Sir Duncan,"
+answered Montrose, "who brought the country to the pass in which it
+now stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies which we are now
+reluctantly about to use."
+
+"And what rank among these self-seekers," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "we
+shall assign to a noble Earl, so violently attached to the Covenant,
+that he was the first, in 1639, to cross the Tyne, wading middle deep at
+the head of his regiment, to charge the royal forces? It was the same,
+I think, who imposed the Covenant upon the burgesses and colleges of
+Aberdeen, at the point of sword and pike."
+
+"I understand your sneer, Sir Duncan," said Montrose, temperately; "and
+I can only add, that if sincere repentance can make amends for youthful
+error, and for yielding to the artful representation of ambitious
+hypocrites, I shall be pardoned for the crimes with which you taunt me.
+I will at least endeavour to deserve forgiveness, for I am here, with
+my sword in my hand, willing to spend the best blood of my body to make
+amends for my error; and mortal man can do no more."
+
+"Well, my lord," said Sir Duncan, "I shall be sorry to carry back this
+language to the Marquis of Argyle. I had it in farther charge from the
+Marquis, that, to prevent the bloody feuds which must necessarily follow
+a Highland war, his lordship will be contented if terms of truce could
+be arranged to the north of the Highland line, as there is ground enough
+in Scotland to fight upon, without neighbours destroying each other's
+families and inheritances."
+
+"It is a peaceful proposal," said Montrose, smiling, "such as it
+should be, coming from one whose personal actions have always been more
+peaceful than his measures. Yet, if the terms of such a truce could be
+equally fixed, and if we can obtain security, for that, Sir Duncan, is
+indispensable,--that your Marquis will observe these terms with strict
+fidelity, I, for my part, should be content to leave peace behind us,
+since we must needs carry war before us. But, Sir Duncan, you are too
+old and experienced a soldier for us to permit you to remain in our
+leaguer, and witness our proceedings; we shall therefore, when you have
+refreshed yourself, recommend your speedy return to Inverary, and we
+shall send with you a gentleman on our part to adjust the terms of
+the Highland armistice, in case the Marquis shall be found serious in
+proposing such a measure." Sir Duncan Campbell assented by a bow.
+
+"My Lord of Menteith," continued Montrose, "will you have the goodness
+to attend Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, while we determine who shall
+return with him to his Chief? M'Aulay will permit us to request that he
+be entertained with suitable hospitality."
+
+"I will give orders for that," said Allan M'Aulay, rising and coming
+forward. "I love Sir Duncan Campbell; we have been joint sufferers in
+former days, and I do not forget it now."
+
+"My Lord of Menteith," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "I am grieved to
+see you, at your early age, engaged in such desperate and rebellious
+courses."
+
+"I am young," answered Menteith, "yet old enough to distinguish between
+right and wrong, between loyalty and rebellion; and the sooner a good
+course is begun, the longer and the better have I a chance of running
+it."
+
+"And you too, my friend, Allan M'Aulay," said Sir Duncan, taking his
+hand, "must we also call each other enemies, that have been so often
+allied against a common foe?" Then turning round to the meeting, he
+said, "Farewell, gentlemen; there are so many of you to whom I wish
+well, that your rejection of all terms of mediation gives me deep
+affliction. May Heaven," he said, looking upwards, "judge between our
+motives, and those of the movers of this civil commotion!"
+
+"Amen," said Montrose; "to that tribunal we all submit us."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell left the hall, accompanied by Allan M'Aulay and Lord
+Menteith. "There goes a true-bred Campbell," said Montrose, as the envoy
+departed, "for they are ever fair and false."
+
+"Pardon me, my lord," said Evan Dhu; "hereditary enemy as I am to their
+name, I have ever found the Knight of Ardenvohr brave in war, honest in
+peace, and true in council."
+
+"Of his own disposition," said Montrose, "such he is undoubtedly; but
+he now acts as the organ or mouth-piece of his Chief, the Marquis, the
+falsest man that ever drew breath. And, M'Aulay," he continued in a
+whisper to his host, "lest he should make some impression upon the
+inexperience of Menteith, or the singular disposition of your brother,
+you had better send music into their chamber, to prevent his inveigling
+them into any private conference."
+
+"The devil a musician have I," answered M'Aulay, "excepting the piper,
+who has nearly broke his wind by an ambitious contention for superiority
+with three of his own craft; but I can send Annot Lyle and her harp."
+And he left the apartment to give orders accordingly.
+
+Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the
+perilous task of returning with Sir Duncan to Inverary. To the higher
+dignitaries, accustomed to consider themselves upon an equality even
+with M'Callum More, this was an office not to be proposed; unto others
+who could not plead the same excuse, it was altogether unacceptable. One
+would have thought Inverary had been the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
+the inferior chiefs showed such reluctance to approach it. After a
+considerable hesitation, the plain reason was at length spoken
+out, namely, that whatever Highlander should undertake an office so
+distasteful to M'Callum More, he would be sure to treasure the offence
+in his remembrance, and one day or other to make him bitterly repent of
+it.
+
+In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice as
+a mere stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not ventured
+bluntly to reject it in presence of those whom it concerned so nearly,
+resolved to impose the danger and dignity upon Captain Dalgetty, who had
+neither clan nor estate in the Highlands upon which the wrath of Argyle
+could wreak itself.
+
+"But I have a neck though," said Dalgetty, bluntly; "and what if he
+chooses to avenge himself upon that? I have known a case where an
+honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before now. Neither did
+the Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully at the siege of Capua,
+although I read that they only cut off their hands and noses, put out
+their eyes, and suffered them to depart in peace."
+
+"By my honour Captain Dalgetty," said Montrose, "should the Marquis,
+contrary to the rules of war, dare to practise any atrocity against you,
+you may depend upon my taking such signal vengeance that all Scotland
+shall ring of it."
+
+"That will do but little for Dalgetty," returned the Captain; "but
+corragio! as the Spaniard says. With the Land of Promise full in
+view, the Moor of Drumthwacket, MEA PAUPERA REGNA, as we said at
+Mareschal-College, I will not refuse your Excellency's commission,
+being conscious it becomes a cavalier of honour to obey his commander's
+orders, in defiance both of gibbet and sword."
+
+"Gallantly resolved," said Montrose; "and if you will come apart with
+me, I will furnish you with the conditions to be laid before M'Callum
+More, upon which we are willing to grant him a truce for his Highland
+dominions."
+
+With these we need not trouble our readers. They were of an evasive
+nature, calculated to meet a proposal which Montrose considered to have
+been made only for the purpose of gaining time. When he had put Captain
+Dalgetty in complete possession of his instructions, and when that
+worthy, making his military obeisance, was near the door of his
+apartment, Montrose made him a sign to return.
+
+"I presume," said he, "I need not remind an officer who has served under
+the great Gustavus, that a little more is required of a person sent with
+a flag of truce than mere discharge of his instructions, and that his
+general will expect from him, on his return, some account of the state
+of the enemy's affairs, as far as they come under his observation. In
+short, Captain Dalgetty, you must be UN PEU CLAIR-VOYANT."
+
+"Ah ha! your Excellency," said the Captain, twisting his hard features
+into an inimitable expression of cunning and intelligence, "if they do
+not put my head in a poke, which I have known practised upon honourable
+soldados who have been suspected to come upon such errands as the
+present, your Excellency may rely on a preceese narration of whatever
+Dugald Dalgetty shall hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune
+there are in M'Callum More's pibroch, or how many checks in the sett of
+his plaid and trews."
+
+"Enough," answered Montrose; "farewell, Captain Dalgetty: and as they
+say that a lady's mind is always expressed in her postscript, so I would
+have you think that the most important part of your commission lies in
+what I have last said to you."
+
+Dalgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual his
+charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching mission.
+
+At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first
+care,--he met Angus M'Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been looking
+at his horse; and, after praising his points and carriage, both united
+in strongly dissuading the Captain from taking an animal of such value
+with him upon his present very fatiguing journey.
+
+Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather
+wild tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into
+Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bothies where he would be
+condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be procured for
+his horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old heather. In short,
+he pronounced it absolutely impossible, that, after undertaking such a
+pilgrimage, the animal could be in any case for military service. The
+Englishman strongly confirmed all that Angus had said, and gave himself,
+body and soul, to the devil, if he thought it was not an act little
+short of absolute murder to carry a horse worth a farthing into such a
+waste and inhospitable desert. Captain Dalgetty for an instant looked
+steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and next at the other, and then
+asked them, as if in a state of indecision, what they would advise him
+to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.
+
+"By the hand of my father, my dear friend," answered M'Aulay, "if you
+leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed and sorted
+according to his worth and quality, and that upon your happy return, you
+will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in butter."
+
+"Or," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "if this worthy cavalier chooses to part
+with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part of the silver
+candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse, which I shall be very
+willing to transfer to his."
+
+"In brief, mine honourable friends," said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing
+them both with an air of comic penetration, "I find it would not be
+altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember
+the old soldier by, in case it shall please M'Callum More to hang him
+up at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small
+satisfaction to me, in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier
+like Sir Miles Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our
+excellent landlord, should act as my executor."
+
+Both hastened to protest that they had no such object, and insisted
+again upon the impassable character of the Highland paths. Angus
+M'Aulay mumbled over a number of hard Gaellic names, descriptive of the
+difficult passes, precipices, corries, and beals, through which he
+said the road lay to Inverary, when old Donald, who had now entered,
+sanctioned his master's account of these difficulties, by holding up his
+hands, and elevating his eyes, and shaking his head, at every gruttural
+which M'Aulay pronounced. But all this did not move the inflexible
+Captain.
+
+"My worthy friends," said he, "Gustavus is not new to the dangers of
+travelling, and the mountains of Bohemia; and (no disparagement to the
+beals and corries Mr. Angus is pleased to mention, and of which Sir
+Miles, who never saw them, confirms the horrors,) these mountains may
+compete with the vilest roads in Europe. In fact, my horse hath a most
+excellent and social quality; for although he cannot pledge in my cup,
+yet we share our loaf between us, and it will be hard if he suffers
+famine where cakes or bannocks are to be found. And, to cut this matter
+short, I beseech you, my good friends, to observe the state of Sir
+Duncan Campbell's palfrey, which stands in that stall before us, fat
+and fair; and, in return for your anxiety an my account, I give you
+my honest asseveration, that while we travel the same road, both that
+palfrey and his rider shall lack for food before either Gustavus or I."
+
+Having said this he filled a large measure with corn, and walked up with
+it to his charger, who, by his low whinnying neigh, his pricked ears,
+and his pawing, showed how close the alliance was betwixt him and his
+rider. Nor did he taste his corn until he had returned his master's
+caresses, by licking his hands and face. After this interchange of
+greeting, the steed began to his provender with an eager dispatch, which
+showed old military habits; and the master, after looking on the animal
+with great complacency for about five minutes, said,--"Much good may it
+do your honest heart, Gustavus;--now must I go and lay in provant myself
+for the campaign."
+
+He then departed, having first saluted the Englishman and Angus M'Aulay,
+who remained looking at each other for some time in silence, and then
+burst out into a fit of laughter.
+
+"That fellow," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "is formed to go through the
+world."
+
+"I shall think so too," said M'Aulay, "if he can slip through M'Callum
+More's fingers as easily as he has done through ours."
+
+"Do you think," said the Englishman, "that the Marquis will not respect,
+in Captain Dalgetty's person, the laws of civilized war?"
+
+"No more than I would respect a Lowland proclamation," said Angus
+M'Aulay.--"But come along, it is time I were returning to my guests."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     . . . . In a rebellion,
+     When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
+     Then were they chosen, in a better hour,
+     Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
+     And throw their power i' the dust.--CORIOLANUS.
+In a small apartment, remote from the rest of the guests assembled at
+the castle, Sir Duncan Campbell was presented with every species of
+refreshment, and respectfully attended by Lord Menteith, and by Allan
+M'Aulay. His discourse with the latter turned upon a sort of hunting
+campaign, in which they had been engaged together against the Children
+of the Mist, with whom the Knight of Ardenvohr, as well as the M'Aulays,
+had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. Sir Duncan, however, speedily
+endeavoured to lead back the conversation to the subject of his present
+errand to the castle of Darnlinvarach.
+
+"It grieved him to the very heart," he said, "to see that friends and
+neighbours, who should stand shoulder to shoulder, were likely to be
+engaged hand to hand in a cause which so little concerned them. What
+signifies it," he said, "to the Highland Chiefs, whether King or
+Parliament got uppermost? Were it not better to let them settle their
+own differences without interference, while the Chiefs, in the meantime,
+took the opportunity of establishing their own authority in a manner
+not to be called in question hereafter by either King or Parliament?"
+He reminded Allan M'Aulay that the measures taken in the last reign
+to settle the peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in fact
+levelled at the patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentioned
+the celebrated settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they were
+called, in the Lewis, as part of a deliberate plan, formed to introduce
+strangers among the Celtic tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancient
+customs and mode of government, and to despoil them of the inheritance
+of their fathers. [In the reign of James VI., an attempt of rather an
+extraordinary kind was made to civilize the extreme northern part of the
+Hebridean Archipelago. That monarch granted the property of the Island
+of Lewis, as if it had been an unknown and savage country, to a number
+of Lowland gentlemen, called undertakers, chiefly natives of the shire
+of Fife, that they might colonize and settle there. The enterprise
+was at first successful, but the natives of the island, MacLeods and
+MacKenzies, rose on the Lowland adventurers, and put most of them to
+the sword.] "And yet," he continued, addressing Allan, "it is for
+the purpose of giving despotic authority to the monarch by whom these
+designs have been nursed, that so many Highland Chiefs are upon
+the point of quarrelling with, and drawing the sword against, their
+neighbours, allies, and ancient confederates." "It is to my brother,"
+said Allan, "it is to the eldest son of my father's house, that the
+Knight of Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances. I am, indeed, the
+brother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his clansmen,
+and bound to show an example to the others by my cheerful and ready
+obedience to his commands."
+
+"The cause also," said Lord Menteith, interposing, "is far more general
+than Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it. It is neither limited
+to Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath, to Highlands nor to
+Lowlands. The question is, if we will continue to be governed by the
+unlimited authority assumed by a set of persons in no respect superior
+to ourselves, instead of returning to the natural government of the
+Prince against whom they have rebelled. And respecting the interest of
+the Highlands in particular," he added, "I crave Sir Duncan Campbell's
+pardon for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the only
+effect produced by the present usurpation, will be the aggrandisement
+of one overgrown clan at the expense of every independent Chief in the
+Highlands."
+
+"I will not reply to you, my lord," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "because
+I know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed; yet you will
+pardon my saying, that being at the head of a rival branch of the House
+of Graham, I have both read of and known an Earl of Menteith, who
+would have disdained to have been tutored in politics, or to have been
+commanded in war, by an Earl of Montrose."
+
+"You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan," said Lord Menteith, haughtily,
+"to set my vanity in arms against my principles. The King gave my
+ancestors their title and rank; and these shall never prevent my acting,
+in the royal cause, under any one who is better qualified than myself
+to be a commander-in-chief. Least of all, shall any miserable jealousy
+prevent me from placing my hand and sword under the guidance of the
+bravest, the most loyal, the most heroic spirit among our Scottish
+nobility."
+
+"Pity," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "that you cannot add to this panegyric
+the farther epithets of the most steady, and the most consistent. But I
+have no purpose of debating these points with you, my lord," waving
+his hand, as if to avoid farther discussion; "the die is cast with you;
+allow me only to express my sorrow for the disastrous fate to which
+Angus M'Aulay's natural rashness, and your lordship's influence, are
+dragging my gallant friend Allan here, with his father's clan, and many
+a brave man besides."
+
+"The die is cast for us all, Sir Duncan," replied Allan, looking gloomy,
+and arguing on his own hypochondriac feelings; "the iron hand of destiny
+branded our fate upon our forehead long ere we could form a wish, or
+raise a finger in our own behalf. Were this otherwise, by what means
+does the Seer ascertain the future from those shadowy presages which
+haunt his waking and his sleeping eye? Nought can be foreseen but that
+which is certain to happen."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell was about to reply, and the darkest and most
+contested point of metaphysics might have been brought into discussion
+betwixt two Highland disputants, when the door opened, and Annot Lyle,
+with her clairshach in her hand, entered the apartment. The freedom of
+a Highland maiden was in her step and in her eye; for, bred up in the
+closest intimacy with the Laird of M'Aulay and his brother, with
+Lord Menteith, and other young men who frequented Darnlinvarach, she
+possessed none of that timidity which a female, educated chiefly among
+her own sex, would either have felt, or thought necessary to assume, on
+an occasion like the present.
+
+Her dress partook of the antique, for new fashions seldom penetrated
+into the Highlands, nor would they easily have found their way to a
+castle inhabited chiefly by men, whose sole occupation was war and the
+chase. Yet Annot's garments were not only becoming, but even rich. Her
+open jacket, with a high collar, was composed of blue cloth, richly
+embroidered, and had silver clasps to fasten, when it pleased the
+wearer. Its sleeves, which were wide, came no lower than the elbow, and
+terminated in a golden fringe; under this upper coat, if it can be so
+termed, she wore an under dress of blue satin, also richly embroidered,
+but which was several shades lighter in colour than the upper garment.
+The petticoat was formed of tartan silk, in the sett, or pattern, of
+which the colour of blue greatly predominated, so as to remove the
+tawdry effect too frequently produced in tartan, by the mixture and
+strong opposition of colours. An antique silver chain hung round
+her neck, and supported the WREST, or key, with which she turned her
+instrument. A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured by a
+brooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith. Her profusion
+of light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while, with a smile and a
+blush, she mentioned that she had M'Aulay's directions to ask them if
+they chose music. Sir Duncan Campbell gazed with considerable surprise
+and interest at the lovely apparition, which thus interrupted his debate
+with Allan M'Aulay.
+
+"Can this," he said to him in a whisper, "a creature so beautiful and so
+elegant, be a domestic musician of your brother's establishment?"
+
+"By no means," answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation; "she
+is a--a--near relation of our family--and treated," he added, more
+firmly, "as an adopted daughter of our father's house."
+
+As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of courtesy
+which every Highlander can assume when it suits him to practise it, he
+resigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the same time, whatever
+refreshments the table afforded, with an assiduity which was probably
+designed to give Sir Duncan an impression of her rank and consequence.
+If such was Allan's purpose, however, it was unnecessary. Sir Duncan
+kept his eyes fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeper
+interest than could have arisen from any impression that she was
+a person of consequence. Annot even felt embarrassed under the old
+knight's steady gaze; and it was not without considerable hesitation,
+that, tuning her instrument, and receiving an assenting look from Lord
+Menteith and Allan, she executed the following ballad, which our friend,
+Mr. Secundus M'Pherson, whose goodness we had before to acknowledge, has
+thus translated into the English tongue:
+
+THE ORPHAN MAID.
+
+     November's hail-cloud drifts away,
+     November's sunbeam wan
+     Looks coldly on the castle grey,
+     When forth comes Lady Anne.
+
+     The orphan by the oak was set,
+     Her arms, her feet, were bare,
+     The hail-drops had not melted yet,
+     Amid her raven hair.
+
+     "And, Dame," she said, "by all the ties
+     That child and mother know,
+     Aid one who never knew these joys,
+     Relieve an orphan's woe."
+
+     The Lady said, "An orphan's state
+     Is hard and sad to bear;
+     Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate,
+     Who mourns both lord and heir.
+
+     "Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
+     Since, when from vengeance wild
+     Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled,
+     Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."
+
+     "Twelve times the year its course has born,"
+     The wandering maid replied,
+     "Since fishers on St. Bridget's morn
+     Drew nets on Campsie side.
+
+     "St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;--
+     An infant, wellnigh dead,
+     They saved, and rear'd in want and toil,
+     To beg from you her bread."
+
+     That orphan maid the lady kiss'd--
+     "My husband's looks you bear;
+     St. Bridget and her morn be bless'd!
+     You are his widow's heir."
+
+     They've robed that maid, so poor and pale,
+     In silk and sandals rare;
+     And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
+     Are glistening in her hair.
+
+The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the elegance of
+the above translation, may be desirous to see a literal version from the
+original Gaelic, which we therefore subjoin; and have only to add, that
+the original is deposited with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.
+
+LITERAL TRANSLATION.
+
+     The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale
+     of autumn.  The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as
+     the wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when
+     the roar of battle hath passed over him.
+
+     Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her
+     maidens pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].
+
+     There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of
+     appointment.  The withered leaves fell around her, and her
+     heart was more withered than they.
+
+     The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost]
+     still congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like
+     the specks of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the
+     blackened and half-consumed oak that blazes in the hall.
+
+     And the maiden said, "Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan
+     child."  And the Lady replied, "How can I give that which I
+     have not?  I am the widow of a slain lord,--the mother of a
+     perished child.  When I fled in my fear from the vengeance
+     of my husband's foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide,
+     and my infant perished.  This was on St. Bridget's morn,
+     near the strong Lyns of Campsie.  May ill luck light upon
+     the day."  And the maiden answered, "It was on St. Bridget's
+     morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the
+     fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor
+     salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in
+     misery, and must die, unless she is now aided." And the Lady
+     answered, "Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these
+     are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and
+     thine shall be the inheritance of his widow."  And she
+     called for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe
+     that maiden in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which
+     they wove among her black tresses, were whiter than the
+     frozen hail-drops.
+
+While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some surprise,
+that it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon the mind of Sir
+Duncan Campbell, than he could possibly have anticipated from his
+age and character. He well knew that the Highlanders of that period
+possessed a much greater sensibility both for tale and song than was
+found among their Lowland neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardly
+accounted for the embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyes
+from the songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an object
+so interesting. Still less was it to be expected, that features which
+expressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit of authority,
+should have been so much agitated by so trivial a circumstance. As the
+Chief's brow became clouded, he drooped his large shaggy grey eyebrows
+until they almost concealed his eyes, on the lids of which something
+like a tear might be seen to glisten. He remained silent and fixed in
+the same posture for a minute or two, after the last note had ceased to
+vibrate. He then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as if
+purposing to speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose, and was
+about to address Allan, when the door opened, and the Lord of the Castle
+made his appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Dark on their journey lour'd the gloomy day,
+     Wild were the hills, and doubtful grew the way;
+     More dark, more gloomy, and more doubtful, show'd
+     The mansion, which received them from the road.
+     --THE TRAVELLERS, A ROMANCE.
+
+Angus M'Aulay was charged with a message which he seemed to find some
+difficulty in communicating; for it was not till after he had framed his
+speech several different ways, and blundered them all, that he succeeded
+in letting Sir Duncan Campbell know, that the cavalier who was to
+accompany him was waiting in readiness, and that all was prepared for
+his return to Inverary. Sir Duncan Campbell rose up very indignantly;
+the affront which this message implied immediately driving out of his
+recollection the sensibility which had been awakened by the music.
+
+"I little expected this," he said, looking indignantly at Angus M'Aulay.
+"I little thought that there was a Chief in the West Highlands, who, at
+the pleasure of a Saxon, would have bid the Knight of Ardenvohr leave
+his castle, when the sun was declining from the meridian, and ere the
+second cup had been filled. But farewell, sir, the food of a churl does
+not satisfy the appetite; when I next revisit Darnlinvarach, it shall be
+with a naked sword in one hand, and a firebrand in the other."
+
+"And if you so come," said Angus, "I pledge myself to meet you fairly,
+though you brought five hundred Campbells at your back, and to afford
+you and them such entertainment, that you shall not again complain of
+the hospitality of Darnlinvarach."
+
+"Threatened men," said Sir Duncan, "live long. Your turn for
+gasconading, Laird of M'Aulay, is too well known, that men of honour
+should regard your vaunts. To you, my lord, and to Allan, who have
+supplied the place of my churlish host, I leave my thanks.--And to you,
+pretty mistress," he said, addressing Annot Lyle, "this little token,
+for having opened a fountain which hath been dry for many a year."
+So saying, he left the apartment, and commanded his attendants to be
+summoned. Angus M'Aulay, equally embarrassed and incensed at the
+charge of inhospitality, which was the greatest possible affront to a
+Highlander, did not follow Sir Duncan to the court-yard, where, mounting
+his palfrey, which was in readiness, followed by six mounted attendants,
+and accompanied by the noble Captain Dalgetty, who had also awaited him,
+holding Gustavus ready for action, though he did not draw his girths and
+mount till Sir Duncan appeared, the whole cavalcade left the castle.
+
+The journey was long and toilsome, but without any of the extreme
+privations which the Laird of M'Aulay had prophesied. In truth, Sir
+Duncan was very cautious to avoid those nearer and more secret paths,
+by means of which the county of Argyle was accessible from the eastward;
+for his relation and chief, the Marquis, was used to boast, that he
+would not for a hundred thousand crowns any mortal should know the
+passes by which an armed force could penetrate into his country.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell, therefore, rather shunned the Highlands, and
+falling into the Low-country, made for the nearest seaport in the
+vicinity, where he had several half-decked galleys, or birlings, as
+they were called, at his command. In one of these they embarked, with
+Gustavus in company, who was so seasoned to adventure, that land and sea
+seemed as indifferent to him as to his master.
+
+The wind being favourable, they pursued their way rapidly with sails and
+oars; and early the next morning it was announced to Captain Dalgetty,
+then in a small cabin beneath the hall-deck, that the galley was under
+the walls of Sir Duncan Campbell's castle.
+
+Ardenvohr, accordingly, rose high above him, when he came upon the deck
+of the galley. It was a gloomy square tower, of considerable size and
+great height, situated upon a headland projecting into the salt-water
+lake, or arm of the sea, which they had entered on the preceding
+evening. A wall, with flanking towers at each angle, surrounded the
+castle to landward; but, towards the lake, it was built so near the
+brink of the precipice as only to leave room for a battery of seven
+guns, designed to protect the fortress from any insult from that side,
+although situated too high to be of any effectual use according to the
+modern system of warfare.
+
+The eastern sun, rising behind the old tower, flung its shadow far on
+the lake, darkening the deck of the galley, on which Captain Dalgetty
+now walked, waiting with some impatience the signal to land. Sir Duncan
+Campbell, as he was informed by his attendants, was already within the
+walls of the castle; but no one encouraged the Captain's proposal of
+following him ashore, until, as they stated, they should receive the
+direct permission or order of the Knight of Ardenvohr.
+
+In a short time afterwards the mandate arrived, while a boat, with a
+piper in the bow, bearing the Knight of Ardenvohr's crest in silver upon
+his left arm, and playing with all his might the family march, entitled
+"The Campbells are coming," approached to conduct the envoy of Montrose
+to the castle of Ardenvohr. The distance between the galley and the
+beach was so short as scarce to require the assistance of the eight
+sturdy rowers, in bonnets, short coats, and trews, whose efforts sent
+the boat to the little creek in which they usually landed, before one
+could have conceived that it had left the side of the birling. Two of
+the boatmen, in spite of Dalgetty's resistance, horsed the Captain on
+the back of a third Highlander, and, wading through the surf with him,
+landed him high and dry upon the beach beneath the castle rock. In
+the face of this rock there appeared something like the entrance of a
+low-browed cavern, towards which the assistants were preparing to hurry
+our friend Dalgetty, when, shaking himself loose from them with some
+difficulty, he insisted upon seeing Gustavus safely landed before he
+proceeded one step farther. The Highlanders could not comprehend what he
+meant, until one who had picked up a little English, or rather Lowland
+Scotch, exclaimed, "Houts! it's a' about her horse, ta useless baste."
+Farther remonstrance on the part of Captain Dalgetty was interrupted
+by the appearance of Sir Duncan Campbell himself, from the mouth of
+the cavern which we have described, for the purpose of inviting Captain
+Dalgetty to accept of the hospitality of Ardenvohr, pledging his honour,
+at the same time, that Gustavus should be treated as became the hero
+from whom he derived his name, not to mention the important person
+to whom he now belonged. Notwithstanding this satisfactory guarantee,
+Captain Dalgetty would still have hesitated, such was his anxiety to
+witness the fate of his companion Gustavus, had not two Highlanders
+seized him by the arms, two more pushed him on behind, while a fifth
+exclaimed, "Hout awa wi' the daft Sassenach! does she no hear the Laird
+bidding her up to her ain castle, wi' her special voice, and isna that
+very mickle honour for the like o' her?"
+
+Thus impelled, Captain Dalgetty could only for a short space keep a
+reverted eye towards the galley in which he had left the partner of his
+military toils. In a few minutes afterwards he found himself involved in
+the total darkness of a staircase, which, entering from the low-browed
+cavern we have mentioned, winded upwards through the entrails of the
+living rock.
+
+"The cursed Highland salvages!" muttered the Captain, half aloud; "what
+is to become of me, if Gustavus, the namesake of the invincible Lion of
+the Protestant League, should be lamed among their untenty hands!"
+
+"Have no fear of that," said the voice of Sir Duncan, who was nearer to
+him than he imagined; "my men are accustomed to handle horses, both in
+embarking and dressing them, and you will soon see Gustavus as safe as
+when you last dismounted from his back."
+
+Captain Dalgetty knew the world too well to offer any farther
+remonstrance, whatever uneasiness he might suppress within his own
+bosom. A step or two higher up the stair showed light and a door, and
+an iron-grated wicket led him out upon a gallery cut in the open face
+of the rock, extending a space of about six or eight yards, until he
+reached a second door, where the path re-entered the rock, and which was
+also defended by an iron portcullis. "An admirable traverse," observed
+the Captain; "and if commanded by a field-piece, or even a few muskets,
+quite sufficient to ensure the place against a storming party."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell made no answer at the time; but, the moment
+afterwards, when they had entered the second cavern, he struck with the
+stick which he had in his hand, first on the one side, and then on the
+other of the wicket, and the sullen ringing sound which replied to the
+blows, made Captain Dalgetty sensible that there was a gun placed on
+each side, for the purpose of raking the gallery through which they had
+passed, although the embrasures, through which they might be fired on
+occasion, were masked on the outside with sods and loose stones. Having
+ascended the second staircase, they found themselves again on an open
+platform and gallery, exposed to a fire both of musketry and wall-guns,
+if, being come with hostile intent, they had ventured farther. A third
+flight of steps, cut in the rock like the former, but not caverned over,
+led them finally into the battery at the foot of the tower. This last
+stair also was narrow and steep, and, not to mention the fire which
+might be directed on it from above, one or two resolute men, with pikes
+and battle-axes, could have made the pass good against hundreds; for the
+staircase would not admit two persons abreast, and was not secured by
+any sort of balustrade, or railing, from the sheer and abrupt precipice,
+on the foot of which the tide now rolled with a voice of thunder. So
+that, under the jealous precautions used to secure this ancient Celtic
+fortress, a person of weak nerves, and a brain liable to become dizzy,
+might have found it something difficult to have achieved the entrance to
+the castle, even supposing no resistance had been offered.
+
+Captain Dalgetty, too old a soldier to feel such tremors, had no sooner
+arrived in the court-yard, than he protested to God, the defences of Sir
+Duncan's castle reminded him more of the notable fortress of Spandau,
+situated in the March of Brandenburg, than of any place whilk it had
+been his fortune to defend in the course of his travels. Nevertheless,
+he criticised considerably the mode of placing the guns on the battery
+we have noticed, observing, that "where cannon were perched, like to
+scarts or sea-gulls on the top of a rock, he had ever observed that
+they astonished more by their noise than they dismayed by the skaith or
+damage which they occasioned."
+
+Sir Duncan, without replying, conducted the soldier into the tower; the
+defences of which were a portcullis and ironclenched oaken door, the
+thickness of the wall being the space between them. He had no sooner
+arrived in a hall hung with tapestry, than the Captain prosecuted his
+military criticism. It was indeed suspended by the sight of an excellent
+breakfast, of which he partook with great avidity; but no sooner had he
+secured this meal, than he made the tour of the apartment, examining the
+ground around the Castle very carefully from each window in the room.
+He then returned to his chair, and throwing himself back into it at his
+length, stretched out one manly leg, and tapping his jack-boot with the
+riding-rod which he carried in his hand, after the manner of a half-bred
+man who affects ease in the society of his betters, he delivered his
+unasked opinion as follows:--"This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan, is a
+very pretty defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such as
+a cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding out
+for many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your house
+is overcrowed, and slighted, or commanded, as we military men say, by
+yonder round hillock to the landward, whereon an enemy might stell
+such a battery of cannon as would make ye glad to beat a chamade within
+forty-eight hours, unless it pleased the Lord extraordinarily to show
+mercy."
+
+"There is no road," replied Sir Duncan, somewhat shortly, "by which
+cannon can be brought against Ardenvohr. The swamps and morasses around
+my house would scarce carry your horse and yourself, excepting by such
+paths as could be rendered impassable within a few hours."
+
+"Sir Duncan," said the Captain, "it is your pleasure to suppose so; and
+yet we martial men say, that where there is a sea-coast there is always
+a naked side, seeing that cannon and munition, where they cannot be
+transported by land, may be right easily brought by sea near to the
+place where they are to be put in action. Neither is a castle, however
+secure in its situation, to be accounted altogether invincible, or, as
+they say, impregnable; for I protest t'ye, Sir Duncan, that I have known
+twenty-five men, by the mere surprise and audacity of the attack, win,
+at point of pike, as strong a hold as this of Ardenvohr, and put to the
+sword, captivate, or hold to the ransom, the defenders, being ten times
+their own number."
+
+Notwithstanding Sir Duncan Campbell's knowledge of the world, and his
+power of concealing his internal emotion, he appeared piqued and hurt
+at these reflections, which the Captain made with the most unconscious
+gravity, having merely selected the subject of conversation as one upon
+which he thought himself capable of shining, and, as they say, of laying
+down the law, without exactly recollecting that the topic might not be
+equally agreeable to his landlord.
+
+"To cut this matter short," said Sir Duncan, with an expression of voice
+and countenance somewhat agitated, "it is unnecessary for you to
+tell me, Captain Dalgetty, that a castle may be stormed if it is not
+valorously defended, or surprised if it is not heedfully watched.
+I trust this poor house of mine will not be found in any of these
+predicaments, should even Captain Dalgetty himself choose to beleaguer
+it."
+
+"For all that, Sir Duncan," answered the persevering commander, "I would
+premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce upon that round
+hill, with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be easily accomplished by
+compelling the labour of the boors in the vicinity; it being the custom
+of the valorous Gustavus Adolphus to fight as much by the spade and
+shovel, as by sword, pike, and musket. Also, I would advise you to
+fortify the said sconce, not only by a foussie, or graffe, but also by
+certain stackets, or palisades."--(Here Sir Duncan, becoming impatient,
+left the apartment, the Captain following him to the door, and raising
+his voice as he retreated, until he was fairly out of hearing.)--"The
+whilk stackets, or palisades, should be artificially framed with
+re-entering angles and loop-holes, or crenelles, for musketry, whereof
+it shall arise that the foeman--The Highland brute! the old Highland
+brute! They are as proud as peacocks, and as obstinate as tups--and here
+he has missed an opportunity of making his house as pretty an irregular
+fortification as an invading army ever broke their teeth upon.--But I
+see," he continued, looking own from the window upon the bottom of the
+precipice, "they have got Gustavus safe ashore--Proper fellow! I would
+know that toss of his head among a whole squadron. I must go to see what
+they are to make of him."
+
+He had no sooner reached, however, the court to the seaward, and put
+himself in the act of descending the staircase, than two Highland
+sentinels, advancing their Lochaber axes, gave him to understand that
+this was a service of danger.
+
+"Diavolo!" said the soldier, "and I have got no pass-word. I could not
+speak a syllable of their salvage gibberish, an it were to save me from
+the provost-marshal."
+
+"I will be your surety, Captain Dalgetty," said Sir Duncan, who had
+again approached him without his observing from whence; "and we will go
+together, and see how your favourite charger is accommodated."
+
+He conducted him accordingly down the staircase to the beach, and from
+thence by a short turn behind a large rock, which concealed the stables
+and other offices belonging to the castle, Captain Dalgetty became
+sensible, at the same time, that the side of the castle to the land was
+rendered totally inaccessible by a ravine, partly natural and partly
+scarped with great care and labour, so as to be only passed by a
+drawbridge. Still, however, the Captain insisted, not withstanding the
+triumphant air with which Sir Duncan pointed out his defences, that a
+sconce should be erected on Drumsnab, the round eminence to the east of
+the castle, in respect the house might be annoyed from thence by burning
+bullets full of fire, shot out of cannon, according to the curious
+invention of Stephen Bathian, King of Poland, whereby that prince
+utterly ruined the great Muscovite city of Moscow. This invention,
+Captain Dalgetty owned, he had not yet witnessed, but observed, "that
+it would give him particular delectation to witness the same put to
+the proof against Ardenvohr, or any other castle of similar strength;"
+observing, "that so curious an experiment could not but afford the
+greatest delight to all admirers of the military art."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell diverted this conversation by carrying the soldier
+into his stables, and suffering him to arrange Gustavus according to
+his own will and pleasure. After this duty had been carefully performed,
+Captain Dalgetty proposed to return to the castle, observing, it was his
+intention to spend the time betwixt this and dinner, which, he presumed,
+would come upon the parade about noon, in burnishing his armour, which
+having sustained some injury from the sea-air, might, he was afraid,
+seem discreditable in the eyes of M'Callum More. Yet, while they were
+returning to the castle, he failed not to warn Sir Duncan Campbell
+against the great injury he might sustain by any sudden onfall of an
+enemy, whereby his horses, cattle, and granaries, might be cut off and
+consumed, to his great prejudice; wherefore he again strongly conjured
+him to construct a sconce upon the round hill called Drumsnab, and
+offered his own friendly services in lining out the same. To this
+disinterested advice Sir Duncan only replied by ushering his guest to
+his apartment, and informing him that the tolling of the castle bell
+would make him aware when dinner was ready.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+     Is this thy castle, Baldwin?  Melancholy
+     Displays her sable banner from the donjon,
+     Darkening the foam of the whole surge beneath.
+     Were I a habitant, to see this gloom
+     Pollute the face of nature, and to hear
+     The ceaseless sound of wave, and seabird's scream,
+     I'd wish me in the hut that poorest peasant
+     E'er framed, to give him temporary shelter.--BROWN.
+
+The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed his leisure in
+studying the exterior of Sir Duncan's castle, and verifying his own
+military ideas upon the nature of its defences. But a stout sentinel,
+who mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of his apartment, gave
+him to understand, by very significant signs, that he was in a sort of
+honourable captivity.
+
+It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself, how well these
+salvages understand the rules and practique of war. Who should have
+pre-supposed their acquaintance with the maxim of the great and godlike
+Gustavus Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half
+a spy?--And, having finished burnishing his arms, he sate down patiently
+to compute how much half a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of
+a six-months' campaign; and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded
+to the more abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of
+two thousand men on the principle of extracting the square root.
+
+From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound of the dinner bell,
+on which the Highlander, lately his guard, became his gentleman-usher,
+and marshalled him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore
+ample proofs of Highland hospitality. Sir Duncan entered, conducting his
+lady, a tall, faded, melancholy female, dressed in deep mourning. They
+were followed by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and
+wearing a black silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that
+it could scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an
+undue predominance in the general aspect. This ungraceful fashion was
+universal at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of roundheads,
+prick-eared curs, and so forth, which the insolence of the cavaliers
+liberally bestowed on their political enemies.
+
+Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received his
+technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in which it
+could scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater
+share. The churchman, to whom he was next presented, eyed him with a
+glance of mingled dislike and curiosity.
+
+The Captain, well accustomed to worse looks from more dangerous persons,
+cared very little either for those of the lady or of the divine, but
+bent his whole soul upon assaulting a huge piece of beef, which smoked
+at the nether end of the table. But the onslaught, as he would have
+termed it, was delayed, until the conclusion of a very long grace,
+betwixt every section of which Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as
+he might have done his musket or pike when going upon action, and as
+often resigned them unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced
+another clause of his benediction. Sir Duncan listened with decency,
+though he was supposed rather to have joined the Covenanters out of
+devotion to his chief, than real respect for the cause either of liberty
+or of Presbytery. His lady alone attended to the blessing, with symptoms
+of deep acquiescence.
+
+The meal was performed almost in Carthusian silence; for it was none of
+Captain Dalgetty's habits to employ his mouth in talking, while it could
+be more profitably occupied. Sir Duncan was absolutely silent, and the
+lady and churchman only occasionally exchanged a few words, spoken low,
+and indistinctly.
+
+But, when the dishes were removed, and their place supplied by liquors
+of various sorts, Captain Dalgetty no longer had, himself, the same
+weighty reasons for silence, and began to tire of that of the rest
+of the company. He commenced a new attack upon his landlord, upon the
+former ground.
+
+"Touching that round monticle, or hill, or eminence, termed Drumsnab, I
+would be proud to hold some dialogue with you, Sir Duncan, on the nature
+of the sconce to be there constructed; and whether the angles
+thereof should be acute or obtuse--anent whilk I have heard the great
+Velt-Mareschal Bannier hold a learned argument with General Tiefenbach
+during a still-stand of arms."
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," answered Sir Duncan very dryly, "it is not our
+Highland usage to debate military points with strangers. This castle
+is like to hold out against a stronger enemy than any force which the
+unfortunate gentlemen we left at Darnlinvarach are able to bring against
+it."
+
+A deep sigh from the lady accompanied the conclusion of her husband's
+speech, which seemed to remind her of some painful circumstance.
+
+"He who gave," said the clergyman, addressing her in a solemn tone,
+"hath taken away. May you, honourable lady, be long enabled to say,
+Blessed be his name!"
+
+To this exhortation, which seemed intended for her sole behoof, the
+lady answered by an inclination of her head, more humble than Captain
+Dalgetty had yet observed her make. Supposing he should now find her in
+a more conversible humour, he proceeded to accost her.
+
+"It is indubitably very natural that your ladyship should be downcast
+at the mention of military preparations, whilk I have observed to spread
+perturbation among women of all nations, and almost all conditions.
+Nevertheless, Penthesilea, in ancient times, and also Joan of Arc,
+and others, were of a different kidney. And, as I have learned while
+I served the Spaniard, the Duke of Alva in former times had the
+leaguer-lasses who followed his camp marshalled into TERTIAS (whilk
+me call regiments), and officered and commanded by those of their own
+feminine gender, and regulated by a commander-in chief, called in German
+Hureweibler, or, as we would say vernacularly, Captain of the Queans.
+True it is, they were persons not to be named as parallel to your
+ladyship, being such QUAE QUAESTUM CORPORIBUS FACIEBANT, as we said
+of Jean Drochiels at Mareschal-College; the same whom the French term
+CURTISANNES, and we in Scottish--"
+
+"The lady will spare you the trouble of further exposition, Captain
+Dalgetty," said his host, somewhat sternly; to which the clergyman
+added, "that such discourse better befitted a watch-tower guarded
+by profane soldiery than the board of an honourable person, and the
+presence of a lady of quality."
+
+"Craving your pardon, Dominie, or Doctor, AUT QUOCUNQUE ALIO NOMINE
+GAUDES, for I would have you to know I have studied polite letters,"
+said the unabashed envoy, filling a great cup of wine, "I see no ground
+for your reproof, seeing I did not speak of those TURPES PERSONAE, as if
+their occupation or character was a proper subject of conversation
+for this lady's presence, but simply PAR ACCIDENS, as illustrating
+the matter in hand, namely, their natural courage and audacity, much
+enhanced, doubtless, by the desperate circumstances of their condition."
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "to break short this
+discourse, I must acquaint you, that I have some business to dispatch
+to-night, in order to enable me to ride with you to-morrow towards
+Inverary; and therefore--"
+
+"To ride with this person to-morrow!" exclaimed his lady; "such cannot
+be your purpose, Sir Duncan, unless you have forgotten that the morrow
+is a sad anniversary, and dedicated to as sad a solemnity."
+
+"I had not forgotten," answered Sir Duncan; "how is it possible I can
+ever forget? but the necessity of the times requires I should send this
+officer onward to Inverary, without loss of time."
+
+"Yet, surely, not that you should accompany him in person?" enquired the
+lady.
+
+"It were better I did," said Sir Duncan; "yet I can write to the
+Marquis, and follow on the subsequent day.--Captain Dalgetty, I will
+dispatch a letter for you, explaining to the Marquis of Argyle your
+character and commission, with which you will please to prepare to
+travel to Inverary early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Sir Duncan Campbell," said Dalgetty, "I am doubtless at your
+discretionary disposal in this matter; not the less, I pray you to
+remember the blot which will fall upon your own escutcheon, if you do
+in any way suffer me, being a commissionate flag of truce, to be
+circumvented in this matter, whether CLAM, VI, VEL PRECARIO; I do not
+say by your assent to any wrong done to me, but even through absence of
+any due care on your part to prevent the same."
+
+"You are under the safeguard of my honour, sir," answered Sir Duncan
+Campbell, "and that is more than a sufficient security. And now,"
+continued he, rising, "I must set the example of retiring."
+
+Dalgetty saw himself under the necessity of following the hint, though
+the hour was early; but, like a skilful general, he availed himself of
+every instant of delay which circumstances permitted. "Trusting to
+your honourable parole," said he, filling his cup, "I drink to you, Sir
+Duncan, and to the continuance of your honourable-house." A sigh
+from Sir Duncan was the only reply. "Also, madam," said the soldier,
+replenishing the quaigh with all possible dispatch, "I drink to your
+honourable health, and fulfilment of all your virtuous desires--and,
+reverend sir" (not forgetting to fit the action to the words), "I fill
+this cup to the drowning of all unkindness betwixt you and Captain
+Dalgetty--I should say Major--and, in respect the flagon contains but
+one cup more, I drink to the health of all honourable cavaliers and
+brave soldados--and, the flask being empty, I am ready, Sir Duncan, to
+attend your functionary or sentinel to my place of private repose."
+
+He received a formal permission to retire, and an assurance, that as
+the wine seemed to be to his taste, another measure of the same vintage
+should attend him presently, in order to soothe the hours of his
+solitude.
+
+No sooner had the Captain reached the apartment than this promise was
+fulfilled; and, in a short time afterwards, the added comforts of a
+pasty of red-deer venison rendered him very tolerant both of confinement
+and want of society. The same domestic, a sort of chamberlain, who
+placed this good cheer in his apartment, delivered to Dalgetty a packet,
+sealed and tied up with a silken thread, according to the custom of
+the time, addressed with many forms of respect to the High and Mighty
+Prince, Archibald, Marquis of Argyle, Lord of Lorne, and so forth. The
+chamberlain at the same time apprized the Ritt-master, that he must
+take horse at an early hour for Inverary, where the packet of Sir Duncan
+would be at once his introduction and his passport. Not forgetting that
+it was his object to collect information as well as to act as an envoy,
+and desirous, for his own sake, to ascertain Sir Duncan's reasons for
+sending him onward without his personal attendance, the Ritt-master
+enquired the domestic, with all the precaution that his experience
+suggested, what were the reasons which detained Sir Duncan at home on
+the succeeding day. The man, who was from the Lowlands, replied, "that
+it was the habit of Sir Duncan and his lady to observe as a day of
+solemn fast and humiliation the anniversary on which their castle had
+been taken by surprise, and their children, to the number of four,
+destroyed cruelly by a band of Highland freebooters during Sir Duncan's
+absence upon an expedition which the Marquis of Argyle had undertaken
+against the Macleans of the Isle of Mull."
+
+"Truly," said the soldier, "your lord and lady have some cause for fast
+and humiliation. Nevertheless, I will venture to pronounce, that if he
+had taken the advice of any experienced soldier, having skill in the
+practiques of defending places of advantage, he would have built a
+sconce upon the small hill which is to the left of the draw-brigg. And
+this I can easily prove to you, mine honest friend; for, holding that
+pasty to be the castle--What's your name, friend?"
+
+"Lorimer, sir," replied the man.
+
+"Here is to your health, honest Lorimer.--I say, Lorimer--holding that
+pasty to be the main body or citadel of the place to be defended, and
+taking the marrow-bone for the sconce to be erected--"
+
+"I am sorry, sir," said Lorimer, interrupting him, "that I cannot stay
+to hear the rest of your demonstration; but the bell will presently
+ring. As worthy Mr. Graneangowl, the Marquis's own chaplain, does family
+worship, and only seven of our household out of sixty persons understand
+the Scottish tongue, it would misbecome any one of them to be absent,
+and greatly prejudice me in the opinion of my lady. There are pipes and
+tobacco, sir, if you please to drink a whiff of smoke, and if you want
+anything else, it shall be forthcoming two hours hence, when prayers are
+over." So saying, he left the apartment.
+
+No sooner was he gone, than the heavy toll of the castle-bell summoned
+its inhabitants together; and was answered by the shrill clamour of the
+females, mixed with the deeper tones of the men, as, talking Earse at
+the top of their throats, they hurried from different quarters by a long
+but narrow gallery, which served as a communication to many rooms, and,
+among others, to that in which Captain Dalgetty was stationed. There
+they go as if they were beating to the roll-call, thought the soldier to
+himself; if they all attend the parade, I will look out, take a mouthful
+of fresh air, and make mine own observations on the practicabilities of
+this place.
+
+Accordingly, when all was quiet, he opened his chamber door, and
+prepared to leave it, when he saw his friend with the axe advancing
+towards him from the distant end of the gallery, half whistling, a
+Gaelic tune. To have shown any want of confidence, would have been at
+once impolitic, and unbecoming his military character; so the Captain,
+putting the best face upon his situation he could, whistled a Swedish
+retreat, in a tone still louder than the notes of his sentinel; and
+retreating pace by pace, with an air of indifference, as if his only
+purpose had been to breathe a little fresh air, he shut the door in the
+face of his guard, when the fellow had approached within a few paces of
+him.
+
+It is very well, thought the Ritt-master to himself; he annuls my parole
+by putting guards upon me, for, as we used to say at Mareschal-College,
+FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA [See Note I]; and if he does not trust my
+word, I do not see how I am bound to keep it, if any motive should occur
+for my desiring to depart from it. Surely the moral obligation of the
+parole is relaxed, in as far as physical force is substituted instead
+thereof.
+
+Thus comforting himself in the metaphysical immunities which he deduced
+from the vigilance of his sentinel, Ritt-master Dalgetty retired to his
+apartment, where, amid the theoretical calculations of tactics, and the
+occasional more practical attacks on the flask and pasty, he consumed
+the evening until it was time to go to repose. He was summoned by
+Lorimer at break of day, who gave him to understand, that, when he had
+broken his fast, for which he produced ample materials, his guide and
+horse were in attendance for his journey to Inverary. After complying
+with the hospitable hint of the chamberlain, the soldier proceeded
+to take horse. In passing through the apartments, he observed that
+domestics were busily employed in hanging the great hall with black
+cloth, a ceremony which, he said, he had seen practised when the
+immortal Gustavus Adolphus lay in state in the Castle of Wolgast, and
+which, therefore, he opined, was a testimonial of the strictest and
+deepest mourning.
+
+When Dalgetty mounted his steed, he found himself attended, or perhaps
+guarded, by five or six Campbells, well armed, commanded by one, who,
+from the target at his shoulder, and the short cock's feather in his
+bonnet, as well as from the state which he took upon himself, claimed
+the rank of a Dunniewassel, or clansman of superior rank; and indeed,
+from his dignity of deportment, could not stand in a more distant degree
+of relationship to Sir Duncan, than that of tenth or twelfth cousin at
+farthest. But it was impossible to extract positive information on this
+or any other subject, inasmuch as neither this commander nor any of
+his party spoke English. The Captain rode, and his military attendants
+walked; but such was their activity, and so numerous the impediments
+which the nature of the road presented to the equestrian mode of
+travelling, that far from being retarded by the slowness of their pace,
+his difficulty was rather in keeping up with his guides. He observed
+that they occasionally watched him with a sharp eye, as if they were
+jealous of some effort to escape; and once, as he lingered behind at
+crossing a brook, one of the gillies began to blow the match of his
+piece, giving him to understand that he would run some risk in case of
+an attempt to part company. Dalgetty did not augur much good from the
+close watch thus maintained upon his person; but there was no remedy,
+for an attempt to escape from his attendants in an impervious and
+unknown country, would have been little short of insanity. He therefore
+plodded patiently on through a waste and savage wilderness, treading
+paths which were only known to the shepherds and cattle-drivers, and
+passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those
+sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from
+every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur, and
+mortify their palates upon Highland fare.
+
+At length they arrived on the southern verge of that noble lake upon
+which Inverary is situated; and a bugle, which the Dunniewassel winded
+till rock and greenwood rang, served as a signal to a well-manned
+galley, which, starting from a creek where it lay concealed, received
+the party on board, including Gustavus; which sagacious quadruped, an
+experienced traveller both by water and land, walked in and out of the
+boat with the discretion of a Christian.
+
+Embarked on the bosom of Loch Fine, Captain Dalgetty might have admired
+one of the grandest scenes which nature affords. He might have noticed
+the rival rivers Aray and Shiray, which pay tribute to the lake, each
+issuing from its own dark and wooded retreat. He might have marked, on
+the soft and gentle slope that ascends from the shores, the noble old
+Gothic castle, with its varied outline, embattled walls, towers, and
+outer and inner courts, which, so far as the picturesque is concerned,
+presented an aspect much more striking than the present massive and
+uniform mansion. He might have admired those dark woods which for many
+a mile surrounded this strong and princely dwelling, and his eye might
+have dwelt on the picturesque peak of Duniquoich, starting abruptly from
+the lake, and raising its scathed brow into the mists of middle sky,
+while a solitary watch-tower, perched on its top like an eagle's nest,
+gave dignity to the scene by awakening a sense of possible danger.
+All these, and every other accompaniment of this noble scene, Captain
+Dalgetty might have marked, if he had been so minded. But, to confess
+the truth, the gallant Captain, who had eaten nothing since daybreak,
+was chiefly interested by the smoke which ascended from the castle
+chimneys, and the expectations which this seemed to warrant of his
+encountering an abundant stock of provant, as he was wont to call
+supplies of this nature.
+
+The boat soon approached the rugged pier, which abutted into the loch
+from the little town of Inverary, then a rude assemblage of huts, with a
+very few stone mansions interspersed, stretching upwards from the banks
+of Loch Fine to the principal gate of the castle, before which a scene
+presented itself that might easily have quelled a less stout heart,
+and turned a more delicate stomach, than those of Ritt-master Dugald
+Dalgetty, titular of Drumthwacket.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
+     Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
+     Restless, unfix'd in principle and place,
+     In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace.
+     --ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
+
+The village of Inverary, now a neat country town, then partook of the
+rudeness of the seventeenth century, in the miserable appearance of the
+houses, and the irregularity of the unpaved street. But a stronger and
+more terrible characteristic of the period appeared in the market-place,
+which was a space of irregular width, half way betwixt the harbour, or
+pier, and the frowning castle-gate, which terminated with its gloomy
+archway, portcullis, and flankers, the upper end of the vista. Midway
+this space was erected a rude gibbet, on which hung five dead bodies,
+two of which from their dress seemed to have been Lowlanders, and the
+other three corpses were muffled in their Highland plaids. Two or three
+women sate under the gallows, who seemed to be mourning, and singing
+the coronach of the deceased in a low voice. But the spectacle was
+apparently of too ordinary occurrence to have much interest for the
+inhabitants at large, who, while they thronged to look at the military
+figure, the horse of an unusual size, and the burnished panoply of
+Captain Dalgetty, seemed to bestow no attention whatever on the piteous
+spectacle which their own market-place afforded.
+
+The envoy of Montrose was not quite so indifferent; and, hearing a word
+or two of English escape from a Highlander of decent appearance, he
+immediately halted Gustavus and addressed him, "The Provost-Marshal has
+been busy here, my friend. May I crave of you what these delinquents
+have been justified for?"
+
+He looked towards the gibbet as he spoke; and the Gael, comprehending
+his meaning rather by his action than his words, immediately replied,
+"Three gentlemen caterans,--God sain them," (crossing himself)--"twa
+Sassenach bits o' bodies, that wadna do something that M'Callum More
+bade them;" and turning from Dalgetty with an air of indifference, away
+he walked, staying no farther question.
+
+Dalgetty shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, for Sir Duncan Campbell's
+tenth or twelfth cousin had already shown some signs of impatience.
+
+At the gate of the castle another terrible spectacle of feudal power
+awaited him. Within a stockade or palisade, which seemed lately to have
+been added to the defences of the gate, and which was protected by two
+pieces of light artillery, was a small enclosure, where stood a huge
+block, on which lay an axe. Both were smeared with recent blood, and
+a quantity of saw-dust strewed around, partly retained and partly
+obliterated the marks of a very late execution.
+
+As Dalgetty looked on this new object of terror, his principal guide
+suddenly twitched him by the skirt of his jerkin, and having thus
+attracted his attention, winked and pointed with his finger to a
+pole fixed on the stockade, which supported a human head, being that,
+doubtless, of the late sufferer. There was a leer on the Highlander's
+face, as he pointed to this ghastly spectacle, which seemed to his
+fellow-traveller ominous of nothing good.
+
+Dalgetty dismounted from his horse at the gateway, and Gustavus was
+taken from him without his being permitted to attend him to the stable,
+according to his custom.
+
+This gave the soldier a pang which the apparatus of death had not
+conveyed.--"Poor Gustavus!" said he to himself, "if anything but good
+happens to me, I had better have left him at Darnlinvarach than brought
+him here among these Highland salvages, who scarce know the head of
+a horse from his tail. But duty must part a man from his nearest and
+dearest--
+
+     "When the cannons are roaring, lads, and the colours are flying,
+     The lads that seek honour must never fear dying;
+     Then, stout cavaliers, let us toil our brave trade in,
+     And fight for the Gospel and the bold King of Sweden."
+
+Thus silencing his apprehensions with the but-end of a military ballad,
+he followed his guide into a sort of guard-room filled with armed
+Highlanders. It was intimated to him that he must remain here until his
+arrival was communicated to the Marquis. To make this communication
+the more intelligible, the doughty Captain gave to the Dunniewassel Sir
+Duncan Campbell's packet, desiring, as well as he could, by signs, that
+it should be delivered into the Marquis's own hand. His guide nodded,
+and withdrew.
+
+The Captain was left about half an hour in this place, to endure with
+indifference, or return with scorn, the inquisitive, and, at the same
+time, the inimical glances of the armed Gael, to whom his exterior and
+equipage were as much subject of curiosity, as his person and country
+seemed matter of dislike. All this he bore with military nonchalance,
+until, at the expiration of the above period, a person dressed in black
+velvet, and wearing a gold chain like a modern magistrate of Edinburgh,
+but who was, in fact, steward of the household to the Marquis of Argyle,
+entered the apartment, and invited, with solemn gravity, the Captain to
+follow him to his master's presence.
+
+The suite of apartments through which he passed, were filled with
+attendants or visitors of various descriptions, disposed, perhaps, with
+some ostentation, in order to impress the envoy of Montrose with an idea
+of the superior power and magnificence belonging to the rival house of
+Argyle. One ante-room was filled with lacqueys, arrayed in brown and
+yellow, the colours of the family, who, ranged in double file, gazed in
+silence upon Captain Dalgetty as he passed betwixt their ranks. Another
+was occupied by Highland gentlemen and chiefs of small branches, who
+were amusing themselves with chess, backgammon, and other games, which
+they scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger. A
+third was filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers, who seemed also
+in attendance; and, lastly, the presence-chamber of the Marquis himself
+showed him attended by a levee which marked his high importance.
+
+This apartment, the folding doors of which were opened for the reception
+of Captain Dalgetty, was a long gallery, decorated with tapestry and
+family portraits, and having a vaulted ceiling of open wood-work, the
+extreme projections of the beams being richly carved and gilded. The
+gallery was lighted by long lanceolated Gothic casements, divided
+by heavy shafts, and filled with painted glass, where the sunbeams
+glimmered dimly through boars'-heads, and galleys, and batons, and
+swords, armorial bearings of the powerful house of Argyle, and emblems
+of the high hereditary offices of Justiciary of Scotland, and Master of
+the Royal Household, which they long enjoyed. At the upper end of this
+magnificent gallery stood the Marquis himself, the centre of a splendid
+circle of Highland and Lowland gentlemen, all richly dressed, among whom
+were two or three of the clergy, called in, perhaps, to be witnesses of
+his lordship's zeal for the Covenant.
+
+The Marquis himself was dressed in the fashion of the period, which
+Vandyke has so often painted, but his habit was sober and uniform
+in colour, and rather rich than gay. His dark complexion, furrowed
+forehead, and downcast look, gave him the appearance of one frequently
+engaged in the consideration of important affairs, and who has acquired,
+by long habit, an air of gravity and mystery, which he cannot shake off
+even where there is nothing to be concealed. The cast with his eyes,
+which had procured him in the Highlands the nickname of Gillespie
+Grumach (or the grim), was less perceptible when he looked downward,
+which perhaps was one cause of his having adopted that habit. In person,
+he was tall and thin, but not without that dignity of deportment and
+manners, which became his high rank. Something there was cold in his
+address, and sinister in his look, although he spoke and behaved with
+the usual grace of a man of such quality. He was adored by his own clan,
+whose advancement he had greatly studied, although he was in proportion
+disliked by the Highlanders of other septs, some of whom he had already
+stripped of their possessions, while others conceived themselves in
+danger from his future schemes, and all dreaded the height to which he
+was elevated.
+
+We have already noticed, that in displaying himself amidst his
+councillors, his officers of the household, and his train of vassals,
+allies, and dependents, the Marquis of Argyle probably wished to make
+an impression on the nervous system of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. But that
+doughty person had fought his way, in one department or another, through
+the greater part of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, a period when a
+brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes. The King of
+Sweden, and, after his example, even the haughty Princes of the Empire,
+had found themselves fain, frequently to compound with their dignity,
+and silence, when they could not satisfy the pecuniary claims of their
+soldiers, by admitting them to unusual privileges and familiarity.
+Captain Dugald Dalgetty had it to boast, that he had sate with princes
+at feasts made for monarchs, and therefore was not a person to be
+brow-beat even by the dignity which surrounded M'Callum More. Indeed, he
+was naturally by no means the most modest man in the world, but, on the
+contrary, had so good an opinion of himself, that into whatever company
+he chanced to be thrown, he was always proportionally elevated in his
+own conceit; so that he felt as much at ease in the most exalted society
+as among his own ordinary companions. In this high opinion of his own
+rank, he was greatly fortified by his ideas of the military profession,
+which, in his phrase, made a valiant cavalier a camarade to an emperor.
+
+When introduced, therefore, into the Marquis's presence-chamber, he
+advanced to the upper end with an air of more confidence than grace, and
+would have gone close up to Argyle's person before speaking, had not
+the latter waved his hand, as a signal to him to stop short. Captain
+Dalgetty did so accordingly, and having made his military congee with
+easy confidence, he thus accosted the Marquis: "Give you good morrow, my
+lord--or rather I should say, good even; BESO A USTED LOS MANOS, as the
+Spaniard says."
+
+"Who are you, sir, and what is your business?" demanded the Marquis, in
+a tone which was intended to interrupt the offensive familiarity of the
+soldier.
+
+"That is a fair interrogative, my lord," answered Dalgetty, "which I
+shall forthwith answer as becomes a cavalier, and that PEREMPTORIE, as
+we used to say at Mareschal-College."
+
+"See who or what he is, Neal," said the Marquis sternly, to a gentleman
+who stood near him.
+
+"I will save the honourable gentleman the labour of investigation,"
+continued the Captain. "I am Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, that
+should be, late Ritt-master in various services, and now Major of I
+know not what or whose regiment of Irishes; and I am come with a flag of
+truce from a high and powerful lord, James Earl of Montrose, and
+other noble persons now in arms for his Majesty. And so, God save King
+Charles!"
+
+"Do you know where you are, and the danger of dallying with us, sir,"
+again demanded the Marquis, "that you reply to me as if I were a child
+or a fool? The Earl of Montrose is with the English malignants; and I
+suspect you are one of those Irish runagates, who are come into this
+country to burn and slay, as they did under Sir Phelim O'Neale."
+
+"My lord," replied Captain Dalgetty, "I am no renegade, though a Major
+of Irishes, for which I might refer your lordship to the invincible
+Gustavus Adolphus the Lion of the North, to Bannier, to Oxenstiern, to
+the warlike Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Tilly, Wallenstein, Piccolomini, and
+other great captains, both dead and living; and touching the noble Earl
+of Montrose, I pray your lordship to peruse these my full powers for
+treating with you in the name of that right honourable commander."
+
+The Marquis looked slightingly at the signed and sealed paper which
+Captain Dalgetty handed to him, and, throwing it with contempt upon a
+table, asked those around him what he deserved who came as the avowed
+envoy and agent of malignant traitors, in arms against the state?
+
+"A high gallows and a short shrift," was the ready answer of one of the
+bystanders.
+
+"I will crave of that honourable cavalier who hath last spoken," said
+Dalgetty, "to be less hasty in forming his conclusions, and also of your
+lordship to be cautelous in adopting the same, in respect such threats
+are to be held out only to base bisognos, and not to men of spirit and
+action, who are bound to peril themselves as freely in services of this
+nature, as upon sieges, battles, or onslaughts of any sort. And albeit I
+have not with me a trumpet, or a white flag, in respect our army is not
+yet equipped with its full appointments, yet the honourable cavaliers
+and your lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an envoy
+who cometh on matter of truth or parle, consisteth not in the fanfare of
+a trumpet, whilk is but a sound, or in the flap of a white flag, whilk
+is but an old rag in itself, but in the confidence reposed by the party
+sending, and the party sent, in the honour of those to whom the message
+is to be carried, and their full reliance that they will respect the
+JUS GENTIUM, as weel as the law of arms, in the person of the
+commissionate."
+
+"You are not come hither to lecture us upon the law of arms, sir," said
+the Marquis, "which neither does nor can apply to rebels and insurgents;
+but to suffer the penalty of your insolence and folly for bringing a
+traitorous message to the Lord Justice General of Scotland, whose duty
+calls upon him to punish such an offence with death."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Captain, who began much to dislike the turn which
+his mission seemed about to take, "I pray you to remember, that the
+Earl of Montrose will hold you and your possessions liable for
+whatever injury my person, or my horse, shall sustain by these unseemly
+proceedings, and that he will be justified in executing retributive
+vengeance on your persons and possessions."
+
+This menace was received with a scornful laugh, while one of the
+Campbells replied, "It is a far cry to Lochow;" proverbial expression of
+the tribe, meaning that their ancient hereditary domains lay beyond
+the reach of an invading enemy. "But, gentlemen," further urged the
+unfortunate Captain, who was unwilling to be condemned, without at least
+the benefit of a full hearing, "although it is not for me to say how
+far it may be to Lochow, in respect I am a stranger to these parts,
+yet, what is more to the purpose, I trust you will admit that I have
+the guarantee of an honourable gentleman of your own name, Sir Duncan
+Campbell of Ardenvohr, for my safety on this mission; and I pray you
+to observe, that in breaking the truce towards me, you will highly
+prejudicate his honour and fair fame."
+
+This seemed to be new information to many of the gentlemen, for they
+spoke aside with each other, and the Marquis's face, notwithstanding
+his power of suppressing all external signs of his passions, showed
+impatience and vexation.
+
+"Does Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr pledge his honour for this person's
+safety, my lord?" said one of the company, addressing the Marquis.
+
+"I do not believe it," answered the Marquis; "but I have not yet had
+time to read his letter."
+
+"We will pray your lordship to do so," said another of the Campbells;
+"our name must not suffer discredit through the means of such a fellow
+as this."
+
+"A dead fly," said a clergyman, "maketh the ointment of the apothecary
+to stink."
+
+"Reverend sir," said Captain Dalgetty, "in respect of the use to be
+derived, I forgive you the unsavouriness of your comparison; and also
+remit to the gentleman in the red bonnet, the disparaging epithet of
+FELLOW, which he has discourteously applied to me, who am no way to
+be distinguished by the same, unless in so far as I have been called
+fellow-soldier by the great Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North,
+and other choice commanders, both in Germany and the Low Countries. But,
+touching Sir Duncan Campbell's guarantee of my safety, I will gage my
+life upon his making my words good thereanent, when he comes hither
+to-morrow."
+
+"If Sir Duncan be soon expected, my Lord," said one of the intercessors,
+"it would be a pity to anticipate matters with this poor man."
+
+"Besides that," said another, "your lordship--I speak with
+reverence--should, at least, consult the Knight of Ardenvohr's letter,
+and learn the terms on which this Major Dalgetty, as he calls himself,
+has been sent hither by him."
+
+They closed around the Marquis, and conversed together in a low tone,
+both in Gaelic and English. The patriarchal power of the Chiefs was very
+great, and that of the Marquis of Argyle, armed with all his grants of
+hereditary jurisdiction, was particularly absolute. But there interferes
+some check of one kind or other even in the most despotic government.
+That which mitigated the power of the Celtic Chiefs, was the necessity
+which they lay under of conciliating the kinsmen who, under them, led
+out the lower orders to battle, and who formed a sort of council of the
+tribe in time of peace. The Marquis on this occasion thought himself
+under the necessity of attending to the remonstrances of this senate, or
+more properly COUROULTAI, of the name of Campbell, and, slipping out
+of the circle, gave orders for the prisoner to be removed to a place of
+security.
+
+"Prisoner!" exclaimed Dalgetty, exerting himself with such force as
+wellnigh to shake off two Highlanders, who for some minutes past had
+waited the signal to seize him, and kept for that purpose close at his
+back. Indeed the soldier had so nearly attained his liberty, that the
+Marquis of Argyle changed colour, and stepped back two paces, laying,
+however, his hand on his sword, while several of his clan, with ready
+devotion, threw themselves betwixt him and the apprehended vengeance of
+the prisoner. But the Highland guards were too strong to be shaken off,
+and the unlucky Captain, after having had his offensive weapons taken
+from him, was dragged off and conducted through several gloomy passages
+to a small side-door grated with iron, within which was another of wood.
+These were opened by a grim old Highlander with a long white beard, and
+displayed a very steep and narrow flight of steps leading downward. The
+Captain's guards pushed him down two or three steps, then, unloosing his
+arms, left him to grope his way to the bottom as he could; a task
+which became difficult and even dangerous, when the two doors being
+successively locked left the prisoner in total darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Whatever stranger visits here,
+     We pity his sad case,
+     Unless to worship he draw near
+     The King of Kings--his Grace.
+     --BURNS'S  EPIGRAM ON A VISIT TO INVERARY.
+
+The Captain, finding himself deprived of light in the manner we have
+described, and placed in a very uncertain situation, proceeded to
+descend the narrow and broken stair with all the caution in his power,
+hoping that he might find at the bottom some place to repose himself.
+But with all his care he could not finally avoid making a false step,
+which brought him down the four or five last steps too hastily to
+preserve his equilibrium. At the bottom he stumbled over a bundle of
+something soft, which stirred and uttered a groan, so deranging the
+Captain's descent, that he floundered forward, and finally fell upon his
+hands and knees on the floor of a damp and stone-paved dungeon.
+
+When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over whom he
+had stumbled.
+
+"He was a man a month since," answered a hollow and broken voice.
+
+"And what is he now, then," said Dalgetty, "that he thinks it fitting
+to lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew'd up like a hurchin,
+that honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their
+noses over him?"
+
+"What is he now?" replied the same voice; "he is a wretched trunk,
+from which the boughs have one by one been lopped away, and which cares
+little how soon it is torn up and hewed into billets for the furnace."
+
+"Friend," said Dalgetty, "I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as the
+Spaniard says. If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you call
+yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands and knees."
+
+"You are a soldier," replied his fellow-prisoner; "do you complain on
+account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan himself?"
+
+"A soldier?" said the Captain; "and how do you know, in this cursed dark
+cavern, that I am a soldier?"
+
+"I heard your armour clash as you fell," replied the prisoner, "and now
+I see it glimmer. When you have remained as long as I in this darkness,
+your eyes will distinguish the smallest eft that crawls on the floor."
+
+"I had rather the devil picked them out!" said Dalgetty; "if this be the
+case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a soldier's prayer, and
+a leap from a ladder. But what sort of provant have you got here--what
+food, I mean, brother in affliction?"
+
+"Bread and water once a day," replied the voice.
+
+"Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf," said Dalgetty; "I hope we
+shall play good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable
+pit."
+
+"The loaf and jar of water," answered the other prisoner, "stand in
+the corner, two steps to your right hand. Take them, and welcome. With
+earthly food I have wellnigh done."
+
+Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the
+provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much
+heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.
+
+"This bread," he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time),
+"is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which
+we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus
+foiled all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero,
+who had driven two kings out of the field--namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia
+and Christian of Denmark. And anent this water, which is none of the
+most sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade,
+not forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or
+humming Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge."
+
+While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue,
+and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or
+indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his
+voracity. When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his
+cloak, and seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could
+obtain a support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of
+elbow-chairs, he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to
+question his fellow-captive.
+
+"Mine honest friend," said he, "you and I, being comrades at bed
+and board, should be better acquainted. I am Dugald Dalgetty of
+Drumthwacket, and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes,
+and Envoy Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of
+Montrose.--Pray, what may your name be?"
+
+"It will avail you little to know," replied his more taciturn companion.
+
+"Let me judge of that matter," answered the soldier.
+
+"Well, then--Ranald MacEagh is my name--that is, Ranald Son of the
+Mist."
+
+"Son of the Mist!" ejaculated Dalgetty. "Son of utter darkness, say I.
+But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in possession of the
+provost's court of guard? what the devil brought you here, that is to
+say?"
+
+"My misfortunes and my crimes," answered Ranald. "Know ye the Knight of
+Ardenvohr?"
+
+"I do know that honourable person," replied Dalgetty.
+
+"But know ye where he now is?" replied Ranald.
+
+"Fasting this day at Ardenvohr," answered the Envoy, "that he may feast
+to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance to fail, my
+lease of human service will be something precarious."
+
+"Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe
+and his best friend," answered Ranald.
+
+"Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message," answered
+Dalgetty, "Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading riddles with."
+
+"Craven Saxon," said the prisoner, "tell him I am the raven that,
+fifteen years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the pledges
+he had left there--I am the hunter that found out the wolfs den on the
+rock, and destroyed his offspring--I am the leader of the band which
+surprised Ardenvohr yesterday was fifteen years, and gave his four
+children to the sword."
+
+"Truly, my honest friend," said Dalgetty, "if that is your best
+recommendation to Sir Duncan's favour, I would pretermit my pleading
+thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the animal creation are
+incensed against those who intromit with their offspring forcibly, much
+more any rational and Christian creatures, who have had violence done
+upon their small family. But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether
+you assailed the castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold
+to be the true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a
+sconce."
+
+"We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings," said the
+prisoner, "drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six
+months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance.
+The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide
+roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet
+no man's heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes,
+where there had been peace and joy at the sunset."
+
+"It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very
+sufficient onslaught, and not unworthily discharged. Nevertheless, I
+would have pressed the house from that little hillock called Drumsnab.
+But yours is a pretty irregular Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald,
+much resembling that of Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.--But
+the reason, my friend, the cause of this war--the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I
+may say? Deliver me that, Ranald."
+
+"We had been pushed at by the M'Aulays, and other western tribes," said
+Ranald, "till our possessions became unsafe for us."
+
+"Ah ha!" said Dalgetty; "I have faint remembrance of having heard of
+that matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man's mouth, when
+he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?"
+
+"You have heard, then," said Ranald, "the tale of our revenge on the
+haughty forester?"
+
+"I bethink me that I have," said Dalgetty, "and that not of an old date.
+It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man's
+mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation,
+besides wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a
+leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald,
+for that crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow."
+
+"We were attacked by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my brother
+was slain--his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled--I
+vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken."
+
+"It may be so," said Dalgetty; "and every thorough-bred soldier will
+confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story
+will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move
+him to intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from
+hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or
+wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death
+by torture, surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be
+for miskenning Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly
+by suffocation, like your ancestors before you."
+
+"Yet hearken, stranger," said the Highlander. "Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr
+had four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives;
+and more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which
+remains, than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost
+indulgence of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his
+day of humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing,
+and breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the
+child Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than
+ten sons who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of
+the air."
+
+"I presume, Ranald," continued Dalgetty, "that the three pretty fellows
+whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like
+rizzer'd haddocks, claimed some interest in you?"
+
+There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong
+emotion,--"They were my sons, stranger--they were my sons!--blood of my
+blood--bone of my bone!--fleet of foot--unerring in aim--unvanquished by
+foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers! Why do I wish
+to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the rending up of its
+roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs. But
+Kenneth must be trained to revenge--the young eagle must learn from the
+old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and
+my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr."
+
+"You may attain your end more easily," said a third voice, mingling in
+the conference, "by entrusting it to me."
+
+All Highlanders are superstitious. "The Enemy of Mankind is among us!"
+said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he
+rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the
+quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree
+communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort
+of polyglot gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without
+being able to remember more than a word or two of each.
+
+"IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College--SANTISSMA MADRE DI
+DIOS, as the Spaniard has it--ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, saith
+the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther's translation--"
+
+"A truce with your exorcisms," said the voice they had heard before;
+"though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my
+assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too
+proud to be counselled."
+
+While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern,
+by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who
+had thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in
+their conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the
+Marquis. His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven
+foot which Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse's
+hoof by which he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how
+the stranger had come among them?
+
+"For," said he, "the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had
+the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly,
+sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a
+regiment of living men."
+
+"I reserve my secret," answered the stranger, "until you shall merit the
+discovery by communicating to me some of yours. It may be that I shall
+be moved to let you out where I myself came in."
+
+"It cannot be through the keyhole, then," said Captain Dalgetty, "for my
+corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece
+could get through. As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few
+appertaining to others. But impart to us what secrets you desire
+to know; or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the
+Mareschal-College, Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee."
+
+"It is not with you I have first to do," replied the stranger, turning
+his light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of
+the Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of
+the dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.
+
+"I have brought you something, my friend," said the stranger, in a more
+soothing tone, "to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no
+reason wherefore you should not live to-night."
+
+"None at all--no reason in the creation," replied the ready Captain
+Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a small basket
+which the stranger had brought under his cloak, while the Highlander,
+either in suspicion or disdain, paid no attention to the good cheer.
+
+"Here's to thee, my friend," said the Captain, who, having already
+dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a pull at the
+wine-flask. "What is thy name, my good friend?"
+
+"Murdoch Campbell, sir," answered the servant, "a lackey of the Marquis
+of Argyle, and occasionally acting as under-warden."
+
+"Then here is to thee once more, Murdoch," said Dalgetty, "drinking to
+you by your proper name for the better luck sake. This wine I take to be
+Calcavella. Well, honest Murdoch, I take it on me to say, thou deservest
+to be upper-warden, since thou showest thyself twenty times better
+acquainted with the way of victualling honest gentlemen that are under
+misfortune, than thy principal. Bread and water? out upon him! It was
+enough, Murdoch, to destroy the credit of the Marquis's dungeon. But I
+see you would converse with my friend, Ranald MacEagh here. Never mind
+my presence; I'll get me into this corner with the basket, and I will
+warrant my jaws make noise enough to prevent my ears from hearing you."
+
+Notwithstanding this promise, however, the veteran listened with all
+the attention he could to gather their discourse, or, as he described it
+himself, "laid his ears back in his neck, like Gustavus, when he heard
+the key turn in the girnell-kist." He could, therefore, owing to the
+narrowness of the dungeon, easily overhear the following dialogue.
+
+"Are you aware, Son of the Mist," said the Campbell, "that you will
+never leave this place excepting for the gibbet?"
+
+"Those who are dearest to me," answered MacEagh, "have trode that path
+before me."
+
+"Then you would do nothing," asked the visitor, "to shun following
+them?"
+
+The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an answer.
+
+"I would do much," at length he said; "not for my own life, but for the
+sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven."
+
+"And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?" again
+demanded Murdoch; "I care not for what cause ye mean to shun it."
+
+"I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man."
+
+"Do you call yourself a man," said the interrogator, "who have done the
+deeds of a wolf?"
+
+"I do," answered the outlaw; "I am a man like my forefathers--while
+wrapt in the mantle of peace, we were lambs--it was rent from us, and ye
+now call us wolves. Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom
+ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved--collect from the
+gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses, and whitened skulls of our
+kinsmen--bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and
+brothers--till then, let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a dark
+veil of division between us."
+
+"You will then do nothing for your liberty," said the Campbell.
+
+"Anything--but call myself the friend of your tribe," answered MacEagh.
+
+"We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans," retorted Murdoch,
+"and would not stoop to accept it.--What I demand to know from you, in
+exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the
+Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be found?"
+
+"That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master,"
+said Ranald, "after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid! Does not
+the valley of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence
+offered to a helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the
+court of the Sovereign? Were not her escort compelled to hide her
+beneath a cauldron, round which they fought till not one remained to
+tell the tale? and was not the girl brought to this fatal castle, and
+afterwards wedded to the brother of M'Callum More, and all for the sake
+of her broad lands?" [Such a story is told of the heiress of the clan
+of Calder, who was made prisoner in the manner described, and afterwards
+wedded to Sir Duncan Campbell, from which union the Campbells of Cawdor
+have their descent.]
+
+"And if the tale be true," said Murdoch, "she had a preferment beyond
+what the King of Scots would have conferred on her. But this is far
+from the purpose. The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own
+blood, not a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as
+M'Callum More, the chief of her clan?"
+
+"It is on his part, then, that you demand it!" said the outlaw. The
+domestic of the Marquis assented.
+
+"And you will practise no evil against the maiden?--I have done her
+wrong enough already."
+
+"No evil, upon the word of a Christian man," replied Murdoch.
+
+"And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?" said the Child of the Mist.
+
+"Such is our paction," replied the Campbell.
+
+"Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the
+spoiling of her father's tower of strength, was bred as an adopted
+daughter of our tribe, until we were worsted at the pass of
+Ballenduthil, by the fiend incarnate and mortal enemy of our tribe,
+Allan M'Aulay of the Bloody hand, and by the horsemen of Lennox, under
+the heir of Menteith."
+
+"Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand," said Murdoch,
+"and she a reputed daughter of thy tribe? Then her blood has gilded the
+dirk, and thou hast said nothing to rescue thine own forfeited life."
+
+"If my life rest on hers," answered the outlaw, "it is secure, for she
+still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance--the frail promise
+of a son of Diarmid."
+
+"That promise shall not fail you," said the Campbell, "if you can assure
+me that she survives, and where she is to be found."
+
+"In the Castle of Darlinvarach," said Ranald MacEagh, "under the name
+of Annot Lyle. I have often heard of her from my kinsmen, who have again
+approached their native woods, and it is not long since mine old eyes
+beheld her."
+
+"You!" said Murdoch, in astonishment, "you, a chief among the Children
+of the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?"
+
+"Son of Diarmid, I did more," replied the outlaw; "I was in the hall of
+the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianach. My
+purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the M'Aulay with the
+Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles, and to have taken thereafter
+what fate God should send me. But I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand
+was on the hilt of my dagger. She touched her clairshach [Harp] to
+a song of the Children of the Mist, which she had learned when her
+dwelling was amongst us. The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly,
+rustled their green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with
+the sound of all their waters. My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains
+of mine eyes were opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.--And now,
+Son of Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?"
+
+"Ay," replied Murdoch, "if your tale be true; but what proof can you
+assign for it?"
+
+"Bear witness, heaven and earth," exclaimed the outlaw, "he already
+looks how he may step over his word!"
+
+"Not so," replied Murdoch; "every promise shall be kept to you when I am
+assured you have told me the truth.--But I must speak a few words with
+your companion in captivity."
+
+"Fair and false--ever fair and false," muttered the prisoner, as he
+threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.
+
+Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of this
+dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private. "What the HENKER
+can this sly fellow have to say to me? I have no child, either of my
+own, so far as I know, or of any other person, to tell him a tale about.
+But let him come on--he will have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank
+of the old soldier."
+
+Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach, he
+waited with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the attack.
+
+"You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty," said Murdoch
+Campbell, "and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-GAF,
+[In old English, KA ME KA THEE, i.e. mutually serving each other.] which
+goes through all nations and all services."
+
+"Then I should know something of it," said Dalgetty; "for, except the
+Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served; and I have
+sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem Gabor, or with
+the Janizaries."
+
+"A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will understand
+me at once," said Murdoch, "when I say, I mean that your freedom shall
+depend on your true and up right answer to a few trifling questions
+respecting the gentlemen you have left; their state of preparation; the
+number of their men, and nature of their appointments; and as much as
+you chance to know about their plan of operations."
+
+"Just to satisfy your curiosity," said Dalgetty, "and without any
+farther purpose?"
+
+"None in the world," replied Murdoch; "what interest should a poor devil
+like me take in their operations?"
+
+"Make your interrogations, then," said the Captain, "and I will answer
+them PREREMTORIE."
+
+"How many Irish may be on their march to join James Graham the
+delinquent?"
+
+"Probably ten thousand," said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+"Ten thousand!" replied Murdoch angrily; "we know that scarce two
+thousand landed at Ardnamurchan."
+
+"Then you know more about them than I do," answered Captain Dalgetty,
+with great composure. "I never saw them mustered yet, or even under
+arms."
+
+"And how many men of the clans may be expected?" demanded Murdoch.
+
+"As many as they can make," replied the Captain.
+
+"You are answering from the purpose, sir," said Murdoch "speak plainly,
+will there be five thousand men?"
+
+"There and thereabouts," answered Dalgetty.
+
+"You are playing with your life, sir, if you trifle with me," replied
+the catechist; "one whistle of mine, and in less than ten minutes your
+head hangs on the drawbridge."
+
+"But to speak candidly, Mr. Murdoch," replied the Captain "do you think
+it is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our army, and I
+engaged to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat
+Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and chance of booty?"
+
+"I tell you," said Campbell, "that if you be stubborn, your campaign
+shall begin and end in a march to the block at the castle-gate, which
+stands ready for such land-laufers; but if you answer my questions
+faithfully, I will receive you into my--into the service of M'Callum
+More."
+
+"Does the service afford good pay?" said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+"He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act under his
+direction."
+
+"I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him," said Dalgetty,
+appearing to meditate.
+
+"On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now," said
+the Campbell; "always supposing that you are faithful."
+
+"Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose," answered the
+Captain.
+
+"Faithful to the cause of religion and good order," answered Murdoch,
+"which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve it."
+
+"And the Marquis of Argyle--should I incline to enter his service, is he
+a kind master?" demanded Dalgetty.
+
+"Never man kinder," quoth Campbell.
+
+"And bountiful to his officers?" pursued the Captain.
+
+"The most open hand in Scotland," replied Murdoch.
+
+"True and faithful to his engagements?" continued Dalgetty.
+
+"As honourable a nobleman as breathes," said the clansman.
+
+"I never heard so much good of him before," said Dalgetty; "you must
+know the Marquis well,--or rather you must be the Marquis himself!--Lord
+of Argyle," he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised
+nobleman, "I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If
+you venture to call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck."
+
+The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle's person was so sudden and
+unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon,
+and held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis's
+throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for
+assistance.
+
+"Lord of Argyle," he said, "it is now my turn to lay down the terms
+of capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you
+entered the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM
+TENENS, as we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits
+his prisoners. But if not, I will first strangle you--I learned the
+art from a Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman
+seraglio--and then seek out a mode of retreat."
+
+"Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness," murmured Argyle.
+
+"Not for your kindness, my lord," replied Dalgetty: "but first, to teach
+your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under
+safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing
+dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to
+become false to his standard during the term of his service."
+
+"Spare my life," said Argyle, "and I will do as you require."
+
+Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis's throat, compressing it
+a little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him
+the power of answering them.
+
+"Where is the secret door into the dungeon?" he demanded.
+
+"Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern
+the iron which covers the spring," replied the Marquis.
+
+"So far so good.--Where does the passage lead to?"
+
+"To my private apartment behind the tapestry," answered the prostrate
+nobleman.
+
+"From thence how shall I reach the gateway?"
+
+"Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys' waiting hall, the
+grand guardroom--"
+
+"All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?--that will
+never do for me, my lord;--have you no secret passage to the gate, as
+you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany."
+
+"There is a passage through the chapel," said the Marquis, "opening from
+my apartment."
+
+"And what is the pass-word at the gate?"
+
+"The sword of Levi," replied the Marquis; "but if you will receive my
+pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard,
+and set you at full liberty with a passport."
+
+"I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the
+grasp of my fingers--as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the Spaniard
+says. Yet you may grant me a passport;--are there writing materials in
+your apartment?"
+
+"Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you
+there," said the Marquis, "instantly."
+
+"It were too much honour for the like of me," said Dalgetty; "your
+lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh;
+therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.--Honest
+Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I
+doubt not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do;
+clap your hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under
+his ruff, and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy
+Ranald, to squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that
+is, till he swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your
+gullet and mine to still harder usage."
+
+"If he offer at speech or struggle," said Ranald, "he dies by my hand."
+
+"That is right, Ranald--very spirited:--A thorough-going friend that
+understands a hint is worth a million!"
+
+Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate,
+Dalgetty pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open,
+though so well were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the
+slightest noise in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured
+by very strong bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys,
+designed apparently to undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending
+up through the thickness of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had
+truly informed him, behind the tapestry of his private apartment. Such
+communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave the
+lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of hearing the
+conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of visiting them in
+disguise, an experiment which had terminated so unpleasantly on the
+present occasion for Gillespie Grumach. Having examined previously
+whether there was any one in the apartment, and finding the coast clear,
+the Captain entered, and hastily possessing himself of a blank passport,
+several of which lay on the table, and of writing materials, securing,
+at the same time, the Marquis's dagger, and a silk cord from the
+hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where, listening a moment
+at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of the Marquis making
+great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer him to give an
+alarm.
+
+"Not for a forest of deer--not for a thousand head of cattle," answered
+the freebooter; "not for all the lands that ever called a son of
+Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted to him of the
+iron-garment!"
+
+"He of the iron-garment," said Dalgetty, entering, "is bounden unto you,
+MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but first he must
+fill up this passport with the names of Major Dugald Dalgetty and his
+guide, or he is like to have a passport to another world."
+
+The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark lantern, as
+the soldier prescribed to him.
+
+"And now, Ranald," said Dalgetty, "strip thy upper garment--thy plaid
+I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M'Callum More, and make of
+him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;--Nay, I must bring it over your
+head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.--So,
+now he is sufficiently muffled;--hold down your hands, or, by Heaven,
+I will stab you to the heart with your own dagger!--nay, you shall be
+bound with nothing less than silk, as your quality deserves.--So, now
+he is secure till some one comes to relieve him. If he ordered us a late
+dinner, Ranald, he is like to be the sufferer;--at what hour, my good
+Ranald, did the jailor usually appear?"
+
+"Never till the sun was beneath the western wave," said MacEagh. "Then,
+my friend, we shall have three hours good," said the cautious Captain.
+"In the meantime, let us labour for your liberation."
+
+To examine Ranald's chain was the next occupation. It was undone by
+means of one of the keys which hung behind the private door, probably
+deposited there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased, dismiss a
+prisoner, or remove him elsewhere without the necessity of summoning
+the warden. The outlaw stretched his benumbed arms, and bounded from the
+floor of the dungeon in all the ecstasy of recovered freedom.
+
+"Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner," said Captain Dalgetty;
+"put it on, and follow close at my heels."
+
+The outlaw obeyed. They ascended the private stair, having first secured
+the door behind them, and thus safely reached the apartment of the
+Marquis.
+
+[The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great deal of
+espionage into their castles. Sir Robert Carey mentions his having put
+on the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a confession from the
+mouth of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom he caused presently to be
+hanged in return for the frankness of his communication. The fine old
+Border castle of Naworth contains a private stair from the apartment
+of the Lord William Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is
+alleged in the preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis
+of Argyle.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     This was the entry then, these stairs--but whither after?
+     Yet he that's sure to perish on the land
+     May quit the nicety of card and compass,
+     And trust the open sea without a pilot.--TRAGEDY OF BENNOVALT.
+
+"Look out for the private way through the chapel, Ranald," said the
+Captain, "while I give a hasty regard to these matters."
+
+Thus speaking, he seized with one hand a bundle of Argyle's most private
+papers, and with the other a purse of gold, both of which lay in a
+drawer of a rich cabinet, which stood invitingly open. Neither did he
+neglect to possess himself of a sword and pistols, with powder-flask and
+balls, which hung in the apartment. "Intelligence and booty," said the
+veteran, as he pouched the spoils, "each honourable cavalier should
+look to, the one on his general's behalf, and the other on his own. This
+sword is an Andrew Ferrara, and the pistols better than mine own. But
+a fair exchange is no robbery. Soldados are not to be endangered, and
+endangered gratuitously, my Lord of Argyle.--But soft, soft, Ranald;
+wise Man of the Mist, whither art thou bound?"
+
+It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh's proceedings; for, not finding
+the private passage readily, and impatient, it would seem, of farther
+delay, he had caught down a sword and target, and was about to enter the
+great gallery, with the purpose, doubtless, of fighting his way through
+all opposition.
+
+"Hold, while you live," whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him. "We
+must be perdue, if possible. So bar we this door, that it may be thought
+M'Callum More would be private--and now let me make a reconnaissance for
+the private passage."
+
+By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length
+discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated
+by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel. But what was his
+disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door,
+the sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.
+
+"This made the villain," he said, "recommend this to us as a private
+passage. I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat."
+
+He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery
+used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps
+with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance
+upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular
+affairs. There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the
+Marquis,--such was the high state maintained in those days,--sate during
+service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the great
+man himself. This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to ensconce
+himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.
+
+Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon
+listened to with more impatience, and less edification,
+on the part of one, at least, of the audience. The Captain heard
+SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY and TO CONCLUDE, with a sort of
+feeling like protracted despair. But no man can lecture (for the service
+was called a lecture) for ever; and the discourse was at length closed,
+the clergyman not failing to make a profound bow towards the latticed
+gallery, little suspecting whom he honoured by that reverence. To judge
+from the haste with which they dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis
+were scarce more pleased with their late occupation than the anxious
+Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of them being Highlandmen, had the excuse
+of not understanding a single word which the clergyman spoke, although
+they gave their attendance on his doctrine by the special order of
+M'Callum More, and would have done so had the preacher been a Turkish
+Imaum.
+
+But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine
+remained behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its Gothic
+precincts, seemed either to be meditating on what he had just been
+delivering, or preparing a fresh discourse for the next opportunity.
+Bold as he was, Dalgetty hesitated what he ought to do. Time, however,
+pressed, and every moment increased the chance of their escape being
+discovered by the jailor visiting the dungeon perhaps before his wonted
+time, and discovering the exchange which had been made there. At length,
+whispering Ranald, who watched all his motions, to follow him and
+preserve his countenance, Captain Dalgetty, with a very composed air,
+descended a flight of steps which led from the gallery into the body of
+the chapel. A less experienced adventurer would have endeavoured to
+pass the worthy clergyman rapidly, in hopes to escape unnoticed. But the
+Captain, who foresaw the manifest danger of failing in such an attempt,
+walked gravely to meet the divine upon his walk in the midst of the
+chancel, and, pulling off his cap, was about to pass him after a formal
+reverence. But what was his surprise to view in the preacher the very
+same person with whom he had dined in the castle of Ardenvohr! Yet he
+speedily recovered his composure; and ere the clergyman could speak, was
+the first to address him. "I could not," he said, "leave this mansion
+without bequeathing to you, my very reverend sir, my humble thanks for
+the homily with which you have this evening favoured us."
+
+"I did not observe, sir," said the clergyman, "that you were in the
+chapel."
+
+"It pleased the honourable Marquis," said Dalgetty, modestly, "to
+grace me with a seat in his own gallery." The divine bowed low at this
+intimation, knowing that such an honour was only vouchsafed to persons
+of very high rank. "It has been my fate, sir," said the Captain, "in
+the sort of wandering life which I have led, to have heard different
+preachers of different religions--as for example, Lutheran, Evangelical,
+Reformed, Calvinistical, and so forth, but never have I listened to such
+a homily as yours."
+
+"Call it a lecture, worthy sir," said the divine, "such is the phrase of
+our church."
+
+"Lecture or homily," said Dalgetty, "it was, as the High Germans say,
+GANZ FORTRE FLICH; and I could not leave this place without testifying
+unto you what inward emotions I have undergone during your edifying
+prelection; and how I am touched to the quick, that I should yesterday,
+during the refection, have seemed to infringe on the respect due to such
+a person as yourself."
+
+"Alas! my worthy sir," said the clergyman, "we meet in this world as
+in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not knowing against whom we
+may chance to encounter. In truth, it is no matter of marvel, if we
+sometimes jostle those, to whom, if known, we would yield all respect.
+Surely, sir, I would rather have taken you for a profane malignant than
+for such a devout person as you prove, who reverences the great Master
+even in the meanest of his servants."
+
+"It is always my custom to do so, learned sir," answered Dalgetty; "for
+in the service of the immortal Gustavus--but I detain you from your
+meditations,"--his desire to speak of the King of Sweden being for once
+overpowered by the necessity of his circumstances.
+
+"By no means, my worthy sir," said the clergyman. "What was, I pray
+you, the order of that great Prince, whose memory is so dear to every
+Protestant bosom?"
+
+"Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly as for
+parade; and if a soldier passed without saluting the chaplain, he had
+an hour's ride on the wooden mare for his pains. Sir, I wish you a very
+good evening--I am obliged to depart the castle under M'Callum More's
+passport."
+
+"Stay one instant, sir," said the preacher; "is there nothing I can
+do to testify my respect for the pupil of the great Gustavus, and so
+admirable a judge of preaching?"
+
+"Nothing, sir," said the Captain, "but to shew me the nearest way to
+the gate--and if you would have the kindness," he added, with great
+effrontery, "to let a servant bring my horse with him, the dark grey
+gelding--call him Gustavus, and he will prick up his ears--for I know
+not where the castle-stables are situated, and my guide," he added,
+looking at Ranald, "speaks no English."
+
+"I hasten to accommodate you," said the clergyman; "your way lies
+through that cloistered passage."
+
+"Now, Heaven's blessing upon your vanity!" said the Captain to himself.
+"I was afraid I would have had to march off without Gustavus."
+
+In fact, so effectually did the chaplain exert himself in behalf of so
+excellent a judge of composition, that while Dalgetty was parleying with
+the sentinels at the drawbridge, showing his passport, and giving
+the watchword, a servant brought him his horse, ready saddled for the
+journey. In another place, the Captain's sudden appearance at large
+after having been publicly sent to prison, might have excited suspicion
+and enquiry; but the officers and domestics of the Marquis were
+accustomed to the mysterious policy of their master, and never supposed
+aught else than that he had been liberated and intrusted with some
+private commission by their master. In this belief, and having received
+the parole, they gave him free passage.
+
+Dalgetty rode slowly through the town of Inverary, the outlaw attending
+upon him like a foot-page at his horse's shoulder. As they passed the
+gibbet, the old man looked on the bodies and wrung his hands. The look
+and gesture was momentary, but expressive of indescribable anguish.
+Instantly recovering himself, Ranald, in passing, whispered somewhat
+to one of the females, who, like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, seemed
+engaged in watching and mourning the victims of feudal injustice and
+cruelty. The woman started at his voice, but immediately collected
+herself and returned for answer a slight inclination of the head.
+
+Dalgetty continued his way out of the town, uncertain whether he should
+try to seize or hire a boat and cross the lake, or plunge into the
+woods, and there conceal himself from pursuit. In the former event he
+was liable to be instantly pursued by the galleys of the Marquis, which
+lay ready for sailing, their long yard-arms pointing to the wind, and
+what hope could he have in an ordinary Highland fishing-boat to escape
+from them? If he made the latter choice, his chance either of supporting
+or concealing himself in those waste and unknown wildernesses, was in
+the highest degree precarious. The town lay now behind him, yet what
+hand to turn to for safety he was unable to determine, and began to be
+sensible, that in escaping from the dungeon at Inverary, desperate
+as the matter seemed, he had only accomplished the easiest part of a
+difficult task. If retaken, his fate was now certain; for the personal
+injury he had offered to a man so powerful and so vindictive, could be
+atoned for only by instant death. While he pondered these distressing
+reflections, and looked around with a countenance which plainly
+expressed indecision, Ranald MacEagh suddenly asked him, "which way he
+intended to journey?"
+
+"And that, honest comrade," answered Dalgetty, "is precisely the
+question which I cannot answer you. Truly I begin to hold the
+opinion, Ranald, that we had better have stuck by the brown loaf and
+water-pitcher until Sir Duncan arrived, who, for his own honour, must
+have made some fight for me."
+
+"Saxon," answered MacEagh, "do not regret having exchanged the foul
+breath of yonder dungeon for the free air of heaven. Above all, repent
+not that you have served a Son of the Mist. Put yourself under my
+guidance, and I will warrant your safety with my head."
+
+"Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the army of
+Montrose?" said Dalgetty.
+
+"I can," answered MacEagh; "there lives not a man to whom the mountain
+passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the corries are known,
+as they are to the Children of the Mist. While others crawl on the level
+ground, by the sides of lakes and streams, ours are the steep hollows of
+the inaccessible mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs. Not
+all the bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I
+can guide you."
+
+"Say'st thou so, honest Ranald?" replied Dalgetty; "then have on with
+thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own pilotage."
+
+The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the castle
+is surrounded for several miles, walking with so much dispatch as kept
+Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a number of cross cuts and
+turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily lost all idea where he might be,
+and all knowledge of the points of the compass. At length, the path,
+which had gradually become more difficult, altogether ended among
+thickets and underwood. The roaring of a torrent was heard in the
+neighbourhood, the ground became in some places broken, in others boggy,
+and everywhere unfit for riding.
+
+"What the foul fiend," said Dalgetty, "is to be done here? I must part
+with Gustavus, I fear."
+
+"Take no care for your horse," said the outlaw; "he shall soon be
+restored to you."
+
+As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in
+tartan, half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong
+of leather, to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean,
+and half-starved in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten
+times the proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept
+out, as a wild beast might have done, from a thicket of brambles and
+briars.
+
+"Give your horse to the gillie," said Ranald MacEagh; "your life depends
+upon it."
+
+"Och! och!" exclaimed the despairing veteran; "Eheu! as we used to say
+at Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such grooming!"
+
+"Are you frantic, to lose time thus!" said his guide; "do we stand on
+friends' ground, that you should part with your horse as if he were your
+brother? I tell you, you shall have him again; but if you never saw the
+animal, is not life better than the best colt ever mare foaled?"
+
+"And that is true too, mine honest friend," sighed Dalgetty; "yet if
+you knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have done and
+suffered together--See, he turns back to look at me!--Be kind to him,
+my good breechless friend, and I will requite you well." So saying,
+and withal sniffling a little to swallow his grief, he turned from the
+heart-rending spectacle in order to follow his guide.
+
+To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more agility
+than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first plunge after he had
+parted from his charger, carried him, with little assistance from a few
+overhanging boughs, or projecting roots of trees, eight foot sheer down
+into the course of a torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.
+Huge stones, over which they scrambled,--thickets of them and brambles,
+through which they had to drag themselves,--rocks which were to be
+climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the purpose of
+an equally precarious descent upon the other; all these, and many
+such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-footed and half-naked
+mountaineer with an ease and velocity which excited the surprise and
+envy of Captain Dalgetty, who, encumbered by his head-piece, corslet,
+and other armour, not to mention his ponderous jack-boots, found himself
+at length so much exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of the
+road, that he sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath,
+while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
+EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were understood
+at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen. The sole answer of the mountaineer
+was to lay his hand on the soldier's arm, and point backward in the
+direction of the wind. Dalgetty could spy nothing, for evening was
+closing fast, and they were at the bottom of a dark ravine. But at
+length he could distinctly hear at a distance the sullen toll of a large
+bell.
+
+"That," said he, "must be the alarm--the storm-clock, as the Germans
+call it."
+
+"It strikes the hour of your death," answered Ranald, "unless you can
+accompany me a little farther. For every toll of that bell a brave man
+has yielded up his soul."
+
+"Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend," said Dalgetty, "I will not deny
+that the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen (being, as
+I explained to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been EXPEDITUS, I mind not
+pedestrian exercise the flourish of a fife), that I think I had better
+ensconce myself in one of these bushes, and even lie quiet there to
+abide what fortune God shall send me. I entreat you, mine honest friend
+Ranald, to shift for yourself, and leave me to my fortune, as the Lion
+of the North, the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, my never-to-be-forgotten
+master (whom you must surely have heard of, Ranald, though you may have
+heard of no one else), said to Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburgh,
+when he was mortally wounded on the plains of Lutzen. Neither despair
+altogether of my safety, Ranald, seeing I have been in as great pinches
+as this in Germany--more especially, I remember me, that at the fatal
+battle of Nerlingen--after which I changed service--"
+
+"If you would save your father's son's breath to help his child out
+of trouble, instead of wasting it upon the tales of Seannachies," said
+Ranald, who now grew impatient of the Captain's loquacity, "or if your
+feet could travel as fast as your tongue, you might yet lay your head on
+an unbloody pillow to-night."
+
+"Something there is like military skill in that," replied the Captain,
+"although wantonly and irreverently spoken to an officer of rank. But
+I hold it good to pardon such freedoms on a march, in respect of the
+Saturnalian license indulged in such cases to the troops of all
+nations. And now, resume thine office, friend Ranald, in respect I am
+well-breathed; or, to be more plain, I PRAE, SEQUAR, as we used to say
+at Mareschal-College."
+
+Comprehending his meaning rather from his motions than his language,
+the Son of the Mist again led the way, with an unerring precision that
+looked like instinct, through a variety of ground the most difficult and
+broken that could well be imagined. Dragging along his ponderous boots,
+encumbered with thigh-pieces, gauntlets, corslet, and back-piece, not to
+mention the buff jerkin which he wore under all these arms, talking of
+his former exploits the whole way, though Ranald paid not the slightest
+attention to him, Captain Dalgetty contrived to follow his guide a
+considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a hound was
+heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent of its prey.
+
+"Black hound," said Ranald, "whose throat never boded good to a Child of
+the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast thou already found
+our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound of darkness, and the deer
+has gained the herd."
+
+So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone equally
+low from the top of a pass, up which they had for some time been
+ascending. Mending their pace, they reached the top, where the moon,
+which had now risen bright and clear, showed to Dalgetty a party of ten
+or twelve Highlanders, and about as many women and children, by whom
+Ranald MacEagh was received with such transports of joy, as made his
+companion easily sensible that those by whom he was surrounded, must
+of course be Children of the Mist. The place which they occupied well
+suited their name and habits. It was a beetling crag, round which winded
+a very narrow and broken footpath, commanded in various places by the
+position which they held.
+
+Ranald spoke anxiously and hastily to the children of his tribe, and
+the men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women,
+clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his
+garment. "They plight their faith to you," said Ranald MacEagh, "for
+requital of the good deed you have done to the tribe this day."
+
+"Enough said, Ranald," answered the soldier, "enough said--tell them
+I love not this shaking of hands--it confuses ranks and degrees in
+military service; and as to kissing of gauntlets, puldrons, and the
+like, I remember that the immortal Gustavus, as he rode through the
+streets of Nuremberg, being thus worshipped by the poulace (being
+doubtless far more worthy of it than a poor though honourable cavalier
+like myself), did say unto them, in the way of rebuke, 'If you idolize
+me thus like a god, who shall assure you that the vengeance of Heaven
+will not soon prove me to be a mortal?'--And so here, I suppose you
+intend to make a stand against your followers, Ranald--VOTO A DIOS, as
+the Spaniard says?--a very pretty position--as pretty a position for
+a small peloton of men as I have seen in my service--no enemy can
+come towards it by the road without being at the mercy of cannon and
+musket.--But then, Ranald, my trusty comrade, you have no cannon, I dare
+to aver, and I do not see that any of these fellows have muskets either.
+So with what artillery you propose making good the pass, before you come
+to hand blows, truly, Ranald, it passeth my apprehension."
+
+"With the weapons and with the courage of our fathers," said MacEagh;
+and made the Captain observe, that the men of his party were armed with
+bows and arrows.
+
+"Bows and arrows!" exclaimed Dalgetty; "ha! ha! ha! have we Robin Hood
+and Little John back again? Bows and arrows! why, the sight has not been
+seen in civilized war for a hundred years. Bows and arrows! and why not
+weavers' beams, as in the days of Goliah? Ah! that Dugald Dalgetty, of
+Drumthwacket, should live to see men fight with bows and arrows!--The
+immortal Gustavus would never have believed it--nor Wallenstein--nor
+Butler--nor old Tilly,--Well, Ranald, a cat can have but its
+claws--since bows and arrows are the word, e'en let us make the best
+of it. Only, as I do not understand the scope and range of such
+old-fashioned artillery, you must make the best disposition you can out
+of your own head for MY taking the command, whilk I would have gladly
+done had you been to fight with any Christian weapons, is out of the
+question, when you are to combat like quivered Numidians. I will,
+however, play my part with my pistols in the approaching melley, in
+respect my carabine unhappily remains at Gustavus's saddle.--My service
+and thanks to you," he continued, addressing a mountaineer who offered
+him a bow; "Dugald Dalgetty may say of himself, as he learned at
+Mareschal-College,
+
+     "Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu,
+     Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
+     Fusce, pharetra;
+
+whilk is to say--"
+
+Ranald MacEagh a second time imposed silence on the talkative commander
+as before, by pulling his sleeve, and pointing down the pass. The bay
+of the bloodhound was now approaching nearer and nearer, and they could
+hear the voices of several persons who accompanied the animal, and
+hallooed to each other as they dispersed occasionally, either in the
+hurry of their advance, or in order to search more accurately the
+thickets as they came along. They were obviously drawing nearer and
+nearer every moment. MacEagh, in the meantime, proposed to Captain
+Dalgetty to disencumber himself of his armour, and gave him to
+understand that the women should transport it to a place of safety.
+
+"I crave your pardon, sir," said Dalgetty, "such is not the rule of
+our foreign service in respect I remember the regiment of Finland
+cuirassiers reprimanded, and their kettle-drums taken from them, by
+the immortal Gustavus, because they had assumed the permission to march
+without their corslets, and to leave them with the baggage. Neither did
+they strike kettle-drums again at the head of that famous regiment until
+they behaved themselves so notably at the field of Leipsic; a lesson
+whilk is not to be forgotten, any more than that exclamation of the
+immortal Gustavus, 'Now shall I know if my officers love me, by their
+putting on their armour; since, if my officers are slain, who shall lead
+my soldiers into victory?' Nevertheless, friend Ranald, this is without
+prejudice to my being rid of these somewhat heavy boots, providing I
+can obtain any other succedaneum; for I presume not to say that my bare
+soles are fortified so as to endure the flints and thorns, as seems to
+be the case with your followers."
+
+To rid the Captain of his cumbrous greaves, and case his feet in a pair
+of brogues made out of deerskin, which a Highlander stripped off for his
+accommodation, was the work of a minute, and Dalgetty found himself much
+lightened by the exchange. He was in the act of recommending to Ranald
+MacEagh, to send two or three of his followers a little lower to
+reconnoitre the pass, and, at the same time, somewhat to extend his
+front, placing two detached archers at each flank by way of posts of
+observation, when the near cry of the hound apprised them that the
+pursuers were at the bottom of the pass. All was then dead silence; for,
+loquacious as he was on other occasions, Captain Dalgetty knew well the
+necessity of an ambush keeping itself under covert.
+
+The moon gleamed on the broken pathway, and on the projecting cliffs of
+rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here and there by the
+branches of bushes and dwarf-trees, which, finding nourishment in the
+crevices of the rocks, in some places overshadowed the brow and ledge
+of the precipice. Below, a thick copse-wood lay in deep and dark shadow,
+somewhat resembling the billows of a half-seen ocean. From the bosom of
+that darkness, and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was
+heard at intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the
+echoes of the woods and rocks around. At intervals, these sunk into deep
+silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a small runnel of
+water, which partly fell from the rock, partly found a more silent
+passage to the bottom along its projecting surface. Voices of men were
+also heard in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had
+not discovered the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, or
+that, having discovered it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the
+imperfect light, and the uncertainty whether it might not be defended,
+made them hesitate to attempt it.
+
+At length a shadowy figure was seen, which raised itself up from the
+abyss of darkness below, and, emerging into the pale moonlight, began
+cautiously and slowly to ascend the rocky path. The outline was so
+distinctly marked, that Captain Dalgetty could discover not only the
+person of a Highlander, but the long gun which he carried in his hand,
+and the plume of feathers which decorated his bonnet. "TAUSEND TEIFLEN!
+that I should say so, and so like to be near my latter end!" ejaculated
+the Captain, but under his breath, "what will become of us, now they
+have brought musketry to encounter our archers?"
+
+But just as the pursuer had attained a projecting piece of rock about
+half way up the ascent, and, pausing, made a signal for those who were
+still at the bottom to follow him, an arrow whistled from the bow of one
+of the Children of the Mist, and transfixed him with so fatal a wound,
+that, without a single effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and
+fell headlong from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below.
+The crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of his
+fall from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of horror and
+surprise, which burst from his followers. The Children of the Mist,
+encouraged in proportion to the alarm this first success had caused
+among the pursuers, echoed back the clamour with a loud and shrill yell
+of exultation, and, showing themselves on the brow of the precipice,
+with wild cries and vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their
+enemies a sense at once of their courage, their numbers, and their state
+of defence. Even Captain Dalgetty's military prudence did not prevent
+his rising up, and calling out to Ranald, more loud than prudence
+warranted, "CAROCCO, comrade, as the Spaniard says! The long-bow for
+ever! In my poor apprehension now, were you to order a file to advance
+and take position--"
+
+"The Sassenach!" cried a voice from beneath, "mark the Sassenach sidier!
+I see the glitter of his breastplate." At the same time three muskets
+were discharged; and while one ball rattled against the corslet of
+proof, to the strength of which our valiant Captain had been more than
+once indebted for his life, another penetrated the armour which covered
+the front of his left thigh, and stretched him on the ground. Ranald
+instantly seized him in his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the
+precipice, while he dolefully ejaculated, "I always told the immortal
+Gustavus, Wallenstein, Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my
+poor mind, taslets ought to be made musket-proof."
+
+With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the wounded
+man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of his little
+party, and was then about to return to the contest. But Dalgetty
+detained him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.--"I know not how this
+matter may end--but I request you will inform Montrose, that I died like
+a follower of the immortal Gustavus--and I pray you, take heed how you
+quit your present strength, even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy,
+if you gain any advantage--and--and--"
+
+Here Dalgetty's breath and eyesight began to fail him through loss of
+blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this circumstance, extricated
+from his grasp the end of his own mantle, and substituted that of a
+female, by which the Captain held stoutly, thereby securing, as he
+conceived, the outlaw's attention to the military instructions which he
+continued to pour forth while he had any breath to utter them, though
+they became gradually more and more incoherent--"And, comrade, you
+will be sure to keep your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes,
+Lochaber-axes, and two-handed swords--Stand fast, dragoons, on the left
+flank!--where was I?--Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded to retreat, leave
+some lighted matches burning on the branches of the trees--it shows as
+if they were lined with shot--But I forget--ye have no match-locks nor
+habergeons--only bows and arrows--bows and arrows! ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable
+to resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he
+connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war. It was a long
+time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in
+the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in
+reality, as they were wild and uncouth in outward appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     But if no faithless action stain
+     Thy true and constant word,
+     I'll make thee famous by my pen,
+     And glorious by my sword.
+
+     I'll serve thee in such noble ways
+     As ne'er were known before;
+     I'll deck and crown thy head with bays,
+     And love thee more and more.--MONTROSE'S LINES.
+
+We must now leave, with whatever regret, the valiant Captain Dalgetty,
+to recover of his wounds or otherwise as fate shall determine, in order
+briefly to trace the military operations of Montrose, worthy as they are
+of a more important page, and a better historian. By the assistance of
+the chieftains whom we have commemorated, and more especially by the
+junction of the Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were
+peculiarly zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army of two
+or three thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully united the Irish
+under Colkitto. This last leader, who, to the great embarrassment of
+Milton's commentators, is commemorated in one of that great poet's
+sonnets, was properly named Alister, or Alexander M'Donnell, by birth a
+Scottish islesman, and related to the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage
+he owed the command assigned him in the Irish troops. In many respects
+he merited this distinction. He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to
+insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely master of
+his weapons, and always ready to show the example in the extremity of
+danger. To counterbalance these good qualities, it must be recorded,
+that he was inexperienced in military tactics, and of a jealous and
+presumptuous disposition, which often lost to Montrose the fruits of
+Colkitto's gallantry. Yet such is the predominance of outward personal
+qualities in the eyes of a mild people, that the feats of strength and
+courage shown by this champion, seem to have made a stronger impression
+upon the minds of the Highlanders, than the military skill and
+chivalrous spirit of the great Marquis of Montrose. Numerous traditions
+are still preserved in the Highland glens concerning Alister M'Donnell,
+though the name of Montrose is rarely mentioned among them.
+
+[Milton's book, entitled TETRACHORDON, had been ridiculed, it would
+seem, by the divines assembled at Westminster, and others, on account of
+the hardness of the title; and Milton in his sonnet retaliates upon
+the barbarous Scottish names which the Civil War had made familiar to
+English ears:--
+
+     . . . . why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
+     COLKITTO or M'Donald, or Gallasp?
+     These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
+     That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp.
+
+"We may suppose," says Bishop Newton, "that these were persons of note
+among the Scotch ministers, who were for pressing and enforcing the
+Covenant;" whereas Milton only intends to ridicule the barbarism
+of Scottish names in general, and quotes, indiscriminately, that of
+Gillespie, one of the Apostles of the Covenant, and those of Colkitto
+and M'Donnell (both belonging to one person), one of its bitterest
+enemies.]
+
+The point upon which Montrose finally assembled his little army, was in
+Strathearn, on the verge of the Highlands of Perthshire, so as to menace
+the principal town of that county.
+
+His enemies were not unprepared for his reception. Argyle, at the head
+of his Highlanders, was dogging the steps of the Irish from the west to
+the east, and by force, fear, or influence, had collected an army nearly
+sufficient to have given battle to that under Montrose. The Lowlands
+were also prepared, for reasons which we assigned at the beginning of
+this tale. A body of six thousand infantry, and six or seven thousand
+cavalry, which profanely assumed the title of God's army, had been
+hastily assembled from the shires of Fife, Angus, Perth, Stirling, and
+the neighbouring counties. A much less force in former times, nay, even
+in the preceding reign, would have been sufficient to have secured the
+Lowlands against a more formidable descent of Highlanders, than those
+united under Montrose; but times had changed strangely within the last
+half century. Before that period, the Lowlanders were as constantly
+engaged in war as the mountaineers, and were incomparably better
+disciplined and armed. The favourite Scottish order of battle somewhat
+resembled the Macedonian phalanx. Their infantry formed a compact body,
+armed with long spears, impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the age,
+though well mounted, and arrayed in complete proof. It may easily
+be conceived, therefore, that their ranks could not be broken by the
+disorderly charge of Highland infantry armed for close combat only, with
+swords, and ill furnished with missile weapons, and having no artillery
+whatever.
+
+This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the introduction
+of muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which, not being as yet
+combined with the bayonet, was a formidable weapon at a distance, but
+gave no assurance against the enemy who rushed on to close quarters. The
+pike, indeed, was not wholly disused in the Scottish army; but it was no
+longer the favourite weapon, nor was it relied upon as formerly by those
+in whose hands it was placed; insomuch that Daniel Lupton, a tactician
+of the day, has written a book expressly upon the superiority of the
+musket. This change commenced as early as the wars of Gustavus Adolphus,
+whose marches were made with such rapidity, that the pike was very soon
+thrown aside in his army, and exchanged for fire-arms. A circumstance
+which necessarily accompanied this change, as well as the establishment
+of standing armies, whereby war became a trade, was the introduction of
+a laborious and complicated system of discipline, combining a variety
+of words of command with corresponding operations and manoeuvres, the
+neglect of any one of which was sure to throw the whole into confusion.
+War therefore, as practised among most nations of Europe, had assumed
+much more than formerly the character of a profession or mystery, to
+which previous practice and experience were indispensable requisites.
+Such was the natural consequence of standing armies, which had almost
+everywhere, and particularly in the long German wars, superseded what
+may be called the natural discipline of the feudal militia.
+
+The Scottish Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double
+disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders. They were divested of the
+spear, a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had so often
+repelled the impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and they were
+subjected to a new and complicated species of discipline, well adapted,
+perhaps, to the use of regular troops, who could be rendered completely
+masters of it, but tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen
+soldiers, by whom it was rarely practised, and imperfectly understood.
+So much has been done in our own time in bringing back tactics to their
+first principles, and in getting rid of the pedantry of war, that it
+is easy for us to estimate the disadvantages under which a half-trained
+militia laboured, who were taught to consider success as depending upon
+their exercising with precision a system of tactics, which they probably
+only so far comprehended as to find out when they were wrong, but
+without the power of getting right again. Neither can it be denied,
+that, in the material points of military habits and warlike spirit,
+the Lowlanders of the seventeenth century had sunk far beneath their
+Highland countrymen.
+
+From the earliest period down to the union of the crowns, the whole
+kingdom of Scotland, Lowlands as well as Highlands, had been the
+constant scene of war, foreign and domestic; and there was probably
+scarce one of its hardy inhabitants, between the age of sixteen and
+sixty, who was not as willing in point of fact as he was literally bound
+in law, to assume arms at the first call of his liege lord, or of a
+royal proclamation. The law remained the same in sixteen hundred and
+forty-five as a hundred years before, but the race of those subjected to
+it had been bred up under very different feelings. They had sat in quiet
+under their vine and under their fig-tree, and a call to battle involved
+a change of life as new as it was disagreeable. Such of them, also, who
+lived near unto the Highlands, were in continual and disadvantageous
+contact with the restless inhabitants of those mountains, by whom their
+cattle were driven off, their dwellings plundered, and their persons
+insulted, and who had acquired over them that sort of superiority
+arising from a constant system of aggression. The Lowlanders, who lay
+more remote, and out of reach of these depredations, were influenced by
+the exaggerated reports circulated concerning the Highlanders, whom,
+as totally differing in laws, language, and dress, they were induced
+to regard as a nation of savages, equally void of fear and of humanity.
+These various prepossessions, joined to the less warlike habits of the
+Lowlanders, and their imperfect knowledge of the new and complicated
+system of discipline for which they had exchanged their natural mode
+of fighting, placed them at great disadvantage when opposed to the
+Highlander in the field of battle. The mountaineers, on the contrary,
+with the arms and courage of their fathers, possessed also their simple
+and natural system of tactics, and bore down with the fullest confidence
+upon an enemy, to whom anything they had been taught of discipline was,
+like Saul's armour upon David, a hinderance rather than a help, "because
+they had not proved it."
+
+It was with such disadvantages on the one side, and such advantages on
+the other, to counterbalance the difference of superior numbers and the
+presence of artillery and cavalry, that Montrose encountered the army of
+Lord Elcho upon the field of Tippermuir. The Presbyterian clergy had not
+been wanting in their efforts to rouse the spirit of their followers,
+and one of them, who harangued the troops on the very day of battle,
+hesitated not to say, that if ever God spoke by his mouth, he promised
+them, in His name, that day, a great and assured victory. The cavalry
+and artillery were also reckoned sure warrants of success, as the
+novelty of their attack had upon former occasions been very discouraging
+to the Highlanders. The place of meeting was an open heath, and the
+ground afforded little advantage to either party, except that it allowed
+the horse of the Covenanters to act with effect.
+
+A battle upon which so much depended, was never more easily decided.
+The Lowland cavalry made a show of charging; but, whether thrown into
+disorder by the fire of musketry, or deterred by a disaffection to
+the service said to have prevailed among the gentlemen, they made no
+impression on the Highlanders whatever, and recoiled in disorder from
+ranks which had neither bayonets nor pikes to protect them. Montrose
+saw, and instantly availed himself of this advantage. He ordered his
+whole army to charge, which they performed with the wild and desperate
+valour peculiar to mountaineers. One officer of the Covenanters alone,
+trained in the Italian wars, made a desperate defence upon the right
+wing. In every other point their line was penetrated at the first onset;
+and this advantage once obtained, the Lowlanders were utterly unable to
+contend at close quarters with their more agile and athletic enemies.
+Many were slain on the held, and such a number in the pursuit, that
+above one-third of the Covenanters were reported to have fallen; in
+which number, however, must be computed a great many fat burgesses who
+broke their wind in the flight, and thus died without stroke of sword.
+[We choose to quote our authority for a fact so singular:--"A great many
+burgesses were killed--twenty-five householders in St. Andrews--many
+were bursten in the flight, and died without stroke."--See Baillie's
+Letters, vol. ii. page 92.]
+
+The victors obtained possession of Perth, and obtained considerable sums
+of money, as well as ample supplies of arms and ammunition. But
+those advantages were to be balanced against an almost insurmountable
+inconvenience that uniformly attended a Highland army. The clans could
+be in no respect induced to consider themselves as regular soldiers,
+or to act as such. Even so late as the year 1745-6, when the Chevalier
+Charles Edward, by way of making an example, caused a soldier to be shot
+for desertion, the Highlanders, who composed his army, were affected as
+much by indignation as by fear. They could not conceive any principle
+of justice upon which a man's life could be taken, for merely going home
+when it did not suit him to remain longer with the army. Such had been
+the uniform practice of their fathers. When a battle was over, the
+campaign was, in their opinion, ended; if it was lost, they sought
+safety in their mountains--if won, they returned there to secure their
+booty. At other times they had their cattle to look after, and their
+harvests to sow or reap, without which their families would have
+perished for want. In either case, there was an end of their services
+for the time; and though they were easily enough recalled by the
+prospect of fresh adventures and more plunder, yet the opportunity
+of success was, in the meantime, lost, and could not afterwards be
+recovered. This circumstance serves to show, even if history had not
+made us acquainted with the same fact, that the Highlanders had never
+been accustomed to make war with the view of permanent conquest, but
+only with the hope of deriving temporary advantage, or deciding some
+immediate quarrel. It also explains the reason why Montrose, with all
+his splendid successes, never obtained any secure or permanent footing
+in the Lowlands, and why even those Lowland noblemen and gentlemen, who
+were inclined to the royal cause, showed diffidence and reluctance to
+join an army of a character so desultory and irregular, as might lead
+them at all times to apprehend that the Highlanders securing themselves
+by a retreat to their mountains, would leave whatever Lowlanders might
+have joined them to the mercy of an offended and predominant enemy. The
+same consideration will also serve to account for the sudden marches
+which Montrose was obliged to undertake, in order to recruit his army in
+the mountains, and for the rapid changes of fortune, by which we often
+find him obliged to retreat from before those enemies over whom he had
+recently been victorious. If there should be any who read these tales
+for any further purpose than that of immediate amusement, they will find
+these remarks not unworthy of their recollection.
+
+It was owing to such causes, the slackness of the Lowland loyalists and
+the temporary desertion of his Highland followers, that Montrose found
+himself, even after the decisive victory of Tippermuir, in no condition
+to face the second army with which Argyle advanced upon him from the
+westward. In this emergency, supplying by velocity the want of strength,
+he moved suddenly from Perth to Dundee, and being refused admission into
+that town, fell northward upon Aberdeen, where he expected to be joined
+by the Gordons and other loyalists. But the zeal of these gentlemen
+was, for the time, effectually bridled by a large body of Covenanters,
+commanded by the Lord Burleigh, and supposed to amount to three thousand
+men. These Montrose boldly attacked with half their number. The battle
+was fought under the walls Of the city, and the resolute valour of
+Montrose's followers was again successful against every disadvantage.
+
+But it was the fate of this great commander, always to gain the glory,
+but seldom to reap the fruits of victory. He had scarcely time to repose
+his small army in Aberdeen, ere he found, on the one hand, that the
+Gordons were likely to be deterred from joining him, by the reasons we
+have mentioned, with some others peculiar to their chief, the Marquis
+of Huntly; on the other hand, Argyle, whose forces had been augmented by
+those of several Lowland noblemen, advanced towards Montrose at the head
+of an army much larger than he had yet had to cope with. These troops
+moved, indeed, with slowness, corresponding to the cautious character
+of their commander; but even that caution rendered Argyle's approach
+formidable, since his very advance implied, that he was at the head of
+an army irresistibly superior.
+
+There remained one mode of retreat open to Montrose, and he adopted
+it. He threw himself into the Highlands, where he could set pursuit
+at defiance, and where he was sure, in every glen, to recover those
+recruits who had left his standard to deposit their booty in their
+native fastnesses. It was thus that the singular character of the
+army which Montrose commanded, while, on the one hand, it rendered his
+victory in some degree nugatory, enabled him, on the other, under the
+most disadvantageous circumstances, to secure his retreat, recruit
+his forces, and render himself more formidable than ever to the enemy,
+before whom he had lately been unable to make a stand.
+
+On the present occasion he threw himself into Badenoch, and rapidly
+traversing that district, as well as the neighbouring country of Athole,
+he alarmed the Covenanters by successive attacks upon various unexpected
+points, and spread such general dismay, that repeated orders were
+dispatched by the Parliament to Argyle, their commander, to engage, and
+disperse Montrose at all rates.
+
+These commands from his superiors neither suited the haughty spirit, nor
+the temporizing and cautious policy, of the nobleman to whom they were
+addressed. He paid, accordingly, no regard to them, but limited his
+efforts to intrigues among Montrose's few Lowland followers, many of
+whom had become disgusted with the prospect of a Highland campaign,
+which exposed their persons to intolerable fatigue, and left their
+estates at the Covenanters' mercy. Accordingly, several of them left
+Montrose's camp at this period. He was joined, however, by a body of
+forces of more congenial spirit, and far better adapted to the situation
+in which he found himself. This reinforcement consisted of a large body
+of Highlanders, whom Colkitto, dispatched for that purpose, had levied
+in Argyleshire. Among the most distinguished was John of Moidart, called
+the Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts of Appin, the Clan Gregor,
+the Clan M'Nab, and other tribes of inferior distinction. By these
+means, Montrose's army was so formidably increased, that Argyle cared no
+longer to remain in the command of that opposed to him, but returned to
+Edinburgh, and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his
+army was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner
+in which they ought to have been. From thence the Marquis returned to
+Inverary, there, in full security, to govern his feudal vassals, and
+patriarchal followers, and to repose himself in safety on the faith of
+the Clan proverb already quoted--"It is a far cry to Lochow."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     Such mountains steep, such craggy hills,
+     His army on one side enclose:
+     The other side, great griesly gills
+     Did fence with fenny mire and moss.
+
+     Which when the Earl understood,
+     He council craved of captains all,
+     Who bade set forth with mournful mood,
+     And take such fortune as would fall.
+     --FLODDEN FIELD, AN ANCIENT POEM.
+
+Montrose had now a splendid career in his view, provided he could obtain
+the consent of his gallant, but desultory troops, and their independent
+chieftains. The Lowlands lay open before him without an army adequate to
+check his career; for Argyle's followers had left the Covenanters' host
+when their master threw up his commission, and many other troops, tired
+of the war, had taken the same opportunity to disband themselves. By
+descending Strath-Tay, therefore, one of the most convenient passes from
+the Highlands, Montrose had only to present himself in the Lowlands, in
+order to rouse the slumbering spirit of chivalry and of loyalty which
+animated the gentlemen to the north of the Forth. The possession of
+these districts, with or without a victory, would give him the command
+of a wealthy and fertile part of the kingdom, and would enable him, by
+regular pay, to place his army on a permanent footing, to penetrate as
+far as the capital, perhaps from thence to the Border, where he deemed
+it possible to communicate with the yet unsubdued forces of King
+Charles.
+
+Such was the plan of operations by which the truest glory was to be
+acquired, and the most important success insured for the royal cause.
+Accordingly it did not escape the ambitious and daring spirit of him
+whose services had already acquired him the title of the Great Marquis.
+But other motives actuated many of his followers, and perhaps were not
+without their secret and unacknowledged influence upon his own feelings.
+
+The Western Chiefs in Montrose's army, almost to a man, regarded the
+Marquis of Argyle as the most direct and proper object of hostilities.
+Almost all of them had felt his power; almost all, in withdrawing their
+fencible men from their own glens, left their families and property
+exposed to his vengeance; all, without exception, were desirous
+of diminishing his sovereignty; and most of them lay so near his
+territories, that they might reasonably hope to be gratified by a share
+of his spoil. To these Chiefs the possession of Inverary and its castle
+was an event infinitely more important and desirable than the capture
+of Edinburgh. The latter event could only afford their clansmen a little
+transitory pay or plunder; the former insured to the Chiefs themselves
+indemnity for the past, and security for the future. Besides these
+personal reasons, the leaders, who favoured this opinion, plausibly
+urged, that though, at his first descent into the Lowlands, Montrose
+might be superior to the enemy, yet every day's march he made from the
+hills must diminish his own forces, and expose him to the accumulated
+superiority of any army which the Covenanters could collect from the
+Lowland levies and garrisons. On the other hand, by crushing Argyle
+effectually, he would not only permit his present western friends to
+bring out that proportion of their forces which they must otherwise
+leave at home for protection of their families; but farther, he would
+draw to his standard several tribes already friendly to his cause, but
+who were prevented from joining him by fear of M'Callum More.
+
+These arguments, as we have already hinted, found something responsive
+in Montrose's own bosom, not quite consonant with the general heroism
+of his character. The houses of Argyle and Montrose had been in former
+times, repeatedly opposed to each other in war and in politics, and the
+superior advantages acquired by the former, had made them the subject
+of envy and dislike to the neighbouring family, who, conscious of equal
+desert, had not been so richly rewarded. This was not all. The existing
+heads of these rival families had stood in the most marked opposition to
+each other since the commencement of the present troubles.
+
+Montrose, conscious of the superiority of his talents, and of having
+rendered great service to the Covenanters at the beginning of the war,
+had expected from that party the supereminence of council and command,
+which they judged it safer to intrust to the more limited faculties,
+and more extensive power, of his rival Argyle. The having awarded this
+preference, was an injury which Montrose never forgave the Covenanters;
+and he was still less likely to extend his pardon to Argyle, to whom
+he had been postponed. He was therefore stimulated by every feeling of
+hatred which could animate a fiery temper in a fierce age, to seek for
+revenge upon the enemy of his house and person; and it is probable that
+these private motives operated not a little upon his mind, when he found
+the principal part of his followers determined rather to undertake an
+expedition against the territories of Argyle, than to take the far more
+decisive step of descending at once into the Lowlands.
+
+Yet whatever temptation Montrose found to carry into effect his attack
+upon Argyleshire, he could not easily bring himself to renounce the
+splendid achievement of a descent upon the Lowlands. He held more than
+one council with the principal Chiefs, combating, perhaps, his own
+secret inclination as well as theirs. He laid before them the extreme
+difficulty of marching even a Highland army from the eastward into
+Argyleshire, through passes scarcely practicable for shepherds and
+deer-stalkers, and over mountains, with which even the clans lying
+nearest to them did not pretend to be thoroughly acquainted. These
+difficulties were greatly enhanced by the season of the year, which was
+now advancing towards December, when the mountain-passes, in themselves
+so difficult, might be expected to be rendered utterly impassable by
+snowstorms. These objections neither satisfied nor silenced the Chiefs,
+who insisted upon their ancient mode of making war, by driving the
+cattle, which, according to the Gaelic phrase, "fed upon the grass
+of their enemy." The council was dismissed late at night, and without
+coming to any decision, excepting that the Chiefs, who supported the
+opinion that Argyle should be invaded, promised to seek out among their
+followers those who might be most capable of undertaking the office of
+guides upon the expedition.
+
+Montrose had retired to the cabin which served him for a tent, and
+stretched himself upon a bed of dry fern, the only place of repose which
+it afforded. But he courted sleep in vain, for the visions of ambition
+excluded those of Morpheus. In one moment he imagined himself displaying
+the royal banner from the reconquered Castle of Edinburgh, detaching
+assistance to a monarch whose crown depended upon his success, and
+receiving in requital all the advantages and preferments which could be
+heaped upon him whom a king delighteth to honour. At another time
+this dream, splendid as it was, faded before the vision of gratified
+vengeance, and personal triumph over a personal enemy. To surprise
+Argyle in his stronghold of Inverary--to crush in him at once the rival
+of his own house and the chief support of the Presbyterians--to show
+the Covenanters the difference between the preferred Argyle and the
+postponed Montrose, was a picture too flattering to feudal vengeance to
+be easily relinquished.
+
+While he lay thus busied with contradictory thoughts and feelings, the
+soldier who stood sentinel upon his quarters announced to the Marquis
+that two persons desired to speak with his Excellency.
+
+"Their names?" answered Montrose, "and the cause of their urgency at
+such a late hour?"
+
+On these points, the sentinel, who was one of Colkitto's Irishmen, could
+afford his General little information; so that Montrose, who at such a
+period durst refuse access to no one, lest he might have been neglecting
+some important intelligence, gave directions, as a necessary precaution,
+to put the guard under arms, and then prepared to receive his untimely
+visitors. His groom of the chambers had scarce lighted a pair of
+torches, and Montrose himself had scarce risen from his couch, when two
+men entered, one wearing a Lowland dress, of shamoy leather worn almost
+to tatters; the other a tall upright old Highlander, of a complexion
+which might be termed iron-grey, wasted and worn by frost and tempest.
+
+"What may be your commands with me, my friends?" said the Marquis, his
+hand almost unconsciously seeking the but of one of his pistols; for
+the period, as well as the time of night, warranted suspicions which the
+good mien of his visitors was not by any means calculated to remove.
+
+"I pray leave to congratulate you," said the Lowlander, "my most noble
+General, and right honourable lord, upon the great battles which you
+have achieved since I had the fortune to be detached from you, It was
+a pretty affair that tuilzie at Tippermuir; nevertheless, if I might be
+permitted to counsel--"
+
+"Before doing so," said the Marquis, "will you be pleased to let me know
+who is so kind as to favour me with his opinion?"
+
+"Truly, my lord," replied the man, "I should have hoped that was
+unnecessary, seeing it is not so long since I took on in your service,
+under promise of a commission as Major, with half a dollar of daily pay
+and half a dollar of arrears; and I am to trust your lordship has nut
+forgotten my pay as well as my person?"
+
+"My good friend, Major Dalgetty," said Montrose, who by this time
+perfectly recollected his man, "you must consider what important things
+have happened to put my friends' faces out of my memory, besides this
+imperfect light; but all conditions shall be kept.--And what news from
+Argyleshire, my good Major? We have long given you up for lost, and I
+was now preparing to take the most signal vengeance upon the old fox who
+infringed the law of arms in your person."
+
+"Truly, my noble lord," said Dalgetty, "I have no desire that my return
+should put any stop to so proper and becoming an intention; verily it
+is in no shape in the Earl of Argyle's favour or mercy that I now stand
+before you, and I shall be no intercessor for him. But my escape
+is, under Heaven, and the excellent dexterity which, as an old and
+accomplished cavalier, I displayed in effecting the same,--I say, under
+these, it is owing to the assistance of this old Highlander, whom
+I venture to recommend to your lordship's special favour, as the
+instrument of saving your lordship's to command, Dugald Dalgetty of
+Drumthwacket."
+
+"A thankworthy service," said the Marquis, gravely, "which shall
+certainly be requited in the manner it deserves."
+
+"Kneel down, Ranald," said Major Dalgetty (as we must now call him),
+"kneel down, and kiss his Excellency's hand."
+
+The prescribed form of acknowledgment not being according to the custom
+of Ranald's country, he contented himself with folding his arms on his
+bosom, and making a low inclination of his head.
+
+"This poor man, my lord," said Major Dalgetty, continuing his speech
+with a dignified air of protection towards Ranald M'Eagh, "has strained
+all his slender means to defend my person from mine enemies, although
+having no better weapons of a missile sort than bows and arrows, whilk
+your lordship will hardly believe."
+
+"You will see a great many such weapons in my camp," said Montrose, "and
+we find them serviceable." [In fact, for the admirers of archery it may
+be stated, not only that many of the Highlanders in Montrose's army used
+these antique missiles, but even in England the bow and quiver, once the
+glory of the bold yeomen of that land, were occasionally used during the
+great civil wars.]
+
+"Serviceable, my lord!" said Dalgetty; "I trust your lordship will
+permit me to be surprised--bows and arrows!--I trust you will forgive
+my recommending the substitution of muskets, the first convenient
+opportunity. But besides defending me, this honest Highlander also was
+at the pains of curing me, in respect that I had got a touch of the
+wars in my retreat, which merits my best requital in this special
+introduction of him to your lordship's notice and protection."
+
+"What is your name, my friend?" said Montrose, turning to the
+Highlander.
+
+"It may not be spoken," answered the mountaineer.
+
+"That is to say," interpreted Major Dalgetty, "he desires to have his
+name concealed, in respect he hath in former days taken a castle, slain
+certain children, and done other things, whilk, as your good lordship
+knows, are often practised in war time, but excite no benevolence
+towards the perpetrator in the friends of those who sustain injury. I
+have known, in my military experience, many brave cavaliers put to death
+by the boors, simply for having used military license upon the country."
+
+"I understand," said Montrose: "This person is at feud with some of our
+followers. Let him retire to the court of guard, and we will think of
+the best mode of protecting him."
+
+"You hear, Ranald," said Major Dalgetty, with an air of superiority,
+"his Excellency wishes to hold privy council with me, you must go to the
+court of guard.--He does not know where that is, poor fellow!--he is
+a young soldier for so old a man; I will put him under the charge of
+a sentinel, and return to your lordship incontinent." He did so, and
+returned accordingly.
+
+Montrose's first enquiry respected the embassy to Inverary; and he
+listened with attention to Dalgetty's reply, notwithstanding the
+prolixity of the Major's narrative. It required an effort from the
+Marquis to maintain his attention; but no one better knew, that where
+information is to be derived from the report of such agents as Dalgetty,
+it can only be obtained by suffering them to tell their story in their
+own way. Accordingly the Marquis's patience was at length rewarded.
+Among other spoils which the Captain thought himself at liberty to take,
+was a packet of Argyle's private papers. These he consigned to the hands
+of his General; a humour of accounting, however, which went no farther,
+for I do not understand that he made any mention of the purse of gold
+which he had appropriated at the same time that he made seizure of the
+papers aforesaid. Snatching a torch from the wall, Montrose was in an
+instant deeply engaged in the perusal of these documents, in which it is
+probable he found something to animate his personal resentment against
+his rival Argyle.
+
+"Does he not fear me?" said he; "then he shall feel me. Will he fire my
+castle of Murdoch?--Inverary shall raise the first smoke.--O for a guide
+through the skirts of Strath-Fillan!"
+
+Whatever might be Dalgetty's personal conceit, he understood his
+business sufficiently to guess at Montrose's meaning. He instantly
+interrupted his own prolix narration of the skirmish which had taken
+place, and the wound he had received in his retreat, and began to speak
+to the point which he saw interested his General.
+
+"If," said he, "your Excellency wishes to make an infall into
+Argyleshire, this poor man, Ranald, of whom I told you, together with
+his children and companions, know every pass into that land, both
+leading from the east and from the north."
+
+"Indeed!" said Montrose; "what reason have you to believe their
+knowledge so extensive?"
+
+"So please your Excellency," answered Dalgetty, "during the weeks that I
+remained with them for cure of my wound, they were repeatedly obliged
+to shift their quarters, in respect of Argyle's repeated attempts to
+repossess himself of the person of an officer who was honoured with Your
+Excellency's confidence; so that I had occasion to admire the singular
+dexterity and knowledge of the face of the country with which they
+alternately achieved their retreat and their advance; and when, at
+length, I was able to repair to your Excellency's standard, this honest
+simple creature, Ranald MacEagh, guided me by paths which my steed
+Gustavus (which your lordship may remember) trode with perfect safety,
+so that I said to myself, that where guides, spies, or intelligencers,
+were required in a Highland campaign in that western country, more
+expert persons than he and his attendants could not possibly be
+desired."
+
+"And can you answer for this man's fidelity?" said Montrose; "what is
+his name and condition?"
+
+"He is an outlaw and robber by profession, something also of a homicide
+or murderer," answered Dalgetty; "and by name, called Ranald MacEagh;
+whilk signifies, Ranald, the Son of the Mist."
+
+"I should remember something of that name," said Montrose, pausing: "Did
+not these Children of the Mist perpetrate some act of cruelty upon the
+M'Aulays?"
+
+Major Dalgetty mentioned the circumstance of the murder of the forester,
+and Montrose's active memory at once recalled all the circumstances of
+the feud.
+
+"It is most unlucky," said Montrose, "this inexpiable quarrel between
+these men and the M'Aulays. Allan has borne himself bravely in these
+wars, and possesses, by the wild mystery of his behaviour and
+language, so much influence over the minds of his countrymen, that the
+consequences of disobliging him might be serious. At the same time,
+these men being so capable of rendering useful service, and being as you
+say, Major Dalgetty, perfectly trustworthy--"
+
+"I will pledge my pay and arrears, my horse and arms, my head and neck,
+upon their fidelity," said the Major; "and your Excellency knows, that a
+soldado could say no more for his own father."
+
+"True," said Montrose; "but as this is a matter of particular moment, I
+would willingly know the grounds of so positive an assurance."
+
+"Concisely then, my lord," said the Major, "not only did they disdain to
+profit by a handsome reward which Argyle did me the honour to place upon
+this poor head of mine, and not only did they abstain from pillaging
+my personal property, whilk was to an amount that would have tempted
+regular soldiers in any service of Europe; and not only did they restore
+me my horse, whilk your Excellency knows to be of value, but I could not
+prevail on them to accept one stiver, doit, or maravedi, for the trouble
+and expenses of my sick bed. They actually refused my coined money when
+freely offered,--a tale seldom to be told in a Christian land."
+
+"I admit," said Montrose, after a moment's reflection, "that their
+conduct towards you is good evidence of their fidelity; but how to
+secure against the breaking out of this feud?" He paused, and then
+suddenly added, "I had forgot I have supped, while you, Major, have been
+travelling by moonlight."
+
+He called to his attendants to fetch a stoup of wine and some
+refreshments. Major Dalgetty, who had the appetite of a convalescent
+returned from Highland quarters, needed not any pressing to partake of
+what was set before him, but proceeded to dispatch his food with such
+alacrity, that the Marquis, filling a cup of wine, and drinking to his
+health, could not help remarking, that coarse as the provisions of his
+camp were, he was afraid Major Dalgetty had fared much worse during his
+excursion into Argyleshire.
+
+"Your Excellency may take your corporal oath upon that," said the worthy
+Major, speaking with his mouth full; "for Argyle's bread and water are
+yet stale and mouldy in my recollection, and though they did their
+best, yet the viands that the Children of the Mist procured for me, poor
+helpless creatures as they were, were so unrefreshful to my body, that
+when enclosed in my armour, whilk I was fain to leave behind me for
+expedition's sake, I rattled therein like the shrivelled kernel in a nut
+that hath been kept on to a second Hallowe'en."
+
+"You must take the due means to repair these losses, Major Dalgetty."
+
+"In troth," answered the soldier, "I shall hardly be able to compass
+that, unless my arrears are to be exchanged for present pay; for I
+protest to your Excellency, that the three stone weight which I have
+lost were simply raised upon the regular accountings of the States of
+Holland."
+
+"In that case," said the Marquis, "you are only reduced to good marching
+order. As for the pay, let us once have victory--victory, Major, and
+your wishes, and all our wishes, shall be amply fulfilled. Meantime,
+help yourself to another cup of wine."
+
+"To your Excellency's health," said the Major, filling a cup to the
+brim, to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, "and victory over
+all our enemies, and particularly over Argyle! I hope to twitch another
+handful from his board myself--I have had one pluck at it already."
+
+"Very true," answered Montrose; "but to return to those men of the Mist.
+You understand, Dalgetty, that their presence here, and the purpose for
+which we employ them, is a secret between you and me?"
+
+Delighted, as Montrose had anticipated, with this mark of his
+General's confidence, the Major laid his hand upon his nose, and nodded
+intelligence.
+
+"How many may there be of Ranald's followers?" continued the Marquis.
+
+"They are reduced, so far as I know, to some eight or ten men," answered
+Major Dalgetty, "and a few women and children."
+
+"Where are they now?" demanded Montrose.
+
+"In a valley, at three miles' distance," answered the soldier, "awaiting
+your Excellency's command; I judged it not fit to bring them to your
+leaguer without your Excellency's orders."
+
+"You judged very well," said Montrose; "it would be proper that they
+remain where they are, or seek some more distant place of refuge. I will
+send them money, though it is a scarce article with me at present."
+
+"It is quite unnecessary," said Major Dalgetty; "your Excellency has
+only to hint that the M'Aulays are going in that direction, and my
+friends of the Mist will instantly make volte-face, and go to the right
+about."
+
+"That were scarce courteous," said the Marquis. "Better send them a few
+dollars to purchase them some cattle for the support of the women and
+children."
+
+"They know how to come by their cattle at a far cheaper rate," said the
+Major; "but let it be as your Excellency wills."
+
+"Let Ranald MacEagh," said Montrose, "select one or two of his
+followers, men whom he can trust, and who are capable of keeping their
+own secret and ours; these, with their chief for scout-master-general,
+shall serve for our guides. Let them be at my tent to-morrow at
+daybreak, and see, if possible, that they neither guess my purpose, nor
+hold any communication with each other in private.--This old man, has he
+any children?"
+
+"They have been killed or hanged," answered the Major, "to the number of
+a round dozen, as I believe--but he hath left one grand-child, a smart
+and hopeful youth, whom I have noted to be never without a pebble in
+his plaid-nook, to fling at whatsoever might come in his way; being
+a symbol, that, like David, who was accustomed to sling smooth stones
+taken from the brook, he may afterwards prove an adventurous warrior."
+
+"That boy, Major Dalgetty," said the Marquis, "I will have to attend
+upon my own person. I presume he will have sense enough to keep his name
+secret?"
+
+"Your Excellency need not fear that," answered Dalgetty; "these Highland
+imps, from the moment they chip the shell--"
+
+"Well," interrupted Montrose, "that boy shall be pledge for the fidelity
+of his parent, and if he prove faithful, the child's preferment shall be
+his reward.--And now, Major Dalgetty, I will license your departure for
+the night; tomorrow you will introduce this MacEagh, under any name or
+character he may please to assume. I presume his profession has rendered
+him sufficiently expert in all sort of disguises; or we may admit
+John of Moidart into our schemes, who has sense, practicability,
+and intelligence, and will probably allow this man for a time to be
+disguised as one of his followers. For you, Major, my groom of the
+chambers will be your quarter-master for this evening."
+
+Major Dalgetty took his leave with a joyful heart greatly elated with
+the reception he had met with, and much pleased with the personal
+manners of his new General, which, as he explained at great length to
+Ranald MacEagh, reminded him in many respects of the demeanour of the
+immortal Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and Bulwark of the
+Protestant Faith.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+     The march begins in military state,
+     And nations on his eyes suspended wait;
+     Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
+     And winter barricades the realms of frost.
+     He comes,--nor want, nor cold, his course delay.
+     --VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.
+
+By break of day Montrose received in his cabin old MacEagh, and
+questioned him long and particularly as to the means of approaching the
+country of Argyle. He made a note of his answers, which he compared with
+those of two of his followers, whom he introduced as the most prudent
+and experienced. He found them to correspond in all respects; but, still
+unsatisfied where precaution was so necessary, the Marquis compared the
+information he had received with that he was able to collect from the
+Chiefs who lay most near to the destined scene of invasion, and being in
+all respects satisfied of its accuracy, he resolved to proceed in full
+reliance upon it.
+
+In one point Montrose changed his mind. Having judged it unfit to take
+the boy Kenneth into his own service, lest, in case of his birth being
+discovered, it should be resented as an offence by the numerous clans
+who entertained a feudal enmity to this devoted family, he requested the
+Major to take him in attendance upon himself; and as he accompanied
+this request with a handsome DOUCEUR, under pretence of clothing and
+equipping the lad, this change was agreeable to all parties.
+
+It was about breakfast-time, when Major Dalgetty, being dismissed by
+Montrose, went in quest of his old acquaintances, Lord Menteith and the
+M'Aulays, to whom he longed to communicate his own adventures, as
+well as to learn from them the particulars of the campaign. It may
+be imagined he was received with great glee by men to whom the late
+uniformity of their military life had rendered any change of society
+an interesting novelty. Allan M'Aulay alone seemed to recoil from his
+former acquaintance, although, when challenged by his brother, he could
+render no other reason than a reluctance to be familiar with one who
+had been so lately in the company of Argyle, and other enemies. Major
+Dalgetty was a little alarmed by this sort of instinctive consciousness
+which Allan seemed to entertain respecting the society he had been
+lately keeping; he was soon satisfied, however, that the perceptions of
+the seer in this particular were not infallible.
+
+As Ranald MacEagh was to be placed under Major Dalgetty's protection and
+superintendence, it was necessary he should present him to those persons
+with whom he was most likely to associate. The dress of the old man had,
+in the meantime, been changed from the tartan of his clan to a sort
+of clothing peculiar to the men of the distant Isles, resembling a
+waistcoat with sleeves, and a petticoat, all made in one piece. This
+dress was laced from top to bottom in front, and bore some resemblance
+to that called Polonaise, still worn by children in Scotland of the
+lower rank. The tartan hose and bonnet completed the dress, which old
+men of the last century remembered well to have seen worn by the distant
+Islesmen who came to the Earl of Mar's standard in the year 1715.
+
+Major Dalgetty, keeping his eye on Allan as he spoke, introduced Ranald
+MacEagh under the fictitious name of Ranald MacGillihuron in Benbecula,
+who had escaped with him out of Argyle's prison. He recommended him as
+a person skilful in the arts of the harper and the senachie, and by no
+means contemptible in the quality of a second-sighted person or seer.
+While making this exposition, Major Dalgetty stammered and hesitated in
+a way so unlike the usual glib forwardness of his manner, that he could
+not have failed to have given suspicion to Allan M'Aulay, had not that
+person's whole attention been engaged in steadily perusing the
+features of the person thus introduced to him. This steady gaze so much
+embarrassed Ranald MacEagh, that his hand was beginning to sink down
+towards his dagger, in expectation of a hostile assault, when Allan,
+suddenly crossing the floor of the hut, extended his hand to him in the
+way of friendly greeting. They sat down side by side, and conversed in
+a low mysterious tone of voice. Menteith and Angus M'Aulay were not
+surprised at this, for there prevailed among the Highlanders who
+pretended to the second-sight, a sort of Freemasonry, which generally
+induced them, upon meeting, to hold communication with each other on the
+nature and extent of their visionary experiences.
+
+"Does the sight come gloomy upon your spirits?" said Allan to his new
+acquaintance.
+
+"As dark as the shadow upon the moon," replied Ranald, "when she is
+darkened in her mid-course in heaven, and prophets foretell of evil
+times."
+
+"Come hither," said Allan, "come more this way, I would converse with
+you apart; for men say that in your distant islands the sight is poured
+forth with more clearness and power than upon us, who dwell near the
+Sassenach."
+
+While they were plunged into their mystic conference, the two English
+cavaliers entered the cabin in the highest possible spirits, and
+announced to Angus M'Aulay that orders had been issued that all should
+hold themselves in readiness for an immediate march to the westward.
+Having delivered themselves of their news with much glee, they paid
+their compliments to their old acquaintance Major Dalgetty, whom they
+instantly recognised, and enquired after the health of his charger,
+Gustavus.
+
+"I humbly thank you, gentlemen," answered the soldier, "Gustavas is
+well, though, like his master, somewhat barer on the ribs than when you
+offered to relieve me of him at Darnlinvarach; and let me assure you,
+that before you have made one or two of those marches which you seem to
+contemplate with so much satisfaction in prospect, you will leave, my
+good knights, some of your English beef, and probably an English horse
+or two, behind you."
+
+Both exclaimed that they cared very little what they found or what they
+left, provided the scene changed from dogging up and down Angus and
+Aberdeenshire, in pursuit of an enemy who would neither fight nor run
+away.
+
+"If such be the case," said Angus M'Aulay, "I must give orders to my
+followers, and make provision too for the safe conveyance of Annot Lyle;
+for an advance into M'Callum More's country will be a farther and fouler
+road than these pinks of Cumbrian knighthood are aware of." So saying,
+he left the cabin.
+
+"Annot Lyle!" repeated Dalgetty, "is she following the campaign?"
+
+"Surely," replied Sir Giles Musgrave, his eye glancing slightly from
+Lord Menteith to Allan M'Aulay; "we could neither march nor fight,
+advance nor retreat, without the influence of the Princess of Harps."
+
+"The Princess of Broadswords and Targets, I say," answered his
+companion; "for the Lady of Montrose herself could not be more
+courteously waited upon; she has four Highland maidens, and as many
+bare-legged gillies, to wait upon her orders."
+
+"And what would you have, gentlemen?" said Allan, turning suddenly from
+the Highlander with whom he was in conversation; "would you yourselves
+have left an innocent female, the companion of your infancy, to die by
+violence, or perish by famine? There is not, by this time, a roof upon
+the habitation of my fathers--our crops have been destroyed, and our
+cattle have been driven--and you, gentlemen, have to bless God, that,
+coming from a milder and more civilized country, you expose only your
+own lives in this remorseless war, without apprehension that your
+enemies will visit with their vengeance the defenceless pledges you may
+have left behind you."
+
+The Englishmen cordially agreed that they had the superiority in this
+respect; and the company, now dispersing, went each to his several
+charge or occupation.
+
+Allan lingered a moment behind, still questioning the reluctant Ranald
+MacEagh upon a point in his supposed visions, by which he was greatly
+perplexed. "Repeatedly," he said, "have I had the sight of a Gael, who
+seemed to plunge his weapon into the body of Menteith,--of that young
+nobleman in the scarlet laced cloak, who has just now left the bothy.
+But by no effort, though I have gazed till my eyes were almost fixed
+in the sockets, can I discover the face of this Highlander, or even
+conjecture who he may be, although his person and air seem familiar to
+me." [See Note II.--Wraiths.]
+
+"Have you reversed your own plaid," said Ranald, "according to the rule
+of the experienced Seers in such case?"
+
+"I have," answered Allan, speaking low, and shuddering as if with
+internal agony.
+
+"And in what guise did the phantom then appear to you?" said Ranald.
+
+"With his plaid also reversed," answered Allan, in the same low and
+convulsed tone.
+
+"Then be assured," said Ranald, "that your own hand, and none other,
+will do the deed of which you have witnessed the shadow."
+
+"So has my anxious soul a hundred times surmised," replied Allan. "But
+it is impossible! Were I to read the record in the eternal book of fate,
+I would declare it impossible--we are bound by the ties of blood, and by
+a hundred ties more intimate--we have stood side by side in battle,
+and our swords have reeked with the blood of the same enemies--it is
+IMPOSSIBLE I should harm him!"
+
+"That you WILL do so," answered Ranald, "is certain, though the cause be
+hid in the darkness of futurity. You say," he continued, suppressing his
+own emotions with difficulty, "that side by side you have pursued your
+prey like bloodhounds--have you never seen bloodhounds turn their fangs
+against each other, and fight over the body of a throttled deer?"
+
+"It is false!" said M'Aulay, starting up, "these are not the forebodings
+of fate, but the temptation of some evil spirit from the bottomless
+pit!" So saying, he strode out of the cabin.
+
+"Thou hast it!" said the Son of the Mist, looking after him with an
+air of exultation; "the barbed arrow is in thy side! Spirits of the
+slaughtered, rejoice! soon shall your murderers' swords be dyed in each
+other's blood."
+
+On the succeeding morning all was prepared, and Montrose advanced by
+rapid marches up the river Tay, and poured his desultory forces into the
+romantic vale around the lake of the same name, which lies at the head
+of that river. The inhabitants were Campbells, not indeed the vassals
+of Argyle, but of the allied and kindred house of Glenorchy, which
+now bears the name of Breadalbane. Being taken by surprise, they were
+totally unprepared for resistance, and were compelled to be passive
+witnesses of the ravages which took place among their flocks and herds.
+Advancing in this manner to the vale of Loch Dochart, and laying waste
+the country around him, Montrose reached the most difficult point of his
+enterprise.
+
+To a modern army, even with the assistance of the good military road
+which now leads up by Teinedrum to the head of Loch Awe, the passage of
+these extensive wilds would seem a task of some difficulty. But at this
+period, and for long afterwards, there was no road or path whatsoever;
+and to add to the difficulty, the mountains were already covered with
+snow. It was a sublime scene to look up to them, piled in great masses,
+one upon another, the front rank of dazzling whiteness, while those
+which arose behind them caught a rosy tint from the setting of a clear
+wintry sun. Ben Cruachan, superior in magnitude, and seeming the very
+citadel of the Genius of the Region, rose high above the others, showing
+his glimmering and scathed peak to the distance of many miles.
+
+The followers of Montrose were men not to be daunted by the sublime, yet
+terrible prospect before them. Many of them were of that ancient race
+of Highlanders, who not only willingly made their couch in the snow,
+but considered it as effeminate luxury to use a snowball for a pillow.
+Plunder and revenge lay beyond the frozen mountains which they beheld,
+and they did not permit themselves to be daunted by the difficulty of
+traversing them. Montrose did not allow their spirits time to subside.
+He ordered the pipes to play in the van the ancient pibroch entitled,
+"HOGGIL NAM BO," etc. (that is, We come through snow-drift to drive the
+prey), the shrilling sounds of which had often struck the vales of the
+Lennox with terror. [It is the family-march of the M'Farlanes, a warlike
+and predatory clan, who inhabited the western banks of Loch-Lomond.
+See WAVERLY, Note XV.] The troops advanced with the nimble alacrity
+of mountaineers, and were soon involved in the dangerous pass, through
+which Ranald acted as their guide, going before them with a select
+party, to track out the way.
+
+The power of man at no time appears more contemptible than when it
+is placed in contrast with scenes of natural terror and dignity. The
+victorious army of Montrose, whose exploits had struck terror into all
+Scotland, when ascending up this terrific pass, seemed a contemptible
+handful of stragglers, in the act of being devoured by the jaws of the
+mountain, which appeared ready to close upon them. Even Montrose half
+repented the boldness of his attempt, as he looked down from the summit
+of the first eminence which he attained, upon the scattered condition
+of his small army. The difficulty of getting forward was so great, that
+considerable gaps began to occur in the line of march, and the distance
+between the van, centre, and rear, was each moment increased in a degree
+equally incommodious and dangerous. It was with great apprehension that
+Montrose looked upon every point of advantage which the hill afforded,
+in dread it might be found occupied by an enemy prepared for defence;
+and he often afterwards was heard to express his conviction, that had
+the passes of Strath-Fillan been defended by two hundred resolute men,
+not only would his progress have been effectually stopped, but his army
+must have been in danger of being totally cut off. Security, however,
+the bane of many a strong country and many a fortress, betrayed, on this
+occasion, the district of Argyle to his enemies. The invaders had only
+to contend with the natural difficulties of the path, and with the snow,
+which, fortunately, had not fallen in any great quantity. The army no
+sooner reached the summit of the ridge of hills dividing Argyleshire
+from the district of Breadalbane, than they rushed down upon the devoted
+vales beneath them with a fury sufficiently expressive of the motives
+which had dictated a movement so difficult and hazardous.
+
+Montrose divided his army into three bodies, in order to produce a wider
+and more extensive terror, one of which was commanded by the Captain
+of Clan Ranald, one intrusted to the leading of Colkitto, and the third
+remained under his own direction. He was thus enabled to penetrate the
+country of Argyle at three different points. Resistance there was none.
+The flight of the shepherds from the hills had first announced in the
+peopled districts this formidable irruption, and wherever the clansmen
+were summoned out, they were killed, disarmed, and dispersed, by an
+enemy who had anticipated their motions. Major Dalgetty, who had been
+sent forward against Inverary with the few horse of the army that were
+fit for service, managed his matters so well, that he had very nearly
+surprised Argyle, as he expressed it, INTER POCULA; and it was only a
+rapid flight by water which saved that chief from death or captivity.
+But the punishment which Argyle himself escaped fell heavily upon his
+country and clan, and the ravages committed by Montrose on that devoted
+land, although too consistent with the genius of the country and times,
+have been repeatedly and justly quoted as a blot on his actions and
+character.
+
+Argyle in the meantime had fled to Edinburgh, to lay his complaints
+before the Convention of Estates. To meet the exigence of the moment,
+a considerable army was raised under General Baillie, a Presbyterian
+officer of skill and fidelity, with whom was joined in command the
+celebrated Sir John Urrie, a soldier of fortune like Dalgetty, who had
+already changed sides twice during the Civil War, and was destined to
+turn his coat a third time before it was ended. Argyle also, burning
+with indignation, proceeded to levy his own numerous forces, in order to
+avenge himself of his feudal enemy. He established his head-quarters at
+Dunbarton, where he was soon joined by a considerable force, consisting
+chiefly of his own clansmen and dependants. Being there joined by
+Baillie and Urrie, with a very considerable army of regular forces,
+he prepared to march into Argyleshire, and chastise the invader of his
+paternal territories.
+
+But Montrose, while these two formidable armies were forming a junction,
+had been recalled from that ravaged country by the approach of a third,
+collected in the north under the Earl of Seaforth, who, after some
+hesitation, having embraced the side of the Covenanters, had now,
+with the assistance of the veteran garrison of Inverness, formed
+a considerable army, with which he threatened Montrose from
+Inverness-shire. Enclosed in a wasted and unfriendly country, and
+menaced on each side by advancing enemies of superior force, it might
+have been supposed that Montrose's destruction was certain. But these
+were precisely the circumstances under which the active and enterprising
+genius of the Great Marquis was calculated to excite the wonder and
+admiration of his friends, the astonishment and terror of his enemies.
+As if by magic, he collected his scattered forces from the wasteful
+occupation in which they had been engaged; and scarce were they again
+united, ere Argyle and his associate generals were informed, that the
+royalists, having suddenly disappeared from Argyleshire, had retreated
+northwards among the dusky and impenetrable mountains of Lochaber.
+
+The sagacity of the generals opposed to Montrose immediately
+conjectured, that it was the purpose of their active antagonist to fight
+with, and, if possible, to destroy Seaforth, ere they could come to his
+assistance. This occasioned a corresponding change in their operations.
+Leaving this chieftain to make the best defence he could, Urrie and
+Baillie again separated their forces from those of Argyle; and, having
+chiefly horse and Lowland troops under their command, they kept the
+southern side of the Grampian ridge, moving along eastward into the
+county of Angus, resolving from thence to proceed into Aberdeenshire,
+in order to intercept Montrose, if he should attempt to escape in that
+direction.
+
+Argyle, with his own levies and other troops, undertook to follow
+Montrose's march; so that, in case he should come to action either with
+Seaforth, or with Baillie and Urrie, he might be placed between two
+fires by this third army, which, at a secure distance, was to hang upon
+his rear.
+
+For this purpose, Argyle once more moved towards Inverary, having an
+opportunity, at every step, to deplore the severities which the hostile
+clans had exercised on his dependants and country. Whatever noble
+qualities the Highlanders possessed, and they had many, clemency in
+treating a hostile country was not of the number; but even the ravages
+of hostile troops combined to swell the number of Argyle's followers.
+It is still a Highland proverb, He whose house is burnt must become a
+soldier; and hundreds of the inhabitants of these unfortunate valleys
+had now no means of maintenance, save by exercising upon others the
+severities they had themselves sustained, and no future prospect of
+happiness, excepting in the gratification of revenge. His bands were,
+therefore, augmented by the very circumstances which had desolated his
+country, and Argyle soon found himself at the head of three thousand
+determined men, distinguished for activity and courage, and commanded by
+gentlemen of his own name, who yielded to none in those qualities. Under
+himself, he conferred the principal command upon Sir Duncan Campbell of
+Ardenvohr, and another Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchenbreck, [This last
+character is historical] an experienced and veteran soldier, whom he had
+recalled from the wars of Ireland for this purpose. The cold spirit
+of Argyle himself, however, clogged the military councils of his
+more intrepid assistants; and it was resolved, notwithstanding their
+increased force, to observe the same plan of operations, and to follow
+Montrose cautiously, in whatever direction he should march, avoiding an
+engagement until an opportunity should occur of falling upon his rear,
+while he should be engaged with another enemy in front.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+     Piobracht au Donuil-dhu,
+     Piobrachet au Donuil,
+     Piobrachet agus S'breittach
+     Feacht an Innerlochy.
+
+     The war-tune of Donald the Black,
+     The war-tune of Black Donald,
+     The pipes and the banner
+     Are up in the rendezvous of Inverlochy.
+
+The military road connecting the chains of forts, as it is called, and
+running in the general line of the present Caledonian Canal, has now
+completely opened the great glen, or chasm, extending almost across
+the whole island, once doubtless filled by the sea, and still affording
+basins for that long line of lakes, by means of which modern art has
+united the German and Atlantic Oceans. The paths or tracks by which the
+natives traversed this extensive valley, were, in 1645-6, in the same
+situation as when they awaked the strain of an Irish engineer officer,
+who had been employed in converting them into practicable military
+roads, and whose eulogium begins, and, for aught I know, ends, as
+follows:
+
+Had you seen but these roads before they were made, You would have held
+up your hands and bless'd General Wade.
+
+But, bad as the ordinary paths were, Montrose avoided them, and led
+his army, like a herd of wild deer, from mountain to mountain, and from
+forest to forest, where his enemies could learn nothing of his motions,
+while he acquired the most perfect knowledge respecting theirs from the
+friendly clans of Cameron and M'Donnell, whose mountainous districts he
+now traversed. Strict orders had been given that Argyle's advance should
+be watched, and that all intelligence respecting his motions should be
+communicated instantly to the General himself.
+
+It was a moonlight night, and Montrose, worn out by the fatigues of
+the day, was laid down to sleep in a miserable shieling. He had only
+slumbered two hours, when some one touched his shoulder. He looked up,
+and, by the stately form and deep voice, easily recognised the Chief of
+the Camerons.
+
+"I have news for you," said that leader, "which is worth while to arise
+and listen to."
+
+"M'Ilduy [Mhich-Connel Dhu, the descendant of Black Donald.] can
+bring no other," said Montrose, addressing the Chief by his patronymic
+title--"are they good or bad?"
+
+"As you may take them," said the Chieftain.
+
+"Are they certain?" demanded Montrose.
+
+"Yes," answered M'Ilduy, "or another messenger should have brought them.
+Know that, tired with the task imposed upon me of accompanying that
+unhappy Dalgetty and his handful of horse, who detained me for hours
+on the march at the pace of a crippled badger, I made a stretch of four
+miles with six of my people in the direction of Inverlochy, and there
+met with Ian of Glenroy, who had been out for intelligence. Argyle is
+moving upon Inverlochy with three thousand chosen men, commanded by the
+flower of the sons of Diarmid.--These are my news--they are certain--it
+is for you to construe their purport."
+
+"Their purport must be good," answered Montrose, readily and cheerfully;
+"the voice of M'Ilduy is ever pleasant in the ears of Montrose, and most
+pleasant when it speaks of some brave enterprise at hand--What are our
+musters?"
+
+He then called for light, and easily ascertained that a great part of
+his followers having, as usual, dispersed to secure their booty, he had
+not with him above twelve or fourteen hundred men.
+
+"Not much above a third," said Montrose, pausing, "of Argyle's force,
+and Highlanders opposed to Highlanders.--With the blessing of God upon
+the royal cause, I would not hesitate were the odds but one to two."
+
+"Then do not hesitate," said Cameron; "for when your trumpets shall
+sound to attack M'Callum More, not a man of these glens will remain deaf
+to the summons. Glengarry--Keppoch--I myself--would destroy, with
+fire and sword, the wretch who should remain behind under any pretence
+whatsoever. To-morrow, or the next day, shall be a day of battle to all
+who bear the name of M'Donnell or Cameron, whatever be the event."
+
+"It is gallantly said, my noble friend," said Montrose, grasping his
+hand, "and I were worse than a coward did I not do justice to such
+followers, by entertaining the most indubitable hopes of success. We
+will turn back on this M'Callum More, who follows us like a raven to
+devour the relics of our army, should we meet braver men who may be able
+to break its strength! Let the Chiefs and leaders be called together as
+quickly as possible; and you, who have brought us the first news of this
+joyful event,--for such it shall be,--you, M'Ilduy, shall bring it to
+a joyful issue, by guiding us the best and nearest road against our
+enemy."
+
+"That will I willingly do," said M'Ilduy; "if I have shown you paths by
+which to retreat through these dusky wilds, with far more readiness will
+I teach you how to advance against your foe."
+
+A general bustle now prevailed, and the leaders were everywhere startled
+from the rude couches on which they had sought temporary repose.
+
+"I never thought," said Major Dalgetty, when summoned up from a handful
+of rugged heather roots, "to have parted from a bed as hard as a
+stable-broom with such bad will; but, indubitably, having but one man
+of military experience in his army, his Excellency the Marquis may be
+vindicated in putting him upon hard duty."
+
+So saying, he repaired to the council, where, notwithstanding his
+pedantry, Montrose seemed always to listen to him with considerable
+attention; partly because the Major really possessed military knowledge
+and experience, and often made suggestions which were found of
+advantage, and partly because it relieved the General from the necessity
+of deferring entirely to the opinion of the Highland Chiefs, and gave
+him additional ground for disputing it when it was not agreeable to
+his own. On the present occasion, Dalgetty joyfully acquiesced in the
+proposal of marching back and confronting Argyle, which he compared to
+the valiant resolution of the great Gustavus, who moved against the
+Duke of Bavaria, and enriched his troops by the plunder of that fertile
+country, although menaced from the northward by the large army which
+Wallenstein had assembled in Bohemia.
+
+The Chiefs of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Lochiel, whose clans, equal
+in courage and military fame to any in the Highlands, lay within the
+neighbourhood of the scene of action, dispatched the fiery cross through
+their vassals, to summon every one who could bear arms to meet the
+King's lieutenant, and to join the standards of their respective Chiefs,
+as they marched towards Inverlochy. As the order was emphatically given,
+it was speedily and willingly obeyed. Their natural love of war, their
+zeal for the royal cause,--for they viewed the King in the light of
+a chief whom his clansmen had deserted,--as well as their implicit
+obedience to their own patriarch, drew in to Montrose's army not only
+all in the neighbourhood who were able to bear arms, but some who, in
+age at least, might have been esteemed past the use of them. During the
+next day's march, which, being directed straight through the mountains
+of Lochaber, was unsuspected by the enemy, his forces were augmented by
+handfuls of men issuing from each glen, and ranging themselves under
+the banners of their respective Chiefs. This was a circumstance highly
+inspiriting to the rest of the army, who, by the time they approached
+the enemy, found their strength increased considerably more than
+one-fourth, as had been prophesied by the valiant leader of the
+Camerons.
+
+While Montrose executed this counter-march, Argyle had, at the head of
+his gallant army, advanced up the southern side of Loch-Eil, and reached
+the river Lochy, which combines that lake with Loch-Lochy. The ancient
+Castle of Inverlochy, once, as it is said, a royal fortress, and still,
+although dismantled, a place of some strength and consideration, offered
+convenient head-quarters, and there was ample room for Argyle's army to
+encamp around him in the valley, where the Lochy joins Loch-Eil. Several
+barges had attended, loaded with provisions, so that they were in every
+respect as well accommodated as such an army wished or expected to be.
+Argyle, in council with Auchenbreck and Ardenvohr, expressed his full
+confidence that Montrose was now on the brink of destruction; that his
+troops must gradually diminish as he moved eastward through such uncouth
+paths; that if he went westward, he must encounter Urrie and Baillie;
+if northward, fall into the hands of Seaforth; or should he choose any
+halting-place, he would expose himself to be attacked by three armies at
+once.
+
+"I cannot rejoice in the prospect, my lord," said Auchebreck, "that
+James Grahame will be crushed with little assistance of ours. He has
+left a heavy account in Argyleshire against him, and I long to reckon
+with him drop of blood for drop of blood. I love not the payment of such
+debts by third hands."
+
+"You are too scrupulous," said Argyle; "what signifies it by whose
+hands the blood of the Grahames is spilt? It is time that of the sons of
+Diarmid should cease to flow.--What say you, Ardenvohr?"
+
+"I say, my lord," replied Sir Duncan, "that I think Auchenbreck will
+be gratified, and will himself have a personal opportunity of settling
+accounts with Montrose for his depredations. Reports have reached our
+outposts that the Camerons are assembling their full strength on the
+skirts of Ben-Nevis; this must be to join the advance of Montrose, and
+not to cover his retreat."
+
+"It must be some scheme of harassing and depredation," said Argyle,
+"devised by the inveterate malignity of M'Ilduy, which he terms
+loyalty. They can intend no more than an attack on our outposts, or some
+annoyance to to-morrow's march."
+
+"I have sent out scouts," said Sir Duncan, "in every direction, to
+procure intelligence; and we must soon hear whether they really do
+assemble any force, upon what point, or with what purpose."
+
+It was late ere any tidings were received; but when the moon had arisen,
+a considerable bustle in the camp, and a noise immediately after heard
+in the castle, announced the arrival of important intelligence. Of the
+scouts first dispersed by Ardenvohr, some had returned without being
+able to collect anything, save uncertain rumours concerning movements
+in the country of the Camerons. It seemed as if the skirts of Ben-Nevis
+were sending forth those unaccountable and portentous sounds with which
+they sometimes announce the near approach of a storm. Others, whose zeal
+carried them farther upon their mission, were entrapped and slain, or
+made prisoners, by the inhabitants of the fastnesses into which they
+endeavoured to penetrate. At length, on the rapid advance of Montrose's
+army, his advanced guard and the outposts of Argyle became aware of each
+other's presence, and after exchanging a few musket-shots and arrows,
+fell back to their respective main bodies, to convey intelligence and
+receive orders.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell, and Auchenbreck, instantly threw themselves on
+horseback, in order to visit the state of the outposts; and Argyle
+maintained his character of commander-in-chief with reputation, by
+making a respectable arrangement of his forces in the plain, as it was
+evident that they might now expect a night alarm, or an attack in the
+morning at farthest. Montrose had kept his forces so cautiously within
+the defiles of the mountain, that no effort which Auchenbreck or
+Ardenvohr thought it prudent to attempt, could ascertain his probable
+strength. They were aware, however, that, at the utmost computation, it
+must be inferior to their own, and they returned to Argyle to inform
+him of the amount of their observations; but that nobleman refused to
+believe that Montrose could be in presence himself. He said, "It was
+a madness, of which even James Grahame, in his height of presumptuous
+frenzy, was incapable; and he doubted not that their march was only
+impeded by their ancient enemies, Glencoe, Keppoch, and Glengarry; and
+perhaps M'Vourigh, with his M'Phersons, might have assembled a force,
+which he knew must be greatly inferior in numbers to his own, and
+whom, therefore, he doubted not to disperse by force, or by terms of
+capitulation."
+
+The spirit of Argyle's followers was high, breathing vengeance for the
+disasters which their country had so lately undergone; and the
+night passed in anxious hopes that the morning might dawn upon their
+vengeance. The outposts of either army kept a careful watch, and the
+soldiers of Argyle slept in the order of battle which they were next day
+to occupy.
+
+A pale dawn had scarce begun to tinge the tops of these immense
+mountains, when the leaders of both armies prepared for the business of
+the day. It was the second of February, 1645-6. The clansmen of Argyle
+were arranged in two lines, not far from the angle between the river
+and the lake, and made an appearance equally resolute and formidable.
+Auchenbreck would willingly have commenced the battle by an attack
+on the outposts of the enemy, but Argyle, with more cautious policy,
+preferred receiving to making the onset. Signals were soon heard,
+that they would not long wait for it in vain. The Campbells could
+distinguish, in the gorge of the mountains, the war-tunes of various
+clans as they advanced to the onset. That of the Camerons, which bears
+the ominous words, addressed to the wolves and ravens, "Come to me, and
+I will give you flesh," was loudly re-echoed from their native glens. In
+the language of the Highland bards, the war voice of Glengarry was
+not silent; and the gathering tunes of other tribes could be plainly
+distinguished, as they successively came up to the extremity of the
+passes from which they were to descend into the plain.
+
+"You see," said Argyle to his kinsmen, "it is as I said, we have only to
+deal with our neighbours; James Grahame has not ventured to show us his
+banner."
+
+At this moment there resounded from the gorge of the pass a lively
+flourish of trumpets, in that note with which it was the ancient
+Scottish fashion to salute the royal standard.
+
+"You may hear, my lord, from yonder signal," said Sir Duncan Campbell,
+"that he who pretends to be the King's Lieutenant, must be in person
+among these men."
+
+"And has probably horse with him," said Auchenbreck, "which I could not
+have anticipated. But shall we look pale for that, my lord, when we have
+foes to fight, and wrongs to revenge?"
+
+Argyle was silent, and looked upon his arm, which hung in a sash, owing
+to a fall which he had sustained in a preceding march.
+
+"It is true," interrupted Ardenvohr, eagerly, "my Lord of Argyle, you
+are disabled from using either sword or pistol; you must retire on board
+the galleys--your life is precious to us as a head--your hand cannot be
+useful to us as a soldier."
+
+"No," said Argyle, pride contending with irresolution, "it shall never
+be said that I fled before Montrose; if I cannot fight, I will at least
+die in the midst of my children."
+
+Several other principal Chiefs of the Campbells, with one voice,
+conjured and obtested their Chieftain to leave them for that day to the
+leading of Ardenvohr and Auchenbreck, and to behold the conflict from a
+distance and in safety.--We dare not stigmatize Argyle with poltroonery;
+for, though his life was marked by no action of bravery, yet he behaved
+with so much composure and dignity in the final and closing scene, that
+his conduct upon the present and similar occasions, should be rather
+imputed to indecision than to want of courage. But when the small still
+voice within a man's own breast, which tells him that his life is of
+consequence to himself, is seconded by that of numbers around him, who
+assure him that it is of equal advantage to the public, history affords
+many examples of men more habitually daring than Argyle, who have
+consulted self-preservation when the temptations to it were so
+powerfully increased.
+
+"See him on board, if you will, Sir Duncan," said Auchenbreck to his
+kinsman; "It must be my duty to prevent this spirit from spreading
+farther among us."
+
+So saying, he threw himself among the ranks, entreating, commanding, and
+conjuring the soldiers, to remember their ancient fame and their present
+superiority; the wrongs they had to revenge, if successful, and the fate
+they had to dread, if vanquished; and imparting to every bosom a portion
+of the fire which glowed in his own. Slowly, meanwhile, and apparently
+with reluctance, Argyle suffered himself to be forced by his officious
+kinsmen to the verge of the lake, and was transported on board of a
+galley, from the deck of which he surveyed with more safety than credit
+the scene which ensued.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, notwithstanding the urgency of
+the occasion, stood with his eyes riveted on the boat which bore his
+Chieftain from the field of battle. There were feelings in his bosom
+which could not be expressed; for the character of a Chief was that of
+a father, and the heart of a clansman durst not dwell upon his failings
+with critical severity as upon those of other men. Argyle, too, harsh
+and severe to others, was generous and liberal among his kinsmen, and
+the noble heart of, Ardenvohr was wrung with bitter anguish, when he
+reflected to what interpretation his present conduct might subject him.
+
+"It is better it should be so," said he to himself, devouring his own
+emotion; "but--of his line of a hundred sires, I know not one who would
+have retired while the banner of Diarmid waved in the wind, in the face
+of its most inveterate foes!"
+
+A loud shout now compelled him to turn, and to hasten with all dispatch
+to his post, which was on the right flank of Argyle's little army.
+
+The retreat of Argyle had not passed unobserved by his watchful enemy,
+who, occupying the superior ground, could mark every circumstance which
+passed below. The movement of three or four horsemen to the rear showed
+that those who retreated were men of rank.
+
+"They are going," said Dalgetty, "to put their horses out of danger,
+like prudent cavaliers. Yonder goes Sir Duncan Campbell, riding a brown
+bay gelding, which I had marked for my own second charger."
+
+"You are wrong, Major," said Montrose, with a bitter smile, "they are
+saving their precious Chief--Give the signal for assault instantly--send
+the word through the ranks.--Gentlemen, noble Chiefs, Glengarry,
+Keppoch, M'Vourigh, upon them instantly!--Ride to M'Ilduy, Major
+Dalgetty, and tell him to charge as he loves Lochaber--return and bring
+our handful of horse to my standard. They shall be placed with the Irish
+as a reserve."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+     As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Lochlin.
+     --OSSIAN.
+
+The trumpets and bagpipes, those clamorous harbingers of blood and
+death, at once united in the signal for onset, which was replied to
+by the cry of more than two thousand warriors, and the echoes of the
+mountain glens behind them. Divided into three bodies, or columns,
+the Highland followers of Montrose poured from the defiles which had
+hitherto concealed them from their enemies, and rushed with the utmost
+determination upon the Campbells, who waited their charge with the
+greatest firmness. Behind these charging columns marched in line the
+Irish, under Colkitto, intended to form the reserve. With them was the
+royal standard, and Montrose himself; and on the flanks were about fifty
+horse, under Dalgetty, which by wonderful exertions had been kept in
+some sort fit for service.
+
+The right column of Royalists was led by Glengarry, the left by Lochiel,
+and the centre by the Earl of Menteith, who preferred fighting on foot
+in a Highland dress to remaining with the cavalry.
+
+The Highlanders poured on with the proverbial fury of their country,
+firing their guns, and discharging their arrows, at a little distance
+from the enemy, who received the assault with the most determined
+gallantry. Better provided with musketry than their enemies, stationary
+also, and therefore taking the more decisive aim, the fire of Argyle's
+followers was more destructive than that which they sustained. The royal
+clans, perceiving this, rushed to close quarters, and succeeded on two
+points in throwing their enemies into disorder. With regular troops
+this must have achieved a victory; but here Highlanders were opposed to
+Highlanders, and the nature of the weapons, as well as the agility of
+those who wielded them, was equal on both sides.
+
+Their strife was accordingly desperate; and the clash of the swords
+and axes, as they encountered each other, or rung upon the targets, was
+mingled with the short, wild, animating shrieks with which Highlanders
+accompany the battle, the dance, or indeed violent exertion of any kind.
+Many of the foes opposed were personally acquainted, and sought to match
+themselves with each other from motives of hatred, or a more generous
+emulation of valour. Neither party would retreat an inch, while the
+place of those who fell (and they fell fast on both sides) was eagerly
+supplied by others, who thronged to the front of danger. A steam, like
+that which arises from a seething cauldron, rose into the thin, cold,
+frosty air, and hovered above the combatants.
+
+So stood the fight on the right and the centre, with no immediate
+consequence, except mutual wounds and death.
+
+On the right of the Campbells, the Knight of Ardenvohr obtained some
+advantage, through his military skill and by strength of numbers. He had
+moved forward obliquely the extreme flank of his line at the instant the
+Royalists were about to close, so that they sustained a fire at once
+on front and in flank, and, despite the utmost efforts of their leader,
+were thrown into some confusion. At this instant, Sir Duncan Campbell
+gave the word to charge, and thus unexpectedly made the attack at
+the very moment he seemed about to receive it. Such a change of
+circumstances is always discouraging, and often fatal. But the disorder
+was remedied by the advance of the Irish reserve, whose heavy and
+sustained fire compelled the Knight of Ardenvohr to forego his
+advantage, and content himself with repulsing the enemy. The Marquis
+of Montrose, in the meanwhile, availing himself of some scattered birch
+trees, as well as of the smoke produced by the close fire of the Irish
+musketry, which concealed the operation, called upon Dalgetty to follow
+him with the horse, and wheeling round so as to gain the right flank and
+even the rear of the enemy, he commanded his six trumpets to sound
+the charge. The clang of the cavalry trumpets, and the noise of the
+galloping of the horse, produced an effect upon Argyle's right wing
+which no other sounds could have impressed them with. The mountaineers
+of that period had a superstitious dread of the war-horse, like that
+entertained by the Peruvians, and had many strange ideas respecting the
+manner in which that animal was trained to combat. When, therefore, they
+found their ranks unexpectedly broken, and that the objects of their
+greatest terror were suddenly in the midst of them, the panic, in spite
+of Sir Duncan's attempts to stop it, became universal. Indeed, the
+figure of Major Dalgetty alone, sheathed in impenetrable armour, and
+making his horse caracole and bound, so as to give weight to every
+blow which he struck, would have been a novelty in itself sufficient to
+terrify those who had never seen anything more nearly resembling such
+a cavalier, than a SHELTY waddling under a Highlander far bigger than
+itself. The repulsed Royalists returned to the charge; the Irish,
+keeping their ranks, maintained a fire equally close and destructive.
+There was no sustaining the fight longer. Argyle's followers began
+to break and fly, most towards the lake, the remainder in different
+directions. The defeat of the right wing, of itself decisive, was
+rendered irreparable by the death of Auchenbreck, who fell while
+endeavouring to restore order.
+
+The Knight of Ardenvohr, with two or three hundred men, all gentlemen of
+descent and distinguished gallantry,--for the Campbells are supposed to
+have had more gentlemen in their ranks than any of the Highland clans,
+endeavoured, with unavailing heroism, to cover the tumultuary retreat
+of the common file. Their resolution only proved fatal to themselves,
+as they were charged again and again by fresh adversaries, and forced to
+separate from each other, until at length their aim seemed only to be to
+purchase an honourable death by resisting to the very last.
+
+"Good quarter, Sir Duncan," called out Major Dalgetty, when he
+discovered his late host, with one or two others, defending himself
+against several Highlanders; and, to enforce his offer, he rode up to
+him with his sword uplifted. Sir Duncan's reply was the discharge of a
+reserved pistol, which took effect not on the person of the rider, but
+on that of his gallant horse, which, shot through the heart, fell dead
+under him. Ranald MacEagh, who was one of those who had been pressing
+Sir Duncan hard, took the opportunity to cut him down with his
+broadsword, as he turned from him in the act of firing the pistol.
+
+Allan M'Aulay came up at this moment. They were, excepting Ranald,
+followers of his brother who were engaged on that part of the field,
+"Villains!" he said, "which of you has dared to do this, when it was my
+positive order that the Knight of Ardenvohr should be taken alive?"
+
+Half-a-dozen of busy hands, which were emulously employed in plundering
+the fallen knight, whose arms and accoutrements were of a magnificence
+befitting his quality, instantly forbore the occupation, and half the
+number of voices exculpated themselves, by laying the blame on the
+Skyeman, as they called Ranald MacEagh.
+
+"Dog of an Islander!" said Allan, forgetting, in his wrath, their
+prophetic brotherhood, "follow the chase, and harm him no farther,
+unless you mean to die by my hand." They were at this moment left almost
+alone; for Allan's threats had forced his own clan from the spot, and
+all around had pressed onwards toward the lake, carrying before them
+noise, terror, and confusion, and leaving behind only the dead and
+dying. The moment was tempting to MacEagh's vengeful spirit.--"That I
+should die by your hand, red as it is with the blood of my kindred,"
+said he, answering the threat of Allan in a tone as menacing as his own,
+"is not more likely than that you should fall by mine." With that, he
+struck at M'Aulay with such unexpected readiness, that he had scarce
+time to intercept the blow with his target.
+
+"Villain!" said Allan, in astonishment, "what means this?"
+
+"I am Ranald of the Mist!" answered the Islesman, repeating the blow;
+and with that word, they engaged in close and furious conflict. It
+seemed to be decreed, that in Allan M'Aulay had arisen the avenger of
+his mother's wrongs upon this wild tribe, as was proved by the issue of
+the present, as well as of former combats. After exchanging a few blows,
+Ranald MacEagh was prostrated by a deep wound on the skull; and M'Aulay,
+setting his foot on him, was about to pass the broadsword through his
+body, when the point of the weapon was struck up by a third party,
+who suddenly interposed. This was no other than Major Dalgetty, who,
+stunned by the fall, and encumbered by the dead body of his horse, had
+now recovered his legs and his understanding. "Hold up your sword," said
+he to M'Aulay, "and prejudice this person no farther, in respect that
+he is here in my safeconduct, and in his Excellency's service; and in
+regard that no honourable cavalier is at liberty, by the law martial, to
+avenge his own private injuries, FLAGRANTE BELLO, MULTO MAJUS FLAGRANTE
+PRAELIO."
+
+"Fool!" said Allan, "stand aside, and dare not to come between the tiger
+and his prey!"
+
+But, far from quitting his point, Dalgetty stept across the fallen body
+of MacEagh, and gave Allan to understand, that if he called himself
+a tiger, he was likely, at present, to find a lion in his path. There
+required no more than the gesture and tone of defiance to turn the whole
+rage of the military Seer against the person who was opposing the course
+of his vengeance, and blows were instantly exchanged without farther
+ceremony.
+
+The strife betwixt Allan and MacEagh had been unnoticed by the
+stragglers around, for the person of the latter was known to few of
+Montrose's followers; but the scuffle betwixt Dalgetty and him, both so
+well known, attracted instant attention; and fortunately, among others,
+that of Montrose himself, who had come for the purpose of gathering
+together his small body of horse, and following the pursuit down
+Loch-Eil. Aware of the fatal consequences of dissension in his little
+army, he pushed his horse up to the spot, and seeing MacEagh on the
+ground, and Dalgetty in the attitude of protecting him against M'Aulay,
+his quick apprehension instantly caught the cause of quarrel, and as
+instantly devised means to stop it. "For shame," he said, "gentlemen
+cavaliers, brawling together in so glorious a field of victory!--Are you
+mad? Or are you intoxicated with the glory which you have both this day
+gained?"
+
+"It is not my fault, so please your Excellency," said Dalgetty. "I
+have been known a BONUS SOCIUS, A BON CAMARADO, in all the services of
+Europe; but he that touches a man under my safeguard--"
+
+"And he," said Allan, speaking at the same time, "who dares to bar the
+course of my just vengeance--"
+
+"For shame, gentlemen!" again repeated Montrose; "I have other business
+for you both,--business of deeper importance than any private quarrel,
+which you may easily find a more fitting time to settle. For you, Major
+Dalgetty, kneel down."
+
+"Kneel!" said Dalgetty; "I have not learned to obey that word of
+command, saving when it is given from the pulpit. In the Swedish
+discipline, the front rank do indeed kneel, but only when the regiment
+is drawn up six file deep."
+
+"Nevertheless," repeated Montrose,--"kneel down, in the name of King
+Charles and of his representative."
+
+When Dalgetty reluctantly obeyed, Montrose struck him lightly on the
+neck with the flat of his sword, saying,--"In reward of the gallant
+service of this day, and in the name and authority of our Sovereign,
+King Charles, I dub thee knight; be brave, loyal, and fortunate. And
+now, Sir Dugald Dalgetty, to your duty. Collect what horsemen you can,
+and pursue such of the enemy as are flying down the side of the lake. Do
+not disperse your force, nor venture too far; but take heed to prevent
+their rallying, which very little exertion may do. Mount, then, Sir
+Dugald, and do your duty."
+
+"But what shall I mount?" said the new-made chevalier. "Poor Gustavus
+sleeps in the bed of honour, like his immortal namesake! and I am made a
+knight, a rider, as the High Dutch have it, just when I have not a horse
+left to ride upon." [In German, as in Latin, the original meaning of the
+word Ritter, corresponding to Eques, is merely a horseman.]
+
+"That shall not be said," answered Montrose, dismounting; "I make you a
+present of my own, which has been thought a good one; only, I pray you,
+resume the duty you discharge so well."
+
+With many acknowledgments, Sir Dugald mounted the steed so liberally
+bestowed upon him; and only beseeching his Excellency to remember that
+MacEagh was under his safe-conduct, immediately began to execute the
+orders assigned to him, with great zeal and alacrity.
+
+"And you, Allan M'Aulay," said Montrose, addressing the Highlander, who,
+leaning his sword-point on the ground, had regarded the ceremony of his
+antagonist's knighthood with a sneer of sullen scorn,--"you, who are
+superior to the ordinary men led by the paltry motives of plunder, and
+pay, and personal distinction,--you, whose deep knowledge renders you so
+valuable a counsellor,--is it YOU whom I find striving with a man like
+Dalgetty, for the privilege of trampling the remains of life out of so
+contemptible an enemy as lies there? Come, my friend, I have other work
+for you. This victory, skilfully improved, shall win Seaforth to our
+party. It is not disloyalty, but despair of the good cause, that has
+induced him to take arms against us. These arms, in this moment of
+better augury, he may be brought to unite with ours. I shall send my
+gallant friend, Colonel Hay, to him, from this very field of battle,
+but he must be united in commission with a Highland gentleman of rank,
+befitting that of Seaforth, and of talents and of influence such as
+may make an impression upon him. You are not only in every respect
+the fittest for this most important mission, but, having no immediate
+command, your presence may be more easily spared than that of a Chief
+whose following is in the field. You know every pass and glen in
+the Highlands, as well as the manners and customs of every tribe. Go
+therefore to Hay, on the right wing; he has instructions, and expects
+you. You will find him with Glenmorrison's men; be his guide, his
+interpreter, and his colleague."
+
+Allan M'Aulay bent on the Marquis a dark and penetrating glance, as
+if to ascertain whether this sudden mission was not conferred for some
+latent and unexplained purpose. But Montrose, skilful in searching
+the motives of others, was an equal adept in concealing his own. He
+considered it as of the last consequence, in this moment of enthusiasm
+and exalted passion, to remove Allan from the camp for a few days, that
+he might provide, as his honour required, for the safety of those
+who had acted as his guides, when he trusted the Seer's quarrel with
+Dalgetty might be easily made up. Allan, at parting, only recommended
+to the Marquis the care of Sir Duncan Campbell, whom Montrose instantly
+directed to be conveyed to a place of safety. He took the same
+precaution for MacEagh, committing the latter, however, to a party of
+the Irish, with directions that he should be taken care of, but that no
+Highlander, of any clan, should have access to him.
+
+The Marquis then mounted a led horse, which was held by one of his
+attendants, and rode on to view the scene of his victory, which was more
+decisive than even his ardent hopes had anticipated. Of Argyle's gallant
+army of three thousand men, fully one-half fell in the battle, or in the
+flight. They had been chiefly driven back upon that part of the plain
+where the river forms an angle with the lake, so that there was no free
+opening either for retreat or escape. Several hundreds were forced
+into the lake and drowned. Of the survivors, about one-half escaped by
+swimming the river, or by an early flight along the left bank of the
+lake. The remainder threw themselves into the old Castle of Inverlochy;
+but being without either provisions or hopes of relief, they were
+obliged to surrender, on condition of being suffered to return to their
+homes in peace. Arms, ammunition, standards, and baggage, all became the
+prey of the conquerors.
+
+This was the greatest disaster that ever befell the race of Diarmid, as
+the Campbells were called in the Highlands; it being generally remarked
+that they were as fortunate in the issue of their undertakings, as they
+were sagacious in planning, and courageous in executing them. Of the
+number slain, nearly five hundred were dunniwassels, or gentlemen
+claiming descent from known and respected houses. And, in the opinion
+of many of the clan, even this heavy loss was exceeded by the disgrace
+arising from the inglorious conduct of their Chief, whose galley weighed
+anchor when the day was lost, and sailed down the lake with all the
+speed to which sails and oars could impel her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     Faint the din of battle bray'd,
+     Distant down the hollow wind;
+     War and terror fled before,
+     Wounds and death remain'd behind.--PENROSE.
+
+Montrose's splendid success over his powerful rival was not attained
+without some loss, though not amounting to the tenth of what he
+inflicted. The obstinate valour of the Campbells cost the lives of many
+brave men of the opposite party; and more were wounded, the Chief of
+whom was the brave young Earl of Menteith, who had commanded the centre.
+He was but slightly touched, however, and made rather a graceful than
+a terrible appearance when he presented to his general the standard of
+Argyle, which he had taken from the standard-bearer with his own hand,
+and slain him in single combat. Montrose dearly loved his noble kinsman,
+in whom there was conspicuous a flash of the generous, romantic,
+disinterested chivalry of the old heroic times, entirely different from
+the sordid, calculating, and selfish character, which the practice of
+entertaining mercenary troops had introduced into most parts of Europe,
+and of which degeneracy Scotland, which furnished soldiers of fortune
+for the service of almost every nation, had been contaminated with a
+more than usual share. Montrose, whose native spirit was congenial,
+although experience had taught him how to avail himself of the motives
+of others, used to Menteith neither the language of praise nor of
+promise, but clasped him to his bosom as he exclaimed, "My gallant
+kinsman!" And by this burst of heartfelt applause was Menteith thrilled
+with a warmer glow of delight, than if his praises had been recorded in
+a report of the action sent directly to the throne of his sovereign.
+
+"Nothing," he said, "my lord, now seems to remain in which I can render
+any assistance; permit me to look after a duty of humanity--the Knight
+of Ardenvohr, as I am told, is our prisoner, and severely wounded."
+
+"And well he deserves to be so," said Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who came
+up to them at that moment with a prodigious addition of acquired
+importance, "since he shot my good horse at the time that I was offering
+him honourable quarter, which, I must needs say, was done more like an
+ignorant Highland cateran, who has not sense enough to erect a sconce
+for the protection of his old hurley-house of a castle, than like a
+soldier of worth and quality."
+
+"Are we to condole with you then," said Lord Menteith, "upon the loss of
+the famed Gustavus?"
+
+"Even so, my lord," answered the soldier, with a deep sigh, "DIEM
+CLAUSIT SUPREMUM, as we said at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen.
+Better so than be smothered like a cadger's pony in some flow-moss,
+or snow-wreath, which was like to be his fate if this winter campaign
+lasted longer. But it has pleased his Excellency" (making an inclination
+to Montrose) "to supply his place by the gift of a noble steed, whom
+I have taken the freedom to name 'LOYALTY'S REWARD,' in memory of this
+celebrated occasion."
+
+"I hope," said the Marquis, "you'll find Loyalty's Reward, since you
+call him so, practised in all the duties of the field,--but I must just
+hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty is more frequently
+rewarded with a halter than with a horse."
+
+"Ahem! your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty's Reward is
+as perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a far finer figure.
+Marry! his social qualities are less cultivated, in respect he has kept
+till now inferior company."
+
+"Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope," said Lord Menteith.
+"For shame, Sir Dugald!"
+
+"My lord," answered the knight gravely, "I am incapable to mean anything
+so utterly unbecoming. What I asseverate is, that his Excellency, having
+the same intercourse with his horse during his exercise, that he hath
+with his soldiers when training them, may form and break either to every
+feat of war which he chooses to practise, and accordingly that this
+noble charger is admirably managed. But as it is the intercourse of
+private life that formeth the social character, so I do not apprehend
+that of the single soldier to be much polished by the conversation of
+the corporal or the sergeant, or that of Loyalty's Reward to have been
+much dulcified, or ameliorated, by the society of his Excellency's
+grooms, who bestow more oaths, and kicks, and thumps, than kindness or
+caresses, upon the animals intrusted to their charge; whereby many a
+generous quadruped, rendered as it were misanthropic, manifests during
+the rest of his life a greater desire to kick and bite his master, than
+to love and to honour him."
+
+"Spoken like an oracle," said Montrose. "Were there an academy for the
+education of horses to be annexed to the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen,
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the chair."
+
+"Because, being an ass," said Menteith, aside to the General, "there
+would be some distant relation between the professor and the students."
+
+"And now, with your Excellency's permission," said the new-made knight,
+"I am going to pay my last visit to the remains of my old companion in
+arms."
+
+"Not with the purpose of going through the ceremonial of interment?"
+said the Marquis, who did not know how far Sir Dugald's enthusiasm might
+lead him; "consider our brave fellows themselves will have but a hasty
+burial."
+
+"Your Excellency will pardon me," said Dalgetty; "my purpose is less
+romantic. I go to divide poor Gustavus's legacy with the fowls of
+heaven, leaving the flesh to them, and reserving to myself his hide;
+which, in token of affectionate remembrance, I purpose to form into
+a cassock and trowsers, after the Tartar fashion, to be worn under my
+armour, in respect my nether garments are at present shamefully the
+worse of the wear.--Alas! poor Gustavus, why didst thou not live at
+least one hour more, to have borne the honoured weight of knighthood
+upon thy loins!"
+
+He was now turning away, when the Marquis called after him,--"As you
+are not likely to be anticipated in this act of kindness, Sir Dugald,
+to your old friend and companion, I trust," said the Marquis, "you will
+first assist me, and our principal friends, to discuss some of Argyle's
+good cheer, of which we have found abundance in the Castle."
+
+"Most willingly, please your Excellency," said Sir Dugald; "as meat
+and mass never hinder work. Nor, indeed, am I afraid that the wolves or
+eagles will begin an onslaught on Gustavus to-night, in regard there is
+so much better cheer lying all around. But," added he, "as I am to meet
+two honourable knights of England, with others of the knightly degree in
+your lordship's army, I pray it may be explained to them, that now, and
+in future, I claim precedence over them all, in respect of my rank as a
+Banneret, dubbed in a field of stricken battle."
+
+"The devil confound him!" said Montrose, speaking aside; "he has
+contrived to set the kiln on fire as fast as I put it out.--'This is
+a point, Sir Dugald," said he, gravely addressing him, "which I shall
+reserve for his Majesty's express consideration; in my camp, all must
+be upon equality, like the Knights of the Round Table; and take their
+places as soldiers should, upon the principle of,--first come, first
+served."
+
+"Then I shall take care," said Menteith, apart to the Marquis, "that Don
+Dugald is not first in place to-day.--Sir Dugald," added he, raising his
+voice, "as you say your wardrobe is out of repair, had you not better go
+to the enemy's baggage yonder, over which there is a guard placed? I saw
+them take out an excellent buff suit, embroidered in front in silk and
+silver."
+
+"VOTO A DIOS! as the Spaniard says," exclaimed the Major, "and some
+beggarly gilly may get it while I stand prating here!"
+
+The prospect of booty having at once driven out of his head both
+Gustavus and the provant, he set spurs to Loyalty's Reward, and rode off
+through the field of battle.
+
+"There goes the hound," said Menteith, "breaking the face, and trampling
+on the body, of many a better man than himself; and as eager on his
+sordid spoil as a vulture that stoops upon carrion. Yet this man the
+world calls a soldier--and you, my lord, select him as worthy of the
+honours of chivalry, if such they can at this day be termed. You have
+made the collar of knighthood the decoration of a mere bloodhound."
+
+"What could I do?" said Montrose. "I had no half-picked bones to give
+him, and bribed in some manner he must be,--I cannot follow the chase
+alone. Besides, the dog has good qualities."
+
+"If nature has given him such," said Menteith, "habit has converted them
+into feelings of intense selfishness. He may be punctilious concerning
+his reputation, and brave in the execution of his duty, but it is only
+because without these qualities he cannot rise in the service;--nay, his
+very benevolence is selfish; he may defend his companion while he can
+keep his feet, but the instant he is down, Sir Dugald will be as ready
+to ease him of his purse, as he is to convert the skin of Gustavus into
+a buff jerkin."
+
+"And yet, if all this were true, cousin," answered Montrose, "there is
+something convenient in commanding a soldier, upon whose motives and
+springs of action you can calculate to a mathematical certainty. A fine
+spirit like yours, my cousin, alive to a thousand sensations to which
+this man's is as impervious as his corslet,--it is for such that thy
+friend must feel, while he gives his advice." Then, suddenly changing
+his tone, he asked Menteith when he had seen Annot Lyle.
+
+The young Earl coloured deeply, and answered, "Not since last
+evening,--excepting," he added, with hesitation, "for one moment, about
+half an hour before the battle began."
+
+"My dear Menteith," said Montrose, very kindly, "were you one of the gay
+cavaliers of Whitehall, who are, in their way, as great self-seekers
+as our friend Dalgetty, should I need to plague you with enquiring into
+such an amourette as this? it would be an intrigue only to be laughed
+at. But this is the land of enchantment, where nets strong as steel are
+wrought out of ladies' tresses, and you are exactly the destined knight
+to be so fettered. This poor girl is exquisitely beautiful, and has
+talents formed to captivate your romantic temper. You cannot think of
+injuring her--you cannot think of marrying her?"
+
+"My lord," replied Menteith, "you have repeatedly urged this jest, for
+so I trust it is meant, somewhat beyond bounds. Annot Lyle is of unknown
+birth,--a captive,--the daughter, probably, of some obscure outlaw; a
+dependant on the hospitality of the M'Aulays."
+
+"Do not be angry, Menteith," said the Marquis, interrupting him; "you
+love the classics, though not educated at Mareschal-College; and you may
+remember how many gallant hearts captive beauty has subdued:--
+
+     Movit Ajacem, Telamone natum,
+     Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae.
+
+In a word, I am seriously anxious about this--I should not have time,
+perhaps," he added very gravely, "to trouble you with my lectures on the
+subject, were your feelings, and those of Annot, alone interested; but
+you have a dangerous rival in Allan M'Aulay; and there is no knowing to
+what extent he may carry his resentment. It is my duty to tell you that
+the King's service may be much prejudiced by dissensions betwixt you."
+
+"My lord," said Menteith, "I know what you mean is kind and friendly; I
+hope you will be satisfied when I assure you, that Allan M'Aulay and I
+have discussed this circumstance; and that I have explained to him, that
+it is utterly remote from my character to entertain dishonourable views
+concerning this unprotected female; so, on the other hand, the obscurity
+of her birth prevents my thinking of her upon other terms. I will
+not disguise from your lordship, what I have not disguised from
+M'Aulay,--that if Annot Lyle were born a lady, she should share my name
+and rank; as matters stand, it is impossible. This explanation, I
+trust, will satisfy your lordship, as it has satisfied a less reasonable
+person."
+
+Montrose shrugged his shoulders. "And, like true champions in romance,"
+he said, "you have agreed, that you are both to worship the same
+mistress, as idolaters do the same image, and that neither shall extend
+his pretensions farther?"
+
+"I did not go so far, my lord," answered Menteith--"I only said in
+the present circumstances--and there is no prospect of their being
+changed,--I could, in duty to myself and family, stand in no relation
+to Annot Lyle, but as that of friend or brother--But your lordship must
+excuse me; I have," said he, looking at his arm, round which he had tied
+his handkerchief, "a slight hurt to attend to."
+
+"A wound?" said Montrose, anxiously; "let me see it.--Alas!" he said, "I
+should have heard nothing of this, had I not ventured to tent and sound
+another more secret and more rankling one, Menteith; I am sorry for
+you--I too have known--But what avails it to awake sorrows which have
+long slumbered!"
+
+So saying, he shook hands with his noble kinsman, and walked into the
+castle.
+
+Annot Lyle, as was not unusual for females in the Highlands, was
+possessed of a slight degree of medical and even surgical skill. It may
+readily be believed, that the profession of surgery, or medicine, as a
+separate art, was unknown; and the few rude rules which they observed
+were intrusted to women, or to the aged, whom constant casualties
+afforded too much opportunity of acquiring experience. The care and
+attention, accordingly, of Annot Lyle, her attendants, and others acting
+under her direction, had made her services extremely useful during this
+wild campaign. And most readily had these services been rendered to
+friend and foe, wherever they could be most useful. She was now in an
+apartment of the castle, anxiously superintending the preparation of
+vulnerary herbs, to be applied to the wounded; receiving reports from
+different females respecting those under their separate charge, and
+distributing what means she had for their relief, when Allan M'Aulay
+suddenly entered the apartment. She started, for she had heard that he
+had left the camp upon a distant mission; and, however accustomed she
+was to the gloom of his countenance, it seemed at present to have even
+a darker shade than usual. He stood before her perfectly silent, and she
+felt the necessity of being the first to speak.
+
+"I thought," she said, with some effort, "you had already set out."
+
+"My companion awaits me," said Allan; "I go instantly." Yet still he
+stood before her, and held her by the arm, with a pressure which, though
+insufficient to give her pain, made her sensible of his great personal
+strength, his hand closing on her like the gripe of a manacle.
+
+"Shall I take the harp?" she said, in a timid voice; "is--is the shadow
+falling upon you?"
+
+Instead of replying, he led her to the window of the apartment, which
+commanded a view of the field of the slain, with all its horrors. It was
+thick spread with dead and wounded, and the spoilers were busy tearing
+the clothes from the victims of war and feudal ambition, with as much
+indifference as if they had not been of the same species, and themselves
+exposed, perhaps to-morrow, to the same fate.
+
+"Does the sight please you?" said M'Aulay.
+
+"It is hideous!" said Annot, covering her eyes with her hands; "how can
+you bid me look upon it?"
+
+"You must be inured to it," said he, "if you remain with this destined
+host--you will soon have to search such a field for my brother's
+corpse--for Menteith's--for mine---but that will be a more indifferent
+task--You do not love me!"
+
+"This is the first time you have taxed me with unkindness," said Annot,
+weeping. "You are my brother--my preserver--my protector--and can I then
+BUT love you?--But your hour of darkness is approaching, let me fetch my
+harp--"
+
+"Remain," said Allan, still holding her fast; "be my visions from heaven
+or hell, or from the middle sphere of disembodied spirits--or be they,
+as the Saxons hold, but the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they
+do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the
+visible world.--You love not me, Annot--you love Menteith--by him you
+are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the corpses
+which encumber yonder heath."
+
+It cannot be supposed that this strange speech conveyed any new
+information to her who was thus addressed. No woman ever lived who could
+not, in the same circumstances, have discerned long since the state of
+her lover's mind. But by thus suddenly tearing off the veil, thin as it
+was, Allan prepared her to expect consequences violent in proportion to
+the enthusiasm of his character. She made an effort to repel the charge
+he had stated.
+
+"You forget," she said, "your own worth and nobleness when you insult so
+very helpless a being, and one whom fate has thrown so totally into
+your power. You know who and what I am, and how impossible it is that
+Menteith or you can use language of affection to me, beyond that of
+friendship. You know from what unhappy race I have too probably derived
+my existence."
+
+"I will not believe it," said Allan, impetuously; "never flowed crystal
+drop from a polluted spring."
+
+"Yet the very doubt," pleaded Annot, "should make you forbear to use
+this language to me."
+
+"I know," said M'Aulay, "it places a bar between us--but I know also
+that it divides you not so inseparably from Menteith.--Hear me, my
+beloved Annot!--leave this scene of terrors and danger--go with me to
+Kintail--I will place you in the house of the noble Lady of Seaforth--or
+you shall be removed in safety to Icolmkill, where some women yet devote
+themselves to the worship of God, after the custom of our ancestors."
+
+"You consider not what you ask of me," replied Annot; "to undertake such
+a journey under your sole guardianship, were to show me less scrupulous
+than maiden ought. I will remain here, Allan--here under the protection
+of the noble Montrose; and when his motions next approach the Lowlands,
+I will contrive some proper means to relieve you of one, who has, she
+knows not how, become an object of dislike to you."
+
+Allan stood as if uncertain whether to give way to sympathy with her
+distress, or to anger at her resistance.
+
+"Annot," he said, "you know too well how little your words apply to
+my feelings towards you--but you avail yourself of your power, and you
+rejoice in my departure, as removing a spy upon your intercourse with
+Menteith. But beware both of you," he added, in a stern tone; "for when
+was it ever heard that an injury was offered to Allan M'Aulay, for which
+he exacted not tenfold vengeance?"
+
+So saying, he pressed her arm forcibly, pulled the bonnet over his
+brows, and strode out of the apartment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+     --After you're gone,
+     I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd,
+     What stirr'd it so.--Alas!  I found it love.
+     Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived
+     In presence of you, I had had my end.--PHILASTER.
+
+Annot Lyle had now to contemplate the terrible gulf which Allan
+M'Aulay's declaration of love and jealousy had made to open around her.
+It seemed as if she was tottering on the very brink of destruction, and
+was at once deprived of every refuge, and of all human assistance. She
+had long been conscious that she loved Menteith dearer than a brother;
+indeed, how could it be otherwise, considering their early intimacy, the
+personal merit of the young nobleman, his assiduous attentions,--and his
+infinite superiority in gentleness of disposition, and grace of manners,
+over the race of rude warriors with whom she lived? But her affection
+was of that quiet, timid, meditative character, which sought rather a
+reflected share in the happiness of the beloved object, than formed
+more presumptuous or daring hopes. A little Gaelic song, in which she
+expressed her feelings, has been translated by the ingenious and unhappy
+Andrew M'Donald; and we willingly transcribe the lines:--
+
+     Wert thou, like me, in life's low vale,
+     With thee how blest, that lot I'd share;
+     With thee I'd fly wherever gale
+     Could waft, or bounding galley bear.
+     But parted by severe decree,
+     Far different must our fortunes prove;
+     May thine be joy--enough for me
+     To weep and pray for him I love.
+
+     The pangs this foolish heart must feel,
+     When hope shall be forever flown,
+     No sullen murmur shall reveal,
+     No selfish murmurs ever own.
+     Nor will I through life's weary years,
+     Like a pale drooping mourner move,
+     While I can think my secret tears
+     May wound the heart of him I love.
+
+The furious declaration of Allan had destroyed the romantic plan which
+she had formed, of nursing in secret her pensive tenderness, without
+seeking any other requital. Long before this, she had dreaded Allan, as
+much as gratitude, and a sense that he softened towards her a temper so
+haughty and so violent, could permit her to do; but now she regarded him
+with unalloyed terror, which a perfect knowledge of his disposition, and
+of his preceding history, too well authorised her to entertain. Whatever
+was in other respects the nobleness of his disposition, he had never
+been known to resist the wilfulness of passion,--he walked in the house,
+and in the country of his fathers, like a tamed lion, whom no one dared
+to contradict, lest they should awaken his natural vehemence of passion.
+So many years had elapsed since he had experienced contradiction, or
+even expostulation, that probably nothing but the strong good sense,
+which, on all points, his mysticism excepted, formed the ground of his
+character, prevented his proving an annoyance and terror to the whole
+neighbourhood. But Annot had no time to dwell upon her fears, being
+interrupted by the entrance of Sir Dugald Dalgetty.
+
+It may well be supposed, that the scenes in which this person had passed
+his former life, had not much qualified him to shine in female society.
+He himself felt a sort of consciousness that the language of the
+barrack, guard-room, and parade, was not proper to entertain ladies.
+The only peaceful part of his life had been spent at Mareschal-College,
+Aberdeen; and he had forgot the little he had learned there, except the
+arts of darning his own hose, and dispatching his commons with unusual
+celerity, both which had since been kept in good exercise by the
+necessity of frequent practice. Still it was from an imperfect
+recollection of what he had acquired during this pacific period, that
+he drew his sources of conversation when in company with women; in other
+words, his language became pedantic when it ceased to be military.
+
+"Mistress Annot Lyle," said he, upon the present occasion, "I am just
+now like the half-pike, or spontoon of Achilles, one end of which could
+wound and the other cure--a property belonging neither to Spanish pike,
+brown-bill, partizan, halberd, Lochaber-axe, or indeed any other modern
+staff-weapon whatever." This compliment he repeated twice; but as Annot
+scarce heard him the first time, and did not comprehend him the second,
+he was obliged to explain.
+
+"I mean," he said, "Mistress Annot Lyle, that having been the means
+of an honourable knight receiving a severe wound in this day's
+conflict,--he having pistolled, somewhat against the law of arms, my
+horse, which was named after the immortal King of Sweden,--I am desirous
+of procuring him such solacement as you, madam, can supply, you being
+like the heathen god Esculapius" (meaning possibly Apollo), "skilful
+not only in song and in music, but in the more noble art of
+chirurgery-OPIFERQUE PER ORBEM DICOR."
+
+"If you would have the goodness to explain," said Annot, too sick at
+heart to be amused by Sir Dugald's airs of pedantic gallantry.
+
+"That, madam," replied the Knight, "may not be so easy, as I am out
+of the habit of construing--but we shall try. DICOR, supply EGO--I
+am called,--OPIFER? OPIFER?--I remember SIGNIFER and FURCIFER--but
+I believe OPIFER stands in this place for M.D., that is, Doctor of
+Physic."
+
+"This is a busy day with us all," said Annot; "will you say at once what
+you want with me?"
+
+"Merely," replied Sir Dugald, "that you will visit my brother knight,
+and let your maiden bring some medicaments for his wound, which
+threatens to be what the learned call a DAMNUM FATALE."
+
+Annot Lyle never lingered in the cause of humanity. She informed herself
+hastily of the nature of the injury, and interesting herself for the
+dignified old Chief whom she had seen at Darnlinvarach, and whose
+presence had so much struck her, she hastened to lose the sense of her
+own sorrow for a time, in the attempt to be useful to another.
+
+Sir Dugald with great form ushered Annot Lyle to the chamber of her
+patient, in which, to her surprise, she found Lord Menteith. She could
+not help blushing deeply at the meeting, but, to hide her confusion,
+proceeded instantly to examine the wound of the Knight of Ardenvohr, and
+easily satisfied herself that it was beyond her skill to cure it. As
+for Sir Dugald, he returned to a large outhouse, on the floor of which,
+among other wounded men, was deposited the person of Ranald of the Mist.
+
+"Mine old friend," said the Knight, "as I told you before, I would
+willingly do anything to pleasure you, in return for the wound you have
+received while under my safe-conduct. I have, therefore, according to
+your earnest request, sent Mrs. Annot Lyle to attend upon the wound of
+the knight of Ardenvohr, though wherein her doing so should benefit you,
+I cannot imagine.--I think you once spoke of some blood relationship
+between them; but a soldado, in command and charge like me, has other
+things to trouble his head with than Highland genealogies."
+
+And indeed, to do the worthy Major justice, he never enquired after,
+listened to, or recollected, the business of other people, unless it
+either related to the art military, or was somehow or other connected
+with his own interest, in either of which cases his memory was very
+tenacious.
+
+"And now, my good friend of the Mist," said he, "can you tell me what
+has become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him since he
+assisted me to disarm after the action, a negligence which deserveth the
+strapado?"
+
+"He is not far from hence," said the wounded outlaw--"lift not your hand
+upon him, for he is man enough to pay a yard of leathern scourge with a
+foot of tempered steel."
+
+"A most improper vaunt," said Sir Dugald; "but I owe you some favours,
+Ranald, and therefore shall let it pass."
+
+"And if you think you owe me anything," said the outlaw, "it is in your
+power to requite me by granting me a boon."
+
+"Friend Ranald," answered Dalgetty, "I have read of these boons in silly
+story-books, whereby simple knights were drawn into engagements to their
+great prejudice; wherefore, Ranald, the more prudent knights of this
+day never promise anything until they know that they may keep their
+word anent the premises, without any displeasure or incommodement to
+themselves. It may be, you would have me engage the female chirurgeon
+to visit your wound; though you ought to consider, Ranald, that the
+uncleanness of the place where you are deposited may somewhat soil the
+gaiety of her garments, concerning the preservation of which, you may
+have observed, women are apt to be inordinately solicitous. I lost the
+favour of the lady of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam, by touching
+with the sole of my boot the train of her black velvet gown, which
+I mistook for a foot-cloth, it being half the room distant from her
+person."
+
+"It is not to bring Annot Lyle hither," answered MacEagh, "but to
+transport me into the room where she is in attendance upon the Knight of
+Ardenvohr. Somewhat I have to say of the last consequence to them both."
+
+"It is something out of the order of due precedence," said Dalgetty, "to
+carry a wounded outlaw into the presence of a knight; knighthood having
+been of yore, and being, in some respects, still, the highest military
+grade, independent always of commissioned officers, who rank according
+to their patents; nevertheless, as your boon, as you call it, is so
+slight, I shall not deny compliance with the same." So saying, he
+ordered three files of men to transport MacEagh on their shoulders
+to Sir Duncan Campbell's apartment, and he himself hastened before
+to announce the cause of his being brought thither. But such was the
+activity of the soldiers employed, that they followed him close at the
+heels, and, entering with their ghastly burden, laid MacEagh on the
+floor of the apartment. His features, naturally wild, were now distorted
+by pain; his hands and scanty garments stained with his own blood, and
+those of others, which no kind hand had wiped away, although the wound
+in his side had been secured by a bandage.
+
+"Are you," he said, raising his head painfully towards the couch where
+lay stretched his late antagonist, "he whom men call the Knight of
+Ardenvohr?"
+
+"The same," answered Sir Duncan,--"what would you with one whose hours
+are now numbered?"
+
+"My hours are reduced to minutes," said the outlaw; "the more grace, if
+I bestow them in the service of one, whose hand has ever been against
+me, as mine has been raised higher against him."
+
+"Thine higher against me!--Crushed worm!" said the Knight, looking down
+on his miserable adversary.
+
+"Yes," answered the outlaw, in a firm voice, "my arm hath been highest.
+In the deadly contest betwixt us, the wounds I have dealt have been
+deepest, though thine have neither been idle nor unfelt.--I am Ranald
+MacEagh--I am Ranald of the Mist--the night that I gave thy castle to
+the winds in one huge blaze of fire, is now matched with the day in
+which you have fallen under the sword of my fathers.--Remember the
+injuries thou hast done our tribe--never were such inflicted, save
+by one, beside thee. HE, they say, is fated and secure against our
+vengeance--a short time will show."
+
+"My Lord Menteith," said Sir Duncan, raising himself out of his bed,
+"this is a proclaimed villain, at once the enemy of King and Parliament,
+of God and man--one of the outlawed banditti of the Mist; alike the
+enemy of your house, of the M'Aulays, and of mine. I trust you will
+not suffer moments, which are perhaps my last, to be embittered by his
+barbarous triumph."
+
+"He shall have the treatment he merits," said Menteith; "let him be
+instantly removed."
+
+Sir Dugald here interposed, and spoke of Ranald's services as a guide,
+and his own pledge for his safety; but the high harsh tones of the
+outlaw drowned his voice.
+
+"No," said he, "be rack and gibbet the word! let me wither between
+heaven and earth, and gorge the hawks and eagles of Ben-Nevis; and so
+shall this haughty Knight, and this triumphant Thane, never learn the
+secret I alone can impart; a secret which would make Ardenvohr's
+heart leap with joy, were he in the death agony, and which the Earl of
+Menteith would purchase at the price of his broad earldom.--Come hither,
+Annot Lyle," he said, raising himself with unexpected strength; "fear
+not the sight of him to whom thou hast clung in infancy. Tell these
+proud men, who disdain thee as the issue of mine ancient race, that thou
+art no blood of ours,--no daughter of the race of the Mist, but born in
+halls as lordly, and cradled on couch as soft, as ever soothed infancy
+in their proudest palaces."
+
+"In the name of God," said Menteith, trembling with emotion, "if you
+know aught of the birth of this lady, do thy conscience the justice to
+disburden it of the secret before departing from this world!"
+
+"And bless my enemies with my dying breath?" said MacEagh, looking at
+him malignantly.--"Such are the maxims your priests preach--but when,
+or towards whom, do you practise them? Let me know first the worth of my
+secret ere I part with it--What would you give, Knight of Ardenvohr, to
+know that your superstitious fasts have been vain, and that there still
+remains a descendant of your house?--I pause for an answer--without it,
+I speak not one word more.
+
+"I could," said Sir Duncan, his voice struggling between the emotions of
+doubt, hatred, and anxiety--"I could--but that I know thy race are like
+the Great Enemy, liars and murderers from the beginning--but could it be
+true thou tellest me, I could almost forgive thee the injuries thou hast
+done me."
+
+"Hear it!" said Ranald; "he hath wagered deeply for a son of
+Diarmid--And you, gentle Thane--the report of the camp says, that you
+would purchase with life and lands the tidings that Annot Lyle was no
+daughter of proscription, but of a race noble in your estimation as your
+own--Well--It is for no love I tell you--The time has been that I would
+have exchanged this secret against liberty; I am now bartering it for
+what is dearer than liberty or life.--Annot Lyle is the youngest, the
+sole surviving child of the Knight of Ardenvohr, who alone was saved
+when all in his halls besides was given to blood and ashes."
+
+"Can this man speak truth?" said Annot Lyle, scarce knowing what she
+said; "or is this some strange delusion?"
+
+"Maiden," replied Ranald, "hadst thou dwelt longer with us, thou wouldst
+have better learnt to know how to distinguish the accents of truth.
+To that Saxon lord, and to the Knight of Ardenvohr, I will yield such
+proofs of what I have spoken, that incredulity shall stand convinced.
+Meantime, withdraw--I loved thine infancy, I hate not thy youth--no eye
+hates the rose in its blossom, though it groweth upon a thorn, and for
+thee only do I something regret what is soon to follow. But he that
+would avenge him of his foe must not reck though the guiltless be
+engaged in the ruin."
+
+"He advises well, Annot," said Lord Menteith; "in God's name retire!
+if--if there be aught in this, your meeting with Sir Duncan must be more
+prepared for both your sakes."
+
+"I will not part from my father, if I have found one!" said Annot--"I
+will not part from him under circumstances so terrible."
+
+"And a father you shall ever find in me," murmured Sir Duncan.
+
+"Then," said Menteith, "I will have MacEagh removed into an adjacent
+apartment, and will collect the evidence of his tale myself. Sir Dugald
+Dalgetty will give me his attendance and assistance."
+
+"With pleasure, my lord," answered Sir Dugald.--"I will be your
+confessor, or assessor--either or both. No one can be so fit, for I had
+heard the whole story a month ago at Inverary castle--but onslaughts
+like that of Ardenvohr confuse each other in my memory, which is besides
+occupied with matters of more importance."
+
+Upon hearing this frank declaration, which was made as they left the
+apartment with the wounded man, Lord Menteith darted upon Dalgetty a
+look of extreme anger and disdain, to which the self-conceit of the
+worthy commander rendered him totally insensible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+     I am as free as nature first made man,
+     Ere the base laws of servitude began,
+     When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
+     --CONQUEST OF GRANADA
+
+The Earl of Menteith, as he had undertaken, so he proceeded to
+investigate more closely the story told by Ranald of the Mist, which was
+corroborated by the examination of his two followers, who had assisted
+in the capacity of guides. These declarations he carefully compared with
+such circumstances concerning the destruction of his castle and family
+as Sir Duncan Campbell was able to supply; and it may be supposed he had
+forgotten nothing relating to an event of such terrific importance. It
+was of the last consequence to prove that this was no invention of
+the outlaw's, for the purpose of passing an impostor as the child and
+heiress of Ardenvohr.
+
+Perhaps Menteith, so much interested in believing the tale, was not
+altogether the fittest person to be intrusted with the investigation of
+its truth; but the examinations of the Children of the Mist were simple,
+accurate, and in all respects consistent with each other. A personal
+mark was referred to, which was known to have been borne by the infant
+child of Sir Duncan, and which appeared upon the left shoulder of Annot
+Lyle. It was also well remembered, that when the miserable relics of the
+other children had been collected, those of the infant had nowhere
+been found. Other circumstances of evidence, which it is unnecessary to
+quote, brought the fullest conviction not only to Menteith, but to the
+unprejudiced mind of Montrose, that in Annot Lyle, an humble dependant,
+distinguished only by beauty and talent, they were in future to respect
+the heiress of Ardenvohr.
+
+While Menteith hastened to communicate the result of these enquiries
+to the persons most interested, the outlaw demanded to speak with his
+grandchild, whom he usually called his son. "He would be found," he
+said, "in the outer apartment, in which he himself had been originally
+deposited."
+
+Accordingly, the young savage, after a close search, was found lurking
+in a corner, coiled up among some rotten straw, and brought to his
+grandsire.
+
+"Kenneth," said the old outlaw, "hear the last words of the sire of
+thy father. A Saxon soldier, and Allan of the Red-hand, left this camp
+within these few hours, to travel to the country to Caberfae. Pursue
+them as the bloodhound pursues the hurt deer--swim the lake-climb the
+mountain--thread the forest--tarry not until you join them;" and then
+the countenance of the lad darkened as his grandfather spoke, and he
+laid his hand upon a knife which stuck in the thong of leather that
+confined his scanty plaid. "No!" said the old man; "it is not by thy
+hand he must fall. They will ask the news from the camp--say to them
+that Annot Lyle of the Harp is discovered to be the daughter of Duncan
+of Ardenvohr; that the Thane of Menteith is to wed her before the
+priest; and that you are sent to bid guests to the bridal. Tarry
+not their answer, but vanish like the lightning when the black cloud
+swallows it.--And now depart, beloved son of my best beloved! I shall
+never more see thy face, nor hear the light sound of thy footstep--yet
+tarry an instant and hear my last charge. Remember the fate of our race,
+and quit not the ancient manners of the Children of the Mist. We are now
+a straggling handful, driven from every vale by the sword of every clan,
+who rule in the possessions where their forefathers hewed the wood, and
+drew the water for ours. But in the thicket of the wilderness, and in
+the mist of the mountain, Kenneth, son of Eracht, keep thou unsoiled the
+freedom which I leave thee as a birthright. Barter it not neither for
+the rich garment, nor for the stone-roof, nor for the covered board, nor
+for the couch of down--on the rock or in the valley, in abundance or in
+famine--in the leafy summer, and in the days of the iron winter--Son of
+the Mist! be free as thy forefathers. Own no lord--receive no law--take
+no hire--give no stipend--build no hut--enclose no pasture--sow no
+grain;--let the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and herds--if these
+fail thee, prey upon the goods of our oppressors--of the Saxons, and of
+such Gael as are Saxons in their souls, valuing herds and flocks more
+than honour and freedom. Well for us that they do so--it affords the
+broader scope for our revenge. Remember those who have done kindness to
+our race, and pay their services with thy blood, should the hour require
+it. If a MacIan shall come to thee with the head of the king's son
+in his hand, shelter him, though the avenging army of the father were
+behind him; for in Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, we have dwelt in peace
+in the years that have gone by. The sons of Diarmid--the race of
+Darnlinvarach--the riders of Menteith--my curse on thy head, Child of
+the Mist, if thou spare one of those names, when the time shall offer
+for cutting them off! and it will come anon, for their own swords shall
+devour each other, and those who are scattered shall fly to the Mist,
+and perish by its Children. Once more, begone--shake the dust from thy
+feet against the habitations of men, whether banded together for peace
+or for war. Farewell, beloved! and mayst thou die like thy
+forefathers, ere infirmity, disease, or age, shall break thy
+spirit--Begone!--begone!--live free--requite kindness--avenge the
+injuries of thy race!"
+
+The young savage stooped, and kissed the brow of his dying parent; but
+accustomed from infancy to suppress every exterior sign of emotion,
+he parted without tear or adieu, and was soon far beyond the limits of
+Montrose's camp.
+
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who was present during the latter part of this
+scene, was very little edified by the conduct of MacEagh upon the
+occasion. "I cannot think, my friend Ranald," said he, "that you are in
+the best possible road for a dying man. Storms, onslaughts, massacres,
+the burning of suburbs, are indeed a soldier's daily work, and are
+justified by the necessity of the case, seeing that they are done in the
+course of duty; for burning of suburbs, in particular, it may be said
+that they are traitors and cut-throats to all fortified towns. Hence it
+is plain, that a soldier is a profession peculiarly favoured by Heaven,
+seeing that we may hope for salvation, although we daily commit actions
+of so great violence. But then, Ranald, in all services of Europe, it is
+the custom of the dying soldier not to vaunt him of such doings, or
+to recommend them to his fellows; but, on the contrary, to express
+contrition for the same, and to repeat, or have repeated to him, some
+comfortable prayer; which, if you please, I will intercede with his
+Excellency's chaplain to prefer on your account. It is otherwise no
+point of my duty to put you in mind of those things; only it may be for
+the ease of your conscience to depart more like a Christian, and less
+like a Turk, than you seem to be in a fair way of doing."
+
+The only answer of the dying man--(for as such Ranald MacEagh might now
+be considered)--was a request to be raised to such a position that he
+might obtain a view from the window of the Castle. The deep frost mist,
+which had long settled upon the top of the mountains, was now rolling
+down each rugged glen and gully, where the craggy ridges showed their
+black and irregular outline, like desert islands rising above the ocean
+of vapour. "Spirit of the Mist!" said Ranald MacEagh, "called by our
+race our father, and our preserver--receive into thy tabernacle of
+clouds, when this pang is over, him whom in life thou hast so often
+sheltered." So saying, he sunk back into the arms of those who upheld
+him, spoke no further word, but turned his face to the wall for a short
+space.
+
+"I believe," said Dalgetty, "my friend Ranald will be found in his heart
+to be little better than a heathen." And he renewed his proposal
+to procure him the assistance of Dr. Wisheart, Montrose's military
+chaplain; "a man," said Sir Dugald, "very clever in his exercise, and
+who will do execution on your sins in less time than I could smoke a
+pipe of tobacco."
+
+"Saxon," said the dying man, "speak to me no more of thy priest--I die
+contented. Hadst thou ever an enemy against whom weapons were of no
+avail--whom the ball missed, and against whom the arrow shivered, and
+whose bare skin was as impenetrable to sword and dirk as thy steel
+garment--Heardst thou ever of such a foe?"
+
+"Very frequently, when I served in Germany," replied Sir Dugald. "There
+was such a fellow at Ingolstadt; he was proof both against lead and
+steel. The soldiers killed him with the buts of their muskets."
+
+"This impassible foe," said Ranald, without regarding the Major's
+interruption, "who has the blood dearest to me upon his hands--to this
+man I have now bequeathed agony of mind, jealousy, despair, and sudden
+death,--or a life more miserable than death itself. Such shall be the
+lot of Allan of the Red-hand, when he learns that Annot weds Menteith
+and I ask no more than the certainty that it is so, to sweeten my own
+bloody end by his hand."
+
+"If that be the case," said the Major, "there's no more to be said; but
+I shall take care as few people see you as possible, for I cannot
+think your mode of departure can be at all creditable or exemplary to
+a Christian army." So saying, he left the apartment, and the Son of the
+Mist soon after breathed his last.
+
+Menteith, in the meanwhile, leaving the new-found relations to their
+mutual feelings of mingled emotion, was eagerly discussing with Montrose
+the consequences of this discovery. "I should now see," said the
+Marquis, "even had I not before observed it, that your interest in
+this discovery, my dear Menteith, has no small reference to your own
+happiness. You love this new-found lady,--your affection is returned. In
+point of birth, no exceptions can be made; in every other respect,
+her advantages are equal to those which you yourself possess--think,
+however, a moment. Sir Duncan is a fanatic--Presbyterian, at least--in
+arms against the King; he is only with us in the quality of a prisoner,
+and we are, I fear, but at the commencement of a long civil war. Is this
+a time, think you, Menteith, for you to make proposals for his heiress?
+Or what chance is there that he will now listen to it?"
+
+Passion, an ingenious, as well as an eloquent advocate, supplied the
+young nobleman with a thousand answers to these objections. He reminded
+Montrose that the Knight of Ardenvohr was neither a bigot in politics
+nor religion. He urged his own known and proved zeal for the royal
+cause, and hinted that its influence might be extended and strengthened
+by his wedding the heiress of Ardenvohr. He pleaded the dangerous state
+of Sir Duncan's wound, the risk which must be run by suffering the young
+lady to be carried into the country of the Campbells, where, in case of
+her father's death, or continued indisposition, she must necessarily
+be placed under the guardianship of Argyle, an event fatal to his
+(Menteith's) hopes, unless he could stoop to purchase his favour by
+abandoning the King's party.
+
+Montrose allowed the force of these arguments, and owned, although the
+matter was attended with difficulty, yet it seemed consistent with the
+King's service that it should be concluded as speedily as possible.
+
+"I could wish," said he, "that it were all settled in one way or
+another, and that this fair Briseis were removed from our camp before
+the return of our Highland Achilles, Allan M'Aulay.--I fear some fatal
+feud in that quarter, Menteith--and I believe it would be best that Sir
+Duncan be dismissed on his parole, and that you accompany him and his
+daughter as his escort. The journey can be made chiefly by water, so
+will not greatly incommode his wound--and your own, my friend, will be
+an honourable excuse for the absence of some time from my camp."
+
+"Never!" said Menteith. "Were I to forfeit the very hope that has so
+lately dawned upon me, never will I leave your Excellency's camp while
+the royal standard is displayed. I should deserve that this trifling
+scratch should gangrene and consume my sword-arm, were I capable
+of holding it as an excuse for absence at this crisis of the King's
+affairs."
+
+"On this, then, you are determined?" said Montrose.
+
+"As fixed as Ben-Nevis," said the young nobleman.
+
+"You must, then," said Montrose, "lose no time in seeking an explanation
+with the Knight of Ardenvohr. If this prove favourable, I will talk
+myself with the elder M'Aulay, and we will devise means to employ his
+brother at a distance from the army until he shall be reconciled to his
+present disappointment. Would to God some vision would descend upon his
+imagination fair enough to obliterate all traces of Annot Lyle! That
+perhaps you think impossible, Menteith?--Well, each to his service; you
+to that of Cupid, and I to that of Mars."
+
+They parted, and in pursuance of the scheme arranged, Menteith, early on
+the ensuing morning, sought a private interview with the wounded Knight
+of Ardenvohr, and communicated to him his suit for the hand of his
+daughter. Of their mutual attachment Sir Duncan was aware, but he was
+not prepared for so early a declaration on the part of Menteith. He
+said, at first, that he had already, perhaps, indulged too much in
+feelings of personal happiness, at a time when his clan had sustained
+so great a loss and humiliation, and that he was unwilling, therefore,
+farther to consider the advancement of his own house at a period so
+calamitous. On the more urgent suit of the noble lover, he requested a
+few hours to deliberate and consult with his daughter, upon a question
+so highly important.
+
+The result of this interview and deliberation was favourable to
+Menteith. Sir Duncan Campbell became fully sensible that the happiness
+of his new-found daughter depended upon a union with her lover; and
+unless such were now formed, he saw that Argyle would throw a thousand
+obstacles in the way of a match in every respect acceptable to himself.
+Menteith's private character was so excellent, and such was the rank and
+consideration due to his fortune and family, that they outbalanced, in
+Sir Duncan's opinion, the difference in their political opinions. Nor
+could he have resolved, perhaps, had his own opinion of the match been
+less favourable, to decline an opportunity of indulging the new-found
+child of his hopes. There was, besides, a feeling of pride which
+dictated his determination. To produce the Heiress of Ardenvohr to the
+world as one who had been educated a poor dependant and musician in the
+family of Darnlinvarach, had something in it that was humiliating. To
+introduce her as the betrothed bride, or wedded wife, of the Earl of
+Menteith, upon an attachment formed during her obscurity, was a warrant
+to the world that she had at all times been worthy of the rank to which
+she was elevated.
+
+It was under the influence of these considerations that Sir Duncan
+Campbell announced to the lovers his consent that they should be married
+in the chapel of the Castle, by Montrose's chaplain, and as privately as
+possible. But when Montrose should break up from Inverlochy, for which
+orders were expected in the course of a very few days, it was agreed
+that the young Countess should depart with her father to his Castle, and
+remain there until the circumstances of the nation permitted Menteith to
+retire with honour from his present military employment. His resolution
+being once taken, Sir Duncan Campbell would not permit the maidenly
+scruples of his daughter to delay its execution; and it was therefore
+resolved that the bridal should take place the next evening, being the
+second after the battle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+     My maid--my blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
+     Due to the toils of many a bloody day.--ILLIAD.
+
+It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M'Aulay, so long the kind
+protector of Annot Lyle, should be made acquainted with the change in
+the fortunes of his late protege; and Montrose, as he had undertaken,
+communicated to him these remarkable events. With the careless and
+cheerful indifference of his character, he expressed much more joy than
+wonder at Annot's good fortune; had no doubt whatever she would merit
+it, and as she had always been bred in loyal principles, would convey
+the whole estate of her grim fanatical father to some honest fellow who
+loved the king. "I should have no objection that my brother Allan should
+try his chance," added he, "notwithstanding that Sir Duncan Campbell was
+the only man who ever charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality. Annot
+Lyle could always charm Allan out of the sullens, and who knows whether
+matrimony might not make him more a man of this world?" Montrose
+hastened to interrupt the progress of his castle-building, by informing
+him that the lady was already wooed and won, and, with her father's
+approbation, was almost immediately to be wedded to his kinsman, the
+Earl of Menteith; and that in testimony of the high respect due to
+M'Aulay, so long the lady's protector, he was now to request his
+presence at the ceremony. M'Aulay looked very grave at this intimation,
+and drew up his person with the air of one who thought that he had been
+neglected.
+
+"He contrived," he said, "that his uniform kind treatment of the young
+lady, while so many years under his roof, required something more upon
+such an occasion than a bare compliment of ceremony. He might," he
+thought, "without arrogance, have expected to have been consulted. He
+wished his kinsman of Menteith well, no man could wish him better;
+but he must say he thought he had been hasty in this matter. Allan's
+sentiments towards the young lady had been pretty well understood, and
+he, for one, could not see why the superior pretensions which he
+had upon her gratitude should have been set aside, without at least
+undergoing some previous discussion."
+
+Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed, entreated M'Aulay
+to be reasonable, and to consider what probability there was that the
+Knight of Ardenvohr could be brought to confer the hand of his sole
+heiress upon Allan, whose undeniable excellent qualities were mingled
+with others, by which they were overclouded in a manner that made all
+tremble who approached him.
+
+"My lord," said Angus M'Aulay, "my brother Allan has, as God made us
+all, faults as well as merits; but he is the best and bravest man of
+your army, be the other who he may, and therefore ill deserved that his
+happiness should have been so little consulted by your Excellency--by
+his own near kinsman--and by a young person who owes all to him and to
+his family."
+
+Montrose in vain endeavoured to place the subject in a different view;
+this was the point in which Angus was determined to regard it, and he
+was a man of that calibre of understanding, who is incapable of being
+convinced when he has once adopted a prejudice. Montrose now assumed
+a higher tone, and called upon Angus to take care how he nourished
+any sentiments which might be prejudicial to his Majesty's service. He
+pointed out to him, that he was peculiarly desirous that Allan's efforts
+should not be interrupted in the course of his present mission; "a
+mission," he said, "highly honourable for himself, and likely to prove
+most advantageous to the King's cause. He expected his brother would
+hold no communication with him upon other subjects, nor stir up any
+cause of dissension, which might divert his mind from a matter of such
+importance."
+
+Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that "he was no makebate, or stirrer-up
+of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker. His brother knew as well
+as most men how to resent his own quarrels--as for Allan's mode of
+receiving information, it was generally believed he had other sources
+than those of ordinary couriers. He should not be surprised if they saw
+him sooner than they expected."
+
+A promise that he would not interfere, was the farthest to which
+Montrose could bring this man, thoroughly good-tempered as he was on all
+occasions, save when his pride, interest, or prejudices, were interfered
+with. And at this point the Marquis was fain to leave the matter for the
+present.
+
+A more willing guest at the bridal ceremony, certainly a more willing
+attendant at the marriage feast, was to be expected in Sir Dugald
+Dalgetty, whom Montrose resolved to invite, as having been a confidant
+to the circumstances which preceded it. But even Sir Dugald hesitated,
+looked on the elbows of his doublet, and the knees of his leather
+breeches, and mumbled out a sort of reluctant acquiescence in the
+invitation, providing he should find it possible, after consulting with
+the noble bridegroom. Montrose was somewhat surprised, but scorning to
+testify displeasure, he left Sir Dugald to pursue his own course.
+
+This carried him instantly to the chamber of the bride-groom, who,
+amidst the scanty wardrobe which his camp-equipage afforded, was
+seeking for such articles as might appear to the best advantage upon the
+approaching occasion. Sir Dugald entered, and paid his compliments, with
+a very grave face, upon his approaching happiness, which, he said, "he
+was very sorry he was prevented from witnessing."
+
+"In plain truth," said he, "I should but disgrace the ceremony, seeing
+that I lack a bridal garment. Rents, and open seams, and tatters
+at elbows in the apparel of the assistants, might presage a similar
+solution of continuity in your matrimonial happiness--and to say truth,
+my lord, you yourself must partly have the blame of this disappointment,
+in respect you sent me upon a fool's errand to get a buff-coat out of
+the booty taken by the Camerons, whereas you might as well have sent me
+to fetch a pound of fresh butter out of a black dog's throat. I had no
+answer, my lord, but brandished dirks and broadswords, and a sort of
+growling and jabbering in what they call their language. For my part, I
+believe these Highlanders to be no better than absolute pagans, and have
+been much scandalized by the manner in which my acquaintance, Ranald
+MacEagh, was pleased to beat his final march, a little while since."
+
+In Menteith's state of mind, disposed to be pleased with everything,
+and everybody, the grave complaint of Sir Dugald furnished additional
+amusement. He requested his acceptance of a very handsome buff-dress
+which was lying on the floor. "I had intended it," he said, "for my own
+bridal-garment, as being the least formidable of my warlike equipments,
+and I have here no peaceful dress."
+
+Sir Dugald made the necessary apologies--would not by any means
+deprive--and so forth, until it happily occurred to him that it was much
+more according to military rule that the Earl should be married in his
+back and breast pieces, which dress he had seen the bridegroom wear at
+the union of Prince Leo of Wittlesbach with the youngest daughter of old
+George Frederick, of Saxony, under the auspices of the gallant Gustavus
+Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and so forth. The good-natured young
+Earl laughed, and acquiesced; and thus having secured at least one merry
+face at his bridal, he put on a light and ornamented cuirass, concealed
+partly by a velvet coat, and partly by a broad blue silk scarf, which
+he wore over his shoulder, agreeably to his rank, and the fashion of the
+times.
+
+Everything was now arranged; and it had been settled that, according
+to the custom of the country, the bride and bridegroom should not again
+meet until they were before the altar. The hour had already struck that
+summoned the bridegroom thither, and he only waited in a small anteroom
+adjacent to the chapel, for the Marquis, who condescended to act as
+bride's-man upon the occasion. Business relating to the army having
+suddenly required the Marquis's instant attention, Menteith waited his
+return, it may be supposed, in some impatience; and when he heard
+the door of the apartment open, he said, laughing, "You are late upon
+parade."
+
+"You will find I am too early," said Allan M'Aulay, who burst into the
+apartment. "Draw, Menteith, and defend yourself like a man, or die like
+a dog!"
+
+"You are mad, Allan!" answered Menteith, astonished alike at his sudden
+appearance, and at the unutterable fury of his demeanour. His cheeks
+were livid--his eyes started from their sockets--his lips were covered
+with foam, and his gestures were those of a demoniac.
+
+"You lie, traitor!" was his frantic reply--"you lie in that, as you lie
+in all you have said to me. Your life is a lie!"
+
+"Did I not speak my thoughts when I called you mad," said Menteith,
+indignantly, "your own life were a brief one. In what do you charge me
+with deceiving you?"
+
+"You told me," answered M'Aulay, "that you would not marry Annot
+Lyle!--False traitor!--she now waits you at the altar."
+
+"It is you who speak false," retorted Menteith. "I told you the
+obscurity of her birth was the only bar to our union--that is now
+removed; and whom do you think yourself, that I should yield up my
+pretensions in your favour?"
+
+"Draw then," said M'Aulay; "we understand each other."
+
+"Not now," said Menteith, "and not here. Allan, you know me well--wait
+till to-morrow, and you shall have fighting enough."
+
+"This hour--this instant--or never," answered M'Aulay.
+
+"Your triumph shall not go farther than the hour which is stricken.
+Menteith, I entreat you by our relationship--by our joint conflicts and
+labours--draw your sword, and defend your life!" As he spoke, he seized
+the Earl's hand, and wrung it with such frantic earnestness, that his
+grasp forced the blood to start under the nails. Menteith threw him off
+with violence, exclaiming, "Begone, madman!"
+
+"Then, be the vision accomplished!" said Allan; and, drawing his dirk,
+struck with his whole gigantic force at the Earl's bosom. The temper of
+the corslet threw the point of the weapon upwards, but a deep wound
+took place between the neck and shoulder; and the force of the blow
+prostrated the bridegroom on the floor. Montrose entered at one side of
+the anteroom. The bridal company, alarmed at the noise, were in equal
+apprehension and surprise; but ere Montrose could almost see what had
+happened, Allan M'Aulay had rushed past him, and descended the
+castle stairs like lightning. "Guards, shut the gate!" exclaimed
+Montrose--"Seize him--kill him, if he resists!--He shall die, if he were
+my brother!"
+
+But Allan prostrated, with a second blow of his dagger, a sentinel who
+was upon duty---traversed the camp like a mountain-deer, though pursued
+by all who caught the alarm--threw himself into the river, and, swimming
+to the opposite side, was soon lost among the woods. In the course of
+the same evening, his brother Angus and his followers left Montrose's
+camp, and, taking the road homeward, never again rejoined him.
+
+Of Allan himself it is said, that, in a wonderfully short space after
+the deed was committed, he burst into a room in the Castle of Inverary,
+where Argyle was sitting in council, and flung on the table his bloody
+dirk.
+
+"Is it the blood of James Grahame?" said Argyle, a ghastly expression
+of hope mixing with the terror which the sudden apparition naturally
+excited.
+
+"It is the blood of his minion," answered M'Aulay--"It is the blood
+which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have spilt my
+own."
+
+Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from that moment
+nothing certain is known of his fate. As the boy Kenneth, with three of
+the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards to cross Lochfine,
+it is supposed they dogged his course, and that he perished by their
+hand in some obscure wilderness. Another opinion maintains, that Allan
+M'Aulay went abroad and died a monk of the Carthusian order. But nothing
+beyond bare presumption could ever be brought in support of either
+opinion.
+
+His vengeance was much less complete than he probably fancied; for
+Menteith, though so severely wounded as to remain long in a dangerous
+state, was, by having adopted Major Dalgetty's fortunate recommendation
+of a cuirass as a bridal-garment, happily secured from the worst
+consequences of the blow. But his services were lost to Montrose; and it
+was thought best, that he should be conveyed with his intended
+countess, now truly a mourning bride, and should accompany his wounded
+father-in-law to the castle of Sir Duncan at Ardenvohr. Dalgetty
+followed them to the water's edge, reminding Menteith of the necessity
+of erecting a sconce on Drumsnab to cover his lady's newly-acquired
+inheritance.
+
+They performed their voyage in safety, and Menteith was in a few weeks
+so well in health, as to be united to Annot in the castle of her father.
+
+The Highlanders were somewhat puzzled to reconcile Menteith's recovery
+with the visions of the second sight, and the more experienced Seers
+were displeased with him for not having died. But others thought the
+credit of the vision sufficiently fulfilled, by the wound inflicted by
+the hand, and with the weapon, foretold; and all were of opinion, that
+the incident of the ring, with the death's head, related to the death
+of the bride's father, who did not survive her marriage many months.
+The incredulous held, that all this was idle dreaming, and that Allan's
+supposed vision was but a consequence of the private suggestions of his
+own passion, which, having long seen in Menteith a rival more beloved
+than himself, struggled with his better nature, and impressed upon him,
+as it were involuntarily, the idea of killing his competitor.
+
+Menteith did not recover sufficiently to join Montrose during his brief
+and glorious career; and when that heroic general disbanded his army and
+retired from Scotland, Menteith resolved to adopt the life of privacy,
+which he led till the Restoration. After that happy event, he occupied
+a situation in the land befitting his rank, lived long, happy alike in
+public regard and in domestic affection, and died at a good old age.
+
+Our DRAMATIS PERSONAE have been so limited, that, excepting Montrose,
+whose exploits and fate are the theme of history, we have only to
+mention Sir Dugald Dalgetty. This gentleman continued, with the most
+rigorous punctuality, to discharge his duty, and to receive his pay,
+until he was made prisoner, among others, upon the field of Philiphaugh.
+He was condemned to share the fate of his fellow-officers upon that
+occasion, who were doomed to death rather by denunciations from the
+pulpit, than the sentence either of civil or military tribunal; their
+blood being considered as a sort of sin-offering to take away the guilt
+of the land, and the fate imposed upon the Canaanites, under a special
+dispensation, being impiously and cruelly applied to them.
+
+Several Lowland officers, in the service of the Covenanters, interceded
+for Dalgetty on this occasion, representing him as a person whose skill
+would be useful in their army, and who would be readily induced to
+change his service. But on this point they found Sir Dugald unexpectedly
+obstinate. He had engaged with the King for a certain term, and,
+till that was expired, his principles would not permit any shadow of
+changing. The Covenanters, again, understood no such nice distinction,
+and he was in the utmost danger of falling a martyr, not to this or that
+political principle, but merely to his own strict ideas of a military
+enlistment. Fortunately, his friends discovered, by computation, that
+there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had
+formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no
+power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured
+a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly
+willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered
+the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to
+be Major in Gilbert Ker's corps, commonly called the Kirk's Own Regiment
+of Horse. Of his farther history we know nothing, until we find him in
+possession of his paternal estate of Drumthwacket, which he acquired,
+not by the sword, but by a pacific intermarriage with Hannah Strachan,
+a matron somewhat stricken in years, the widow of the Aberdeenshire
+Covenanter.
+
+Sir Dugald is supposed to have survived the Revolution, as traditions
+of no very distant date represent him as cruising about in that country,
+very old, very deaf, and very full of interminable stories about the
+immortal Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of
+the Protestant Faith.
+
+*****
+
+READER! THE TALES OF MY LANDLORD ARE NOW FINALLY CLOSED, closed, and
+it was my purpose to have addressed thee in the vein of Jedediah
+Cleishbotham; but, like Horam the son of Asmar, and all other imaginary
+story-tellers, Jedediah has melted into thin air.
+
+Mr. Cleishbotham bore the same resemblance to Ariel, as he at whose
+voice he rose doth to the sage Prospero; and yet, so fond are we of the
+fictions of our own fancy, that I part with him, and all his imaginary
+localities, with idle reluctance. I am aware this is a feeling in which
+the reader will little sympathize; but he cannot be more sensible than
+I am, that sufficient varieties have now been exhibited of the Scottish
+character, to exhaust one individual's powers of observation, and that
+to persist would be useless and tedious. I have the vanity to suppose,
+that the popularity of these Novels has shown my countrymen, and their
+peculiarities, in lights which were new to the Southern reader; and that
+many, hitherto indifferent upon the subject, have been induced to read
+Scottish history, from the allusions to it in these works of fiction.
+
+I retire from the field, conscious that there remains behind not only a
+large harvest, but labourers capable of gathering it in. More than one
+writer has of late displayed talents of this description; and if the
+present author, himself a phantom, may be permitted to distinguish a
+brother, or perhaps a sister shadow, he would mention, in particular,
+the author of the very lively work entitled MARRIAGE.
+
+
+
+
+IV. APPENDIX.
+
+
+No. I
+
+The scarcity of my late friend's poem may be an excuse for adding the
+spirited conclusion of Clan Alpin's vow. The Clan Gregor has met in the
+ancient church of Balquidder. The head of Drummond-Ernoch is placed on
+the altar, covered for a time with the banner of the tribe. The Chief of
+the tribe advances to the altar:
+
+     And pausing, on the banner gazed;
+     Then cried in scorn, his finger raised,
+     "This was the boon of Scotland's king;"
+     And, with a quick and angry fling,
+     Tossing the pageant screen away,
+     The dead man's head before him lay.
+     Unmoved he scann'd the visage o'er,
+     The clotted locks were dark with gore,
+     The features with convulsion grim,
+     The eyes contorted, sunk, and dim.
+     But unappall'd, in angry mood,
+     With lowering brow, unmoved he stood.
+     Upon the head his bared right hand
+     He laid, the other grasp'd his brand:
+     Then kneeling, cried, "To Heaven I swear
+     This deed of death I own, and share;
+     As truly, fully mine, as though
+     This my right hand had dealt the blow:
+     Come then, our foeman, one, come all;
+     If to revenge this caitiffs fall
+     One blade is bared, one bow is drawn,
+     Mine everlasting peace I pawn,
+     To claim from them, or claim from him,
+     In retribution, limb for limb.
+     In sudden fray, or open strife,
+     This steel shall render life for life."
+     He ceased; and at his beckoning nod,
+     The clansmen to the altar trod;
+     And not a whisper breathed around,
+     And nought was heard of mortal sound,
+     Save from the clanking arms they bore,
+     That rattled on the marble floor;
+     And each, as he approach'd in haste,
+     Upon the scalp his right hand placed;
+     With livid lip, and gather'd brow,
+     Each uttered, in his turn, the vow.
+     Fierce Malcolm watch'd the passing scene,
+     And search'd them through with glances keen;
+     Then dash'd a tear-drop from his eye;
+     Unhid it came--he knew not why.
+     Exulting high, he towering stood:
+     "Kinsmen," he cried, "of Alpin's blood,
+     And worthy of Clan Alpin's name,
+     Unstain'd by cowardice and shame,
+     E'en do, spare nocht, in time of ill
+     Shall be Clan Alpin's legend still!"
+
+
+
+
+No. II.
+
+It has been disputed whether the Children of the Mist were actual
+MacGregors, or whether they were not outlaws named MacDonald, belonging
+to Ardnamurchan. The following act of the Privy Council seems to decide
+the question:--
+
+"Edinburgh, 4th February, 1589.
+
+"The same day, the Lords of Secret Council being crediblie informed of
+ye cruel and mischievous proceeding of ye wicked Clangrigor, so lang
+continueing in blood, slaughters, herships, manifest reifts, and stouths
+committed upon his Hieness' peaceable and good subjects; inhabiting ye
+countries ewest ye brays of ye Highlands, thir money years bybgone;
+but specially heir after ye cruel murder of umqll Jo. Drummond of
+Drummoneyryuch, his Majesties proper tennant and ane of his fosters of
+Glenartney, committed upon ye day of last bypast, be certain of ye said
+clan, be ye council and determination of ye haill, avow and to defend ye
+authors yrof qoever wald persew for revenge of ye same, qll ye said Jo.
+was occupied in seeking of venison to his Hieness, at command of
+Pat. Lord Drummond, stewart of Stratharne, and principal forrester of
+Clenartney; the Queen, his Majesties dearest spouse, being yn shortlie
+looked for to arrive in this realm. Likeas, after ye murder committed,
+ye authors yrof cutted off ye said umqll Jo. Drummond's head, and
+carried the same to the Laird of M'Grigor, who, and the haill surname of
+M'Grigors, purposely conveined upon the Sunday yrafter, at the Kirk of
+Buchquhidder; qr they caused ye said umqll John's head to be pnted to
+ym, and yr avowing ye sd murder to have been committed by yr communion,
+council, and determination, laid yr hands upon the pow, and in eithnik,
+and barbarous manner, swear to defend ye authors of ye sd murder, in
+maist proud contempt of our sovrn Lord and his authoritie, and in
+evil example to others wicked limmaris to do ye like, give ys sall be
+suffered to remain unpunished."
+
+Then follows a commission to the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Athole,
+Montrose, Pat. Lord Drummond, Ja. Commendator of Incheffray, And.
+Campbel of Lochinnel, Duncan Campbel of Ardkinglas, Lauchlane M'Intosh
+of Dunnauchtane, Sir Jo. Murray of Tullibarden, knt., Geo. Buchanan of
+that Ilk, and And. M'Farlane of Ariquocher, to search for and apprehend
+Alaster M'Grigor of Glenstre (and a number of others nominatim), "and
+all others of the said Clangrigor, or ye assistars, culpable of the said
+odious murther, or of thift, reset of thift, herships, and sornings,
+qrever they may be apprehended. And if they refuse to be taken, or flees
+to strengths and houses, to pursue and assege them with fire and sword;
+and this commission to endure for the space of three years."
+
+Such was the system of police in 1589; and such the state of Scotland
+nearly thirty years after the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+V. NOTES.
+
+
+
+
+Note I.--FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+
+The military men of the times agreed upon dependencies of honour, as
+they called them, with all the metaphysical argumentation of civilians,
+or school divines.
+
+The English officer, to whom Sir James Turner was prisoner after the
+rout at Uttoxeter, demanded his parole of honour not to go beyond the
+wall of Hull without liberty. "He brought me the message himself,--I
+told him I was ready to do so, provided he removed his guards from
+me, for FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA; and, if he took my word for my
+fidelity, he was obliged to trust it, otherwise, it was needless for him
+to seek it, either to give trust to my word, which I would not break, or
+his own guards, who I supposed would not deceive him. In this manner I
+dealt with him, because I knew him to be a scholar."--TURNER'S MEMOIRS,
+p. 80. The English officer allowed the strength of the reasoning; but
+that concise reasoner, Cromwell, soon put an end to the dilemma: "Sir
+James Turner must give his parole, or be laid in irons."
+
+
+
+
+Note II.--WRAITHS.
+
+A species of apparition, similar to what the Germans call a
+Double-Ganger, was believed in by the Celtic tribes, and is still
+considered as an emblem of misfortune or death. Mr. Kirke (See Note to
+ROB ROY,), the minister of Aberfoil, who will no doubt be able to tell
+us more of the matter should he ever come back from Fairy-land, gives us
+the following:--
+
+"Some men of that exalted sight, either by art or nature, have told me
+they have seen at these meetings a double man, or the shape of some man
+in two places, that is, a superterranean and a subterranean
+inhabitant perfectly resembling one another in all points, whom he,
+notwithstanding, could easily distinguish one fro another by some secret
+tokens and operations, and so go speak to the man his neighbour and
+familiar, passing by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch
+that every element and different state of being have animals resembling
+those of another element, as there be fishes at sea resembling Monks of
+late order in all their hoods and dresses, so as the Roman invention
+of good and bad daemons and guardian angels particularly assigned, is
+called by them ane ignorant mistake, springing only from this originall.
+They call this reflex man a Co-Walker, every way like the man, as a
+twin-brother and companion haunting him as his shadow, as is that seen
+and known among men resembling the originall, both before and after the
+originall is dead, and was also often seen of old to enter a hous, by
+which the people knew that the person of that liknes was to visit them
+within a few days. This copy, echo, or living picture, goes at last to
+his own herd. It accompanied that person so long and frequently for ends
+best known to its selve, whether to guard him from the secret assaults
+of some of its own folks, or only as an sportfull ape to counterfeit all
+his actions."--KIRKE'S SECRET COMMOMWEALTH, p. 3.
+
+The two following apparitions, resembling the vision of Allan M'Aulay in
+the text, occur in Theophilus Insulanus (Rev. Mr. Fraser's Treatise on
+the Second Sight, Relations x. and xvii.):--
+
+"Barbara Macpherson, relict of the deceased Mr. Alexander MacLeod, late
+minister of St. Kilda, informed me the natives of that island had a
+particular kind of second sight, which is always a forerunner of their
+approaching end. Some months before they sicken, they are haunted with
+an apparition, resembling themselves in all respects as to their person,
+features, or clothing. This image, seemingly animated, walks with them
+in the field in broad daylight; and if they are employed in delving,
+harrowing, seed-sowing, or any other occupation, they are at the same
+time mimicked by this ghostly visitant. My informer added further that
+having visited a sick person of the inhabitants, she had the curiosity
+to enquire of him, if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself
+as above described; he answered in the affirmative, and told her, that
+to make farther trial, as he was going out of his house of a morning, he
+put on straw-rope garters instead of those he formerly used, and
+having gone to the fields, his other self appeared in such garters. The
+conclusion was, the sick man died of that ailment, and she no longer
+questioned the truth of those remarkable presages."
+
+"Margaret MacLeod, an honest woman advanced in years, informed me, that
+when she was a young woman in the family of Grishornish, a dairy-maid,
+who daily used to herd the calves in a park close to the house,
+observed, at different times, a woman resembling herself in shape and
+attire, walking solitarily at no great distance from her, and being
+surprised at the apparition, to make further trial, she put the back
+part of her upper garment foremost, and anon the phantom was dressed
+in the same manner, which made her uneasy, believing it portended some
+fatal consequence to herself. In a short time thereafter she was seized
+with a fever, which brought her to her end, and before her sickness and
+on her deathbed, declared the second sight to several."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1461.txt or 1461.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/1461/
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/1461.zip b/old/1461.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aef7aa8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1461.zip
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0651.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0651.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1cf52f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0651.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0651m.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0651m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ceef40a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0651m.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0669.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0669.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..646799c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0669.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0669m.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0669m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c75fe07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0669m.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0681.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0681.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..289756f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0681.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0681m.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0681m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5997c5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0681m.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0795.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0795.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..510877f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0795.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/images/0795m.jpg b/old/old/files/images/0795m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b01ed1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/images/0795m.jpg
diff --git a/old/old/files/relative.htm b/old/old/files/relative.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e8018c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/files/relative.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,11055 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .indent5   { margin-left: 5%;}
+    .indent10  { margin-left: 10%;}
+    .indent15  { margin-left: 15%;}
+    .indent20  { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .indent30  { margin-left: 30%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 100%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    .side      { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em;
+               border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left;
+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;}
+    p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0}
+    span.dropcap         { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 }
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    -->
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Legend of Montrose
+
+Author: Sir Walter Scott
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2006 [EBook #1461]
+Last Updated: July 25, 2014
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      A LEGEND OF MONTROSE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by<br /> Sir Walter Scott
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I. INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement). </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> IV. APPENDIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> No. II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> V. NOTES. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> Note I.&mdash;FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> Note II.&mdash;WRAITHS. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      I. INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Legend of Montrose was written chiefly with a view to place before the
+      reader the melancholy fate of John Lord Kilpont, eldest son of William
+      Earl of Airth and Menteith, and the singular circumstances attending the
+      birth and history of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, by whose hand the
+      unfortunate nobleman fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our subject leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin with one
+      still more ancient than that to which our story relates. During the reign
+      of James IV., a great feud between the powerful families of Drummond and
+      Murray divided Perthshire. The former, being the most numerous and
+      powerful, cooped up eight score of the Murrays in the kirk of Monivaird,
+      and set fire to it. The wives and the children of the ill-fated men, who
+      had also found shelter in the church, perished by the same conflagration.
+      One man, named David Murray, escaped by the humanity of one of the
+      Drummonds, who received him in his arms as he leaped from amongst the
+      flames. As King James IV. ruled with more activity than most of his
+      predecessors, this cruel deed was severely revenged, and several of the
+      perpetrators were beheaded at Stirling. In consequence of the prosecution
+      against his clan, the Drummond by whose assistance David Murray had
+      escaped, fled to Ireland, until, by means of the person whose life he had
+      saved, he was permitted to return to Scotland, where he and his
+      descendants were distinguished by the name of Drummond-Eirinich, or
+      Ernoch, that is, Drummond of Ireland; and the same title was bestowed on
+      their estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Drummond-ernoch of James the Sixth's time was a king's forester in the
+      forest of Glenartney, and chanced to be employed there in search of
+      venison about the year 1588, or early in 1589. This forest was adjacent to
+      the chief haunts of the MacGregors, or a particular race of them, known by
+      the title of MacEagh, or Children of the Mist. They considered the
+      forester's hunting in their vicinity as an aggression, or perhaps they had
+      him at feud, for the apprehension or slaughter of some of their own name,
+      or for some similar reason. This tribe of MacGregors were outlawed and
+      persecuted, as the reader may see in the Introduction to ROB ROY; and
+      every man's hand being against them, their hand was of course directed
+      against every man. In short, they surprised and slew Drummond-ernoch, cut
+      off his head, and carried it with them, wrapt in the corner of one of
+      their plaids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the full exultation of vengeance, they stopped at the house of
+      Ardvoirlich and demanded refreshment, which the lady, a sister of the
+      murdered Drummond-ernoch (her husband being absent), was afraid or
+      unwilling to refuse. She caused bread and cheese to be placed before them,
+      and gave directions for more substantial refreshments to be prepared.
+      While she was absent with this hospitable intention, the barbarians placed
+      the head of her brother on the table, filling the mouth with bread and
+      cheese, and bidding him eat, for many a merry meal he had eaten in that
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman returning, and beholding this dreadful sight, shrieked
+      aloud, and fled into the woods, where, as described in the romance, she
+      roamed a raving maniac, and for some time secreted herself from all living
+      society. Some remaining instinctive feeling brought her at length to steal
+      a glance from a distance at the maidens while they milked the cows, which
+      being observed, her husband, Ardvoirlich, had her conveyed back to her
+      home, and detained her there till she gave birth to a child, of whom she
+      had been pregnant; after which she was observed gradually to recover her
+      mental faculties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the outlaws had carried to the utmost their insults against the
+      regal authority, which indeed, as exercised, they had little reason for
+      respecting. They bore the same bloody trophy, which they had so savagely
+      exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich, into the old church of Balquidder,
+      nearly in the centre of their country, where the Laird of MacGregor and
+      all his clan being convened for the purpose, laid their hands successively
+      on the dead man's head, and swore, in heathenish and barbarous manner, to
+      defend the author of the deed. This fierce and vindictive combination gave
+      the author's late and lamented friend, Sir Alexander Boswell, Bart.,
+      subject for a spirited poem, entitled "Clan-Alpin's Vow," which was
+      printed, but not, I believe, published, in 1811 [See Appendix No. I].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fact is ascertained by a proclamation from the Privy Council, dated
+      4th February, 1589, directing letters of fire and sword against the
+      MacGregors [See Appendix No. II]. This fearful commission was executed
+      with uncommon fury. The late excellent John Buchanan of Cambusmore showed
+      the author some correspondence between his ancestor, the Laird of
+      Buchanan, and Lord Drummond, about sweeping certain valleys with their
+      followers, on a fixed time and rendezvous, and "taking sweet revenge for
+      the death of their cousin, Drummond-ernoch." In spite of all, however,
+      that could be done, the devoted tribe of MacGregor still bred up survivors
+      to sustain and to inflict new cruelties and injuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [I embrace the opportunity given me by a second mention of this tribe, to
+      notice an error, which imputes to an individual named Ciar Mohr MacGregor,
+      the slaughter of the students at the battle of Glenfruin. I am informed
+      from the authority of John Gregorson, Esq., that the chieftain so named
+      was dead nearly a century before the battle in question, and could not,
+      therefore, have done the cruel action mentioned. The mistake does not rest
+      with me, as I disclaimed being responsible for the tradition while I
+      quoted it, but with vulgar fame, which is always disposed to ascribe
+      remarkable actions to a remarkable name.&mdash;See the erroneous passage,
+      ROB ROY, Introduction; and so soft sleep the offended phantom of Dugald
+      Ciar Mohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is with mingled pleasure and shame that I record the more important
+      error, of having announced as deceased my learned acquaintance, the Rev.
+      Dr. Grahame, minister of Aberfoil.&mdash;See ROB ROY, p.360. I cannot now
+      recollect the precise ground of my depriving my learned and excellent
+      friend of his existence, unless, like Mr. Kirke, his predecessor in the
+      parish, the excellent Doctor had made a short trip to Fairyland, with
+      whose wonders he is so well acquainted. But however I may have been
+      misled, my regret is most sincere for having spread such a rumour; and no
+      one can be more gratified than I that the report, however I have been
+      induced to credit and give it currency, is a false one, and that Dr.
+      Grahame is still the living pastor of Aberfoil, for the delight and
+      instruction of his brother antiquaries.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Young James Stewart of Ardvoirlich grew up to manhood uncommonly
+      tall, strong, and active, with such power in the grasp of his hand in
+      particular, as could force the blood from beneath the nails of the persons
+      who contended with him in this feat of strength. His temper was moody,
+      fierce, and irascible; yet he must have had some ostensible good
+      qualities, as he was greatly beloved by Lord Kilpont, the eldest son of
+      the Earl of Airth and Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gallant young nobleman joined Montrose in the setting up his standard
+      in 1644, just before the decisive battle at Tippermuir, on the 1st
+      September in that year. At that time, Stewart of Ardvoirlich shared the
+      confidence of the young Lord by day, and his bed by night, when, about
+      four or five days after the battle, Ardvoirlich, either from a fit of
+      sudden fury or deep malice long entertained against his unsuspecting
+      friend, stabbed Lord Kilpont to the heart, and escaped from the camp of
+      Montrose, having killed a sentinel who attempted to detain him. Bishop
+      Guthrie gives us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont
+      had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to assassinate
+      Montrose. But it does not appear that there is any authority for this
+      charge, which rests on mere suspicion. Ardvoirlich, the assassin,
+      certainly did fly to the Covenanters, and was employed and promoted by
+      them. He obtained a pardon for the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, confirmed by
+      Parliament in 1634, and was made Major of Argyle's regiment in 1648. Such
+      are the facts of the tale here given as a Legend of Montrose's wars. The
+      reader will find they are considerably altered in the fictitious
+      narrative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author has endeavoured to enliven the tragedy of the tale by the
+      introduction of a personage proper to the time and country. In this he has
+      been held by excellent judges to have been in some degree successful. The
+      contempt of commerce entertained by young men having some pretence to
+      gentility, the poverty of the country of Scotland, the national
+      disposition to wandering and to adventure, all conduced to lead the Scots
+      abroad into the military service of countries which were at war with each
+      other. They were distinguished on the Continent by their bravery; but in
+      adopting the trade of mercenary soldiers, they necessarily injured their
+      national character. The tincture of learning, which most of them
+      possessed, degenerated into pedantry; their good breeding became mere
+      ceremonial; their fear of dishonour no longer kept them aloof from that
+      which was really unworthy, but was made to depend on certain punctilious
+      observances totally apart from that which was in itself deserving of
+      praise. A cavalier of honour, in search of his fortune, might, for
+      example, change his service as he would his shirt, fight, like the doughty
+      Captain Dalgetty, in one cause after another, without regard to the
+      justice of the quarrel, and might plunder the peasantry subjected to him
+      by the fate of war with the most unrelenting rapacity; but he must beware
+      how he sustained the slightest reproach, even from a clergyman, if it had
+      regard to neglect on the score of duty. The following occurrence will
+      prove the truth of what I mean:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here I must not forget the memory of one preacher, Master William
+      Forbesse, a preacher for souldiers, yea, and a captaine in neede to leade
+      souldiers on a good occasion, being full of courage, with discretion and
+      good conduct, beyond some captaines I have knowne, that were not so
+      capable as he. At this time he not onely prayed for us, but went on with
+      us, to remarke, as I thinke, men's carriage; and having found a sergeant
+      neglecting his dutie and his honour at such a time (whose name I will not
+      expresse), having chidden him, did promise to reveale him unto me, as he
+      did after their service. The sergeant being called before me, and accused,
+      did deny his accusation, alleaging, if he were no pasteur that had
+      alleaged it, he would not lie under the injury, The preacher offered to
+      fight with him, [in proof] that it was truth he had spoken of him;
+      whereupon I cashiered the sergeant, and gave his place to a worthier,
+      called Mungo Gray, a gentleman of good worth, and of much courage. The
+      sergeant being cashiered, never called Master William to account, for
+      which he was evill thought of; so that he retired home, and quit the
+      warres."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The above quotation is taken from a work which the author repeatedly
+      consulted while composing the following sheets, and which is in great
+      measure written in the humour of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. It bears the
+      following formidable title:&mdash;"MONRO his Expedition with the worthy
+      Scots Regiment, called MacKeye's Regiment, levied in August 1626, by Sir
+      Donald MacKeye Lord Rees Colonel, for his Majestie's service of Denmark,
+      and reduced after the battle of Nerling, in September 1634, at Wormes, in
+      the Palz: Discharged in several duties and observations of service, first,
+      under the magnanimous King of Denmark, during his wars against the Empire;
+      afterwards under the invincible King of Sweden, during his Majestie's
+      lifetime; and since under the Director-General, the Rex-Chancellor
+      Oxensterne, and his Generals: collected and gathered together, at spare
+      hours, by Colonel Robert Monro, as First Lieutenant under the said
+      Regiment, to the noble and worthy Captain Thomas MacKenzie of Kildon,
+      brother to the noble Lord, the Lord Earl of Seaforth, for the use of all
+      noble Cavaliers favouring the laudable profession of arms. To which is
+      annexed, the Abridgement of Exercise, and divers Practical Observations
+      for the Younger Officer, his consideration. Ending with the Soldier's
+      Meditations on going on Service."&mdash;London, 1637.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another worthy of the same school, and nearly the same views of the
+      military character, is Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, who rose to
+      considerable rank in the reign of Charles II., had a command in Galloway
+      and Dumfries-shire, for the suppression of conventicles, and was made
+      prisoner by the insurgent Covenanters in that rising which was followed by
+      the battle of Pentland. Sir James is a person even of superior pretensions
+      to Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, having written a Military Treatise on the
+      Pike-Exercise, called "Pallas Armata." Moreover, he was educated at
+      Glasgow College, though he escaped to become an Ensign in the German wars,
+      instead of taking his degree of Master of Arts at that learned seminary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In latter times, he was author of several discourses on historical and
+      literary subjects, from which the Bannatyne Club have extracted and
+      printed such passages as concern his Life and Times, under the title of
+      SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS. From this curious book I extract the following
+      passage, as an example of how Captain Dalgetty might have recorded such an
+      incident had he kept a journal, or, to give it a more just character, it
+      is such as the genius of De Foe would have devised, to give the minute and
+      distinguishing features of truth to a fictitious narrative:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Heere I will set doun ane accident befell me; for thogh it was not a very
+      strange one, yet it was a very od one in all its parts. My tuo brigads lay
+      in a village within halfe a mile of Applebie; my own quarter was in a
+      gentleman's house, ho was a Ritmaster, and at that time with Sir
+      Marmaduke; his wife keepd her chamber readie to be brought to bed. The
+      castle being over, and Lambert farre enough, I resolved to goe to bed
+      everie night, haveing had fatigue enough before. 'The first night I sleepd
+      well enough; and riseing nixt morning, I misd one linnen stockine, one
+      halfe silke one, and one boothose, the accoustrement under a boote for one
+      leg; neither could they be found for any search. Being provided of more of
+      the same kind, I made myselfe reddie, and rode to the head-quarters. At my
+      returne, I could heare no news of my stockins. That night I went to bed,
+      and nixt morning found myselfe just so used; missing the three stockins
+      for one leg onlie, the other three being left intire as they were the day
+      before. A narrower search then the first was made, bot without successe. I
+      had yet in reserve one paire of whole stockings, and a paire of boothose,
+      greater then the former. These I put on my legs. The third morning I found
+      the same usage, the stockins for one leg onlie left me. It was time for me
+      then, and my servants too, to imagine it must be rats that had shard my
+      stockins so inequallie with me; and this the mistress of the house knew
+      well enough, but would not tell it me. The roome, which was a low parlour,
+      being well searched with candles, the top of my great boothose was found
+      at a hole, in which they had drawne all the rest. I went abroad and
+      ordered the boards to be raised, to see how the rats had disposed of my
+      moveables. The mistress sent a servant of her oune to be present at this
+      action, which she knew concerned her. One board being bot a litle opend, a
+      litle boy of mine thrust in his hand, and fetchd with him foure and
+      tuentie old peeces of gold, and one angell. The servant of the house
+      affirmed it appertained to his mistres. The boy bringing the gold to me, I
+      went immediatlie to the gentlewomans chamber, and told her, it was
+      probable Lambert haveing quarterd in that house, as indeed he had, some of
+      his servants might have hid that gold; and if so, it was lawfullie mine;
+      bot if she could make it appeare it belongd to her, I should immediatlie
+      give it her. The poore gentlewoman told me with many teares, that her
+      husband being none of the frugallest men (and indeed he was a
+      spendthrift), she had hid that gold without his, knowledge, to make use of
+      it as she had occasion, especiallie when she lay in; and conjured me, as I
+      lovd the King (for whom her husband and she had suffered much), not to
+      detaine her gold. She said, if there was either more or lesse then foure
+      and tuentie whole peeces, and two halfe ones, it sould be none of hers;
+      and that they were put by her in a red velvet purse. After I had given her
+      assureance of her gold, a new search is made, the other angell is found,
+      the velvet purse all gnawd in bits, as my stockins were, and the gold
+      instantlie restord to the gentlewoman. I have often heard that the eating
+      or gnawing of cloths by rats is ominous, and portends some mischance to
+      fall on those to whom the cloths belong. I thank God I was never addicted
+      to such divinations, or heeded them. It is true, that more misfortunes
+      then one fell on me shortlie after; bot I am sure I could have better
+      forseene them myselfe then rats or any such vermine, and yet did it not. I
+      have heard indeed many fine stories told of rats, how they abandon houses
+      and ships, when the first are to be burnt and the second dround.
+      Naturalists say they are very sagacious creatures, and I beleeve they are
+      so; bot I shall never be of the opinion they can forsee future
+      contingencies, which I suppose the divell himselfe can neither forknow nor
+      fortell; these being things which the Almightie hath keepd hidden in the
+      bosome of his divine prescience. And whither the great God hath
+      preordained or predestinated these things, which to us are contingent, to
+      fall out by ane uncontrollable and unavoidable necessitie, is a question
+      not yet decided." [SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS, Bannatyne edition, p. 59.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more modern
+      sketch of a Scottish soldier of the old fashion, by a masterhand, in the
+      character of Lesmahagow, since the existence of that doughty Captain alone
+      must deprive the present author of all claim to absolute originality.
+      Still Dalgetty, as the production of his own fancy, has been so far a
+      favourite with its parent, that he has fallen into the error of assigning
+      to the Captain too prominent a part in the story. This is the opinion of a
+      critic who encamps on the highest pinnacles of literature; and the author
+      is so far fortunate in having incurred his censure, that it gives his
+      modesty a decent apology for quoting the praise, which it would have
+      ill-befited him to bring forward in an unmingled state. The passage occurs
+      in the EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 55, containing a criticism on IVANHOE:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is too much, perhaps, of Dalgetty,&mdash;or, rather, he engrosses
+      too great a proportion of the work,&mdash;for, in himself, we think he is
+      uniformly entertaining;&mdash;and the author has nowhere shown more
+      affinity to that matchless spirit who could bring out his Falstaffs and
+      his Pistols, in act after act, and play after play, and exercise them
+      every time with scenes of unbounded loquacity, without either exhausting
+      their humour, or varying a note from its characteristic tone, than in his
+      large and reiterated specimens of the eloquence of the redoubted
+      Ritt-master. The general idea of the character is familiar to our comic
+      dramatists after the Restoration&mdash;and may be said in some measure to
+      be compounded of Captain Fluellen and Bobadil;&mdash;but the ludicrous
+      combination of the SOLDADO with the Divinity student of Mareschal-College,
+      is entirely original; and the mixture of talent, selfishness, courage,
+      coarseness, and conceit, was never so happily exemplified. Numerous as his
+      speeches are, there is not one that is not characteristic&mdash;and, to
+      our taste, divertingly ludicrous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      POSTSCRIPT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these pages were passing through the press, the author received a
+      letter from the present Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich, favouring him with
+      the account of the unhappy slaughter of Lord Kilpont, differing from, and
+      more probable than, that given by Bishop Wishart, whose narrative infers
+      either insanity or the blackest treachery on the part of James Stewart of
+      Ardvoirlich, the ancestor of the present family of that name. It is but
+      fair to give the entire communication as received from my respected
+      correspondent, which is more minute than the histories of the period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Although I have not the honour of being personally known to you, I hope
+      you will excuse the liberty I now take, in addressing you on the subject
+      of a transaction more than once alluded to by you, in which an ancestor of
+      mine was unhappily concerned. I allude to the slaughter of Lord Kilpont,
+      son of the Earl of Airth and Monteith, in 1644, by James Stewart of
+      Ardvoirlich. As the cause of this unhappy event, and the quarrel which led
+      to it, have never been correctly stated in any history of the period in
+      which it took place, I am induced, in consequence of your having, in the
+      second series of your admirable Tales on the History of Scotland, adopted
+      Wishart's version of the transaction, and being aware that your having
+      done so will stamp it with an authenticity which it does not merit, and
+      with a view, as far as possible, to do justice to the memory of my
+      unfortunate ancestor, to send you the account of this affair as it has
+      been handed down in the family.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
+      <img src="images/0681m.jpg" alt="0681m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0681.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      "James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who lived in the early part of the 17th
+      century, and who was the unlucky cause of the slaughter of Lord Kilpont,
+      as before mentioned, was appointed to the command of one of several
+      independent companies raised in the Highlands at the commencement of the
+      troubles in the reign of Charles I.; another of these companies was under
+      the command of Lord Kilpont, and a strong intimacy, strengthened by a
+      distant relationship, subsisted between them. When Montrose raised the
+      royal standard, Ardvoirlich was one of the first to declare for him, and
+      is said to have been a principal means of bringing over Lord Kilpont to
+      the same cause; and they accordingly, along with Sir John Drummond and
+      their respective followers, joined Montrose, as recorded by Wishart, at
+      Buchanty. While they served together, so strong was their intimacy, that
+      they lived and slept in the same tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the meantime, Montrose had been joined by the Irish under the command
+      of Alexander Macdonald; these, on their march to join Montrose, had
+      committed some excesses on lands belonging to Ardvoirlich, which lay in
+      the line of their march from the west coast. Of this Ardvoirlich
+      complained to Montrose, who, probably wishing as much as possible to
+      conciliate his new allies, treated it in rather an evasive manner.
+      Ardvoirlich, who was a man of violent passions, having failed to receive
+      such satisfaction as he required, challenged Macdonald to single combat.
+      Before they met, however, Montrose, on the information and by advice, as
+      it is said, of Kilpont, laid them both under arrest. Montrose, seeing the
+      evils of such a feud at such a critical time, effected a sort of
+      reconciliation between them, and forced them to shake hands in his
+      presence; when, it was said, that Ardvoirlich, who was a very powerful
+      man, took such a hold of Macdonald's hand as to make the blood start from
+      his fingers. Still, it would appear, Ardvoirlich was by no means
+      reconciled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A few days after the battle of Tippermuir, when Montrose with his army
+      was encamped at Collace, an entertainment was given by him to his
+      officers, in honour of the victory he had obtained, and Kilpont and his
+      comrade Ardvoirlich were of the party. After returning to their quarters,
+      Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to brood over his quarrel with Macdonald,
+      and being heated with drink, began to blame Lord Kilpont for the part he
+      had taken in preventing his obtaining redress, and reflecting against
+      Montrose for not allowing him what he considered proper reparation.
+      Kilpont of course defended the conduct of himself and his relative
+      Montrose, till their argument came to high words; and finally, from the
+      state they were both in, by an easy transition, to blows, when
+      Ardvoirlich, with his dirk, struck Kilpont dead on the spot. He
+      immediately fled, and under the cover of a thick mist escaped pursuit,
+      leaving his eldest son Henry, who had been mortally wounded at Tippermuir,
+      on his deathbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His followers immediately withdrew from Montrose, and no course remained
+      for him but to throw himself into the arms of the opposite faction, by
+      whom he was well received. His name is frequently mentioned in Leslie's
+      campaigns, and on more than one occasion he is mentioned as having
+      afforded protection to several of his former friends through his interest
+      with Leslie, when the King's cause became desperate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The foregoing account of this unfortunate transaction, I am well aware,
+      differs materially from the account given by Wishart, who alleges that
+      Stewart had laid a plot for the assassination of Montrose, and that he
+      murdered Lord Kilpont in consequence of his refusal to participate in his
+      design. Now, I may be allowed to remark, that besides Wishart having
+      always been regarded as a partial historian, and very questionable
+      authority on any subject connected with the motives or conduct of those
+      who differed from him in opinion, that even had Stewart formed such a
+      design, Kilpont, from his name and connexions, was likely to be the very
+      last man of whom Stewart would choose to make a confidant and accomplice.
+      On the other hand, the above account, though never, that I am aware,
+      before hinted at, has been a constant tradition in the family; and, from
+      the comparative recent date of the transaction, and the sources from which
+      the tradition has been derived, I have no reason to doubt its perfect
+      authenticity. It was most circumstantially detailed as above, given to my
+      father, Mr. Stewart, now of Ardvoirlich, many years ago, by a man nearly
+      connected with the family, who lived to the age of 100. This man was a
+      great-grandson of James Stewart, by a natural son John, of whom many
+      stories are still current in this country, under his appellation of JOHN
+      DHU MHOR. This John was with his father at the time, and of course was a
+      witness of the whole transaction; he lived till a considerable time after
+      the Revolution, and it was from him that my father's informant, who was a
+      man before his grandfather, John dhu Mhor's death, received the
+      information as above stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have many apologies to offer for trespassing so long on your patience;
+      but I felt a natural desire, if possible, to correct what I conceive to be
+      a groundless imputation on the memory of my ancestor, before it shall come
+      to be considered as a matter of History. That he was a man of violent
+      passions and singular temper, I do not pretend to deny, as many traditions
+      still current in this country amply verify; but that he was capable of
+      forming a design to assassinate Montrose, the whole tenor of his former
+      conduct and principles contradict. That he was obliged to join the
+      opposite party, was merely a matter of safety, while Kilpont had so many
+      powerful friends and connexions able and ready to avenge his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make what use of
+      this communication you please, and either to reject it altogether, or
+      allow it such credit as you think it deserves; and I shall be ready at all
+      times to furnish you with any further information on this subject which
+      you may require, and which it may be in my power to afford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "ARDVOIRLICH, 15TH JANUARY, 1830."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so correct, is
+      a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the victim, it would seem, of
+      his own violent passions, but perhaps incapable of an act of premeditated
+      treachery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ABBOTSFORD, 1ST AUGUST, 1830. <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement).
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant More M'Alpin was, during his residence among us, one of the most
+      honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh. No one thought of disputing his
+      title to the great leathern chair on the "cosiest side of the chimney," in
+      the common room of the Wallace Arms, on a Saturday evening. No less would
+      our sexton, John Duirward, have held it an unlicensed intrusion, to suffer
+      any one to induct himself into the corner of the left-hand pew nearest to
+      the pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly occupied on Sundays. There he
+      sat, his blue invalid uniform brushed with the most scrupulous accuracy.
+      Two medals of merit displayed at his button-hole, as well as the empty
+      sleeve which should have been occupied by his right arm, bore evidence of
+      his hard and honourable service. His weatherbeaten features, his grey hair
+      tied in a thin queue in the military fashion of former days, and the right
+      side of his head a little turned up, the better to catch the sound of the
+      clergyman's voice, were all marks of his profession and infirmities.
+      Beside him sat his sister Janet, a little neat old woman, with a Highland
+      curch and tartan plaid, watching the very looks of her brother, to her the
+      greatest man upon earth, and actively looking out for him, in his
+      silver-clasped Bible, the texts which the minister quoted or expounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe it was the respect that was universally paid to this worthy
+      veteran by all ranks in Gandercleugh which induced him to choose our
+      village for his residence, for such was by no means his original
+      intention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had risen to the rank of sergeant-major of artillery, by hard service
+      in various quarters of the world, and was reckoned one of the most tried
+      and trusty men of the Scotch Train. A ball, which shattered his arm in a
+      peninsular campaign, at length procured him an honourable discharge. with
+      an allowance from Chelsea, and a handsome gratuity from the patriotic
+      fund. Moreover, Sergeant More M'Alpin had been prudent as well as valiant;
+      and, from prize-money and savings, had become master of a small sum in the
+      three per cent consols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He retired with the purpose of enjoying this income in the wild Highland
+      glen, in which, when a boy, he had herded black cattle and goats, ere the
+      roll of the drum had made him cock his bonnet an inch higher, and follow
+      its music for nearly forty years. To his recollection, this retired spot
+      was unparalleled in beauty by the richest scenes he had visited in his
+      wanderings. Even the Happy Valley of Rasselas would have sunk into nothing
+      upon the comparison. He came&mdash;he revisited the loved scene; it was
+      but a sterile glen, surrounded with rude crags, and traversed by a
+      northern torrent. This was not the worst. The fires had been quenched upon
+      thirty hearths&mdash;of the cottage of his fathers he could but
+      distinguish a few rude stones&mdash;the language was almost extinguished&mdash;the
+      ancient race from which he boasted his descent had found a refuge beyond
+      the Atlantic. One southland farmer, three grey-plaided shepherds, and six
+      dogs, now tenanted the whole glen, which in his youth had maintained, in
+      content, if not in competence, upwards of two hundred inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the house of the new tenant, Sergeant M'Alpin found, however, an
+      unexpected source of pleasure, and a means of employing his social
+      affections. His sister Janet had fortunately entertained so strong a
+      persuasion that her brother would one day return, that she had refused to
+      accompany her kinsfolk upon their emigration. Nay, she had consented,
+      though not without a feeling of degradation, to take service with the
+      intruding Lowlander, who, though a Saxon, she said, had proved a kind man
+      to her. This unexpected meeting with his sister seemed a cure for all the
+      disappointments which it had been Sergeant More's lot to encounter,
+      although it was not without a reluctant tear that he heard told, as a
+      Highland woman alone could ten it, the story of the expatriation of his
+      kinsmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She narrated at great length the vain offers they had made of advanced
+      rent, the payment of which must have reduced them to the extremity of
+      poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for permission to live and
+      die on their native soil. Nor did Janet forget the portents which had
+      announced the departure of the Celtic race, and the arrival of the
+      strangers. For two years previous to the emigration, when the night wind
+      howled dawn the pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled to
+      the tune of "HA TIL MI TULIDH" (we return no more), with which the
+      emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores. The uncouth cries
+      of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of their dogs, were often
+      heard in the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival. A bard,
+      the last of his race, had commemorated the expulsion of the natives of the
+      glen in a tune, which brought tears into the aged eyes of the veteran, and
+      of which the first stanza may be thus rendered:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander,
+     Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border?
+     Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander,
+     Wasting the glen that was once in fair order?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      What added to Sergeant More M'Alpin's distress upon the occasion was, that
+      the chief by whom this change had been effected, was, by tradition and
+      common opinion, held to represent the ancient leaders and fathers of the
+      expelled fugitives; and it had hitherto been one of Sergeant More's
+      principal subjects of pride to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what
+      degree of kindred he stood to this personage. A woful change was now
+      wrought in his sentiments towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot curse him," he said, as he rose and strode through the room,
+      when Janet's narrative was finished&mdash;"I will not curse him; he is the
+      descendant and representative of my fathers. But never shall mortal man
+      hear me name his name again." And he kept his word; for, until his dying
+      day, no man heard him mention his selfish and hard-hearted chieftain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After giving a day to sad recollections, the hardy spirit which had
+      carried him through so many dangers, manned the Sergeant's bosom against
+      this cruel disappointment. "He would go," he said, "to Canada to his
+      kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic valley after the glen of
+      their fathers. Janet," he said, "should kilt her coats like a leaguer
+      lady; d&mdash;n the distance! it was a flea's leap to the voyages and
+      marches he had made on a slighter occasion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this purpose he left the Highlands, and came with his sister as far
+      as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage to Canada. But
+      winter was now set in, and as he thought it advisable to wait for a spring
+      passage, when the St. Lawrence should be open, he settled among us for the
+      few months of his stay in Britain. As we said before, the respectable old
+      man met with deference and attention from all ranks of society; and when
+      spring returned, he was so satisfied with his quarters, that he did not
+      renew the purpose of his voyage. Janet was afraid of the sea, and he
+      himself felt the infirmities of age and hard service more than he had at
+      first expected. And, as he confessed to the clergyman, and my worthy
+      principal, Mr. Cleishbotham, "it was better staying with kend friends,
+      than going farther, and faring worse."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He therefore established himself and his domicile at Gandercleugh, to the
+      great satisfaction, as we have already said, of all its inhabitants, to
+      whom he became, in respect of military intelligence, and able commentaries
+      upon the newspapers, gazettes, and bulletins, a very oracle, explanatory
+      of all martial events, past, present, or to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, the Sergeant had his inconsistencies. He was a steady
+      jacobite, his father and his four uncles having been out in the
+      forty-five; but he was a no less steady adherent of King George, in whose
+      service he had made his little fortune, and lost three brothers; so that
+      you were in equal danger to displease him, in terming Prince Charles, the
+      Pretender, or by saying anything derogatory to the dignity of King George.
+      Further, it must not be denied, that when the day of receiving his
+      dividends came round, the Sergeant was apt to tarry longer at the Wallace
+      Arms of an evening, than was consistent with strict temperance, or indeed
+      with his worldly interest; for upon these occasions, his compotators
+      sometimes contrived to flatter his partialities by singing jacobite songs,
+      and drinking confusion to Bonaparte, and the health of the Duke of
+      Wellington, until the Sergeant was not only flattered into paying the
+      whole reckoning, but occasionally induced to lend small sums to his
+      interested companions. After such sprays, as he called them, were over,
+      and his temper once more cool, he seldom failed to thank God, and the Duke
+      of York, who had made it much more difficult for an old soldier to ruin
+      himself by his folly, than had been the case in his younger days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not on such occasions that I made a part of Sergeant More M'Alpin's
+      society. But often, when my leisure would permit, I used to seek him, on
+      what he called his morning and evening parade, on which, when the weather
+      was fair, he appeared as regularly as if summoned by tuck of drum. His
+      morning walk was beneath the elms in the churchyard; "for death," he said,
+      "had been his next-door neighbour for so many years, that he had no
+      apology for dropping the acquaintance." His evening promenade was on the
+      bleaching-green by the river-side, where he was sometimes to be seen on an
+      open bench, with spectacles on nose, conning over the newspapers to a
+      circle of village politicians, explaining military terms, and aiding the
+      comprehension of his hearers by lines drawn on the ground with the end of
+      his rattan. On other occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of
+      school-boys, whom he sometimes drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with
+      less approbation on the part of their parents, instructed in the mystery
+      of artificial fire-works; for in the case of public rejoicings, the
+      Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as the Encyclopedia calls it) to the village of
+      Gandercleugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the veteran.
+      And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath, overshadowed by the
+      row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his upright form advancing
+      towards me with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me the
+      military salute&mdash;but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
+      under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
+      corner of the churchyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The delight which I had in Sergeant M'Alpin's conversation, related not
+      only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the course
+      of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous Highland
+      traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his parents, and of
+      which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of heresy to question
+      the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars of Montrose, in which
+      some of the Sergeant's ancestry had, it seems, taken a distinguished part.
+      It has happened, that, although these civil commotions reflect the highest
+      honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed the first occasion upon which
+      they showed themselves superior, or even equal to their Low-country
+      neighbours in military encounters, they have been less commemorated among
+      them than any one would have expected, judging from the abundance of
+      traditions which they have preserved upon less interesting subjects. It
+      was, therefore, with great pleasure, that I extracted from my military
+      friend some curious particulars respecting that time; they are mixed with
+      that measure of the wild and wonderful which belongs to the period and the
+      narrator, but which I do not in the least object to the reader's treating
+      with disbelief, providing he will be so good as to give implicit credit to
+      the natural events of the story, which, like all those which I have had
+      the honour to put under his notice, actually rest upon a basis of truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Such as do build their faith upon
+     The holy text of pike and gun,
+     Decide all controversies by
+     Infallible artillery,
+     And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+     By apostolic blows and knocks.&mdash;BUTLER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which agitated
+      Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale has its
+      commencement. Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of
+      intestine war, although its inhabitants were much divided in political
+      opinions; and many of them, tired of the control of the Estates of
+      Parliament, and disapproving of the bold measure which they had adopted,
+      by sending into England a large army to the assistance of the Parliament,
+      were determined on their part to embrace the earliest opportunity of
+      declaring for the King, and making such a diversion as should at least
+      compel the recall of General Leslie's army out of England, if it did not
+      recover a great part of Scotland to the King's allegiance. This plan was
+      chiefly adopted by the northern nobility, who had resisted with great
+      obstinacy the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant, and by many of
+      the chiefs of the Highland clans, who conceived their interest and
+      authority to be connected with royalty, who had, besides, a decided
+      aversion to the Presbyterian form of religion, and who, finally, were in
+      that half savage state of society, in which war is always more welcome
+      than peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these concurrent
+      causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation, which the Scotch
+      Highlanders at all times exercised upon the Lowlands, began to assume a
+      more steady, avowed, and systematic form, as part of a general military
+      system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of the
+      moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel it. They
+      considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader or name of
+      consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of royalists, or even
+      to direct the efforts of those desultory bands, whom love of plunder,
+      perhaps, as much as political principle, had hurried into measures of
+      hostility. It was generally hoped that the quartering a sufficient number
+      of troops in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland line, would have the
+      effect of restraining the mountain chieftains; while the power of various
+      barons in the north, who had espoused the Covenant, as, for example, the
+      Earl Mareschal, the great families of Forbes, Leslie, and Irvine, the
+      Grants, and other Presbyterian clans, might counterbalance and bridle, not
+      only the strength of the Ogilvies and other cavaliers of Angus and
+      Kincardine, but even the potent family of the Gordons, whose extensive
+      authority was only equalled by their extreme dislike to the Presbyterian
+      model.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but the
+      power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken, and the spirit
+      of their chieftains intimidated, by the predominating influence of the
+      Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the confidence of the Convention of Estates
+      was reposed with the utmost security; and whose power in the Highlands,
+      already exorbitant, had been still farther increased by concessions
+      extorted from the King at the last pacification. It was indeed well known
+      that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise than personal
+      courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue of state, than to
+      control the tribes of hostile mountaineers; yet the numbers of his clan,
+      and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it was led, might, it was
+      supposed, atone for the personal deficiencies of their chief; and as the
+      Campbells had already severely humbled several of the neighbouring tribes,
+      it was supposed these would not readily again provoke an encounter with a
+      body so powerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,
+      indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,&mdash;Fifeshire being in a
+      peculiar manner their own, and possessing many and powerful friends even
+      north of the Forth and Tay,&mdash;the Scottish Convention of Estates saw
+      no danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had
+      adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the English
+      Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means of which
+      accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the defensive,
+      when in full career of triumph and success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The causes which moved the Convention of Estates at this time to take such
+      an immediate and active interest in the civil war of England, are detailed
+      in our historians, but may be here shortly recapitulated. They had indeed
+      no new injury or aggression to complain of at the hand of the King, and
+      the peace which had been made between Charles and his subjects of Scotland
+      had been carefully observed; but the Scottish rulers were well aware that
+      this peace had been extorted from the King, as well by the influence of
+      the parliamentary party in England, as by the terror of their own arms. It
+      is true, King Charles had since then visited the capital of his ancient
+      kingdom, had assented to the new organization of the church, and had
+      distributed honours and rewards among the leaders of the party which had
+      shown themselves most hostile to his interests; but it was suspected that
+      distinctions so unwillingly conferred would be resumed as soon as
+      opportunity offered. The low state of the English Parliament was seen in
+      Scotland with deep apprehension; and it was concluded, that should Charles
+      triumph by force of arms against his insurgent subjects of England, he
+      would not be long in exacting from the Scotch the vengeance which he might
+      suppose due to those who had set the example of taking up arms against
+      him. Such was the policy of the measure which dictated the sending the
+      auxiliary army into England; and it was avowed in a manifesto explanatory
+      of their reasons for giving this timely and important aid to the English
+      Parliament. The English Parliament, they said, had been already friendly
+      to them, and might be so again; whereas the King, although he had so
+      lately established religion among them according to their desires, had
+      given them no ground to confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had
+      found his promises and actions inconsistent with each other. "Our
+      conscience," they concluded, "and God, who is greater than our conscience,
+      beareth us record, that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of
+      both nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing in a
+      legal way, those who are the troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell,
+      the Korahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the
+      Tobiahs, the Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither
+      have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean for
+      compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which we could
+      think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us, ULTIMUM ET UNICUM
+      REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party is
+      justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion that, in certain
+      future contingencies, it might be infringed by the other, we shall proceed
+      to mention two other circumstances that had at least equal influence with
+      the Scottish rulers and nation, with any doubts which they entertained of
+      the King's good faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first of these was the nature and condition of their army; headed by a
+      poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was officered chiefly by
+      Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served in the German wars until they
+      had lost almost all distinction of political principle, and even of
+      country, in the adoption of the mercenary faith, that a soldier's
+      principal duty was fidelity to the state or sovereign from whom he
+      received his pay, without respect either to the justice of the quarrel, or
+      to their own connexion with either of the contending parties. To men of
+      this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character&mdash;NULLUM VITAE GENUS
+      ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE CONDUCTI,
+      MILITANT. To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to the needy gentry with
+      whom they were mixed in command, and who easily imbibed the same opinions,
+      the success of the late short invasion of England in 1641 was a sufficient
+      reason for renewing so profitable an experiment. The good pay and free
+      quarters of England had made a feeling impression upon the recollection of
+      these military adventurers, and the prospect of again levying eight
+      hundred and fifty pounds a-day, came in place of all arguments, whether of
+      state or of morality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another cause inflamed the minds of the nation at large, no less than the
+      tempting prospect of the wealth of England animated the soldiery. So much
+      had been written and said on either side concerning the form of church
+      government, that it had become a matter of infinitely more consequence in
+      the eyes of the multitude than the doctrines of that gospel which both
+      churches had embraced. The Prelatists and Presbyterians of the more
+      violent kind became as illiberal as the Papists, and would scarcely allow
+      the possibility of salvation beyond the pale of their respective churches.
+      It was in vain remarked to these zealots, that had the Author of our holy
+      religion considered any peculiar form of church government as essential to
+      salvation, it would have been revealed with the same precision as under
+      the Old Testament dispensation. Both parties continued as violent as if
+      they could have pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to justify their
+      intolerance, Laud, in the days of his domination, had fired the train, by
+      attempting to impose upon the Scottish people church ceremonies foreign to
+      their habits and opinions. The success with which this had been resisted,
+      and the Presbyterian model substituted in its place, had endeared the
+      latter to the nation, as the cause in which they had triumphed. The Solemn
+      League and Covenant, adopted with such zeal by the greater part of the
+      kingdom, and by them forced, at the sword's point, upon the others, bore
+      in its bosom, as its principal object, the establishing the doctrine and
+      discipline of the Presbyterian church, and the putting down all error and
+      heresy; and having attained for their own country an establishment of this
+      golden candlestick, the Scots became liberally and fraternally anxious to
+      erect the same in England. This they conceived might be easily attained by
+      lending to the Parliament the effectual assistance of the Scottish forces.
+      The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in the English
+      Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the King; while
+      the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards, under Cromwell,
+      resumed the power of the sword, and overset the Presbyterian model both in
+      Scotland and England, were as yet contented to lurk under the shelter of
+      the wealthier and more powerful party. The prospect of bringing to a
+      uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in discipline and worship,
+      seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The celebrated Sir Henry Vane, one of the commissioners who negotiated the
+      alliance betwixt England and Scotland, saw the influence which this bait
+      had upon the spirits of those with whom he dealt; and although himself a
+      violent Independent, he contrived at once to gratify and to elude the
+      eager desires of the Presbyterians, by qualifying the obligation to reform
+      the Church of England, as a change to be executed "according to the word
+      of God, and the best reformed churches." Deceived by their own eagerness,
+      themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS DIVINUM of their own
+      ecclesiastical establishments, and not holding it possible such doubts
+      could be adopted by others, the Convention of Estates and the Kirk of
+      Scotland conceived, that such expressions necessarily inferred the
+      establishment of Presbytery; nor were they undeceived, until, when their
+      help was no longer needful, the sectaries gave them to understand, that
+      the phrase might be as well applied to Independency, or any other mode of
+      worship, which those who were at the head of affairs at the time might
+      consider as agreeable "to the word of God, and the practice of the
+      reformed churches." Neither were the outwitted Scottish less astonished to
+      find, that the designs of the English sectaries struck against the
+      monarchial constitution of Britain, it having been their intention to
+      reduce the power of the King, but by no means to abrogate the office. They
+      fared, however, in this respect, like rash physicians, who commence by
+      over-physicking a patient, until he is reduced to a state of weakness,
+      from which cordials are afterwards unable to recover him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the Scottish
+      Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice,
+      prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to
+      their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax
+      and Manchester, enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to
+      fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert
+      and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated. The Scottish auxiliaries,
+      indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen could
+      desire. David Leslie, with their cavalry, fought bravely, and to them, as
+      well as to Cromwell's brigade of Independents, the honour of the day
+      belonged; but the old Earl of Leven, the covenanting general, was driven
+      out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert, and was thirty
+      miles distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he was overtaken by
+      the news that his party had gained a complete victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The absence of these auxiliary troops, upon this crusade for the
+      establishment of Presbyterianism in England, had considerably diminished
+      the power of the Convention of Estates in Scotland, and had given rise to
+      those agitations among the anti-covenanters, which we have noticed at the
+      beginning of this chapter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     His mother could for him as cradle set
+     Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
+     Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,
+     That never plain'd of his uneasy nest;
+     Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,
+     And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.&mdash;HALL'S SATIRES
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was towards the close of a summer's evening, during the anxious period
+      which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman of quality, well
+      mounted and armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom led a
+      sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep passes, by which the
+      Highlands are accessible from the Lowlands of Perthshire. [The beautiful
+      pass of Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects, answer
+      this description.] Their course had lain for some time along the banks of
+      a lake, whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the western sun.
+      The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty, was in some
+      places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees, and in others overhung by
+      fragments of huge rock. Elsewhere, the hill, which formed the northern
+      side of this beautiful sheet of water, arose in steep, but less
+      precipitous acclivity, and was arrayed in heath of the darkest purple. In
+      the present times, a scene so romantic would have been judged to possess
+      the highest charms for the traveller; but those who journey in days of
+      doubt and dread, pay little attention to picturesque scenery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one or both of
+      his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with them, probably
+      because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who are
+      made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions of the leading men
+      who inhabit this wild country, and the probability of their taking part in
+      the political convulsions that were soon expected, were the subjects of
+      their conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young gentleman
+      was pointing to his attendants the spot where their intended road turned
+      northwards, and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a ravine to the
+      right hand, when they discovered a single horseman coming down the shore,
+      as if to meet them. The gleam of the sunbeams upon his head-piece and
+      corslet showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of the other
+      travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned. "We must know
+      who he is," said the young gentleman, "and whither he is going." And
+      putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the rugged state of
+      the road would permit, followed by his two attendants, until he reached
+      the point where the pass along the side of the lake was intersected by
+      that which descended from the ravine, securing thus against the
+      possibility of the stranger eluding them, by turning into the latter road
+      before they came up with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed the three
+      riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw them halt and form a
+      front, which completely occupied the path, he checked his horse, and
+      advanced with great deliberation; so that each party had an opportunity to
+      take a full survey of the other. The solitary stranger was mounted upon an
+      able horse, fit for military service, and for the great weight which he
+      had to carry, and his rider occupied his demipique, or war-saddle, with an
+      air that showed it was his familiar seat. He had a bright burnished
+      head-piece, with a plume of feathers, together with a cuirass, thick
+      enough to resist a musket-ball, and a back-piece of lighter materials.
+      These defensive arms he wore over a buff jerkin, along with a pair of
+      gauntlets, or steel gloves, the tops of which reached up to his elbow, and
+      which, like the rest of his armour, were of bright steel. At the front of
+      his military saddle hung a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size,
+      nearly two feet in length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the pound. A
+      buff belt, with a broad silver buckle, sustained on one side a long
+      straight double-edged broadsword, with a strong guard, and a blade
+      calculated either to strike or push. On the right side hung a dagger of
+      about eighteen inches in length; a shoulder-belt sustained at his back a
+      musketoon or blunderbuss, and was crossed by a bandelier containing his
+      charges of ammunition. Thigh-pieces of steel, then termed taslets, met the
+      tops of his huge jack-boots, and completed the equipage of a well-armed
+      trooper of the period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The appearance of the horseman himself corresponded well with his military
+      equipage, to which he had the air of having been long inured. He was above
+      the middle size, and of strength sufficient to bear with ease the weight
+      of his weapons, offensive and defensive. His age might be forty and
+      upwards, and his countenance was that of a resolute weather-beaten
+      veteran, who had seen many fields, and brought away in token more than one
+      scar. At the distance of about thirty yards he halted and stood fast,
+      raised himself on his stirrups, as if to reconnoitre and ascertain the
+      purpose of the opposite party, and brought his musketoon under his right
+      arm, ready for use, if occasion should require it. In everything but
+      numbers, he had the advantage of those who seemed inclined to interrupt
+      his passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leader of the party was, indeed, well mounted and clad in a buff coat,
+      richly embroidered, the half-military dress of the period; but his
+      domestics had only coarse jackets of thick felt, which could scarce be
+      expected to turn the edge of a sword, if wielded by a strong man; and none
+      of them had any weapons, save swords and pistols, without which gentlemen,
+      or their attendants, during those disturbed times, seldom stirred abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had stood at gaze for about a minute, the younger gentleman gave
+      the challenge which was then common in the mouth of all strangers who met
+      in such circumstances&mdash;"For whom are you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Tell me first," answered the soldier, "for whom are you?&mdash;the
+      strongest party should speak first."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are for God and King Charles," answered the first speaker.&mdash;"Now
+      tell your faction, you know ours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am for God and my standard," answered the single horseman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And for which standard?" replied the chief of the other party&mdash;"Cavalier
+      or Roundhead, King or Convention?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By my troth, sir," answered the soldier, "I would be loath to reply to
+      you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of fortune and a
+      soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming veracity, it is necessary
+      I should myself have resolved to whilk of the present divisions of the
+      kingdom I shall ultimately adhere, being a matter whereon my mind is not
+      as yet preceesely ascertained."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should have thought," answered the gentleman, "that, when loyalty and
+      religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be long in
+      choosing his party."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly, sir," replied the trooper, "if ye speak this in the way of
+      vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would
+      blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my single
+      person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of logical
+      ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the Mareschal-College
+      of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye LOGICE, that my resolution to
+      defer, for a certain season, the taking upon me either of these quarrels,
+      not only becometh me as a gentleman and a man of honour, but also as a
+      person of sense and prudence, one imbued with humane letters in his early
+      youth, and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars under the banner
+      of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and under many other
+      heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist, Papist and Arminian."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger gentleman
+      replied, "I should be glad, sir, to have some conversation with you upon
+      so interesting a question, and should be proud if I can determine you in
+      favour of the cause I have myself espoused. I ride this evening to a
+      friend's house not three miles distant, whither, if you choose to
+      accompany me, you shall have good quarters for the night, and free
+      permission to take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no
+      inclination to join with us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose word am I to take for this?" answered the cautious soldier&mdash;"A
+      man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am called," answered the younger stranger, "the Earl of Menteith, and,
+      I trust, you will receive my honour as a sufficient security."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A worthy nobleman," answered the soldier, "whose parole is not to be
+      doubted." With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his back, and with
+      another made his military salute to the young nobleman, and continuing to
+      talk as he rode forward to join him&mdash;"And, I trust," said he, "my own
+      assurance, that I will be BON CAMARADO to your lordship in peace or in
+      peril, during the time we shall abide together, will not be altogether
+      vilipended in these doubtful times, when, as they say, a man's head is
+      safer in a steel-cap than in a marble palace."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I assure you, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that to judge from your
+      appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort; but, I
+      trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of valour, as I expect
+      to conduct you to good and friendly quarters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good quarters, my lord," replied the soldier, "are always acceptable, and
+      are only to be postponed to good pay or good booty,&mdash;not to mention
+      the honour of a cavalier, or the needful points of commanded duty. And
+      truly, my lord, your noble proffer is not the less welcome, in that I knew
+      not preceesely this night where I and my poor companion" (patting his
+      horse), "were to find lodgments."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I be permitted to ask, then," said Lord Menteith, "to whom I have the
+      good fortune to stand quarter-master?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly, my lord," said the trooper, "my name is Dalgetty&mdash;Dugald
+      Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your honourable
+      service to command. It is a name you may have seen in GALLO BELGICUS, the
+      SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High Dutch, in the FLIEGENDEN
+      MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord, having by unthrifty courses
+      reduced a fair patrimony to a nonentity, I had no better shift, when I was
+      eighteen years auld, than to carry the learning whilk I had acquired at
+      the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and designation of
+      Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and legs conform, to
+      the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier of fortune. My lord,
+      my legs and arms stood me in more stead than either my gentle kin or my
+      book-lear, and I found myself trailing a pike as a private gentleman under
+      old Sir Ludovick Leslie, where I learned the rules of service so tightly,
+      that I will not forget them in a hurry. Sir, I have been made to stand
+      guard eight hours, being from twelve at noon to eight o'clock of the
+      night, at the palace, armed with back and breast, head-piece and
+      bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter frost, and the ice was as
+      hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping an instant to speak to my
+      landlady, when I should have gone to roll-call."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And, doubtless, sir," replied Lord Menteith, "you have gone through some
+      hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk of?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that hath seen
+      the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to have seen pitched
+      battles. And one who hath witnessed the intaking of Frankfort, and
+      Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth, should know somewhat about
+      leaguers, storms, onslaughts and outfalls."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
+      promotion?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It came slow, my lord, dooms slow," replied Dalgetty; "but as my Scottish
+      countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of those valorous
+      Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany, began to fall pretty
+      thick, what with pestilence and what with the sword, why we, their
+      children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir, I was six years first
+      private gentleman of the company, and three years lance speisade;
+      disdaining to receive a halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I was
+      ultimately promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call it (which
+      signifies an ancient), in the King's Leif Regiment of Black-Horse, and
+      thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master, under that invincible
+      monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the Lion of the North, the
+      terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,&mdash;I think that rank
+      corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The same grade preceesely," answered Dalgetty; "ritt-master signifying
+      literally file-leader."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was observing," continued Lord Menteith, "that, if I understood you
+      right, you had left the service of this great Prince."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was after his death&mdash;it was after his death, sir," said Dalgetty,
+      "when I was in no shape bound to continue mine adherence. There are
+      things, my lord, in that service, that cannot but go against the stomach
+      of any cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of the most
+      superabundant, being only about sixty dollars a-month to a ritt-master,
+      yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of that sum, whilk
+      was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when justly considered,
+      it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of the additional
+      two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I have seen some whole
+      regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on the field of battle, like
+      base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt, signifying their desire of pay,
+      instead of falling to blows like our noble Scottish blades, who ever
+      disdained, my lord, postponing of honour to filthy lucre."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But were not these arrears," said Lord Menteith, "paid to the soldiery at
+      some stated period?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lord," said Dalgetty, "I take it on my conscience, that at no period,
+      and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever be recovered.
+      I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the time I served the
+      invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the chance of a storm or victory,
+      or the fetching in some town or doorp, when a cavalier of fortune, who
+      knows the usage of wars, seldom faileth to make some small profit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I begin rather to wonder, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that you should have
+      continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should have
+      ultimately withdrawn from it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Neither I should," answered the Ritt-master; "but that great leader,
+      captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
+      Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking towns, over-running
+      countries, and levying contributions, whilk made his service irresistibly
+      delectable to all true-bred cavaliers who follow the noble profession of
+      arms. Simple as I ride here, my lord, I have myself commanded the whole
+      stift of Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine, occupying the Palsgrave's palace,
+      consuming his choice wines with my comrades, calling in contributions,
+      requisitions, and caduacs, and not failing to lick my fingers, as became a
+      good cook. But truly all this glory hastened to decay, after our great
+      master had been shot with three bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore,
+      finding that Fortune had changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings
+      went on as before out of our pay, while the caduacs and casualties were
+      all cut off, I e'en gave up my commission, and took service with
+      Wallenstein, in Walter Butler's Irish regiment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And may I beg to know of you," said Lord Menteith, apparently interested
+      in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, "how you liked this change
+      of masters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indifferent well," said the Captain&mdash;"very indifferent well. I
+      cannot say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For
+      hard knocks, we had plenty of them. I was often obliged to run my head
+      against my old acquaintances, the Swedish feathers, whilk your honour must
+      conceive to be double-pointed stakes, shod with iron at each end, and
+      planted before the squad of pikes to prevent an onfall of the cavalry. The
+      whilk Swedish feathers, although they look gay to the eye, resembling the
+      shrubs or lesser trees of ane forest, as the puissant pikes, arranged in
+      battalia behind them, correspond to the tall pines thereof, yet,
+      nevertheless, are not altogether so soft to encounter as the plumage of a
+      goose. Howbeit, in despite of heavy blows and light pay, a cavalier of
+      fortune may thrive indifferently well in the Imperial service, in respect
+      his private casualties are nothing so closely looked to as by the Swede;
+      and so that an officer did his duty on the field, neither Wallenstein nor
+      Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before them, would likely listen to the
+      objurgations of boors or burghers against any commander or soldado, by
+      whom they chanced to be somewhat closely shorn. So that an experienced
+      cavalier, knowing how to lay, as our Scottish phrase runs, 'the head of
+      the sow to the tail of the grice,' might get out of the country the pay
+      whilk he could not obtain from the Emperor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest," said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indubitably, my lord," answered Dalgetty, composedly; "for it would be
+      doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his name called in
+      question for any petty delinquency."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And pray, Sir," continued Lord Menteith, "what made you leave so gainful
+      a service?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, truly, sir," answered the soldier, "an Irish cavalier, called
+      O'Quilligan, being major of our regiment, and I having had words with him
+      the night before, respecting the worth and precedence of our several
+      nations, it pleased him the next day to deliver his orders to me with the
+      point of his batoon advanced and held aloof, instead of declining and
+      trailing the same, as is the fashion from a courteous commanding officer
+      towards his equal in rank, though, it may be, his inferior in military
+      grade. Upon this quarrel, sir, we fought in private rencontre; and as, in
+      the perquisitions which followed, it pleased Walter Butler, our oberst, or
+      colonel, to give the lighter punishment to his countryman, and the heavier
+      to me, whereupon, ill-stomaching such partiality, I exchanged my
+      commission for one under the Spaniard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope you found yourself better off by the change?" said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In good sooth," answered the Ritt-master, "I had but little to complain
+      of. The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by the rich Flemings and
+      Waloons of the Low Country. The quarters were excellent; the good wheaten
+      loaves of the Flemings were better than the Provant rye-bread of the
+      Swede, and Rhenish wine was more plenty with us than ever I saw the
+      black-beer of Rostock in Gustavus's camp. Service there was none, duty
+      there was little; and that little we might do, or leave undone, at our
+      pleasure; an excellent retirement for a cavalier somewhat weary of field
+      and leaguer, who had purchased with his blood as much honour as might
+      serve his turn, and was desirous of a little ease and good living."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And may I ask," said Lord Menteith, "why you, Captain, being, as I
+      suppose, in the situation you describe, retired from the Spanish service
+      also?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are to consider, my lord, that your Spaniard," replied Captain
+      Dalgetty, "is a person altogether unparalleled in his own conceit,
+      where-through he maketh not fit account of such foreign cavaliers of
+      valour as are pleased to take service with him. And a galling thing it is
+      to every honourable soldado, to be put aside, and postponed, and obliged
+      to yield preference to every puffing signor, who, were it the question
+      which should first mount a breach at push of pike, might be apt to yield
+      willing place to a Scottish cavalier. Moreover, sir, I was pricked in
+      conscience respecting a matter of religion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should not have thought, Captain Dalgetty," said the young nobleman,
+      "that an old soldier, who had changed service so often, would have been
+      too scrupulous on that head."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No more I am, my lord," said the Captain, "since I hold it to be the duty
+      of the chaplain of the regiment to settle those matters for me, and every
+      other brave cavalier, inasmuch as he does nothing else that I know of for
+      his pay and allowances. But this was a particular case, my lord, a CASUS
+      IMPROVISUS, as I may say, in whilk I had no chaplain of my own persuasion
+      to act as my adviser. I found, in short, that although my being a
+      Protestant might be winked at, in respect that I was a man of action, and
+      had more experience than all the Dons in our TERTIA put together, yet,
+      when in garrison, it was expected I should go to mass with the regiment.
+      Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated at the
+      Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the mass to be an act
+      of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I was altogether unwilling
+      to homologate by my presence. True it is, that I consulted on the point
+      with a worthy countryman of my own, one Father Fatsides, of the Scottish
+      Covenant in Wurtzburg&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I hope," observed Lord Menteith, "you obtained a clear opinion from
+      this same ghostly father?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As clear as it could be," replied Captain Dalgetty, "considering we had
+      drunk six flasks of Rhenish, and about two mutchkins of Kirchenwasser.
+      Father Fatsides informed me, that, as nearly as he could judge for a
+      heretic like myself, it signified not much whether I went to mass or not,
+      seeing my eternal perdition was signed and sealed at any rate, in respect
+      of my impenitent and obdurate perseverance in my damnable heresy. Being
+      discouraged by this response, I applied to a Dutch pastor of the reformed
+      church, who told me, he thought I might lawfully go to mass, in respect
+      that the prophet permitted Naaman, a mighty man of valour, and an
+      honourable cavalier of Syria, to follow his master into the house of
+      Rimmon, a false god, or idol, to whom he had vowed service, and to bow
+      down when the king was leaning upon his hand. But neither was this answer
+      satisfactory to me, both because there was an unco difference between an
+      anointed King of Syria and our Spanish colonel, whom I could have blown
+      away like the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly because I could not find
+      the thing was required of me by any of the articles of war; neither was I
+      proffered any consideration, either in perquisite or pay, for the wrong I
+      might thereby do to my conscience."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So you again changed your service?" said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In troth did I, my lord; and after trying for a short while two or three
+      other powers, I even took on for a time with their High Mightinesses the
+      States of Holland."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And how did their service jump with your humour?" again demanded his
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "O! my lord," said the soldier, in a sort of enthusiasm, "their behaviour
+      on pay-day might be a pattern to all Europe&mdash;no borrowings, no
+      lendings, no offsets no arrears&mdash;all balanced and paid like a
+      banker's book. The quarters, too, are excellent, and the allowances
+      unchallengeable; but then, sir, they are a preceese, scrupulous people,
+      and will allow nothing for peccadilloes. So that if a boor complains of a
+      broken head, or a beer-seller of a broken can, or a daft wench does but
+      squeak loud enough to be heard above her breath, a soldier of honour shall
+      be dragged, not before his own court-martial, who can best judge of and
+      punish his demerits, but before a base mechanical burgo-master, who shall
+      menace him with the rasp-house, the cord, and what not, as if he were one
+      of their own mean, amphibious, twenty-breeched boors. So not being able to
+      dwell longer among those ungrateful plebeians, who, although unable to
+      defend themselves by their proper strength, will nevertheless allow the
+      noble foreign cavalier who engages with them nothing beyond his dry wages,
+      which no honourable spirit will put in competition with a liberal license
+      and honourable countenance, I resolved to leave the service of the
+      Mynheers. And hearing at this time, to my exceeding satisfaction, that
+      there is something to be doing this summer in my way in this my dear
+      native country, I am come hither, as they say, like a beggar to a bridal,
+      in order to give my loving countrymen the advantage of that experience
+      which I have acquired in foreign parts. So your lordship has an outline of
+      my brief story, excepting my deportment in those passages of action in the
+      field, in leaguers, storms, and onslaughts, whilk would be wearisome to
+      narrate, and might, peradventure, better befit any other tongue than mine
+      own."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     For pleas of right let statesmen vex their head,
+     Battle's my business, and my guerdon bread;
+     And, with the sworded Switzer, I can say,
+     The best of causes is the best of pay.&mdash;DONNE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The difficulty and narrowness of the road had by this time become such as
+      to interrupt the conversation of the travellers, and Lord Menteith,
+      reining back his horse, held a moment's private conversation with his
+      domestics. The Captain, who now led the van of the party, after about a
+      quarter of a mile's slow and toilsome advance up a broken and rugged
+      ascent, emerged into an upland valley, to which a mountain stream acted as
+      a drain, and afforded sufficient room upon its greensward banks for the
+      travellers to pursue their journey in a more social manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith accordingly resumed the conversation, which had been
+      interrupted by the difficulties of the way. "I should have thought," said
+      he to Captain Dalgetty, "that a cavalier of your honourable mark, who hath
+      so long followed the valiant King of Sweden, and entertains such a
+      suitable contempt for the base mechanical States of Holland, would not
+      have hesitated to embrace the cause of King Charles, in preference to that
+      of the low-born, roundheaded, canting knaves, who are in rebellion against
+      his authority?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ye speak reasonably, my lord," said Dalgetty, "and, CAETERIS PARIBUS, I
+      might be induced to see the matter in the same light. But, my lord, there
+      is a southern proverb, fine words butter no parsnips. I have heard enough
+      since I came here, to satisfy me that a cavalier of honour is free to take
+      any part in this civil embroilment whilk he may find most convenient for
+      his own peculiar. Loyalty is your pass-word, my lord&mdash;Liberty, roars
+      another chield from the other side of the strath&mdash;the King, shouts
+      one war-cry&mdash;the Parliament, roars another&mdash;Montrose, for ever,
+      cries Donald, waving his bonnet&mdash;Argyle and Leven, cries a
+      south-country Saunders, vapouring with his hat and feather. Fight for the
+      bishops, says a priest, with his gown and rochet&mdash;Stand stout for the
+      Kirk, cries a minister, in a Geneva cap and band.&mdash;Good watchwords
+      all&mdash;excellent watchwords. Whilk cause is the best I cannot say. But
+      sure am I, that I have fought knee-deep in blood many a day for one that
+      was ten degrees worse than the worst of them all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And pray, Captain Dalgetty," said his lordship, "since the pretensions of
+      both parties seem to you so equal, will you please to inform us by what
+      circumstances your preference will be determined?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Simply upon two considerations, my lord," answered the soldier. "Being,
+      first, on which side my services would be in most honourable request;&mdash;And,
+      secondly, whilk is a corollary of the first, by whilk party they are
+      likely to be most gratefully requited. And, to deal plainly with you, my
+      lord, my opinion at present doth on both points rather incline to the side
+      of the Parliament."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your reasons, if you please," said Lord Menteith, "and perhaps I may be
+      able to meet them with some others which are more powerful."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, I shall be amenable to reason," said Captain Dalgetty, "supposing it
+      addresses itself to my honour and my interest. Well, then, my lord, here
+      is a sort of Highland host assembled, or expected to assemble, in these
+      wild hills, in the King's behalf. Now, sir, you know the nature of our
+      Highlanders. I will not deny them to be a people stout in body and valiant
+      in heart, and courageous enough in their own wild way of fighting, which
+      is as remote from the usages and discipline of war as ever was that of the
+      ancient Scythians, or of the salvage Indians of America that now is, They
+      havena sae mickle as a German whistle, or a drum, to beat a march, an
+      alarm, a charge, a retreat, a reveille, or the tattoo, or any other point
+      of war; and their damnable skirlin' pipes, whilk they themselves pretend
+      to understand, are unintelligible to the ears of any cavaliero accustomed
+      to civilised warfare. So that, were I undertaking to discipline such a
+      breechless mob, it were impossible for me to be understood; and if I were
+      understood, judge ye, my lord, what chance I had of being obeyed among a
+      band of half salvages, who are accustomed to pay to their own lairds and
+      chiefs, allenarly, that respect and obedience whilk ought to be paid to
+      commissionate officers. If I were teaching them to form battalia by
+      extracting the square root, that is, by forming your square battalion of
+      equal number of men of rank and file, corresponding to the square root of
+      the full number present, what return could I expect for communicating this
+      golden secret of military tactic, except it may be a dirk in my wame, on
+      placing some M'Alister More M'Shemei or Capperfae, in the flank or rear,
+      when he claimed to be in the van?&mdash;Truly, well saith holy writ, 'if
+      ye cast pearls before swine, they will turn again and rend ye.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe, Anderson," said Lord Menteith, looking back to one of his
+      servants, for both were close behind him, "you can assure this gentleman,
+      we shall have more occasion for experienced officers, and be more disposed
+      to profit by their instructions, than he seems to be aware of."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With your honour's permission," said Anderson, respectfully raising his
+      cap, "when we are joined by the Irish infantry, who are expected, and who
+      should be landed in the West Highlands before now, we shall have need of
+      good soldiers to discipline our levies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I should like well&mdash;very well, to be employed in such service,"
+      said Dalgetty; "the Irish are pretty fellows&mdash;very pretty fellows&mdash;I
+      desire to see none better in the field. I once saw a brigade of Irish, at
+      the taking of Frankfort upon the Oder, stand to it with sword and pike
+      until they beat off the blue and yellow Swedish brigades, esteemed as
+      stout as any that fought under the immortal Gustavus. And although stout
+      Hepburn, valiant Lumsdale, courageous Monroe, with myself and other
+      cavaliers, made entry elsewhere at point of pike, yet, had we all met with
+      such opposition, we had returned with great loss and little profit.
+      Wherefore these valiant Irishes, being all put to the sword, as is usual
+      in such cases, did nevertheless gain immortal praise and honour; so that,
+      for their sakes, I have always loved and honoured those of that nation
+      next to my own country of Scotland."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A command of Irish," said Menteith, "I think I could almost promise you,
+      should you be disposed to embrace the royal cause."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And yet," said Captain Dalgetty, "my second and greatest difficulty
+      remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and sordid thing for a
+      soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay and gelt, like the base
+      cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I mentioned before; and although I
+      will maintain it with my sword, that honour is to be preferred before pay,
+      free quarters, and arrears, yet, EX CONTRARIO, a soldier's pay being the
+      counterpart of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise and
+      considerate cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive for
+      his service, and from what funds it is to be paid. And truly, my lord,
+      from what I can see and hear, the Convention are the purse-masters. The
+      Highlanders, indeed, may be kept in humour, by allowing them to steal
+      cattle; and for the Irishes, your lordship and your noble associates may,
+      according to the practice of the wars in such cases, pay them as seldom or
+      as little as may suit your pleasure or convenience; but the same mode of
+      treatment doth not apply to a cavalier like me, who must keep up his
+      horses, servants, arms, and equipage, and who neither can, nor will, go to
+      warfare upon his own charges."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anderson, the domestic who had before spoken now respectfully addressed
+      his master.&mdash;"I think, my lord," he said, "that, under your
+      lordship's favour, I could say something to remove Captain Dalgetty's
+      second objection also. He asks us where we are to collect our pay; now, in
+      my poor mind, the resources are as open to us as to the Covenanters. They
+      tax the country according to their pleasure, and dilapidate the estates of
+      the King's friends; now, were we once in the Lowlands, with our
+      Highlanders and our Irish at our backs, and our swords in our hands, we
+      can find many a fat traitor, whose ill-gotten wealth shall fill our
+      military chest and satisfy our soldiery. Besides, confiscations will fall
+      in thick; and, in giving donations of forfeited lands to every adventurous
+      cavalier who joins his standard, the King will at once reward his friends
+      and punish his enemies. In short, he that joins these Roundhead dogs may
+      get some miserable pittance of pay&mdash;he that joins our standard has a
+      chance to be knight, lord, or earl, if luck serve him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you ever served, my good friend?" said the Captain to the spokesman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A little, sir, in these our domestic quarrels," answered the man,
+      modestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But never in Germany or the Low Countries?" said Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never had the honour," answered Anderson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I profess," said Dalgetty, addressing Lord Menteith, "your lordship's
+      servant has a sensible, natural, pretty idea of military matters; somewhat
+      irregular, though, and smells a little too much of selling the bear's skin
+      before he has hunted him.&mdash;I will take the matter, however, into my
+      consideration."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do so, Captain," said Lord Menteith; "you will have the night to think of
+      it, for we are now near the house, where I hope to ensure you a hospitable
+      reception."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that is what will be very welcome," said the Captain, "for I have
+      tasted no food since daybreak but a farl of oatcake, which I divided with
+      my horse. So I have been fain to draw my sword-belt three bores tighter
+      for very extenuation, lest hunger and heavy iron should make the gird
+      slip."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Once on a time, no matter when,
+     Some Glunimies met in a glen;
+     As deft and tight as ever wore
+     A durk, a targe, and a claymore,
+     Short hose, and belted plaid or trews,
+     In Uist, Lochaber, Skye, or Lewes,
+     Or cover'd hard head with his bonnet;
+     Had you but known them, you would own it.&mdash;MESTON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A hill was now before the travellers, covered with an ancient forest of
+      Scottish firs, the topmost of which, flinging their scathed branches
+      across the western horizon, gleamed ruddy in the setting sun. In the
+      centre of this wood rose the towers, or rather the chimneys, of the house,
+      or castle, as it was called, destined for the end of their journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As usual at that period, one or two high-ridged narrow buildings,
+      intersecting and crossing each other, formed the CORPS DE LOGIS. A
+      protecting bartizan or two, with the addition of small turrets at the
+      angles, much resembling pepper-boxes, had procured for Darnlinvarach the
+      dignified appellation of a castle. It was surrounded by a low court-yard
+      wall, within which were the usual offices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the travellers approached more nearly, they discovered marks of recent
+      additions to the defences of the place, which had been suggested,
+      doubtless, by the insecurity of those troublesome times. Additional
+      loop-holes for musketry were struck out in different parts of the
+      building, and of its surrounding wall. The windows had just been carefully
+      secured by stancheons of iron, crossing each other athwart and end-long,
+      like the grates of a prison. The door of the court-yard was shut; and it
+      was only after cautious challenge that one of its leaves was opened by two
+      domestics, both strong Highlanders, and both under arms, like Bitias and
+      Pandarus in the AEneid, ready to defend the entrance if aught hostile had
+      ventured an intrusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the travellers were admitted into the court, they found additional
+      preparations for defence. The walls were scaffolded for the use of
+      fire-arms, and one or two of the small guns, called sackers, or falcons,
+      were mounted at the angles and flanking turrets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More domestics, both in the Highland and Lowland dress, instantly rushed
+      from the anterior of the mansion, and some hastened to take the horses of
+      the strangers, while others waited to marshal them a way into the
+      dwelling-house. But Captain Dalgetty refused the proffered assistance of
+      those who wished to relieve him of the charge of his horse. "It is my
+      custom, my friends, to see Gustavus (for so I have called him, after my
+      invincible master) accommodated myself; we are old friends and
+      fellow-travellers, and as I often need the use of his legs, I always lend
+      him in my turn the service of my tongue, to call for whatever he has
+      occasion for;" and accordingly he strode into the stable after his steed
+      without farther apology.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Lord Menteith nor his attendants paid the same attention to their
+      horses, but, leaving them to the proffered care of the servants of the
+      place, walked forward into the house, where a sort of dark vaulted
+      vestibule displayed, among other miscellaneous articles, a huge barrel of
+      two-penny ale, beside which were ranged two or three wooden queichs, or
+      bickers, ready, it would appear, for the service of whoever thought proper
+      to employ them. Lord Menteith applied himself to the spigot, drank without
+      ceremony, and then handed the stoup to Anderson, who followed his master's
+      example, but not until he had flung out the drop of ale which remained,
+      and slightly rinsed the wooden cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the deil, man," said an old Highland servant belonging to the
+      family, "can she no drink after her ain master without washing the cup and
+      spilling the ale, and be tamned to her!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was bred in France," answered Anderson, "where nobody drinks after
+      another out of the same cup, unless it be after a young lady."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The teil's in their nicety!" said Donald; "and if the ale be gude, fat
+      the waur is't that another man's beard's been in the queich before ye?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anderson's companion drank without observing the ceremony which had given
+      Donald so much offence, and both of them followed their master into the
+      low-arched stone hall, which was the common rendezvous of a Highland
+      family. A large fire of peats in the huge chimney at the upper end shed a
+      dim light through the apartment, and was rendered necessary by the damp,
+      by which, even during the summer, the apartment was rendered
+      uncomfortable. Twenty or thirty targets, as many claymores, with dirks,
+      and plaids, and guns, both match-lock and fire-lock, and long-bows, and
+      cross-bows, and Lochaber axes, and coats of plate armour, and steel
+      bonnets, and headpieces, and the more ancient haborgeons, or shirts of
+      reticulated mail, with hood and sleeves corresponding to it, all hung in
+      confusion about the walls, and would have formed a month's amusement to a
+      member of a modern antiquarian society. But such things were too familiar,
+      to attract much observation on the part of the present spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a large clumsy oaken table, which the hasty hospitality of the
+      domestic who had before spoken, immediately spread with milk, butter,
+      goat-milk cheese, a flagon of beer, and a flask of usquebae, designed for
+      the refreshment of Lord Menteith; while an inferior servant made similar
+      preparations at the bottom of the table for the benefit of his attendants.
+      The space which intervened between them was, according to the manners of
+      the times, sufficient distinction between master and servant, even though
+      the former was, as in the present instance, of high rank. Meanwhile the
+      guests stood by the fire&mdash;the young nobleman under the chimney, and
+      his servants at some little distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you think, Anderson," said the former, "of our fellow-traveller?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A stout fellow," replied Anderson, "if all be good that is upcome. I wish
+      we had twenty such, to put our Teagues into some sort of discipline."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I differ from you, Anderson," said Lord Menteith; "I think this fellow
+      Dalgetty is one of those horse-leeches, whose appetite for blood being
+      only sharpened by what he has sucked in foreign countries, he is now
+      returned to batten upon that of his own. Shame on the pack of these
+      mercenary swordmen! they have made the name of Scot through all Europe
+      equivalent to that of a pitiful mercenary, who knows neither honour nor
+      principle but his month's pay, who transfers his allegiance from standard
+      to standard, at the pleasure of fortune or the highest bidder; and to
+      whose insatiable thirst for plunder and warm quarters we owe much of that
+      civil dissension which is now turning our swords against our own bowels. I
+      had scarce patience with the hired gladiator, and yet could hardly help
+      laughing at the extremity of his impudence."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your lordship will forgive me," said Anderson, "if I recommend to you, in
+      the present circumstances, to conceal at least a part of this generous
+      indignation; we cannot, unfortunately, do our work without the assistance
+      of those who act on baser motives than our own. We cannot spare the
+      assistance of such fellows as our friend the soldado. To use the canting
+      phrase of the saints in the English Parliament, the sons of Zeruiah are
+      still too many for us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must dissemble, then, as well as I can," said Lord Menteith, "as I have
+      hitherto done, upon your hint. But I wish the fellow at the devil with all
+      my heart."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay, but still you must remember, my lord," resumed Anderson, "that to
+      cure the bite of a scorpion, you must crush another scorpion on the wound&mdash;But
+      stop, we shall be overheard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From a side-door in the hall glided a Highlander into the apartment, whose
+      lofty stature and complete equipment, as well as the eagle's feather in
+      his bonnet, and the confidence of his demeanour, announced to be a person
+      of superior rank. He walked slowly up to the table, and made no answer to
+      Lord Menteith, who, addressing him by the name of Allan, asked him how he
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ye manna speak to her e'en now," whispered the old attendant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tall Highlander, sinking down upon the empty settle next the fire,
+      fixed his eyes upon the red embers and the huge heap of turf, and seemed
+      buried in profound abstraction. His dark eyes, and wild and enthusiastic
+      features, bore the air of one who, deeply impressed with his own subjects
+      of meditation, pays little attention to exterior objects. An air of gloomy
+      severity, the fruit perhaps of ascetic and solitary habits, might, in a
+      Lowlander, have been ascribed to religious fanaticism; but by that disease
+      of the mind, then so common both in England and the Lowlands of Scotland,
+      the Highlanders of this period were rarely infected. They had, however,
+      their own peculiar superstitions, which overclouded the mind with
+      thick-coming fancies, as completely as the puritanism of their neighbours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His lordship's honour," said the Highland servant sideling up to Lord
+      Menteith, and speaking in a very low tone, "his lordship manna speak to
+      Allan even now, for the cloud is upon his mind."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith nodded, and took no farther notice of the reserved
+      mountaineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Said I not," asked the latter, suddenly raising his stately person
+      upright, and looking at the domestic&mdash;"said I not that four were to
+      come, and here stand but three on the hall floor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In troth did ye say sae, Allan," said the old Highlander, "and here's the
+      fourth man coming clinking in at the yett e'en now from the stable, for
+      he's shelled like a partan, wi' airn on back and breast, haunch and
+      shanks. And am I to set her chair up near the Menteith's, or down wi' the
+      honest gentlemen at the foot of the table?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith himself answered the enquiry, by pointing to a seat beside
+      his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And here she comes," said Donald, as Captain Dalgetty entered the hall;
+      "and I hope gentlemens will all take bread and cheese, as we say in the
+      glens, until better meat be ready, until the Tiernach comes back frae the
+      hill wi' the southern gentlefolk, and then Dugald Cook will show himself
+      wi' his kid and hill venison."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Captain Dalgetty had entered the apartment, and walking
+      up to the seat placed next Lord Menteith, was leaning on the back of it
+      with his arms folded. Anderson and his companion waited at the bottom of
+      the table, in a respectful attitude, until they should receive permission
+      to seat themselves; while three or four Highlanders, under the direction
+      of old Donald, ran hither and thither to bring additional articles of
+      food, or stood still to give attendance upon the guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of these preparations, Allan suddenly started up, and
+      snatching a lamp from the hand of an attendant, held it close to
+      Dalgetty's face, while he perused his features with the most heedful and
+      grave attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By my honour," said Dalgetty, half displeased, as, mysteriously shaking
+      his head, Allan gave up the scrutiny&mdash;"I trow that lad and I will ken
+      each other when we meet again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Allan strode to the bottom of the table, and having, by the aid
+      of his lamp, subjected Anderson and his companion to the same
+      investigation, stood a moment as if in deep reflection; then, touching his
+      forehead, suddenly seized Anderson by the arm, and before he could offer
+      any effectual resistance, half led and half dragged him to the vacant seat
+      at the upper end, and having made a mute intimation that he should there
+      place himself, he hurried the soldado with the same unceremonious
+      precipitation to the bottom of the table. The Captain, exceedingly
+      incensed at this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from him with
+      violence; but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle inferior to
+      the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such violence, that after
+      reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and the vaulted hall rang
+      with the clash of his armour. When he arose, his first action was to draw
+      his sword and to fly at Allan, who, with folded arms, seemed to await his
+      onset with the most scornful indifference. Lord Menteith and his
+      attendants interposed to preserve peace, while the Highlanders, snatching
+      weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase the broil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is mad," whispered Lord Menteith, "he is perfectly mad; there is no
+      purpose in quarrelling with him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If your lordship is assured that he is NON COMPOS MENTIS," said Captain
+      Dalgetty, "the whilk his breeding and behaviour seem to testify, the
+      matter must end here, seeing that a madman can neither give an affront,
+      nor render honourable satisfaction. But, by my saul, if I had my provstnt
+      and a bottle of Rhenish under my belt, I should hive stood otherways up to
+      him. And yet it's a pity he should be sae weak in the intellectuals, being
+      a strong proper man of body, fit to handle pike, morgenstern, or any other
+      military implement whatsoever." [This was a sort of club or mace, used in
+      the earlier part of the seventeenth century in the defence of breaches and
+      walls. When the Germans insulted a Scotch regiment then besieged in
+      Trailsund, saying they heard there was a ship come from Denmark to them
+      laden with tobacco pipes, "One of our soldiers," says Colonel Robert
+      Munro, "showing them over the work a morgenstern, made of a large stock
+      banded with iron, like the shaft of a halberd, with a round globe at the
+      end with cross iron pikes, saith, 'Here is one of the tobacco pipes,
+      wherewith we will beat out your brains when you intend to storm us.'"]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace was thus restored, and the party seated themselves agreeably to
+      their former arrangement, with which Allan, who had now returned to his
+      settle by the fire, and seemed once more immersed in meditation, did not
+      again interfere. Lord Menteith, addressing the principal domestic,
+      hastened to start some theme of conversation which might obliterate all
+      recollection of the fray that had taken place. "The laird is at the hill
+      then, Donald, I understand, and some English strangers with him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the hill he is, an it like your honour, and two Saxon calabaleros are
+      with him sure eneugh; and that is Sir Miles Musgrave and Christopher Hall,
+      both from the Cumraik, as I think they call their country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hall and Musgrave?" said Lord Menteith, looking at his attendants, "the
+      very men that we wished to see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Troth," said Donald, "an' I wish I had never seen them between the een,
+      for they're come to herry us out o' house and ha'."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, Donald," said Lord Menteith, "you did not use to be so churlish of
+      your beef and ale; southland though they be, they'll scarce eat up all the
+      cattle that's going on the castle mains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Teil care an they did," said Donald, "an that were the warst o't, for we
+      have a wheen canny trewsmen here that wadna let us want if there was a
+      horned beast atween this and Perth. But this is a warse job&mdash;it's nae
+      less than a wager."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A wager!" repeated Lord Menteith, with some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Troth," continued Donald, to the full as eager to tell his news as Lord
+      Menteith was curious to hear them, "as your lordship is a friend and
+      kinsman o' the house, an' as ye'll hear eneugh o't in less than an hour, I
+      may as weel tell ye mysell. Ye sall be pleased then to know, that when our
+      Laird was up in England where he gangs oftener than his friends can wish,
+      he was biding at the house o' this Sir Miles Musgrave, an' there was
+      putten on the table six candlesticks, that they tell me were twice as
+      muckle as the candlesticks in Dunblane kirk, and neither airn, brass, nor
+      tin, but a' solid silver, nae less;&mdash;up wi' their English pride, has
+      sae muckle, and kens sae little how to guide it! Sae they began to jeer
+      the Laird, that he saw nae sic graith in his ain poor country; and the
+      Laird, scorning to hae his country put down without a word for its credit,
+      swore, like a gude Scotsman, that he had mair candlesticks, and better
+      candlesticks, in his ain castle at hame, than were ever lighted in a hall
+      in Cumberland, an Cumberland be the name o' the country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That was patriotically said," observed Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fary true," said Donald; "but her honour had better hae hauden her
+      tongue: for if ye say ony thing amang the Saxons that's a wee by ordinar,
+      they clink ye down for a wager as fast as a Lowland smith would hammer
+      shoon on a Highland shelty. An' so the Laird behoved either to gae back o'
+      his word, or wager twa hunder merks; and sa he e'en tock the wager, rather
+      than be shamed wi' the like o' them. And now he's like to get it to pay,
+      and I'm thinking that's what makes him sae swear to come hame at e'en."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed," said Lord Menteith, "from my idea of your family plate, Donald,
+      your master is certain to lose such a wager."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your honour may swear that; an' where he's to get the siller I kenna,
+      although he borrowed out o' twenty purses. I advised him to pit the twa
+      Saxon gentlemen and their servants cannily into the pit o' the tower till
+      they gae up the bagain o' free gude-will, but the Laird winna hear
+      reason."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan here started up, strode forward, and interrupted the conversation,
+      saying to the domestic in a voice like thunder, "And how dared you to give
+      my brother such dishonourable advice? or how dare you to say he will lose
+      this or any other wager which it is his pleasure to lay?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Troth, Allan M'Aulay," answered the old man, "it's no for my father's son
+      to gainsay what your father's son thinks fit to say, an' so the Laird may
+      no doubt win his wager. A' that I ken against it is, that the teil a
+      candlestick, or ony thing like it, is in the house, except the auld airn
+      branches that has been here since Laird Kenneth's time, and the tin
+      sconces that your father gard be made by auld Willie Winkie the tinkler,
+      mair be token that deil an unce of siller plate is about the house at a',
+      forby the lady's auld posset dish, that wants the cover and ane o' the
+      lugs."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Peace, old man!" said Allan, fiercely; "and do you, gentlemen, if your
+      refection is finished, leave this apartment clear; I must prepare it for
+      the reception of these southern guests."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come away," said the domestic, pulling Lord Menteith by the sleeve; "his
+      hour is on him," said he, looking towards Allan, "and he will not be
+      controlled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the hall accordingly, Lord Menteith and the Captain being
+      ushered one way by old Donald, and the two attendants conducted elsewhere
+      by another Highlander. The former had scarcely reached a sort of
+      withdrawing apartment ere they were joined by the lord of the mansion,
+      Angus M'Aulay by name, and his English guests. Great joy was expressed by
+      all parties, for Lord Menteith and the English gentlemen were well known
+      to each other; and on Lord Menteith's introduction, Captain Dalgetty was
+      well received by the Laird. But after the first burst of hospitable
+      congratulation was over, Lord Menteith could observe that there was a
+      shade of sadness on the brow of his Highland friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must have heard," said Sir Christopher Hall, "that our fine
+      undertaking in Cumberland is all blown up. The militia would not march
+      into Scotland, and your prick-ear'd Covenanters have been too hard for our
+      friends in the southern shires. And so, understanding there is some
+      stirring work here, Musgrave and I, rather than sit idle at home, are come
+      to have a campaign among your kilts and plaids."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope you have brought arms, men, and money with you," said Lord
+      Menteith, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Only some dozen or two of troopers, whom we left at the last Lowland
+      village," said Musgrave, "and trouble enough we had to get them so far."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As for money," said his companion, "We expect a small supply from our
+      friend and host here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Laird now, colouring highly, took Menteith a little apart, and
+      expressed to him his regret that he had fallen into a foolish blunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I heard it from Donald," said Lord Menteith, scarce able to suppress a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Devil take that old man," said M'Aulay, "he would tell every thing, were
+      it to cost one's life; but it's no jesting matter to you neither, my lord,
+      for I reckon on your friendly and fraternal benevolence, as a near kinsman
+      of our house, to help me out with the money due to these pock-puddings; or
+      else, to be plain wi' ye, the deil a M'Aulay will there be at the muster,
+      for curse me if I do not turn Covenanter rather than face these fellows
+      without paying them; and, at the best, I shall be ill enough off, getting
+      both the scaith and the scorn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You may suppose, cousin," said Lord Menteith, "I am not too well equipt
+      just now; but you may be assured I shall endeavour to help you as well as
+      I can, for the sake of old kindred, neighbourhood, and alliance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank ye&mdash;thank ye&mdash;thank ye," reiterated M'Aulay; "and as they
+      are to spend the money in the King's service, what signifies whether you,
+      they, or I pay it?&mdash;we are a' one man's bairns, I hope? But you must
+      help me out too with some reasonable excuse, or else I shall be for taking
+      to Andrew Ferrara; for I like not to be treated like a liar or a braggart
+      at my own board-end, when, God knows, I only meant to support my honour,
+      and that of my family and country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Donald, as they were speaking, entered, with rather a blither face than he
+      might have been expected to wear, considering the impending fate of his
+      master's purse and credit. "Gentlemens, her dinner is ready, and HER
+      CANDLES ARE LIGHTED TOO," said Donald, with a strong guttural emphasis on
+      the last clause of his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the devil can he mean?" said Musgrave, looking to his countryman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith put the same question with his eyes to the Laird, which
+      M'Aulay answered by shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short dispute about precedence somewhat delayed their leaving the
+      apartment. Lord Menteith insisted upon yielding up that which belonged to
+      his rank, on consideration of his being in his own country, and of his
+      near connexion with the family in which they found themselves. The two
+      English strangers, therefore, were first ushered into the hall, where an
+      unexpected display awaited them. The large oaken table was spread with
+      substantial joints of meat, and seats were placed in order for the guests.
+      Behind every seat stood a gigantic Highlander, completely dressed and
+      armed after the fashion of his country, holding in his right hand his
+      drawn sword, with the point turned downwards, and in the left a blazing
+      torch made of the bog-pine. This wood, found in the morasses, is so full
+      of turpentine, that, when split and dried, it is frequently used in the
+      Highlands instead of candles. The unexpected and somewhat startling
+      apparition was seen by the red glare of the torches, which displayed the
+      wild features, unusual dress, and glittering arms of those who bore them,
+      while the smoke, eddying up to the roof of the hall, over-canopied them
+      with a volume of vapour. Ere the strangers had recovered from their
+      surprise, Allan stept forward, and pointing with his sheathed broadsword
+      to the torch-bearers, said, in a deep and stern tone of voice, "Behold,
+      gentlemen cavaliers, the chandeliers of my brother's house, the ancient
+      fashion of our ancient name; not one of these men knows any law but their
+      Chiefs command&mdash;Would you dare to compare to THEM in value the
+      richest ore that ever was dug out of the mine? How say you, cavaliers?&mdash;is
+      your wager won or lost?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lost; lost," said Musgrave, gaily&mdash;"my own silver candlesticks are
+      all melted and riding on horseback by this time, and I wish the fellows
+      that enlisted were half as trusty as these.&mdash;Here, sir," he added to
+      the Chief, "is your money; it impairs Hall's finances and mine somewhat,
+      but debts of honour must be settled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My father's curse upon my father's son," said Allan, interrupting him,
+      "if he receive from you one penny! It is enough that you claim no right to
+      exact from him what is his own."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith eagerly supported Allan's opinion, and the elder M'Aulay
+      readily joined, declaring the whole to be a fool's business, and not worth
+      speaking more about. The Englishmen, after some courteous opposition, were
+      persuaded to regard the whole as a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now, Allan," said the Laird, "please to remove your candles; for,
+      since the Saxon gentlemen have seen them, they will eat their dinner as
+      comfortably by the light of the old tin sconces, without scomfishing them
+      with so much smoke."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, at a sign from Allan, the living chandeliers, recovering
+      their broadswords, and holding the point erect, marched out of the hall,
+      and left the guests to enjoy their refreshment. [Such a bet as that
+      mentioned in the text is said to have been taken by MacDonald of Keppoch,
+      who extricated himself in the manner there narrated.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Thareby so fearlesse and so fell he grew,
+     That his own syre and maister of his guise
+     Did often tremble at his horrid view;
+     And if for dread of hurt would him advise,
+     The angry beastes not rashly to despise,
+     Nor too much to provoke; for he would learne
+     The lion stoup to him in lowly wise,
+     (A lesson hard,) and make the libbard sterne
+     Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did earne.&mdash;SPENSER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the proverbial epicurism of the English,&mdash;proverbial,
+      that is to say, in Scotland at the period,&mdash;the English visitors made
+      no figure whatever at the entertainment, compared with the portentous
+      voracity of Captain Dalgetty, although that gallant soldier had already
+      displayed much steadiness and pertinacity in his attack upon the lighter
+      refreshment set before them at their entrance, by way of forlorn hope. He
+      spoke to no one during the time of his meal; and it was not until the
+      victuals were nearly withdrawn from the table, that he gratified the rest
+      of the company, who had watched him with some surprise, with an account of
+      the reasons why he ate so very fast and so very long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The former quality," he said, "he had acquired, while he filled a place
+      at the bursar's table at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen; when," said
+      he; "if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets, you
+      were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them. And as for the
+      quantity of my food, be it known to this honourable company," continued
+      the Captain, "that it's the duty of every commander of a fortress, on all
+      occasions which offer, to secure as much munition and vivers as their
+      magazines can possibly hold, not knowing when they may have to sustain a
+      siege or a blockade. Upon which principle, gentlemen," said he, "when a
+      cavalier finds that provant is good and abundant, he will, in my
+      estimation, do wisely to victual himself for at least three days, as there
+      is no knowing when he may come by another meal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Laird expressed his acquiescence in the prudence of this principle,
+      and recommended to the veteran to add a tass of brandy and a flagon of
+      claret to the substantial provisions he had already laid in, to which
+      proposal the Captain readily agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When dinner was removed, and the servants had withdrawn, excepting the
+      Laird's page, or henchman, who remained in the apartment to call for or
+      bring whatever was wanted, or, in a word, to answer the purposes of a
+      modern bell-wire, the conversation began to turn upon politics, and the
+      state of the country; and Lord Menteith enquired anxiously and
+      particularly what clans were expected to join the proposed muster of the
+      King's friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That depends much, my lord, on the person who lifts the banner," said the
+      Laird; "for you know we Highlanders, when a few clans are assembled, are
+      not easily commanded by one of our own Chiefs, or, to say the truth, by
+      any other body. We have heard a rumour, indeed, that Colkitto&mdash;that
+      is, young Colkitto, or Alaster M'Donald, is come over the Kyle from
+      Ireland, with a body of the Earl of Antrim's people, and that they had got
+      as far as Ardnamurchan. They might have been here before now, but, I
+      suppose, they loitered to plunder the country as they came along."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will Colkitto not serve you for a leader, then?" said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colkitto?" said Allan M'Aulay, scornfully; "who talks of Colkitto?&mdash;There
+      lives but one man whom we will follow, and that is Montrose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Montrose, sir," said Sir Christopher Hall, "has not been heard of
+      since our ineffectual attempt to rise in the north of England. It is
+      thought he has returned to the King at Oxford for farther instructions."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Returned!" said Allan, with a scornful laugh; "I could tell ye, but it is
+      not worth my while; ye will know soon enough."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By my honour, Allan," said Lord Menteith, "you will weary out your
+      friends with this intolerable, froward, and sullen humour&mdash;But I know
+      the reason," added he, laughing; "you have not seen Annot Lyle to-day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whom did you say I had not seen?" said Allan, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Annot Lyle, the fairy queen of song and minstrelsy," said Lord Menteith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would to God I were never to see her again," said Allan, sighing, "On
+      condition the same weird were laid on you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And why on me?" said Lord Menteith, carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because," said Allan, "it is written on your forehead, that you are to be
+      the ruin of each other." So saying, he rose up and left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Has he been long in this way?" asked Lord Menteith, addressing his
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About three days," answered Angus; "the fit is wellnigh over, he will be
+      better to-morrow.&mdash;But come, gentlemen, don't let the tappit-hen
+      scraugh to be emptied. The King's health, King Charles's health! and may
+      the covenanting dog that refuses it, go to Heaven by the road of the
+      Grassmarket!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The health was quickly pledged, and as fast succeeded by another, and
+      another, and another, all of a party cast, and enforced in an earnest
+      manner. Captain Dalgetty, however, thought it necessary to enter a
+      protest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen cavaliers," he said, "I drink these healths, PRIMO, both out of
+      respect to this honourable and hospitable roof-tree, and, SECUNDO, because
+      I hold it not good to be preceese in such matters, INTER POCULA; but I
+      protest, agreeable to the warrandice granted by this honourable lord, that
+      it shall be free to me, notwithstanding my present complaisance, to take
+      service with the Covenanters to-morrow, providing I shall be so minded."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M'Aulay and his English guests stared at this declaration, which would
+      have certainly bred new disturbance, if Lord Menteith had not taken up the
+      affair, and explained the circumstances and conditions. "I trust," he
+      concluded, "we shall be able to secure Captain Dalgetty's assistance to
+      our own party."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And if not," said the Laird, "I protest, as the Captain says, that
+      nothing that has passed this evening, not even his having eaten my bread
+      and salt, and pledged me in brandy, Bourdeaux, or usquebaugh, shall
+      prejudice my cleaving him to the neck-bone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You shall be heartily welcome," said the Captain, "providing my sword
+      cannot keep my head, which it has done in worse dangers than your fend is
+      likely to make for me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Lord Menteith again interposed, and the concord of the company being
+      with no small difficulty restored, was cemented by some deep carouses.
+      Lord Menteith, however, contrived to break up the party earlier than was
+      the usage of the Castle, under pretence of fatigue and indisposition. This
+      was somewhat to the disappointment of the valiant Captain, who, among
+      other habits acquired in the Low countries, had acquired both a
+      disposition to drink, and a capacity to bear, an exorbitant quantity of
+      strong liquors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their landlord ushered them in person to a sort of sleeping gallery, in
+      which there was a four-post bed, with tartan curtains, and a number of
+      cribs, or long hampers, placed along the wall, three of which, well
+      stuffed with blooming heather, were prepared for the reception of guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I need not tell your lordship," said M'Aulay to Lord Menteith, a little
+      apart, "our Highland mode of quartering. Only that, not liking you should
+      sleep in the room alone with this German land-louper, I have caused your
+      servants' beds to be made here in the gallery. By G&mdash;d, my lord,
+      these are times when men go to bed with a throat hale and sound as ever
+      swallowed brandy, and before next morning it may be gaping like an
+      oyster-shell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith thanked him sincerely, saying, "It was just the arrangement
+      he would have requested; for, although he had not the least apprehension
+      of violence from Captain Dalgetty, yet Anderson was a better kind of
+      person, a sort of gentleman, whom he always liked to have near his
+      person."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have not seen this Anderson," said M'Aulay; "did you hire him in
+      England?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did so," said Lord Menteith; "you will see the man to-morrow; in the
+      meantime I wish you good-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His host left the apartment after the evening salutation, and was about to
+      pay the same compliment to Captain Dalgetty, but observing him deeply
+      engaged in the discussion of a huge pitcher filled with brandy posset, he
+      thought it a pity to disturb him in so laudable an employment, and took
+      his leave without farther ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Menteith's two attendants entered the apartment almost immediately
+      after his departure. The good Captain, who was now somewhat encumbered
+      with his good cheer, began to find the undoing of the clasps of his armour
+      a task somewhat difficult, and addressed Anderson in these words,
+      interrupted by a slight hiccup,&mdash;"Anderson, my good friend, you may
+      read in Scripture, that he that putteth off his armour should not boast
+      himself like he that putteth it on&mdash;I believe that is not the right
+      word of command; but the plain truth of it is, I am like to sleep in my
+      corslet, like many an honest fellow that never waked again, unless you
+      unloose this buckle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Undo his armour, Sibbald," said Anderson to the other servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By St. Andrew!" exclaimed the Captain, turning round in great
+      astonishment, "here's a common fellow&mdash;a stipendiary with four pounds
+      a-year and a livery cloak, thinks himself too good to serve Ritt-master
+      Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who has studied humanity at the
+      Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, and served half the princes of Europe!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain Dalgetty," said Lord Menteith, whose lot it was to stand
+      peacemaker throughout the evening, "please to understand that Anderson
+      waits upon no one but myself; but I will help Sibbald to undo your corslet
+      with much pleasure."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Too much trouble for you, my lord," said Dalgetty; "and yet it would do
+      you no harm to practise how a handsome harness is put on and put off. I
+      can step in and out of mine like a glove; only to-night, although not
+      EBRIUS, I am, in the classic phrase, VINO CIBOQUE GRAVATUS."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time he was unshelled, and stood before the fire musing with a
+      face of drunken wisdom on the events of the evening. What seemed chiefly
+      to interest him, was the character of Allan M'Aulay. "To come over the
+      Englishmen so cleverly with his Highland torch-bearers&mdash;eight
+      bare-breeched Rories for six silver candlesticks!&mdash;it was a
+      master-piece&mdash;a TOUR DE PASSE&mdash;it was perfect legerdemain&mdash;and
+      to be a madman after all!&mdash;I doubt greatly, my lord" (shaking his
+      head), "that I must allow him, notwithstanding his relationship to your
+      lordship, the privileges of a rational person, and either batoon him
+      sufficiently to expiate the violence offered to my person, or else bring
+      it to a matter of mortal arbitrement, as becometh an insulted cavalier."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you care to hear a long story," said Lord Menteith, "at this time of
+      night, I can tell you how the circumstances of Allan's birth account so
+      well for his singular character, as to put such satisfaction entirely out
+      of the question."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A long story, my lord," said Captain Dalgetty, "is, next to a good
+      evening draught and a warm nightcap, the best shoeinghorn for drawing on a
+      sound sleep. And since your lordship is pleased to take the trouble to
+      tell it, I shall rest your patient and obliged auditor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Anderson," said Lord Menteith, "and you, Sibbald, are dying to hear, I
+      suppose, of this strange man too! and I believe I must indulge your
+      curiosity, that you may know how to behave to him in time of need. You had
+      better step to the fire then."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus assembled an audience about him, Lord Menteith sat down upon
+      the edge of the four-post bed, while Captain Dalgetty, wiping the relics
+      of the posset from his beard and mustachoes, and repeating the first verse
+      of the Lutheran psalm, ALLE GUTER GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, etc. rolled
+      himself into one of the places of repose, and thrusting his shock pate
+      from between the blankets, listened to Lord Menteith's relation in a most
+      luxurious state, between sleeping and waking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The father," said Lord Menteith, "of the two brothers, Angus and Allan
+      M'Aulay, was a gentleman of consideration and family, being the chief of a
+      Highland clan, of good account, though not numerous; his lady, the mother
+      of these young men, was a gentlewoman of good family, if I may be
+      permitted to say so of one nearly connected with my own. Her brother, an
+      honourable and spirited young man, obtained from James the Sixth a grant
+      of forestry, and other privileges, over a royal chase adjacent to this
+      castle; and, in exercising and defending these rights, he was so
+      unfortunate as to involve himself in a quarrel with some of our Highland
+      freebooters or caterans, of whom I think, Captain Dalgetty, you must have
+      heard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that I have," said the Captain, exerting himself to answer the
+      appeal. "Before I left the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, Dugald Garr was
+      playing the devil in the Garioch, and the Farquharsons on Dee-side, and
+      the Clan Chattan on the Gordons' lands, and the Grants and Camerons in
+      Moray-land. And since that, I have seen the Cravats and Pandours in
+      Pannonia and Transylvania, and the Cossacks from the Polish frontier, and
+      robbers, banditti, and barbarians of all countries besides, so that I have
+      a distinct idea of your broken Highlandmen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The clan," said Lord Menteith, "with whom the maternal uncle of the
+      M'Aulays had been placed in feud, was a small sept of banditti, called,
+      from their houseless state, and their incessantly wandering among the
+      mountains and glens, the Children of the Mist. They are a fierce and hardy
+      people, with all the irritability, and wild and vengeful passions, proper
+      to men who have never known the restraint of civilized society. A party of
+      them lay in wait for the unfortunate Warden of the Forest, surprised him
+      while hunting alone and unattended, and slew him with every circumstance
+      of inventive cruelty. They cut off his head, and resolved, in a bravado,
+      to exhibit it at the castle of his brother-in-law. The laird was absent,
+      and the lady reluctantly received as guests, men against whom, perhaps,
+      she was afraid to shut her gates. Refreshments were placed before the
+      Children of the Mist, who took an opportunity to take the head of their
+      victim from the plaid in which it was wrapt, placed it on the table, put a
+      piece of bread between the lifeless jaws, bidding them do their office
+      now, since many a good meal they had eaten at that table. The lady, who
+      had been absent for some household purpose, entered at this moment, and,
+      upon beholding her brother's head, fled like an arrow out of the house
+      into the woods, uttering shriek upon shriek. The ruffians, satisfied with
+      this savage triumph, withdrew. The terrified menials, after overcoming the
+      alarm to which they had been subjected, sought their unfortunate mistress
+      in every direction, but she was nowhere to be found. The miserable husband
+      returned next day, and, with the assistance of his people, undertook a
+      more anxious and distant search, but to equally little purpose. It was
+      believed universally, that, in the ecstasy of her terror, she must either
+      have thrown herself over one of the numerous precipices which overhang the
+      river, or into a deep lake about a mile from the castle. Her loss was the
+      more lamented, as she was six months advanced in her pregnancy; Angus
+      M'Aulay, her eldest son, having been born about eighteen months before.&mdash;But
+      I tire you, Captain Dalgetty, and you seem inclined to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By no means," answered the soldier; "I am no whit somnolent; I always
+      hear best with my eyes shut. It is a fashion I learned when I stood
+      sentinel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I daresay," said Lord Menteith, aside to Anderson, "the weight of the
+      halberd of the sergeant of the rounds often made him open them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being apparently, however, in the humour of story-telling, the young
+      nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his servants, without
+      minding the slumbering veteran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Every baron in the country," said he, "now swore revenge for this
+      dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and brother-in-law of
+      the murdered person, and the Children of the Mist were hunted down, I
+      believe, with as little mercy as they had themselves manifested. Seventeen
+      heads, the bloody trophies of their vengeance, were distributed among the
+      allies, and fed the crows upon the gates of their castles. The survivors
+      sought out more distant wildernesses, to which they retreated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former ground,"
+      said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having produced the
+      correspondent word of command; and then starting up, professed he had been
+      profoundly atttentive to every word that had been spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is the custom in summer," said Lord Menteith, without attending to his
+      apology, "to send the cows to the upland pastures to have the benefit of
+      the grass; and the maids of the village, and of the family, go there to
+      milk them in the morning and evening. While thus employed, the females of
+      this family, to their great terror, perceived that their motions were
+      watched at a distance by a pale, thin, meagre figure, bearing a strong
+      resemblance to their deceased mistress, and passing, of course, for her
+      apparition. When some of the boldest resolved to approach this faded form,
+      it fled from them into the woods with a wild shriek. The husband, informed
+      of this circumstance, came up to the glen with some attendants, and took
+      his measures so well as to intercept the retreat of the unhappy fugitive,
+      and to secure the person of his unfortunate lady, though her intellect
+      proved to be totally deranged. How she supported herself during her
+      wandering in the woods could not be known&mdash;some supposed she lived
+      upon roots and wild-berries, with which the woods at that season abounded;
+      but the greater part of the vulgar were satisfied that she must have
+      subsisted upon the milk of the wild does, or been nourished by the
+      fairies, or supported in some manner equally marvellous. Her re-appearance
+      was more easily accounted for. She had seen from the thicket the milking
+      of the cows, to superintend which had been her favourite domestic
+      employment, and the habit had prevailed even in her deranged state of
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In due season the unfortunate lady was delivered of a boy, who not only
+      showed no appearance of having suffered from his mother's calamities, but
+      appeared to be an infant of uncommon health and strength. The unhappy
+      mother, after her confinement, recovered her reason&mdash;at least in a
+      great measure, but never her health and spirits. Allan was her only joy.
+      Her attention to him was unremitting; and unquestionably she must have
+      impressed upon his early mind many of those superstitious ideas to which
+      his moody and enthusiastic temper gave so ready a reception. She died when
+      he was about ten years old. Her last words were spoken to him in private;
+      but there is little doubt that they conveyed an injunction of vengeance
+      upon the Children of the Mist, with which he has since amply complied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From this moment, the habits of Allan M'Aulay were totally changed. He
+      had hitherto been his mother's constant companion, listening to her
+      dreams, and repeating his own, and feeding his imagination, which,
+      probably from the circumstances preceding his birth, was constitutionally
+      deranged, with all the wild and terrible superstitions so common to the
+      mountaineers, to which his unfortunate mother had become much addicted
+      since her brother's death. By living in this manner, the boy had gotten a
+      timid, wild, startled look, loved to seek out solitary places in the
+      woods, and was never so much terrified, as by the approach of children of
+      the same age. I remember, although some years younger, being brought up
+      here by my father upon a visit, nor can I forget the astonishment with
+      which I saw this infant-hermit shun every attempt I made to engage him in
+      the sports natural to our age. I can remember his father bewailing his
+      disposition to mine, and alleging, at the same time, that it was
+      impossible for him to take from his wife the company of the boy, as he
+      seemed to be the only consolation that remained to her in this world, and
+      as the amusement which Allan's society afforded her seemed to prevent the
+      recurrence, at least in its full force, of that fearful malady by which
+      she had been visited. But, after the death of his mother, the habits and
+      manners of the boy seemed at once to change. It is true he remained as
+      thoughtful and serious as before; and long fits of silence and abstraction
+      showed plainly that his disposition, in this respect, was in no degree
+      altered. But at other times, he sought out the rendezvous of the youth of
+      the clan, which he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid. He took share in
+      all their exercises; and, from his very extraordinary personal strength,
+      soon excelled his brother and other youths, whose age considerably
+      exceeded his own. They who had hitherto held him in contempt, now feared,
+      if they did not love him; and, instead of Allan's being esteemed a
+      dreaming, womanish, and feeble-minded boy, those who encountered him in
+      sports or military exercise, now complained that, when heated by the
+      strife, he was too apt to turn game into earnest, and to forget that he
+      was only engaged in a friendly trial of strength.&mdash;But I speak to
+      regardless ears," said Lord Menteith, interrupting himself, for the
+      Captain's nose now gave the most indisputable signs that he was fast
+      locked in the arms of oblivion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you mean the ears of that snorting swine, my lord," said Anderson,
+      "they are, indeed, shut to anything that you can say; nevertheless, this
+      place being unfit for more private conference, I hope you will have the
+      goodness to proceed, for Sibbald's benefit and for mine. The history of
+      this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must know, then," proceeded Lord Menteith, "that Allan continued to
+      increase in strength and activity, till his fifteenth year, about which
+      time he assumed a total independence of character, and impatience of
+      control, which much alarmed his surviving parent. He was absent in the
+      woods for whole days and nights, under pretence of hunting, though he did
+      not always bring home game. His father was the more alarmed, because
+      several of the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing troubles
+      of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did he think it
+      altogether safe to renew any attack upon them. The risk of Allan, in his
+      wanderings, sustaining injury from these vindictive freebooters, was a
+      perpetual source of apprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was myself upon a visit to the castle when this matter was brought to a
+      crisis. Allan had been absent since day-break in the woods, where I had
+      sought for him in vain; it was a dark stormy night, and he did not return.
+      His father expressed the utmost anxiety, and spoke of detaching a party at
+      the dawn of morning in quest of him; when, as we were sitting at the
+      supper-table, the door suddenly opened, and Allan entered the room with a
+      proud, firm, and confident air. His intractability of temper, as well as
+      the unsettled state of his mind, had such an influence over his father,
+      that he suppressed all other tokens of displeasure, excepting the
+      observation that I had killed a fat buck, and had returned before sunset,
+      while he supposed Allan, who had been on the hill till midnight, had
+      returned with empty hands. 'Are you sure of that?' said Allan, fiercely;
+      'here is something will tell you another tale.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots of blood
+      on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when suddenly, undoing
+      the corner of his plaid, he rolled down on the table a human head, bloody
+      and new severed, saying at the same time, 'Lie thou where the head of a
+      better man lay before ye.' From the haggard features, and matted red hair
+      and beard, partly grizzled with age, his father and others present
+      recognised the head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known leader among the
+      outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had been active in the
+      murder of the unfortunate Forester, uncle to Allan, and had escaped by a
+      desperate defence and extraordinary agility, when so many of his
+      companions were destroyed. We were all, it may be believed, struck with
+      surprise, but Allan refused to gratify our curiosity; and we only
+      conjectured that he must have overcome the outlaw after a desperate
+      struggle, because we discovered that he had sustained several wounds from
+      the contest. All measures were now taken to ensure him against the
+      vengeance of the freebooters; but neither his wounds, nor the positive
+      command of his father, nor even the locking of the gates of the castle and
+      the doors of his apartment, were precautions adequate to prevent Allan
+      from seeking out the very persons to whom he was peculiarly obnoxious. He
+      made his escape by night from the window of the apartment, and laughing at
+      his father's vain care, produced on one occasion the head of one, and upon
+      another those of two, of the Children of the Mist. At length these men,
+      fierce as they were, became appalled by the inveterate animosity and
+      audacity with which Allan sought out their recesses. As he never hesitated
+      to encounter any odds, they concluded that he must bear a charmed life, or
+      fight under the guardianship of some supernatural influence. Neither gun,
+      dirk, nor dourlach [DOURLACH&mdash;quiver; literally, satchel&mdash;of
+      arrows.], they said, availed aught against him. They imputed this to the
+      remarkable circumstances under which he was born; and at length five or
+      six of the stoutest caterans of the Highlands would have fled at Allan's
+      halloo, or the blast of his horn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the meanwhile, however, the Children of the Mist carried on their old
+      trade, and did the M'Aulays, as well as their kinsmen and allies, as much
+      mischief as they could. This provoked another expedition against the
+      tribe, in which I had my share; we surprised them effectually, by
+      besetting at once the upper and under passes of the country, and made such
+      clean work as is usual on these occasions, burning and slaying right
+      before us. In this terrible species of war, even the females and the
+      helpless do not always escape. One little maiden alone, who smiled upon
+      Allan's drawn dirk, escaped his vengeance upon my earnest entreaty. She
+      was brought to the castle, and here bred up under the name of Annot Lyle,
+      the most beautiful little fairy certainly that ever danced upon a heath by
+      moonlight. It was long ere Allan could endure the presence of the child,
+      until it occurred to his imagination, from her features perhaps, that she
+      did not belong to the hated blood of his enemies, but had become their
+      captive in some of their incursions; a circumstance not in itself
+      impossible, but in which he believes as firmly as in holy writ. He is
+      particularly delighted by her skill in music, which is so exquisite, that
+      she far exceeds the best performers in this country in playing on the
+      clairshach, or harp. It was discovered that this produced upon the
+      disturbed spirits of Allan, in his gloomiest moods, beneficial effects,
+      similar to those experienced by the Jewish monarch of old; and so engaging
+      is the temper of Annot Lyle, so fascinating the innocence and gaiety of
+      her disposition, that she is considered and treated in the castle rather
+      as the sister of the proprietor, than as a dependent upon his charity.
+      Indeed, it is impossible for any one to see her without being deeply
+      interested by the ingenuity, liveliness, and sweetness of her
+      disposition."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take care, my lord," said Anderson, smiling; "there is danger in such
+      violent commendations. Allan M'Aulay, as your lordship describes him,
+      would prove no very safe rival."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pooh! pooh!" said Lord Menteith, laughing, yet blushing at the same time;
+      "Allan is not accessible to the passion of love; and for myself," said he,
+      more gravely; "Annot's unknown birth is a sufficient reason against
+      serious designs, and her unprotected state precludes every other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is spoken like yourself, my lord," said Anderson.&mdash;"But I trust
+      you will proceed with your interesting story."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is wellnigh finished," said Lord Menteith; "I have only to add, that
+      from the great strength and courage of Allan M'Aulay, from his energetic
+      and uncontrollable disposition, and from an opinion generally entertained
+      and encouraged by himself that he holds communion with supernatural
+      beings, and can predict future events, the clan pay a much greater degree
+      of deference to him than even to his brother, who is a bold-hearted
+      rattling Highlander, but with nothing which can possibly rival the
+      extraordinary character of his younger brother."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such a character," said Anderson, "cannot but have the deepest effect on
+      the minds of a Highland host. We must secure Allan, my lord, at all
+      events. What between his bravery and his second sight&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hush!" said Lord Menteith, "that owl is awaking."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you talk of the second sight, or DEUTERO-SCOPIA?" said the soldier; "I
+      remember memorable Major Munro telling me how Murdoch Mackenzie, born in
+      Assint, a private gentleman in a company, and a pretty soldier, foretold
+      the death of Donald Tough, a Lochaber man, and certain other persons, as
+      well as the hurt of the major himself at a sudden onfall at the siege of
+      Trailsund."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have often heard of this faculty," observed Anderson, "but I have
+      always thought those pretending to it were either enthusiasts or
+      impostors."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should be loath," said Lord Menteith, "to apply either character to my
+      kinsman, Allan M'Aulay. He has shown on many occasions too much acuteness
+      and sense, of which you this night had an instance, for the character of
+      an enthusiast; and his high sense of honour, and manliness of disposition,
+      free him from the charge of imposture."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your lordship, then," said Anderson, "is a believer in his supernatural
+      attributes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By no means," said the young nobleman; "I think that he persuades himself
+      that the predictions which are, in reality, the result of judgment and
+      reflection, are supernatural impressions on his mind, just as fanatics
+      conceive the workings of their own imagination to be divine inspiration&mdash;at
+      least, if this will not serve you, Anderson, I have no better explanation
+      to give; and it is time we were all asleep after the toilsome journey of
+      the day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Coming events cast their shadows before.&mdash;CAMPBELL.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At an early hour in the morning the guests of the castle sprung from their
+      repose; and, after a moment's private conversation with his attendants,
+      Lord Menteith addressed the soldier, who was seated in a corner burnishing
+      his corslet with rot-stone and chamois-leather, while he hummed the old
+      song in honour of the victorious Gustavus Adolphus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     When cannons are roaring, and bullets are flying,
+     The lad that would have honour, boys, must never fear dying.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "Captain Dalgetty," said Lord Menteith, "the time is come that we must
+      part, or become comrades in service."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not before breakfast, I hope?" said Captain Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should have thought," replied his lordship, "that your garrison was
+      victualled for three days at least."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have still some stowage left for beef and bannocks," said the Captain;
+      "and I never miss a favourable opportunity of renewing my supplies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," said Lord Menteith, "no judicious commander allows either flags of
+      truce or neutrals to remain in his camp longer than is prudent; and
+      therefore we must know your mind exactly, according to which you shall
+      either have a safe-conduct to depart in peace, or be welcome to remain
+      with us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly," said the Captain, "that being the case, I will not attempt to
+      protract the capitulation by a counterfeited parley, (a thing excellently
+      practised by Sir James Ramsay at the siege of Hannau, in the year of God
+      1636,) but I will frankly own, that if I like your pay as well as your
+      provant and your company, I care not how soon I take the oath to your
+      colours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our pay," said Lord Menteith, "must at present be small, since it is paid
+      out of the common stock raised by the few amongst us who can command some
+      funds&mdash;As major and adjutant, I dare not promise Captain Dalgetty
+      more than half a dollar a-day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The devil take all halves and quarters!" said the Captain; "were it in my
+      option, I could no more consent to the halving of that dollar, than the
+      woman in the Judgment of Solomon to the disseverment of the child of her
+      bowels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The parallel will scarce hold, Captain Dalgetty, for I think you would
+      rather consent to the dividing of the dollar, than give it up entire to
+      your competitor. However, in the way of arrears, I may promise you the
+      other half-dollar at the end of the campaign."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! these arrearages!" said Captain Dalgetty, "that are always promised,
+      and always go for nothing! Spain, Austria, and Sweden, all sing one song.
+      Oh! long life to the Hoganmogans! if they were no officers of soldiers,
+      they were good paymasters.&mdash;And yet, my lord, if I could but be made
+      certiorate that my natural hereditament of Drumthwacket had fallen into
+      possession of any of these loons of Covenanters, who could be, in the
+      event of our success, conveniently made a traitor of, I have so much value
+      for that fertile and pleasant spot, that I would e'en take on with you for
+      the campaign."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can resolve Captain Dalgetty's question," said Sibbald, Lord Menteith's
+      second attendant; "for if his estate of Drumthwacket be, as I conceive,
+      the long waste moor so called, that lies five miles south of Aberdeen, I
+      can tell him it was lately purchased by Elias Strachan, as rank a rebel as
+      ever swore the Covenant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The crop-eared hound!" said Captain Dalgetty, in a rage; "What the devil
+      gave him the assurance to purchase the inheritance of a family of four
+      hundred years standing?&mdash;CYNTHIUS AUREM VELLET, as we used to say at
+      Mareschal-College; that is to say, I will pull him out of my father's
+      house by the ears. And so, my Lord Menteith, I am yours, hand and sword,
+      body and soul, till death do us part, or to the end of the next campaign,
+      whichever event shall first come to pass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I," said the young nobleman, "rivet the bargain with a month's pay in
+      advance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is more than necessary," said Dalgetty, pocketing the money however.
+      "But now I must go down, look after my war-saddle and abuilziements, and
+      see that Gustavus has his morning, and tell him we have taken new
+      service."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There goes your precious recruit," said Lord Menteith to Anderson, as the
+      Captain left the room; "I fear we shall have little credit of him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is a man of the times, however," said Anderson; "and without such we
+      should hardly be able to carry on our enterprise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us go down," answered Lord Menteith, "and see how our muster is
+      likely to thrive, for I hear a good deal of bustle in the castle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they entered the hall, the domestics keeping modestly in the
+      background, morning greetings passed between Lord Menteith, Angus M'Aulay,
+      and his English guests, while Allan, occupying the same settle which he
+      had filled the preceding evening, paid no attention whatever to any one.
+      Old Donald hastily rushed into the apartment. "A message from Vich Alister
+      More; [The patronymic of MacDonell of Glengarry.] he is coming up in the
+      evening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With how many attendants?" said M'Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Some five-and-twenty or thirty," said Donald, "his ordinary retinue."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shake down plenty of straw in the great barn," said the Laird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another servant here stumbled hastily in, announcing the expected approach
+      of Sir Hector M'Lean, "who is arriving with a large following."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put them in the malt-kiln," said M'Aulay; "and keep the breadth of the
+      middenstead between them and the M'Donalds; they are but unfriends to each
+      other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Donald now re-entered, his visage considerably lengthened&mdash;"The
+      tell's i' the folk," he said; "the haill Hielands are asteer, I think.
+      Evan Dhu, of Lochiel, will be here in an hour, with Lord kens how many
+      gillies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Into the great barn with them beside the M'Donalds," said the Laird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More and more chiefs were announced, the least of whom would have
+      accounted it derogatory to his dignity to stir without a retinue of six or
+      seven persons. To every new annunciation, Angus M'Aulay answered by naming
+      some place of accommodation,&mdash;the stables, the loft, the cow-house,
+      the sheds, every domestic office, were destined for the night to some
+      hospitable purpose or other. At length the arrival of M'Dougal of Lorn,
+      after all his means of accommodation were exhausted, reduced him to some
+      perplexity. "What the devil is to be done, Donald?" said he; "the great
+      barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads and thraws; but there
+      would be drawn dirks amang them which should lie upper-most, and so we
+      should have bloody puddings before morning!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What needs all this?" said Allan, starting up, and coming forward with
+      the stern abruptness of his usual manner; "are the Gael to-day of softer
+      flesh or whiter blood than their fathers were? Knock the head out of a
+      cask of usquebae; let that be their night-gear&mdash;their plaids their
+      bed-clothes&mdash;the blue sky their canopy, and the heather their couch.&mdash;Come
+      a thousand more, and they would not quarrel on the broad heath for want of
+      room!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Allan is right," said his brother; "it is very odd how Allan, who,
+      between ourselves," said he to Musgrave, "is a little wowf, [WOWF, i.e.
+      crazed.] seems at times to have more sense than us all put together.
+      Observe him now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," continued Allan, fixing his eyes with a ghastly stare upon the
+      opposite side of the hall, "they may well begin as they are to end; many a
+      man will sleep this night upon the heath, that when the Martinmas wind
+      shalt blow shall lie there stark enough, and reck little of cold or lack
+      of covering."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do not forespeak us, brother," said Angus; "that is not lucky."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what luck is it then that you expect?" said Allan; and straining his
+      eyes until they almost started from their sockets, he fell with a
+      convulsive shudder into the arms of Donald and his brother, who, knowing
+      the nature of his fits, had come near to prevent his fall. They seated him
+      upon a bench, and supported him until he came to himself, and was about to
+      speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For God's sake, Allan," said his brother, who knew the impression his
+      mystical words were likely to make on many of the guests, "say nothing to
+      discourage us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Am I he who discourages you?" said Allan; "let every man face his world
+      as I shall face mine. That which must come, will come; and we shall stride
+      gallantly over many a field of victory, ere we reach yon fatal
+      slaughter-place, or tread yon sable scaffolds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What slaughter-place? what scaffolds?" exclaimed several voices; for
+      Allan's renown as a seer was generally established in the Highlands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will know that but too soon," answered Allan. "Speak to me no more, I
+      am weary of your questions." He then pressed his hand against his brow,
+      rested his elbow upon his knee, and sunk into a deep reverie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Send for Annot Lyle, and the harp," said Angus, in a whisper, to his
+      servant; "and let those gentlemen follow me who do not fear a Highland
+      breakfast."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All accompanied their hospitable landlord excepting only Lord Menteith,
+      who lingered in one of the deep embrasures formed by the windows of the
+      hall. Annot Lyle shortly after glided into the room, not ill described by
+      Lord Menteith as being the lightest and most fairy figure that ever trode
+      the turf by moonlight. Her stature, considerably less than the ordinary
+      size of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth, insomuch, that
+      although she was near eighteen, she might have passed for four years
+      younger. Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed upon a model of
+      exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of her person, so that
+      Titania herself could scarce have found a more fitting representative. Her
+      hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed flaxen, whose
+      clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair complexion, and with
+      the playful, yet simple, expression of her features. When we add to these
+      charms, that Annot, in her orphan state, seemed the gayest and happiest of
+      maidens, the reader must allow us to claim for her the interest of almost
+      all who looked on her. In fact, it was impossible to find a more universal
+      favourite, and she often came among the rude inhabitants of the castle, as
+      Allan himself, in a poetical mood, expressed it, "like a sunbeam on a
+      sullen sea," communicating to all others the cheerfulness that filled her
+      own mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot, such as we have described her, smiled and blushed, when, on
+      entering the apartment, Lord Menteith came from his place of retirement,
+      and kindly wished her good-morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And good-morning to you, my lord," returned she, extending her hand to
+      her friend; "we have seldom seen you of late at the castle, and now I fear
+      it is with no peaceful purpose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At least, let me not interrupt your harmony, Annot," said Lord Menteith,
+      "though my arrival may breed discord elsewhere. My cousin Allan needs the
+      assistance of your voice and music."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My preserver," said Annot Lyle, "has a right to my poor exertions; and
+      you, too, my lord,&mdash;you, too, are my preserver, and were the most
+      active to save a life that is worthless enough, unless it can benefit my
+      protectors."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, she sate down at a little distance upon the bench on which
+      Allan M'Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about
+      thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice. The air was an
+      ancient Gaelic melody, and the words, which were supposed to be very old,
+      were in the same language; but we subjoin a translation of them, by
+      Secundus Macpherson, Esq. of Glenforgen, which, although submitted to the
+      fetters of English rhythm, we trust will be found nearly as genuine as the
+      version of Ossian by his celebrated namesake.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Birds of omen dark and foul,
+     Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
+     Leave the sick man to his dream&mdash;
+     All night long he heard your scream&mdash;
+     Haste to cave and ruin'd tower,
+     Ivy, tod, or dingled bower,
+     There to wink and mope, for, hark!
+     In the mid air sings the lark.
+
+     "Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
+     Prowling wolf and wily fox,&mdash;
+     Hie you fast, nor turn your view,
+     Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
+     Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
+     Safety parts with parting night;
+     And on distant echo borne,
+     Comes the hunter's early horn.
+
+     "The moon's wan crescent scarcely gleams,
+     Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
+     Hie hence each peevish imp and fay,
+     That scare the pilgrim on his way:&mdash;
+     Quench, kelpy!  quench, in bog and fen,
+     Thy torch that cheats benighted men;
+     Thy dance is o'er, thy reign is done,
+     For Benyieglo hath seen the sun.
+
+     "Wild thoughts, that, sinful, dark, and deep,
+     O'erpower the passive mind in sleep,
+     Pass from the slumberer's soul away,
+     Like night-mists from the brow of day:
+     Foul hag, whose blasted visage grim
+     Smothers the pulse, unnerves the limb,
+     Spur thy dark palfrey, and begone!
+     Thou darest not face the godlike sun."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As the strain proceeded, Allan M'Aulay gradually gave signs of recovering
+      his presence of mind, and attention to the objects around him. The
+      deep-knit furrows of his brow relaxed and smoothed themselves; and the
+      rest of his features, which had seemed contorted with internal agony,
+      relapsed into a more natural state. When he raised his head and sat
+      upright, his countenance, though still deeply melancholy, was divested of
+      its wildness and ferocity; and in its composed state, although by no means
+      handsome, the expression of his features was striking, manly, and even
+      noble. His thick, brown eyebrows, which had hitherto been drawn close
+      together, were now slightly separated, as in the natural state; and his
+      grey eyes, which had rolled and flashed from under them with an unnatural
+      and portentous gleam, now recovered a steady and determined expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank God!" he said, after sitting silent for about a minute, until the
+      very last sounds of the harp had ceased to vibrate, "my soul is no longer
+      darkened&mdash;the mist hath passed from my spirit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You owe thanks, cousin Allan," said Lord Menteith, coming forward, "to
+      Annot Lyle, as well as to heaven, for this happy change in your melancholy
+      mood."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My noble cousin Menteith," said Allan, rising and greeting him very
+      respectfully, as well as kindly, "has known my unhappy circumstances so
+      long, that his goodness will require no excuse for my being thus late in
+      bidding him welcome to the castle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are too old acquaintances, Allan," said Lord Menteith, "and too good
+      friends, to stand on the ceremonial of outward greeting; but half the
+      Highlands will be here to-day, and you know, with our mountain Chiefs,
+      ceremony must not be neglected. What will you give little Annot for making
+      you fit company to meet Evan Dhu, and I know not how many bonnets and
+      feathers?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What will he give me?" said Annot, smiling; "nothing less, I hope, than
+      the best ribbon at the Fair of Doune."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Fair of Doune, Annot?" said Allan sadly; "there will be bloody work
+      before that day, and I may never see it; but you have well reminded me of
+      what I have long intended to do."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having said this, he left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Should he talk long in this manner," said Lord Menteith, "you must keep
+      your harp in tune, my dear Annot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope not," said Annot, anxiously; "this fit has been a long one, and
+      probably will not soon return. It is fearful to see a mind, naturally
+      generous and affectionate, afflicted by this constitutional malady."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke in a low and confidential tone, Lord Menteith naturally drew
+      close, and stooped forward, that he might the better catch the sense of
+      what she said. When Allan suddenly entered the apartment, they as
+      naturally drew back from each other with a manner expressive of
+      consciousness, as if surprised in a conversation which they wished to keep
+      secret from him. This did not escape Allan's observation; he stopt short
+      at the door of the apartment&mdash;his brows were contracted&mdash;his
+      eyes rolled; but it was only the paroxysm of a moment. He passed his broad
+      sinewy hand across his brow, as if to obliterate these signs of emotion,
+      and advanced towards Annot, holding in his hand a very small box made of
+      oakwood, curiously inlaid. "I take you to witness," he said, "cousin
+      Menteith, that I give this box and its contents to Annot Lyle. It contains
+      a few ornaments that belonged to my poor mother&mdash;of trifling value,
+      you may guess, for the wife of a Highland laird has seldom a rich
+      jewel-casket."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But these ornaments," said Annot Lyle, gently and timidly refusing the
+      box, "belong to the family&mdash;I cannot accept&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They belong to me alone, Annot," said Allan, interrupting her; "they were
+      my mother's dying bequest. They are all I can call my own, except my plaid
+      and my claymore. Take them, therefore&mdash;they are to me valueless
+      trinkets&mdash;and keep them for my sake&mdash;should I never return from
+      these wars."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he opened the case, and presented it to Annot. "If," said he,
+      "they are of any value, dispose of them for your own support, when this
+      house has been consumed with hostile fire, and can no longer afford you
+      protection. But keep one ring in memory of Allan, who has done, to requite
+      your kindness, if not all he wished, at least all he could."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle endeavoured in vain to restrain the gathering tears, when she
+      said, "ONE ring, Allan, I will accept from you as a memorial of your
+      goodness to a poor orphan, but do not press me to take more; for I cannot,
+      and will not, accept a gift of such disproportioned value."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Make your choice, then," said Allan; "your delicacy may be well founded;
+      the others will assume a shape in which they may be more useful to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Think not of it," said Annot, choosing from the contents of the casket a
+      ring, apparently the most trifling in value which it contained; "keep them
+      for your own, or your brother's bride.&mdash;But, good heavens!" she said,
+      interrupting herself, and looking at the ring, "what is this that I have
+      chosen?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan hastened to look upon it, with eyes of gloomy apprehension; it bore,
+      in enamel, a death's head above two crossed daggers. When Allan recognised
+      the device, he uttered a sigh so deep, that she dropped the ring from her
+      hand, which rolled upon the floor. Lord Menteith picked it up, and
+      returned it to the terrified Annot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I take God to witness," said Allan, in a solemn tone, "that your hand,
+      young lord, and not mine, has again delivered to her this ill-omened gift.
+      It was the mourning ring worn by my mother in memorial of her murdered
+      brother."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I fear no omens," said Annot, smiling through her tears; "and nothing
+      coming through the hands of my two patrons," so she was wont to call Lord
+      Menteith and Allan, "can bring bad luck to the poor orphan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She put the ring on her finger, and, turning to her harp, sung, to a
+      lively air, the following verses of one of the fashionable songs of the
+      period, which had found its way, marked as it was with the quaint
+      hyperbolical taste of King Charles's time, from some court masque to the
+      wilds of Perthshire:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Gaze not upon the stars, fond sage,
+     In them no influence lies;
+     To read the fate of youth or age,
+     Look on my Helen's eyes.
+
+     "Yet, rash astrologer, refrain!
+     Too dearly would be won
+     The prescience of another's pain,
+     If purchased by thine own."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "She is right, Allan," said Lord Menteith; "and this end of an old song is
+      worth all we shall gain by our attempt to look into futurity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "She is WRONG, my lord," said Allan, sternly, "though you, who treat with
+      lightness the warnings I have given you, may not live to see the event of
+      the omen.&mdash;laugh not so scornfully," he added, interrupting himself
+      "or rather laugh on as loud and as long as you will; your term of laughter
+      will find a pause ere long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I care not for your visions, Allan," said Lord Menteith; "however short
+      my span of life, the eye of no Highland seer can see its termination."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For heaven's sake," said Annot Lyle, interrupting him, "you know his
+      nature, and how little he can endure&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fear me not," said Allan, interrupting her,&mdash;"my mind is now
+      constant and calm.&mdash;But for you, young lord," said he, turning to
+      Lord Menteith, "my eye has sought you through fields of battle, where
+      Highlanders and Lowlanders lay strewed as thick as ever the rooks sat on
+      those ancient trees," pointing to a rookery which was seen from the window&mdash;"my
+      eye sought you, but your corpse was not there&mdash;my eye sought you
+      among a train of unresisting and disarmed captives, drawn up within the
+      bounding walls of an ancient and rugged fortress;&mdash;flash after flash&mdash;platoon
+      after platoon&mdash;the hostile shot fell amongst them, They dropped like
+      the dry leaves in autumn, but you were not among their ranks;&mdash;scaffolds
+      were prepared&mdash;blocks were arranged, saw-dust was spread&mdash;the
+      priest was ready with his book, the headsman with his axe&mdash;but there,
+      too, mine eye found you not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The gibbet, then, I suppose, must be my doom?" said Lord Menteith. "Yet I
+      wish they had spared me the halter, were it but for the dignity of the
+      peerage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke this scornfully, yet not without a sort of curiosity, and a wish
+      to receive an answer; for the desire of prying into futurity frequently
+      has some influence even on the minds of those who disavow all belief in
+      the possibility of such predictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your rank, my lord, will suffer no dishonour in your person, or by the
+      manner of your death. Three times have I seen a Highlander plant his dirk
+      in your bosom&mdash;and such will be your fate."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish you would describe him to me," said Lord Menteith, "and I shall
+      save him the trouble of fulfilling your prophecy, if his plaid be passible
+      to sword or pistol."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your weapons," said Allan, "would avail you little; nor can I give you
+      the information you desire. The face of the vision has been ever averted
+      from me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So be it then," said Lord Menteith, "and let it rest in the uncertainty
+      in which your augury has placed it. I shall dine not the less merrily
+      among plaids, and dirks, and kilts to-day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may be so," said Allan; "and, it may be, you do well to enjoy these
+      moments, which to me are poisoned by auguries of future evil. But I," he
+      continued&mdash;"I repeat to you, that this weapon&mdash;that is, such a
+      weapon as this," touching the hilt of the dirk which he wore, "carries
+      your fate." "In the meanwhile," said Lord Menteith, "you, Allan, have
+      frightened the blood from the cheeks of Annot Lyle&mdash;let us leave this
+      discourse, my friend, and go to see what we both understand,&mdash;the
+      progress of our military preparations."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They joined Angus M'Aulay and his English guests, and, in the military
+      discussions which immediately took place, Allan showed a clearness of
+      mind, strength of judgment, and precision of thought, totally inconsistent
+      with the mystical light in which his character has been hitherto
+      exhibited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     When Albin her claymore indignantly draws,
+     When her bonneted chieftains around her shall crowd,
+     Clan-Ranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
+     All plaided and plumed in their tartan array&mdash;LOCHEIL'S WARNING.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Whoever saw that morning, the Castle of Darnlinvarach, beheld a busy and a
+      gallant sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The various Chiefs, arriving with their different retinues, which,
+      notwithstanding their numbers, formed no more than their usual equipage
+      and body-guard upon occasions of solemnity, saluted the lord of the castle
+      and each other with overflowing kindness, or with haughty and distant
+      politeness, according to the circumstances of friendship or hostility in
+      which their clans had recently stood to each other. Each Chief, however
+      small his comparative importance, showed the full disposition to exact
+      from the rest the deference due to a separate and independent prince;
+      while the stronger and more powerful, divided among themselves by recent
+      contentions or ancient feuds, were constrained in policy to use great
+      deference to the feelings of their less powerful brethren, in order, in
+      case of need, to attach as many well-wishers as might be to their own
+      interest and standard. Thus the meeting of Chiefs resembled not a little
+      those ancient Diets of the Empire, where the smallest FREY-GRAF, who
+      possessed a castle perched upon a barren crag, with a few hundred acres
+      around it, claimed the state and honours of a sovereign prince, and a seat
+      according to his rank among the dignitaries of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The followers of the different leaders were separately arranged and
+      accommodated, as room and circumstances best permitted, each retaining
+      however his henchman, who waited, close as the shadow, upon his person, to
+      execute whatever might be required by his patron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exterior of the castle afforded a singular scene. The Highlanders,
+      from different islands, glens, and straths, eyed each other at a distance
+      with looks of emulation, inquisitive curiosity, or hostile malevolence;
+      but the most astounding part of the assembly, at least to a Lowland ear,
+      was the rival performance of the bagpipers. These warlike minstrels, who
+      had the highest opinion, each, of the superiority of his own tribe, joined
+      to the most overweening idea of the importance connected with his
+      profession, at first, performed their various pibrochs in front each of
+      his own clan. At length, however, as the black-cocks towards the end of
+      the season, when, in sportsman's language, they are said to flock or
+      crowd, attracted together by the sound of each others' triumphant crow,
+      even so did the pipers, swelling their plaids and tartans in the same
+      triumphant manner in which the birds ruffle up their feathers, begin to
+      approach each other within such distance as might give to their brethren a
+      sample of their skill. Walking within a short interval, and eyeing each
+      other with looks in which self-importance and defiance might be traced,
+      they strutted, puffed, and plied their screaming instruments, each playing
+      his own favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had
+      lain buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the dead to
+      run out of hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chieftains meanwhile had assembled in close conclave in the great hall
+      of the castle. Among them were the persons of the greatest consequence in
+      the Highlands, some of them attracted by zeal for the royal cause, and
+      many by aversion to that severe and general domination which the Marquis
+      of Argyle, since his rising to such influence in the state, had exercised
+      over his Highland neighbours. That statesman, indeed, though possessed of
+      considerable abilities, and great power, had failings, which rendered him
+      unpopular among the Highland chiefs. The devotion which he professed was
+      of a morose and fanatical character; his ambition appeared to be
+      insatiable, and inferior chiefs complained of his want of bounty and
+      liberality. Add to this, that although a Highlander, and of a family
+      distinguished for valour before and since, Gillespie Grumach [GRUMACH&mdash;ill-favored.]
+      (which, from an obliquity in his eyes, was the personal distinction he
+      bore in the Highlands, where titles of rank are unknown) was suspected of
+      being a better man in the cabinet than in the field. He and his tribe were
+      particularly obnoxious to the M'Donalds and the M'Leans, two numerous
+      septs, who, though disunited by ancient feuds, agreed in an intense
+      dislike to the Campbells, or, as they were called, the Children of
+      Diarmid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some time the assembled Chiefs remained silent, until some one should
+      open the business of the meeting. At length one of the most powerful of
+      them commenced the diet by saying,&mdash;"We have been summoned hither,
+      M'Aulay, to consult of weighty matters concerning the King's affairs, and
+      those of the state; and we crave to know by whom they are to be explained
+      to us?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M'Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his wish that
+      Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great modesty,
+      and at the same time with spirit, that young lord said, "he wished what he
+      was about to propose had come from some person of better known and more
+      established character. Since, however, it lay with him to be spokesman, he
+      had to state to the Chiefs assembled, that those who wished to throw off
+      the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to wreath round their
+      necks, had not a moment to lose. 'The Covenanters,'" he said, "after
+      having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having extorted from him
+      every request, reasonable or unreasonable, which they thought proper to
+      demand&mdash;after their Chiefs had been loaded with dignities and favours&mdash;after
+      having publicly declared, when his Majesty, after a gracious visit to the
+      land of his nativity, was upon his return to England, that he returned a
+      contented king from a contented people,&mdash;after all this, and without
+      even the pretext for a national grievance, the same men have, upon doubts
+      and suspicions, equally dishonourable to the King, and groundless in
+      themselves, detached a strong army to assist his rebels in England, in a
+      quarrel with which Scotland had no more to do than she has with the wars
+      in Germany. It was well," he said, "that the eagerness with which this
+      treasonable purpose was pursued, had blinded the junta who now usurped the
+      government of Scotland to the risk which they were about to incur. The
+      army which they had dispatched to England under old Leven comprehended
+      their veteran soldiers, the strength of those armies which had been levied
+      in Scotland during the two former wars&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Captain Dalgetty endeavoured to rise, for the purpose of explaining
+      how many veteran officers, trained in the German wars, were, to his
+      certain knowledge, in the army of the Earl of Leven. But Allan M'Aulay
+      holding him down in his seat with one hand, pressed the fore-finger of the
+      other upon his own lips, and, though with some difficulty, prevented his
+      interference. Captain Dalgetty looked upon him with a very scornful and
+      indignant air, by which the other's gravity was in no way moved, and Lord
+      Menteith proceeded without farther interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The moment," he said, "was most favourable for all true-hearted and loyal
+      Scotchmen to show, that the reproach their country had lately undergone
+      arose from the selfish ambition of a few turbulent and seditious men,
+      joined to the absurd fanaticism which, disseminated from five hundred
+      pulpits, had spread like a land-flood over the Lowlands of Scotland. He
+      had letters from the Marquis of Huntly in the north, which he should show
+      to the Chiefs separately. That nobleman, equally loyal and powerful was
+      determined to exert his utmost energy in the common cause, and the
+      powerful Earl of Seaforth was prepared to join the same standard. From the
+      Earl of Airly, and the Ogilvies in Angusshire, he had had communications
+      equally decided; and there was no doubt that these, who, with the Hays,
+      Leiths, Burnets, and other loyal gentlemen, would be soon on horseback,
+      would form a body far more than sufficient to overawe the northern
+      Covenanters, who had already experienced their valour in the well-known
+      rout which was popularly termed the Trot of Turiff. South of Forth and
+      Tay," he said, "the King had many friends, who, oppressed by enforced
+      oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy taxes, unjustly imposed and unequally
+      levied, by the tyranny of the Committee of Estates, and the inquisitorial
+      insolence of the Presbyterian divines, waited but the waving of the royal
+      banner to take up arms. Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh, Hume, all friendly to
+      the royal cause, would counterbalance," he said, "the covenanting interest
+      in the south; and two gentlemen, of name and quality, here present, from
+      the north of England, would answer for the zeal of Cumberland,
+      Westmoreland, and Northumberland. Against so many gallant gentlemen the
+      southern Covenanters could but arm raw levies; the Whigamores of the
+      western shires, and the ploughmen and mechanics of the Low-country. For
+      the West Highlands, he knew no interest which the Covenanters possessed
+      there, except that of one individual, as well known as he was odious. But
+      was there a single man, who, on casting his eye round this hall, and
+      recognising the power, the gallantry, and the dignity of the chiefs
+      assembled, could entertain a moment's doubt of their success against the
+      utmost force which Gillespie Grumach could collect against them? He had
+      only farther to add, that considerable funds, both of money and
+      ammunition, had been provided for the army"&mdash;(Here Dalgetty pricked
+      up his ears)&mdash;"that officers of ability and experience in the foreign
+      wars, one of whom was now present," (the Captain drew himself up, and
+      looked round,) "had engaged to train such levies as might require to be
+      disciplined;&mdash;and that a numerous body of auxiliary forces from
+      Ireland, having been detached from the Earl of Antrim, from Ulster, had
+      successfully accomplished their descent upon the main land, and, with the
+      assistance of Clanranald's people, having taken and fortified the Castle
+      of Mingarry, in spite of Argyle's attempts to intercept them, were in full
+      march to this place of rendezvous. It only remained," he said, "that the
+      noble Chiefs assembled, laying aside every lesser consideration, should
+      unite, heart and hand, in the common cause; send the fiery cross through
+      their clans, in order to collect their utmost force, and form their
+      junction with such celerity as to leave the enemy no time, either for
+      preparation, or recovery from the panic which would spread at the first
+      sound of their pibroch. He himself," he said, "though neither among the
+      richest nor the most powerful of the Scottish nobility, felt that he had
+      to support the dignity of an ancient and honourable house, the
+      independence of an ancient and honourable nation, and to that cause he was
+      determined to devote both life and fortune. If those who were more
+      powerful were equally prompt, he trusted they would deserve the thanks of
+      their King, and the gratitude of posterity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud applause followed this speech of Lord Menteith, and testified the
+      general acquiescence of all present in the sentiments which he had
+      expressed; but when the shout had died away, the assembled Chiefs
+      continued to gaze upon each other as if something yet remained to be
+      settled. After some whispers among themselves, an aged man, whom his grey
+      hairs rendered respectable, although he was not of the highest order of
+      Chiefs, replied to what had been said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thane of Menteith," he said, "you have well spoken; nor is there one of
+      us in whose bosom the same sentiments do not burn like fire. But it is not
+      strength alone that wins the fight; it is the head of the commander, as
+      well as the arm of the soldier, that brings victory. I ask of you who is
+      to raise and sustain the banner under which we are invited to rise and
+      muster ourselves? Will it be expected that we should risk our children,
+      and the flower of our kinsmen, ere we know to whose guidance they are to
+      be intrusted? This were leading those to slaughter, whom, by the laws of
+      God and man, it is our duty to protect. Where is the royal commission,
+      under which the lieges are to be convocated in arms? Simple and rude as we
+      may be deemed, we know something of the established rules of war, as well
+      as of the laws of our country; nor will we arm ourselves against the
+      general peace of Scotland, unless by the express commands of the King, and
+      under a leader fit to command such men as are here assembled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where would you find such a leader," said another Chief, starting up,
+      "saving the representative of the Lord of the Isles, entitled by birth and
+      hereditary descent to lead forth the array of every clan of the Highlands;
+      and where is that dignity lodged, save in the house of Vich Alister More?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I acknowledge," said another Chief, eagerly interrupting the speaker,
+      "the truth in what has been first said, but not the inference. If Vich
+      Alister More desires to be held representative of the Lord of the Isles,
+      let him first show his blood is redder than mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is soon tried," said Vich Alister More, laying his hand upon the
+      basket hilt of his claymore. Lord Menteith threw himself between them,
+      entreating and imploring each to remember that the interests of Scotland,
+      the liberty of their country, and the cause of their King, ought to be
+      superior in their eyes to any personal disputes respecting descent, rank,
+      and precedence. Several of the Highland Chiefs, who had no desire to admit
+      the claims of either chieftain, interfered to the same purpose, and none
+      with more emphasis than the celebrated Evan Dhu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have come from my lakes," he said, "as a stream descends from the
+      hills, not to turn again, but to accomplish my course. It is not by
+      looking back to our own pretensions that we shall serve Scotland or King
+      Charles. My voice shall be for that general whom the King shall name, who
+      will doubtless possess those qualities which are necessary to command men
+      like us. High-born he must be, or we shall lose our rank in obeying him&mdash;wise
+      and skilful, or we shall endanger the safety of our people&mdash;bravest
+      among the brave, or we shall peril our own honour&mdash;temperate, firm,
+      and manly, to keep us united. Such is the man that must command us. Are
+      you prepared, Thane of Menteith, to say where such a general is to be
+      found?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is but ONE," said Allan M'Aulay; "and here," he said, laying his
+      hand upon the shoulder of Anderson, who stood behind Lord Menteith, "here
+      he stands!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general surprise of the meeting was expressed by an impatient murmur;
+      when Anderson, throwing back the cloak in which his face was muffled, and
+      stepping forward, spoke thus:&mdash;"I did not long intend to be a silent
+      spectator of this interesting scene, although my hasty friend has obliged
+      me to disclose myself somewhat sooner than was my intention. Whether I
+      deserve the honour reposed in me by this parchment will best appear from
+      what I shall be able to do for the King's service. It is a commission
+      under the great seal, to James Graham, Earl of Montrose, to command those
+      forces which are to be assembled for the service of his Majesty in this
+      kingdom."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud shout of approbation burst from the assembly. There was, in fact,
+      no other person to whom, in point of rank, these proud mountaineers would
+      have been disposed to submit. His inveterate and hereditary hostility to
+      the Marquis of Argyle insured his engaging in the war with sufficient
+      energy, while his well-known military talents, and his tried valour,
+      afforded every hope of his bringing it to a favourable conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
+     constant:  a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation:
+     an excellent plot, very good friends.&mdash;HENRY IV Part I.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the general acclamation of joyful surprise subsided, than
+      silence was eagerly demanded for reading the royal commission; and the
+      bonnets, which hitherto each Chief had worn, probably because unwilling to
+      be the first to uncover, were now at once vailed in honour of the royal
+      warrant. It was couched in the most full and ample terms, authorizing the
+      Earl of Montrose to assemble the subjects in arms, for the putting down
+      the present rebellion, which divers traitors and seditious persons had
+      levied against the King, to the manifest forfaulture, as it stated, of
+      their allegiance, and to the breach of the pacification between the two
+      kingdoms. It enjoined all subordinate authorities to be obedient and
+      assisting to Montrose in his enterprise; gave him the power of making
+      ordinances and proclamations, punishing misdemeanours, pardoning
+      criminals, placing and displacing governors and commanders. In fine, it
+      was as large and full a commission as any with which a prince could
+      intrust a subject. As soon as it was finished, a shout burst from the
+      assembled Chiefs, in testimony of their ready submission to the will of
+      their sovereign. Not contented with generally thanking them for a
+      reception so favourable, Montrose hastened to address himself to
+      individuals, The most important Chiefs had already been long personally
+      known to him, but even to those of inferior consequence he now introduced
+      himself and by the acquaintance he displayed with their peculiar
+      designations, and the circumstances and history of their clans, he showed
+      how long he must have studied the character of the mountaineers, and
+      prepared himself for such a situation as he now held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was engaged in these acts of courtesy, his graceful manner,
+      expressive features, and dignity of deportment, made a singular contrast
+      with the coarseness and meanness of his dress. Montrose possessed that
+      sort of form and face, in which the beholder, at the first glance, sees
+      nothing extraordinary, but of which the interest becomes more impressive
+      the longer we gaze upon them. His stature was very little above the middle
+      size, but in person he was uncommonly well-built, and capable both of
+      exerting great force, and enduring much fatigue. In fact, he enjoyed a
+      constitution of iron, without which he could not have sustained the trials
+      of his extraordinary campaigns, through all of which he subjected himself
+      to the hardships of the meanest soldier. He was perfect in all exercises,
+      whether peaceful or martial, and possessed, of course, that graceful ease
+      of deportment proper to those to whom habit has rendered all postures
+      easy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His long brown hair, according to the custom of men of quality among the
+      Royalists, was parted on the top of his head, and trained to hang down on
+      each side in curled locks, one of which, descending two or three inches
+      lower than the others, intimated Montrose's compliance with that fashion
+      against which it pleased Mr. Prynne, the puritan, to write a treatise,
+      entitled, THE UNLOVELINESS OF LOVE-LOCKS. The features which these tresses
+      enclosed, were of that kind which derive their interest from the character
+      of the man, rather than from the regularity of their form. But a high
+      nose, a full, decided, well-opened, quick grey eye, and a sanguine
+      complexion, made amends for some coarseness and irregularity in the
+      subordinate parts of the face; so that, altogether, Montrose might be
+      termed rather a handsome, than a hard-featured man. But those who saw him
+      when his soul looked through those eyes with all the energy and fire of
+      genius&mdash;those who heard him speak with the authority of talent, and
+      the eloquence of nature, were impressed with an opinion even of his
+      external form, more enthusiastically favourable than the portraits which
+      still survive would entitle us to ascribe to it. Such, at least, was the
+      impression he made upon the assembled Chiefs of the mountaineers, over
+      whom, as upon all persons in their state of society, personal appearance
+      has no small influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the discussions which followed his discovering himself, Montrose
+      explained the various risks which he had run in his present undertaking.
+      His first attempt had been to assemble a body of loyalists in the north of
+      England, who, in obedience to the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle, he
+      expected would have marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of the
+      English to cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim, who was
+      to have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army, prevented his
+      executing this design. Other plans having in like manner failed, he stated
+      that he found himself under the necessity of assuming a disguise to render
+      his passage secure through the Lowlands, in which he had been kindly
+      assisted by his kinsman of Menteith. By what means Allan M'Aulay had come
+      to know him, he could not pretend to explain. Those who knew Allan's
+      prophetic pretensions, smiled mysteriously; but he himself only replied,
+      that "the Earl of Montrose need not be surprised if he was known to
+      thousands, of whom he himself could retain no memory."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the honour of a cavalier," said Captain Dalgetty, finding at length an
+      opportunity to thrust in his word, "I am proud and happy in having an
+      opportunity of drawing a sword under your lordship's command; and I do
+      forgive all grudge, malecontent, and malice of my heart, to Mr. Allan
+      M'Aulay, for having thrust me down to the lowest seat of the board
+      yestreen. Certes, he hath this day spoken so like a man having full
+      command of his senses, that I had resolved in my secret purpose that he
+      was no way entitled to claim the privilege of insanity. But since I was
+      only postponed to a noble earl, my future commander-in-chief, I do, before
+      you all, recognise the justice of the preference, and heartily salute
+      Allan as one who is to be his BON-CAMARADO."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made this speech, which was little understood or attended to,
+      without putting off his military glove, he seized on Allan's hand, and
+      began to shake it with violence, which Allan, with a gripe like a smith's
+      vice, returned with such force, as to drive the iron splents of the
+      gauntlet into the hand of the wearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dalgetty might have construed this into a new affront, had not his
+      attention, as he stood blowing and shaking the injured member, been
+      suddenly called by Montrose himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hear this news," he said, "Captain Dalgetty&mdash;I should say Major
+      Dalgetty,&mdash;the Irish, who are to profit by your military experience,
+      are now within a few leagues of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our deer-stalkers," said Angus M'Aulay, "who were abroad to bring in
+      venison for this honourable party, have heard of a band of strangers,
+      speaking neither Saxon nor pure Gaelic, and with difficulty making
+      themselves understood by the people of the country, who are marching this
+      way in arms, under the leading, it is said, of Alaster M'Donald, who is
+      commonly called Young Colkitto."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These must be our men," said Montrose; "we must hasten to send messengers
+      forward, both to act as guides and to relieve their wants."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last," said Angus M'Aulay, "will be no easy matter; for I am
+      informed, that, excepting muskets and a very little ammunition, they want
+      everything that soldiers should have; and they are particularly deficient
+      in money, in shoes, and in raiment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is at least no use in saying so," said Montrose, "in so loud a
+      tone. The puritan weavers of Glasgow shall provide them plenty of
+      broad-cloth, when we make a descent from the Highlands; and if the
+      ministers could formerly preach the old women of the Scottish boroughs out
+      of their webs of napery, to make tents to the fellows on Dunse Law, [The
+      Covenanters encamped on Dunse Law, during the troubles of 1639.] I will
+      try whether I have not a little interest both to make these godly dames
+      renew their patriotic gift, and the prick-eared knaves, their husbands,
+      open their purses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And respecting arms," said Captain Dalgetty, "if your lordship will
+      permit an old cavalier to speak his mind, so that the one-third have
+      muskets, my darling weapon would be the pike for the remainder, whether
+      for resisting a charge of horse, or for breaking the infantry. A common
+      smith will make a hundred pike-heads in a day; here is plenty of wood for
+      shafts; and I will uphold, that, according to the best usages of war, a
+      strong battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of the
+      North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx, of which
+      I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied in the ancient
+      town of Bon-accord; and further, I will venture to predicate&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain's lecture upon tactics was here suddenly interrupted by Allan
+      M'Aulay, who said, hastily,&mdash;"Room for an unexpected and unwelcome
+      guest!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same moment, the door of the hall opened, and a grey-haired man, of
+      a very stately appearance, presented himself to the assembly. There was
+      much dignity, and even authority, in his manner. His stature was above the
+      common size, and his looks such as were used to command. He cast a severe,
+      and almost stern glance upon the assembly of Chiefs. Those of the higher
+      rank among them returned it with scornful indifference; but some of the
+      western gentlemen of inferior power, looked as if they wished themselves
+      elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To which of this assembly," said the stranger, "am I to address myself as
+      leader? or have you not fixed upon the person who is to hold an office at
+      least as perilous as it is honourable?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Address yourself to me, Sir Duncan Campbell," said Montrose, stepping
+      forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To you!" said Sir Duncan Campbell, with some scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes,&mdash;to me," repeated Montrose,&mdash;"to the Earl of Montrose, if
+      you have forgot him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should now, at least," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "have had some
+      difficulty in recognising him in the disguise of a groom.&mdash;and yet I
+      might have guessed that no evil influence inferior to your lordship's,
+      distinguished as one who troubles Israel, could have collected together
+      this rash assembly of misguided persons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will answer unto you," said Montrose, "in the manner of your own
+      Puritans. I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house. But
+      let us leave an altercation, which is of little consequence but to
+      ourselves, and hear the tidings you have brought from your Chief of
+      Argyle; for I must conclude that it is in his name that you have come to
+      this meeting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is in the name of the Marquis of Argyle," said Sir Duncan Campbell,&mdash;"in
+      the name of the Scottish Convention of Estates, that I demand to know the
+      meaning of this singular convocation. If it is designed to disturb the
+      peace of the country, it were but acting like neighbours, and men of
+      honour, to give us some intimation to stand upon our guard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a singular, and new state of affairs in Scotland," said Montrose,
+      turning from Sir Duncan Campbell to the assembly, "when Scottish men of
+      rank and family cannot meet in the house of a common friend without an
+      inquisitorial visit and demand, on the part of our rulers, to know the
+      subject of our conference. Methinks our ancestors were accustomed to hold
+      Highland huntings, or other purposes of meeting, without asking the leave
+      either of the great M'Callum More himself, or any of his emissaries or
+      dependents."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The times have been such in Scotland," answered one of the Western
+      Chiefs, "and such they will again be, when the intruders on our ancient
+      possessions are again reduced to be Lairds of Lochow instead of
+      overspreading us like a band of devouring locusts."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Am I to understand, then," said Sir Duncan, "that it is against my name
+      alone that these preparations are directed? or are the race of Diarmid
+      only to be sufferers in common with the whole of the peaceful and orderly
+      inhabitants of Scotland?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would ask," said a wild-looking Chief, starting hastily up, "one
+      question of the Knight of Ardenvohr, ere he proceeds farther in his daring
+      catechism.&mdash;Has he brought more than one life to this castle, that he
+      ventures to intrude among us for the purposes of insult?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," said Montrose, "let me implore your patience; a messenger who
+      comes among us for the purpose of embassy, is entitled to freedom of
+      speech and safe-conduct. And since Sir Duncan Campbell is so pressing, I
+      care not if I inform him, for his guidance, that he is in an assembly of
+      the King's loyal subjects, convoked by me, in his Majesty's name and
+      authority, and as empowered by his Majesty's royal commission."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are to have, then, I presume," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "a civil war
+      in all its forms? I have been too long a soldier to view its approach with
+      anxiety; but it would have been for my Lord of Montrose's honour, if, in
+      this matter, he had consulted his own ambition less, and the peace of the
+      country more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those consulted their own ambition and self-interest, Sir Duncan,"
+      answered Montrose, "who brought the country to the pass in which it now
+      stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies which we are now
+      reluctantly about to use."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what rank among these self-seekers," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "we
+      shall assign to a noble Earl, so violently attached to the Covenant, that
+      he was the first, in 1639, to cross the Tyne, wading middle deep at the
+      head of his regiment, to charge the royal forces? It was the same, I
+      think, who imposed the Covenant upon the burgesses and colleges of
+      Aberdeen, at the point of sword and pike."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand your sneer, Sir Duncan," said Montrose, temperately; "and I
+      can only add, that if sincere repentance can make amends for youthful
+      error, and for yielding to the artful representation of ambitious
+      hypocrites, I shall be pardoned for the crimes with which you taunt me. I
+      will at least endeavour to deserve forgiveness, for I am here, with my
+      sword in my hand, willing to spend the best blood of my body to make
+      amends for my error; and mortal man can do no more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, my lord," said Sir Duncan, "I shall be sorry to carry back this
+      language to the Marquis of Argyle. I had it in farther charge from the
+      Marquis, that, to prevent the bloody feuds which must necessarily follow a
+      Highland war, his lordship will be contented if terms of truce could be
+      arranged to the north of the Highland line, as there is ground enough in
+      Scotland to fight upon, without neighbours destroying each other's
+      families and inheritances."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a peaceful proposal," said Montrose, smiling, "such as it should
+      be, coming from one whose personal actions have always been more peaceful
+      than his measures. Yet, if the terms of such a truce could be equally
+      fixed, and if we can obtain security, for that, Sir Duncan, is
+      indispensable,&mdash;that your Marquis will observe these terms with
+      strict fidelity, I, for my part, should be content to leave peace behind
+      us, since we must needs carry war before us. But, Sir Duncan, you are too
+      old and experienced a soldier for us to permit you to remain in our
+      leaguer, and witness our proceedings; we shall therefore, when you have
+      refreshed yourself, recommend your speedy return to Inverary, and we shall
+      send with you a gentleman on our part to adjust the terms of the Highland
+      armistice, in case the Marquis shall be found serious in proposing such a
+      measure." Sir Duncan Campbell assented by a bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My Lord of Menteith," continued Montrose, "will you have the goodness to
+      attend Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, while we determine who shall
+      return with him to his Chief? M'Aulay will permit us to request that he be
+      entertained with suitable hospitality."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will give orders for that," said Allan M'Aulay, rising and coming
+      forward. "I love Sir Duncan Campbell; we have been joint sufferers in
+      former days, and I do not forget it now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My Lord of Menteith," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "I am grieved to see you,
+      at your early age, engaged in such desperate and rebellious courses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am young," answered Menteith, "yet old enough to distinguish between
+      right and wrong, between loyalty and rebellion; and the sooner a good
+      course is begun, the longer and the better have I a chance of running it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And you too, my friend, Allan M'Aulay," said Sir Duncan, taking his hand,
+      "must we also call each other enemies, that have been so often allied
+      against a common foe?" Then turning round to the meeting, he said,
+      "Farewell, gentlemen; there are so many of you to whom I wish well, that
+      your rejection of all terms of mediation gives me deep affliction. May
+      Heaven," he said, looking upwards, "judge between our motives, and those
+      of the movers of this civil commotion!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Amen," said Montrose; "to that tribunal we all submit us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell left the hall, accompanied by Allan M'Aulay and Lord
+      Menteith. "There goes a true-bred Campbell," said Montrose, as the envoy
+      departed, "for they are ever fair and false."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pardon me, my lord," said Evan Dhu; "hereditary enemy as I am to their
+      name, I have ever found the Knight of Ardenvohr brave in war, honest in
+      peace, and true in council."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of his own disposition," said Montrose, "such he is undoubtedly; but he
+      now acts as the organ or mouth-piece of his Chief, the Marquis, the
+      falsest man that ever drew breath. And, M'Aulay," he continued in a
+      whisper to his host, "lest he should make some impression upon the
+      inexperience of Menteith, or the singular disposition of your brother, you
+      had better send music into their chamber, to prevent his inveigling them
+      into any private conference."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The devil a musician have I," answered M'Aulay, "excepting the piper, who
+      has nearly broke his wind by an ambitious contention for superiority with
+      three of his own craft; but I can send Annot Lyle and her harp." And he
+      left the apartment to give orders accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the perilous
+      task of returning with Sir Duncan to Inverary. To the higher dignitaries,
+      accustomed to consider themselves upon an equality even with M'Callum
+      More, this was an office not to be proposed; unto others who could not
+      plead the same excuse, it was altogether unacceptable. One would have
+      thought Inverary had been the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the inferior
+      chiefs showed such reluctance to approach it. After a considerable
+      hesitation, the plain reason was at length spoken out, namely, that
+      whatever Highlander should undertake an office so distasteful to M'Callum
+      More, he would be sure to treasure the offence in his remembrance, and one
+      day or other to make him bitterly repent of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice as a mere
+      stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not ventured bluntly to
+      reject it in presence of those whom it concerned so nearly, resolved to
+      impose the danger and dignity upon Captain Dalgetty, who had neither clan
+      nor estate in the Highlands upon which the wrath of Argyle could wreak
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But I have a neck though," said Dalgetty, bluntly; "and what if he
+      chooses to avenge himself upon that? I have known a case where an
+      honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before now. Neither did the
+      Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully at the siege of Capua,
+      although I read that they only cut off their hands and noses, put out
+      their eyes, and suffered them to depart in peace."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By my honour Captain Dalgetty," said Montrose, "should the Marquis,
+      contrary to the rules of war, dare to practise any atrocity against you,
+      you may depend upon my taking such signal vengeance that all Scotland
+      shall ring of it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That will do but little for Dalgetty," returned the Captain; "but
+      corragio! as the Spaniard says. With the Land of Promise full in view, the
+      Moor of Drumthwacket, MEA PAUPERA REGNA, as we said at Mareschal-College,
+      I will not refuse your Excellency's commission, being conscious it becomes
+      a cavalier of honour to obey his commander's orders, in defiance both of
+      gibbet and sword."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gallantly resolved," said Montrose; "and if you will come apart with me,
+      I will furnish you with the conditions to be laid before M'Callum More,
+      upon which we are willing to grant him a truce for his Highland
+      dominions."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these we need not trouble our readers. They were of an evasive
+      nature, calculated to meet a proposal which Montrose considered to have
+      been made only for the purpose of gaining time. When he had put Captain
+      Dalgetty in complete possession of his instructions, and when that worthy,
+      making his military obeisance, was near the door of his apartment,
+      Montrose made him a sign to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I presume," said he, "I need not remind an officer who has served under
+      the great Gustavus, that a little more is required of a person sent with a
+      flag of truce than mere discharge of his instructions, and that his
+      general will expect from him, on his return, some account of the state of
+      the enemy's affairs, as far as they come under his observation. In short,
+      Captain Dalgetty, you must be UN PEU CLAIR-VOYANT."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah ha! your Excellency," said the Captain, twisting his hard features
+      into an inimitable expression of cunning and intelligence, "if they do not
+      put my head in a poke, which I have known practised upon honourable
+      soldados who have been suspected to come upon such errands as the present,
+      your Excellency may rely on a preceese narration of whatever Dugald
+      Dalgetty shall hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune there are
+      in M'Callum More's pibroch, or how many checks in the sett of his plaid
+      and trews."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough," answered Montrose; "farewell, Captain Dalgetty: and as they say
+      that a lady's mind is always expressed in her postscript, so I would have
+      you think that the most important part of your commission lies in what I
+      have last said to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual his
+      charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching mission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first care,&mdash;he
+      met Angus M'Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been looking at his
+      horse; and, after praising his points and carriage, both united in
+      strongly dissuading the Captain from taking an animal of such value with
+      him upon his present very fatiguing journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather wild
+      tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into Argyleshire,
+      and the wretched huts or bothies where he would be condemned to pass the
+      night, and where no forage could be procured for his horse, unless he
+      could eat the stumps of old heather. In short, he pronounced it absolutely
+      impossible, that, after undertaking such a pilgrimage, the animal could be
+      in any case for military service. The Englishman strongly confirmed all
+      that Angus had said, and gave himself, body and soul, to the devil, if he
+      thought it was not an act little short of absolute murder to carry a horse
+      worth a farthing into such a waste and inhospitable desert. Captain
+      Dalgetty for an instant looked steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and
+      next at the other, and then asked them, as if in a state of indecision,
+      what they would advise him to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the hand of my father, my dear friend," answered M'Aulay, "if you
+      leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed and sorted
+      according to his worth and quality, and that upon your happy return, you
+      will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in butter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "if this worthy cavalier chooses to part
+      with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part of the silver
+      candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse, which I shall be very
+      willing to transfer to his."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In brief, mine honourable friends," said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing
+      them both with an air of comic penetration, "I find it would not be
+      altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember
+      the old soldier by, in case it shall please M'Callum More to hang him up
+      at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small
+      satisfaction to me, in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier like
+      Sir Miles Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our
+      excellent landlord, should act as my executor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both hastened to protest that they had no such object, and insisted again
+      upon the impassable character of the Highland paths. Angus M'Aulay mumbled
+      over a number of hard Gaellic names, descriptive of the difficult passes,
+      precipices, corries, and beals, through which he said the road lay to
+      Inverary, when old Donald, who had now entered, sanctioned his master's
+      account of these difficulties, by holding up his hands, and elevating his
+      eyes, and shaking his head, at every gruttural which M'Aulay pronounced.
+      But all this did not move the inflexible Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My worthy friends," said he, "Gustavus is not new to the dangers of
+      travelling, and the mountains of Bohemia; and (no disparagement to the
+      beals and corries Mr. Angus is pleased to mention, and of which Sir Miles,
+      who never saw them, confirms the horrors,) these mountains may compete
+      with the vilest roads in Europe. In fact, my horse hath a most excellent
+      and social quality; for although he cannot pledge in my cup, yet we share
+      our loaf between us, and it will be hard if he suffers famine where cakes
+      or bannocks are to be found. And, to cut this matter short, I beseech you,
+      my good friends, to observe the state of Sir Duncan Campbell's palfrey,
+      which stands in that stall before us, fat and fair; and, in return for
+      your anxiety an my account, I give you my honest asseveration, that while
+      we travel the same road, both that palfrey and his rider shall lack for
+      food before either Gustavus or I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having said this he filled a large measure with corn, and walked up with
+      it to his charger, who, by his low whinnying neigh, his pricked ears, and
+      his pawing, showed how close the alliance was betwixt him and his rider.
+      Nor did he taste his corn until he had returned his master's caresses, by
+      licking his hands and face. After this interchange of greeting, the steed
+      began to his provender with an eager dispatch, which showed old military
+      habits; and the master, after looking on the animal with great complacency
+      for about five minutes, said,&mdash;"Much good may it do your honest
+      heart, Gustavus;&mdash;now must I go and lay in provant myself for the
+      campaign."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then departed, having first saluted the Englishman and Angus M'Aulay,
+      who remained looking at each other for some time in silence, and then
+      burst out into a fit of laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That fellow," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "is formed to go through the
+      world."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall think so too," said M'Aulay, "if he can slip through M'Callum
+      More's fingers as easily as he has done through ours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you think," said the Englishman, "that the Marquis will not respect,
+      in Captain Dalgetty's person, the laws of civilized war?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No more than I would respect a Lowland proclamation," said Angus M'Aulay.&mdash;"But
+      come along, it is time I were returning to my guests."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     . . . . In a rebellion,
+     When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
+     Then were they chosen, in a better hour,
+     Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
+     And throw their power i' the dust.&mdash;CORIOLANUS.
+In a small apartment, remote from the rest of the guests assembled at
+the castle, Sir Duncan Campbell was presented with every species of
+refreshment, and respectfully attended by Lord Menteith, and by Allan
+M'Aulay. His discourse with the latter turned upon a sort of hunting
+campaign, in which they had been engaged together against the Children
+of the Mist, with whom the Knight of Ardenvohr, as well as the M'Aulays,
+had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. Sir Duncan, however, speedily
+endeavoured to lead back the conversation to the subject of his present
+errand to the castle of Darnlinvarach.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "It grieved him to the very heart," he said, "to see that friends and
+      neighbours, who should stand shoulder to shoulder, were likely to be
+      engaged hand to hand in a cause which so little concerned them. What
+      signifies it," he said, "to the Highland Chiefs, whether King or
+      Parliament got uppermost? Were it not better to let them settle their own
+      differences without interference, while the Chiefs, in the meantime, took
+      the opportunity of establishing their own authority in a manner not to be
+      called in question hereafter by either King or Parliament?" He reminded
+      Allan M'Aulay that the measures taken in the last reign to settle the
+      peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in fact levelled at the
+      patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentioned the celebrated
+      settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they were called, in the Lewis, as
+      part of a deliberate plan, formed to introduce strangers among the Celtic
+      tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancient customs and mode of
+      government, and to despoil them of the inheritance of their fathers. [In
+      the reign of James VI., an attempt of rather an extraordinary kind was
+      made to civilize the extreme northern part of the Hebridean Archipelago.
+      That monarch granted the property of the Island of Lewis, as if it had
+      been an unknown and savage country, to a number of Lowland gentlemen,
+      called undertakers, chiefly natives of the shire of Fife, that they might
+      colonize and settle there. The enterprise was at first successful, but the
+      natives of the island, MacLeods and MacKenzies, rose on the Lowland
+      adventurers, and put most of them to the sword.] "And yet," he continued,
+      addressing Allan, "it is for the purpose of giving despotic authority to
+      the monarch by whom these designs have been nursed, that so many Highland
+      Chiefs are upon the point of quarrelling with, and drawing the sword
+      against, their neighbours, allies, and ancient confederates." "It is to my
+      brother," said Allan, "it is to the eldest son of my father's house, that
+      the Knight of Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances. I am, indeed,
+      the brother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his
+      clansmen, and bound to show an example to the others by my cheerful and
+      ready obedience to his commands."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The cause also," said Lord Menteith, interposing, "is far more general
+      than Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it. It is neither limited to
+      Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath, to Highlands nor to
+      Lowlands. The question is, if we will continue to be governed by the
+      unlimited authority assumed by a set of persons in no respect superior to
+      ourselves, instead of returning to the natural government of the Prince
+      against whom they have rebelled. And respecting the interest of the
+      Highlands in particular," he added, "I crave Sir Duncan Campbell's pardon
+      for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the only effect
+      produced by the present usurpation, will be the aggrandisement of one
+      overgrown clan at the expense of every independent Chief in the
+      Highlands."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will not reply to you, my lord," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "because I
+      know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed; yet you will pardon
+      my saying, that being at the head of a rival branch of the House of
+      Graham, I have both read of and known an Earl of Menteith, who would have
+      disdained to have been tutored in politics, or to have been commanded in
+      war, by an Earl of Montrose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan," said Lord Menteith, haughtily, "to
+      set my vanity in arms against my principles. The King gave my ancestors
+      their title and rank; and these shall never prevent my acting, in the
+      royal cause, under any one who is better qualified than myself to be a
+      commander-in-chief. Least of all, shall any miserable jealousy prevent me
+      from placing my hand and sword under the guidance of the bravest, the most
+      loyal, the most heroic spirit among our Scottish nobility."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pity," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "that you cannot add to this panegyric
+      the farther epithets of the most steady, and the most consistent. But I
+      have no purpose of debating these points with you, my lord," waving his
+      hand, as if to avoid farther discussion; "the die is cast with you; allow
+      me only to express my sorrow for the disastrous fate to which Angus
+      M'Aulay's natural rashness, and your lordship's influence, are dragging my
+      gallant friend Allan here, with his father's clan, and many a brave man
+      besides."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The die is cast for us all, Sir Duncan," replied Allan, looking gloomy,
+      and arguing on his own hypochondriac feelings; "the iron hand of destiny
+      branded our fate upon our forehead long ere we could form a wish, or raise
+      a finger in our own behalf. Were this otherwise, by what means does the
+      Seer ascertain the future from those shadowy presages which haunt his
+      waking and his sleeping eye? Nought can be foreseen but that which is
+      certain to happen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell was about to reply, and the darkest and most contested
+      point of metaphysics might have been brought into discussion betwixt two
+      Highland disputants, when the door opened, and Annot Lyle, with her
+      clairshach in her hand, entered the apartment. The freedom of a Highland
+      maiden was in her step and in her eye; for, bred up in the closest
+      intimacy with the Laird of M'Aulay and his brother, with Lord Menteith,
+      and other young men who frequented Darnlinvarach, she possessed none of
+      that timidity which a female, educated chiefly among her own sex, would
+      either have felt, or thought necessary to assume, on an occasion like the
+      present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her dress partook of the antique, for new fashions seldom penetrated into
+      the Highlands, nor would they easily have found their way to a castle
+      inhabited chiefly by men, whose sole occupation was war and the chase. Yet
+      Annot's garments were not only becoming, but even rich. Her open jacket,
+      with a high collar, was composed of blue cloth, richly embroidered, and
+      had silver clasps to fasten, when it pleased the wearer. Its sleeves,
+      which were wide, came no lower than the elbow, and terminated in a golden
+      fringe; under this upper coat, if it can be so termed, she wore an under
+      dress of blue satin, also richly embroidered, but which was several shades
+      lighter in colour than the upper garment. The petticoat was formed of
+      tartan silk, in the sett, or pattern, of which the colour of blue greatly
+      predominated, so as to remove the tawdry effect too frequently produced in
+      tartan, by the mixture and strong opposition of colours. An antique silver
+      chain hung round her neck, and supported the WREST, or key, with which she
+      turned her instrument. A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured
+      by a brooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith. Her
+      profusion of light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while, with a smile
+      and a blush, she mentioned that she had M'Aulay's directions to ask them
+      if they chose music. Sir Duncan Campbell gazed with considerable surprise
+      and interest at the lovely apparition, which thus interrupted his debate
+      with Allan M'Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can this," he said to him in a whisper, "a creature so beautiful and so
+      elegant, be a domestic musician of your brother's establishment?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By no means," answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation; "she is
+      a&mdash;a&mdash;near relation of our family&mdash;and treated," he added,
+      more firmly, "as an adopted daughter of our father's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of courtesy
+      which every Highlander can assume when it suits him to practise it, he
+      resigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the same time, whatever
+      refreshments the table afforded, with an assiduity which was probably
+      designed to give Sir Duncan an impression of her rank and consequence. If
+      such was Allan's purpose, however, it was unnecessary. Sir Duncan kept his
+      eyes fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeper interest than
+      could have arisen from any impression that she was a person of
+      consequence. Annot even felt embarrassed under the old knight's steady
+      gaze; and it was not without considerable hesitation, that, tuning her
+      instrument, and receiving an assenting look from Lord Menteith and Allan,
+      she executed the following ballad, which our friend, Mr. Secundus
+      M'Pherson, whose goodness we had before to acknowledge, has thus
+      translated into the English tongue:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ORPHAN MAID.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     November's hail-cloud drifts away,
+     November's sunbeam wan
+     Looks coldly on the castle grey,
+     When forth comes Lady Anne.
+
+     The orphan by the oak was set,
+     Her arms, her feet, were bare,
+     The hail-drops had not melted yet,
+     Amid her raven hair.
+
+     "And, Dame," she said, "by all the ties
+     That child and mother know,
+     Aid one who never knew these joys,
+     Relieve an orphan's woe."
+
+     The Lady said, "An orphan's state
+     Is hard and sad to bear;
+     Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate,
+     Who mourns both lord and heir.
+
+     "Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
+     Since, when from vengeance wild
+     Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled,
+     Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."
+
+     "Twelve times the year its course has born,"
+     The wandering maid replied,
+     "Since fishers on St. Bridget's morn
+     Drew nets on Campsie side.
+
+     "St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;&mdash;
+     An infant, wellnigh dead,
+     They saved, and rear'd in want and toil,
+     To beg from you her bread."
+
+     That orphan maid the lady kiss'd&mdash;
+     "My husband's looks you bear;
+     St. Bridget and her morn be bless'd!
+     You are his widow's heir."
+
+     They've robed that maid, so poor and pale,
+     In silk and sandals rare;
+     And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
+     Are glistening in her hair.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the elegance of the
+      above translation, may be desirous to see a literal version from the
+      original Gaelic, which we therefore subjoin; and have only to add, that
+      the original is deposited with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LITERAL TRANSLATION.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale
+     of autumn.  The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as
+     the wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when
+     the roar of battle hath passed over him.
+
+     Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her
+     maidens pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].
+
+     There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of
+     appointment.  The withered leaves fell around her, and her
+     heart was more withered than they.
+
+     The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost]
+     still congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like
+     the specks of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the
+     blackened and half-consumed oak that blazes in the hall.
+
+     And the maiden said, "Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan
+     child."  And the Lady replied, "How can I give that which I
+     have not?  I am the widow of a slain lord,&mdash;the mother of a
+     perished child.  When I fled in my fear from the vengeance
+     of my husband's foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide,
+     and my infant perished.  This was on St. Bridget's morn,
+     near the strong Lyns of Campsie.  May ill luck light upon
+     the day."  And the maiden answered, "It was on St. Bridget's
+     morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the
+     fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor
+     salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in
+     misery, and must die, unless she is now aided." And the Lady
+     answered, "Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these
+     are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and
+     thine shall be the inheritance of his widow."  And she
+     called for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe
+     that maiden in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which
+     they wove among her black tresses, were whiter than the
+     frozen hail-drops.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some surprise, that
+      it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon the mind of Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, than he could possibly have anticipated from his age and
+      character. He well knew that the Highlanders of that period possessed a
+      much greater sensibility both for tale and song than was found among their
+      Lowland neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardly accounted for the
+      embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyes from the
+      songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an object so
+      interesting. Still less was it to be expected, that features which
+      expressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit of authority,
+      should have been so much agitated by so trivial a circumstance. As the
+      Chief's brow became clouded, he drooped his large shaggy grey eyebrows
+      until they almost concealed his eyes, on the lids of which something like
+      a tear might be seen to glisten. He remained silent and fixed in the same
+      posture for a minute or two, after the last note had ceased to vibrate. He
+      then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as if purposing to
+      speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose, and was about to
+      address Allan, when the door opened, and the Lord of the Castle made his
+      appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Dark on their journey lour'd the gloomy day,
+     Wild were the hills, and doubtful grew the way;
+     More dark, more gloomy, and more doubtful, show'd
+     The mansion, which received them from the road.
+     &mdash;THE TRAVELLERS, A ROMANCE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Angus M'Aulay was charged with a message which he seemed to find some
+      difficulty in communicating; for it was not till after he had framed his
+      speech several different ways, and blundered them all, that he succeeded
+      in letting Sir Duncan Campbell know, that the cavalier who was to
+      accompany him was waiting in readiness, and that all was prepared for his
+      return to Inverary. Sir Duncan Campbell rose up very indignantly; the
+      affront which this message implied immediately driving out of his
+      recollection the sensibility which had been awakened by the music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I little expected this," he said, looking indignantly at Angus M'Aulay.
+      "I little thought that there was a Chief in the West Highlands, who, at
+      the pleasure of a Saxon, would have bid the Knight of Ardenvohr leave his
+      castle, when the sun was declining from the meridian, and ere the second
+      cup had been filled. But farewell, sir, the food of a churl does not
+      satisfy the appetite; when I next revisit Darnlinvarach, it shall be with
+      a naked sword in one hand, and a firebrand in the other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And if you so come," said Angus, "I pledge myself to meet you fairly,
+      though you brought five hundred Campbells at your back, and to afford you
+      and them such entertainment, that you shall not again complain of the
+      hospitality of Darnlinvarach."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Threatened men," said Sir Duncan, "live long. Your turn for gasconading,
+      Laird of M'Aulay, is too well known, that men of honour should regard your
+      vaunts. To you, my lord, and to Allan, who have supplied the place of my
+      churlish host, I leave my thanks.&mdash;And to you, pretty mistress," he
+      said, addressing Annot Lyle, "this little token, for having opened a
+      fountain which hath been dry for many a year." So saying, he left the
+      apartment, and commanded his attendants to be summoned. Angus M'Aulay,
+      equally embarrassed and incensed at the charge of inhospitality, which was
+      the greatest possible affront to a Highlander, did not follow Sir Duncan
+      to the court-yard, where, mounting his palfrey, which was in readiness,
+      followed by six mounted attendants, and accompanied by the noble Captain
+      Dalgetty, who had also awaited him, holding Gustavus ready for action,
+      though he did not draw his girths and mount till Sir Duncan appeared, the
+      whole cavalcade left the castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey was long and toilsome, but without any of the extreme
+      privations which the Laird of M'Aulay had prophesied. In truth, Sir Duncan
+      was very cautious to avoid those nearer and more secret paths, by means of
+      which the county of Argyle was accessible from the eastward; for his
+      relation and chief, the Marquis, was used to boast, that he would not for
+      a hundred thousand crowns any mortal should know the passes by which an
+      armed force could penetrate into his country.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
+      <img src="images/0795m.jpg" alt="0795m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0795.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell, therefore, rather shunned the Highlands, and falling
+      into the Low-country, made for the nearest seaport in the vicinity, where
+      he had several half-decked galleys, or birlings, as they were called, at
+      his command. In one of these they embarked, with Gustavus in company, who
+      was so seasoned to adventure, that land and sea seemed as indifferent to
+      him as to his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind being favourable, they pursued their way rapidly with sails and
+      oars; and early the next morning it was announced to Captain Dalgetty,
+      then in a small cabin beneath the hall-deck, that the galley was under the
+      walls of Sir Duncan Campbell's castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ardenvohr, accordingly, rose high above him, when he came upon the deck of
+      the galley. It was a gloomy square tower, of considerable size and great
+      height, situated upon a headland projecting into the salt-water lake, or
+      arm of the sea, which they had entered on the preceding evening. A wall,
+      with flanking towers at each angle, surrounded the castle to landward;
+      but, towards the lake, it was built so near the brink of the precipice as
+      only to leave room for a battery of seven guns, designed to protect the
+      fortress from any insult from that side, although situated too high to be
+      of any effectual use according to the modern system of warfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eastern sun, rising behind the old tower, flung its shadow far on the
+      lake, darkening the deck of the galley, on which Captain Dalgetty now
+      walked, waiting with some impatience the signal to land. Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, as he was informed by his attendants, was already within the
+      walls of the castle; but no one encouraged the Captain's proposal of
+      following him ashore, until, as they stated, they should receive the
+      direct permission or order of the Knight of Ardenvohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a short time afterwards the mandate arrived, while a boat, with a piper
+      in the bow, bearing the Knight of Ardenvohr's crest in silver upon his
+      left arm, and playing with all his might the family march, entitled "The
+      Campbells are coming," approached to conduct the envoy of Montrose to the
+      castle of Ardenvohr. The distance between the galley and the beach was so
+      short as scarce to require the assistance of the eight sturdy rowers, in
+      bonnets, short coats, and trews, whose efforts sent the boat to the little
+      creek in which they usually landed, before one could have conceived that
+      it had left the side of the birling. Two of the boatmen, in spite of
+      Dalgetty's resistance, horsed the Captain on the back of a third
+      Highlander, and, wading through the surf with him, landed him high and dry
+      upon the beach beneath the castle rock. In the face of this rock there
+      appeared something like the entrance of a low-browed cavern, towards which
+      the assistants were preparing to hurry our friend Dalgetty, when, shaking
+      himself loose from them with some difficulty, he insisted upon seeing
+      Gustavus safely landed before he proceeded one step farther. The
+      Highlanders could not comprehend what he meant, until one who had picked
+      up a little English, or rather Lowland Scotch, exclaimed, "Houts! it's a'
+      about her horse, ta useless baste." Farther remonstrance on the part of
+      Captain Dalgetty was interrupted by the appearance of Sir Duncan Campbell
+      himself, from the mouth of the cavern which we have described, for the
+      purpose of inviting Captain Dalgetty to accept of the hospitality of
+      Ardenvohr, pledging his honour, at the same time, that Gustavus should be
+      treated as became the hero from whom he derived his name, not to mention
+      the important person to whom he now belonged. Notwithstanding this
+      satisfactory guarantee, Captain Dalgetty would still have hesitated, such
+      was his anxiety to witness the fate of his companion Gustavus, had not two
+      Highlanders seized him by the arms, two more pushed him on behind, while a
+      fifth exclaimed, "Hout awa wi' the daft Sassenach! does she no hear the
+      Laird bidding her up to her ain castle, wi' her special voice, and isna
+      that very mickle honour for the like o' her?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus impelled, Captain Dalgetty could only for a short space keep a
+      reverted eye towards the galley in which he had left the partner of his
+      military toils. In a few minutes afterwards he found himself involved in
+      the total darkness of a staircase, which, entering from the low-browed
+      cavern we have mentioned, winded upwards through the entrails of the
+      living rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The cursed Highland salvages!" muttered the Captain, half aloud; "what is
+      to become of me, if Gustavus, the namesake of the invincible Lion of the
+      Protestant League, should be lamed among their untenty hands!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have no fear of that," said the voice of Sir Duncan, who was nearer to
+      him than he imagined; "my men are accustomed to handle horses, both in
+      embarking and dressing them, and you will soon see Gustavus as safe as
+      when you last dismounted from his back."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dalgetty knew the world too well to offer any farther
+      remonstrance, whatever uneasiness he might suppress within his own bosom.
+      A step or two higher up the stair showed light and a door, and an
+      iron-grated wicket led him out upon a gallery cut in the open face of the
+      rock, extending a space of about six or eight yards, until he reached a
+      second door, where the path re-entered the rock, and which was also
+      defended by an iron portcullis. "An admirable traverse," observed the
+      Captain; "and if commanded by a field-piece, or even a few muskets, quite
+      sufficient to ensure the place against a storming party."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell made no answer at the time; but, the moment
+      afterwards, when they had entered the second cavern, he struck with the
+      stick which he had in his hand, first on the one side, and then on the
+      other of the wicket, and the sullen ringing sound which replied to the
+      blows, made Captain Dalgetty sensible that there was a gun placed on each
+      side, for the purpose of raking the gallery through which they had passed,
+      although the embrasures, through which they might be fired on occasion,
+      were masked on the outside with sods and loose stones. Having ascended the
+      second staircase, they found themselves again on an open platform and
+      gallery, exposed to a fire both of musketry and wall-guns, if, being come
+      with hostile intent, they had ventured farther. A third flight of steps,
+      cut in the rock like the former, but not caverned over, led them finally
+      into the battery at the foot of the tower. This last stair also was narrow
+      and steep, and, not to mention the fire which might be directed on it from
+      above, one or two resolute men, with pikes and battle-axes, could have
+      made the pass good against hundreds; for the staircase would not admit two
+      persons abreast, and was not secured by any sort of balustrade, or
+      railing, from the sheer and abrupt precipice, on the foot of which the
+      tide now rolled with a voice of thunder. So that, under the jealous
+      precautions used to secure this ancient Celtic fortress, a person of weak
+      nerves, and a brain liable to become dizzy, might have found it something
+      difficult to have achieved the entrance to the castle, even supposing no
+      resistance had been offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dalgetty, too old a soldier to feel such tremors, had no sooner
+      arrived in the court-yard, than he protested to God, the defences of Sir
+      Duncan's castle reminded him more of the notable fortress of Spandau,
+      situated in the March of Brandenburg, than of any place whilk it had been
+      his fortune to defend in the course of his travels. Nevertheless, he
+      criticised considerably the mode of placing the guns on the battery we
+      have noticed, observing, that "where cannon were perched, like to scarts
+      or sea-gulls on the top of a rock, he had ever observed that they
+      astonished more by their noise than they dismayed by the skaith or damage
+      which they occasioned."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan, without replying, conducted the soldier into the tower; the
+      defences of which were a portcullis and ironclenched oaken door, the
+      thickness of the wall being the space between them. He had no sooner
+      arrived in a hall hung with tapestry, than the Captain prosecuted his
+      military criticism. It was indeed suspended by the sight of an excellent
+      breakfast, of which he partook with great avidity; but no sooner had he
+      secured this meal, than he made the tour of the apartment, examining the
+      ground around the Castle very carefully from each window in the room. He
+      then returned to his chair, and throwing himself back into it at his
+      length, stretched out one manly leg, and tapping his jack-boot with the
+      riding-rod which he carried in his hand, after the manner of a half-bred
+      man who affects ease in the society of his betters, he delivered his
+      unasked opinion as follows:&mdash;"This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan,
+      is a very pretty defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such
+      as a cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding
+      out for many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your
+      house is overcrowed, and slighted, or commanded, as we military men say,
+      by yonder round hillock to the landward, whereon an enemy might stell such
+      a battery of cannon as would make ye glad to beat a chamade within
+      forty-eight hours, unless it pleased the Lord extraordinarily to show
+      mercy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no road," replied Sir Duncan, somewhat shortly, "by which cannon
+      can be brought against Ardenvohr. The swamps and morasses around my house
+      would scarce carry your horse and yourself, excepting by such paths as
+      could be rendered impassable within a few hours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir Duncan," said the Captain, "it is your pleasure to suppose so; and
+      yet we martial men say, that where there is a sea-coast there is always a
+      naked side, seeing that cannon and munition, where they cannot be
+      transported by land, may be right easily brought by sea near to the place
+      where they are to be put in action. Neither is a castle, however secure in
+      its situation, to be accounted altogether invincible, or, as they say,
+      impregnable; for I protest t'ye, Sir Duncan, that I have known twenty-five
+      men, by the mere surprise and audacity of the attack, win, at point of
+      pike, as strong a hold as this of Ardenvohr, and put to the sword,
+      captivate, or hold to the ransom, the defenders, being ten times their own
+      number."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding Sir Duncan Campbell's knowledge of the world, and his
+      power of concealing his internal emotion, he appeared piqued and hurt at
+      these reflections, which the Captain made with the most unconscious
+      gravity, having merely selected the subject of conversation as one upon
+      which he thought himself capable of shining, and, as they say, of laying
+      down the law, without exactly recollecting that the topic might not be
+      equally agreeable to his landlord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To cut this matter short," said Sir Duncan, with an expression of voice
+      and countenance somewhat agitated, "it is unnecessary for you to tell me,
+      Captain Dalgetty, that a castle may be stormed if it is not valorously
+      defended, or surprised if it is not heedfully watched. I trust this poor
+      house of mine will not be found in any of these predicaments, should even
+      Captain Dalgetty himself choose to beleaguer it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For all that, Sir Duncan," answered the persevering commander, "I would
+      premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce upon that round hill,
+      with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be easily accomplished by
+      compelling the labour of the boors in the vicinity; it being the custom of
+      the valorous Gustavus Adolphus to fight as much by the spade and shovel,
+      as by sword, pike, and musket. Also, I would advise you to fortify the
+      said sconce, not only by a foussie, or graffe, but also by certain
+      stackets, or palisades."&mdash;(Here Sir Duncan, becoming impatient, left
+      the apartment, the Captain following him to the door, and raising his
+      voice as he retreated, until he was fairly out of hearing.)&mdash;"The
+      whilk stackets, or palisades, should be artificially framed with
+      re-entering angles and loop-holes, or crenelles, for musketry, whereof it
+      shall arise that the foeman&mdash;The Highland brute! the old Highland
+      brute! They are as proud as peacocks, and as obstinate as tups&mdash;and
+      here he has missed an opportunity of making his house as pretty an
+      irregular fortification as an invading army ever broke their teeth upon.&mdash;But
+      I see," he continued, looking own from the window upon the bottom of the
+      precipice, "they have got Gustavus safe ashore&mdash;Proper fellow! I
+      would know that toss of his head among a whole squadron. I must go to see
+      what they are to make of him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no sooner reached, however, the court to the seaward, and put
+      himself in the act of descending the staircase, than two Highland
+      sentinels, advancing their Lochaber axes, gave him to understand that this
+      was a service of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Diavolo!" said the soldier, "and I have got no pass-word. I could not
+      speak a syllable of their salvage gibberish, an it were to save me from
+      the provost-marshal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will be your surety, Captain Dalgetty," said Sir Duncan, who had again
+      approached him without his observing from whence; "and we will go
+      together, and see how your favourite charger is accommodated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He conducted him accordingly down the staircase to the beach, and from
+      thence by a short turn behind a large rock, which concealed the stables
+      and other offices belonging to the castle, Captain Dalgetty became
+      sensible, at the same time, that the side of the castle to the land was
+      rendered totally inaccessible by a ravine, partly natural and partly
+      scarped with great care and labour, so as to be only passed by a
+      drawbridge. Still, however, the Captain insisted, not withstanding the
+      triumphant air with which Sir Duncan pointed out his defences, that a
+      sconce should be erected on Drumsnab, the round eminence to the east of
+      the castle, in respect the house might be annoyed from thence by burning
+      bullets full of fire, shot out of cannon, according to the curious
+      invention of Stephen Bathian, King of Poland, whereby that prince utterly
+      ruined the great Muscovite city of Moscow. This invention, Captain
+      Dalgetty owned, he had not yet witnessed, but observed, "that it would
+      give him particular delectation to witness the same put to the proof
+      against Ardenvohr, or any other castle of similar strength;" observing,
+      "that so curious an experiment could not but afford the greatest delight
+      to all admirers of the military art."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell diverted this conversation by carrying the soldier
+      into his stables, and suffering him to arrange Gustavus according to his
+      own will and pleasure. After this duty had been carefully performed,
+      Captain Dalgetty proposed to return to the castle, observing, it was his
+      intention to spend the time betwixt this and dinner, which, he presumed,
+      would come upon the parade about noon, in burnishing his armour, which
+      having sustained some injury from the sea-air, might, he was afraid, seem
+      discreditable in the eyes of M'Callum More. Yet, while they were returning
+      to the castle, he failed not to warn Sir Duncan Campbell against the great
+      injury he might sustain by any sudden onfall of an enemy, whereby his
+      horses, cattle, and granaries, might be cut off and consumed, to his great
+      prejudice; wherefore he again strongly conjured him to construct a sconce
+      upon the round hill called Drumsnab, and offered his own friendly services
+      in lining out the same. To this disinterested advice Sir Duncan only
+      replied by ushering his guest to his apartment, and informing him that the
+      tolling of the castle bell would make him aware when dinner was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Is this thy castle, Baldwin?  Melancholy
+     Displays her sable banner from the donjon,
+     Darkening the foam of the whole surge beneath.
+     Were I a habitant, to see this gloom
+     Pollute the face of nature, and to hear
+     The ceaseless sound of wave, and seabird's scream,
+     I'd wish me in the hut that poorest peasant
+     E'er framed, to give him temporary shelter.&mdash;BROWN.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed his leisure in
+      studying the exterior of Sir Duncan's castle, and verifying his own
+      military ideas upon the nature of its defences. But a stout sentinel, who
+      mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of his apartment, gave him
+      to understand, by very significant signs, that he was in a sort of
+      honourable captivity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself, how well these salvages
+      understand the rules and practique of war. Who should have pre-supposed
+      their acquaintance with the maxim of the great and godlike Gustavus
+      Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half a spy?&mdash;And,
+      having finished burnishing his arms, he sate down patiently to compute how
+      much half a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of a six-months'
+      campaign; and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded to the more
+      abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of two thousand
+      men on the principle of extracting the square root.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound of the dinner bell, on
+      which the Highlander, lately his guard, became his gentleman-usher, and
+      marshalled him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore ample
+      proofs of Highland hospitality. Sir Duncan entered, conducting his lady, a
+      tall, faded, melancholy female, dressed in deep mourning. They were
+      followed by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and wearing a
+      black silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that it could
+      scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an undue
+      predominance in the general aspect. This ungraceful fashion was universal
+      at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of roundheads, prick-eared
+      curs, and so forth, which the insolence of the cavaliers liberally
+      bestowed on their political enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received his
+      technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in which it could
+      scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater share. The
+      churchman, to whom he was next presented, eyed him with a glance of
+      mingled dislike and curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain, well accustomed to worse looks from more dangerous persons,
+      cared very little either for those of the lady or of the divine, but bent
+      his whole soul upon assaulting a huge piece of beef, which smoked at the
+      nether end of the table. But the onslaught, as he would have termed it,
+      was delayed, until the conclusion of a very long grace, betwixt every
+      section of which Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as he might have
+      done his musket or pike when going upon action, and as often resigned them
+      unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced another clause of his
+      benediction. Sir Duncan listened with decency, though he was supposed
+      rather to have joined the Covenanters out of devotion to his chief, than
+      real respect for the cause either of liberty or of Presbytery. His lady
+      alone attended to the blessing, with symptoms of deep acquiescence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meal was performed almost in Carthusian silence; for it was none of
+      Captain Dalgetty's habits to employ his mouth in talking, while it could
+      be more profitably occupied. Sir Duncan was absolutely silent, and the
+      lady and churchman only occasionally exchanged a few words, spoken low,
+      and indistinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, when the dishes were removed, and their place supplied by liquors of
+      various sorts, Captain Dalgetty no longer had, himself, the same weighty
+      reasons for silence, and began to tire of that of the rest of the company.
+      He commenced a new attack upon his landlord, upon the former ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Touching that round monticle, or hill, or eminence, termed Drumsnab, I
+      would be proud to hold some dialogue with you, Sir Duncan, on the nature
+      of the sconce to be there constructed; and whether the angles thereof
+      should be acute or obtuse&mdash;anent whilk I have heard the great
+      Velt-Mareschal Bannier hold a learned argument with General Tiefenbach
+      during a still-stand of arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain Dalgetty," answered Sir Duncan very dryly, "it is not our
+      Highland usage to debate military points with strangers. This castle is
+      like to hold out against a stronger enemy than any force which the
+      unfortunate gentlemen we left at Darnlinvarach are able to bring against
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A deep sigh from the lady accompanied the conclusion of her husband's
+      speech, which seemed to remind her of some painful circumstance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He who gave," said the clergyman, addressing her in a solemn tone, "hath
+      taken away. May you, honourable lady, be long enabled to say, Blessed be
+      his name!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this exhortation, which seemed intended for her sole behoof, the lady
+      answered by an inclination of her head, more humble than Captain Dalgetty
+      had yet observed her make. Supposing he should now find her in a more
+      conversible humour, he proceeded to accost her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is indubitably very natural that your ladyship should be downcast at
+      the mention of military preparations, whilk I have observed to spread
+      perturbation among women of all nations, and almost all conditions.
+      Nevertheless, Penthesilea, in ancient times, and also Joan of Arc, and
+      others, were of a different kidney. And, as I have learned while I served
+      the Spaniard, the Duke of Alva in former times had the leaguer-lasses who
+      followed his camp marshalled into TERTIAS (whilk me call regiments), and
+      officered and commanded by those of their own feminine gender, and
+      regulated by a commander-in chief, called in German Hureweibler, or, as we
+      would say vernacularly, Captain of the Queans. True it is, they were
+      persons not to be named as parallel to your ladyship, being such QUAE
+      QUAESTUM CORPORIBUS FACIEBANT, as we said of Jean Drochiels at
+      Mareschal-College; the same whom the French term CURTISANNES, and we in
+      Scottish&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The lady will spare you the trouble of further exposition, Captain
+      Dalgetty," said his host, somewhat sternly; to which the clergyman added,
+      "that such discourse better befitted a watch-tower guarded by profane
+      soldiery than the board of an honourable person, and the presence of a
+      lady of quality."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Craving your pardon, Dominie, or Doctor, AUT QUOCUNQUE ALIO NOMINE
+      GAUDES, for I would have you to know I have studied polite letters," said
+      the unabashed envoy, filling a great cup of wine, "I see no ground for
+      your reproof, seeing I did not speak of those TURPES PERSONAE, as if their
+      occupation or character was a proper subject of conversation for this
+      lady's presence, but simply PAR ACCIDENS, as illustrating the matter in
+      hand, namely, their natural courage and audacity, much enhanced,
+      doubtless, by the desperate circumstances of their condition."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain Dalgetty," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "to break short this
+      discourse, I must acquaint you, that I have some business to dispatch
+      to-night, in order to enable me to ride with you to-morrow towards
+      Inverary; and therefore&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To ride with this person to-morrow!" exclaimed his lady; "such cannot be
+      your purpose, Sir Duncan, unless you have forgotten that the morrow is a
+      sad anniversary, and dedicated to as sad a solemnity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had not forgotten," answered Sir Duncan; "how is it possible I can ever
+      forget? but the necessity of the times requires I should send this officer
+      onward to Inverary, without loss of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yet, surely, not that you should accompany him in person?" enquired the
+      lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It were better I did," said Sir Duncan; "yet I can write to the Marquis,
+      and follow on the subsequent day.&mdash;Captain Dalgetty, I will dispatch
+      a letter for you, explaining to the Marquis of Argyle your character and
+      commission, with which you will please to prepare to travel to Inverary
+      early to-morrow morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir Duncan Campbell," said Dalgetty, "I am doubtless at your
+      discretionary disposal in this matter; not the less, I pray you to
+      remember the blot which will fall upon your own escutcheon, if you do in
+      any way suffer me, being a commissionate flag of truce, to be circumvented
+      in this matter, whether CLAM, VI, VEL PRECARIO; I do not say by your
+      assent to any wrong done to me, but even through absence of any due care
+      on your part to prevent the same."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are under the safeguard of my honour, sir," answered Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, "and that is more than a sufficient security. And now,"
+      continued he, rising, "I must set the example of retiring."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty saw himself under the necessity of following the hint, though the
+      hour was early; but, like a skilful general, he availed himself of every
+      instant of delay which circumstances permitted. "Trusting to your
+      honourable parole," said he, filling his cup, "I drink to you, Sir Duncan,
+      and to the continuance of your honourable-house." A sigh from Sir Duncan
+      was the only reply. "Also, madam," said the soldier, replenishing the
+      quaigh with all possible dispatch, "I drink to your honourable health, and
+      fulfilment of all your virtuous desires&mdash;and, reverend sir" (not
+      forgetting to fit the action to the words), "I fill this cup to the
+      drowning of all unkindness betwixt you and Captain Dalgetty&mdash;I should
+      say Major&mdash;and, in respect the flagon contains but one cup more, I
+      drink to the health of all honourable cavaliers and brave soldados&mdash;and,
+      the flask being empty, I am ready, Sir Duncan, to attend your functionary
+      or sentinel to my place of private repose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He received a formal permission to retire, and an assurance, that as the
+      wine seemed to be to his taste, another measure of the same vintage should
+      attend him presently, in order to soothe the hours of his solitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the Captain reached the apartment than this promise was
+      fulfilled; and, in a short time afterwards, the added comforts of a pasty
+      of red-deer venison rendered him very tolerant both of confinement and
+      want of society. The same domestic, a sort of chamberlain, who placed this
+      good cheer in his apartment, delivered to Dalgetty a packet, sealed and
+      tied up with a silken thread, according to the custom of the time,
+      addressed with many forms of respect to the High and Mighty Prince,
+      Archibald, Marquis of Argyle, Lord of Lorne, and so forth. The chamberlain
+      at the same time apprized the Ritt-master, that he must take horse at an
+      early hour for Inverary, where the packet of Sir Duncan would be at once
+      his introduction and his passport. Not forgetting that it was his object
+      to collect information as well as to act as an envoy, and desirous, for
+      his own sake, to ascertain Sir Duncan's reasons for sending him onward
+      without his personal attendance, the Ritt-master enquired the domestic,
+      with all the precaution that his experience suggested, what were the
+      reasons which detained Sir Duncan at home on the succeeding day. The man,
+      who was from the Lowlands, replied, "that it was the habit of Sir Duncan
+      and his lady to observe as a day of solemn fast and humiliation the
+      anniversary on which their castle had been taken by surprise, and their
+      children, to the number of four, destroyed cruelly by a band of Highland
+      freebooters during Sir Duncan's absence upon an expedition which the
+      Marquis of Argyle had undertaken against the Macleans of the Isle of
+      Mull."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly," said the soldier, "your lord and lady have some cause for fast
+      and humiliation. Nevertheless, I will venture to pronounce, that if he had
+      taken the advice of any experienced soldier, having skill in the
+      practiques of defending places of advantage, he would have built a sconce
+      upon the small hill which is to the left of the draw-brigg. And this I can
+      easily prove to you, mine honest friend; for, holding that pasty to be the
+      castle&mdash;What's your name, friend?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lorimer, sir," replied the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here is to your health, honest Lorimer.&mdash;I say, Lorimer&mdash;holding
+      that pasty to be the main body or citadel of the place to be defended, and
+      taking the marrow-bone for the sconce to be erected&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sorry, sir," said Lorimer, interrupting him, "that I cannot stay to
+      hear the rest of your demonstration; but the bell will presently ring. As
+      worthy Mr. Graneangowl, the Marquis's own chaplain, does family worship,
+      and only seven of our household out of sixty persons understand the
+      Scottish tongue, it would misbecome any one of them to be absent, and
+      greatly prejudice me in the opinion of my lady. There are pipes and
+      tobacco, sir, if you please to drink a whiff of smoke, and if you want
+      anything else, it shall be forthcoming two hours hence, when prayers are
+      over." So saying, he left the apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was he gone, than the heavy toll of the castle-bell summoned its
+      inhabitants together; and was answered by the shrill clamour of the
+      females, mixed with the deeper tones of the men, as, talking Earse at the
+      top of their throats, they hurried from different quarters by a long but
+      narrow gallery, which served as a communication to many rooms, and, among
+      others, to that in which Captain Dalgetty was stationed. There they go as
+      if they were beating to the roll-call, thought the soldier to himself; if
+      they all attend the parade, I will look out, take a mouthful of fresh air,
+      and make mine own observations on the practicabilities of this place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, when all was quiet, he opened his chamber door, and prepared
+      to leave it, when he saw his friend with the axe advancing towards him
+      from the distant end of the gallery, half whistling, a Gaelic tune. To
+      have shown any want of confidence, would have been at once impolitic, and
+      unbecoming his military character; so the Captain, putting the best face
+      upon his situation he could, whistled a Swedish retreat, in a tone still
+      louder than the notes of his sentinel; and retreating pace by pace, with
+      an air of indifference, as if his only purpose had been to breathe a
+      little fresh air, he shut the door in the face of his guard, when the
+      fellow had approached within a few paces of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very well, thought the Ritt-master to himself; he annuls my parole
+      by putting guards upon me, for, as we used to say at Mareschal-College,
+      FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA [See Note I]; and if he does not trust my
+      word, I do not see how I am bound to keep it, if any motive should occur
+      for my desiring to depart from it. Surely the moral obligation of the
+      parole is relaxed, in as far as physical force is substituted instead
+      thereof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus comforting himself in the metaphysical immunities which he deduced
+      from the vigilance of his sentinel, Ritt-master Dalgetty retired to his
+      apartment, where, amid the theoretical calculations of tactics, and the
+      occasional more practical attacks on the flask and pasty, he consumed the
+      evening until it was time to go to repose. He was summoned by Lorimer at
+      break of day, who gave him to understand, that, when he had broken his
+      fast, for which he produced ample materials, his guide and horse were in
+      attendance for his journey to Inverary. After complying with the
+      hospitable hint of the chamberlain, the soldier proceeded to take horse.
+      In passing through the apartments, he observed that domestics were busily
+      employed in hanging the great hall with black cloth, a ceremony which, he
+      said, he had seen practised when the immortal Gustavus Adolphus lay in
+      state in the Castle of Wolgast, and which, therefore, he opined, was a
+      testimonial of the strictest and deepest mourning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dalgetty mounted his steed, he found himself attended, or perhaps
+      guarded, by five or six Campbells, well armed, commanded by one, who, from
+      the target at his shoulder, and the short cock's feather in his bonnet, as
+      well as from the state which he took upon himself, claimed the rank of a
+      Dunniewassel, or clansman of superior rank; and indeed, from his dignity
+      of deportment, could not stand in a more distant degree of relationship to
+      Sir Duncan, than that of tenth or twelfth cousin at farthest. But it was
+      impossible to extract positive information on this or any other subject,
+      inasmuch as neither this commander nor any of his party spoke English. The
+      Captain rode, and his military attendants walked; but such was their
+      activity, and so numerous the impediments which the nature of the road
+      presented to the equestrian mode of travelling, that far from being
+      retarded by the slowness of their pace, his difficulty was rather in
+      keeping up with his guides. He observed that they occasionally watched him
+      with a sharp eye, as if they were jealous of some effort to escape; and
+      once, as he lingered behind at crossing a brook, one of the gillies began
+      to blow the match of his piece, giving him to understand that he would run
+      some risk in case of an attempt to part company. Dalgetty did not augur
+      much good from the close watch thus maintained upon his person; but there
+      was no remedy, for an attempt to escape from his attendants in an
+      impervious and unknown country, would have been little short of insanity.
+      He therefore plodded patiently on through a waste and savage wilderness,
+      treading paths which were only known to the shepherds and cattle-drivers,
+      and passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those
+      sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from
+      every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur, and
+      mortify their palates upon Highland fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length they arrived on the southern verge of that noble lake upon which
+      Inverary is situated; and a bugle, which the Dunniewassel winded till rock
+      and greenwood rang, served as a signal to a well-manned galley, which,
+      starting from a creek where it lay concealed, received the party on board,
+      including Gustavus; which sagacious quadruped, an experienced traveller
+      both by water and land, walked in and out of the boat with the discretion
+      of a Christian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Embarked on the bosom of Loch Fine, Captain Dalgetty might have admired
+      one of the grandest scenes which nature affords. He might have noticed the
+      rival rivers Aray and Shiray, which pay tribute to the lake, each issuing
+      from its own dark and wooded retreat. He might have marked, on the soft
+      and gentle slope that ascends from the shores, the noble old Gothic
+      castle, with its varied outline, embattled walls, towers, and outer and
+      inner courts, which, so far as the picturesque is concerned, presented an
+      aspect much more striking than the present massive and uniform mansion. He
+      might have admired those dark woods which for many a mile surrounded this
+      strong and princely dwelling, and his eye might have dwelt on the
+      picturesque peak of Duniquoich, starting abruptly from the lake, and
+      raising its scathed brow into the mists of middle sky, while a solitary
+      watch-tower, perched on its top like an eagle's nest, gave dignity to the
+      scene by awakening a sense of possible danger. All these, and every other
+      accompaniment of this noble scene, Captain Dalgetty might have marked, if
+      he had been so minded. But, to confess the truth, the gallant Captain, who
+      had eaten nothing since daybreak, was chiefly interested by the smoke
+      which ascended from the castle chimneys, and the expectations which this
+      seemed to warrant of his encountering an abundant stock of provant, as he
+      was wont to call supplies of this nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat soon approached the rugged pier, which abutted into the loch from
+      the little town of Inverary, then a rude assemblage of huts, with a very
+      few stone mansions interspersed, stretching upwards from the banks of Loch
+      Fine to the principal gate of the castle, before which a scene presented
+      itself that might easily have quelled a less stout heart, and turned a
+      more delicate stomach, than those of Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty, titular
+      of Drumthwacket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
+     Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
+     Restless, unfix'd in principle and place,
+     In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace.
+     &mdash;ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The village of Inverary, now a neat country town, then partook of the
+      rudeness of the seventeenth century, in the miserable appearance of the
+      houses, and the irregularity of the unpaved street. But a stronger and
+      more terrible characteristic of the period appeared in the market-place,
+      which was a space of irregular width, half way betwixt the harbour, or
+      pier, and the frowning castle-gate, which terminated with its gloomy
+      archway, portcullis, and flankers, the upper end of the vista. Midway this
+      space was erected a rude gibbet, on which hung five dead bodies, two of
+      which from their dress seemed to have been Lowlanders, and the other three
+      corpses were muffled in their Highland plaids. Two or three women sate
+      under the gallows, who seemed to be mourning, and singing the coronach of
+      the deceased in a low voice. But the spectacle was apparently of too
+      ordinary occurrence to have much interest for the inhabitants at large,
+      who, while they thronged to look at the military figure, the horse of an
+      unusual size, and the burnished panoply of Captain Dalgetty, seemed to
+      bestow no attention whatever on the piteous spectacle which their own
+      market-place afforded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The envoy of Montrose was not quite so indifferent; and, hearing a word or
+      two of English escape from a Highlander of decent appearance, he
+      immediately halted Gustavus and addressed him, "The Provost-Marshal has
+      been busy here, my friend. May I crave of you what these delinquents have
+      been justified for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked towards the gibbet as he spoke; and the Gael, comprehending his
+      meaning rather by his action than his words, immediately replied, "Three
+      gentlemen caterans,&mdash;God sain them," (crossing himself)&mdash;"twa
+      Sassenach bits o' bodies, that wadna do something that M'Callum More bade
+      them;" and turning from Dalgetty with an air of indifference, away he
+      walked, staying no farther question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, for Sir Duncan Campbell's
+      tenth or twelfth cousin had already shown some signs of impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the gate of the castle another terrible spectacle of feudal power
+      awaited him. Within a stockade or palisade, which seemed lately to have
+      been added to the defences of the gate, and which was protected by two
+      pieces of light artillery, was a small enclosure, where stood a huge
+      block, on which lay an axe. Both were smeared with recent blood, and a
+      quantity of saw-dust strewed around, partly retained and partly
+      obliterated the marks of a very late execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Dalgetty looked on this new object of terror, his principal guide
+      suddenly twitched him by the skirt of his jerkin, and having thus
+      attracted his attention, winked and pointed with his finger to a pole
+      fixed on the stockade, which supported a human head, being that,
+      doubtless, of the late sufferer. There was a leer on the Highlander's
+      face, as he pointed to this ghastly spectacle, which seemed to his
+      fellow-traveller ominous of nothing good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty dismounted from his horse at the gateway, and Gustavus was taken
+      from him without his being permitted to attend him to the stable,
+      according to his custom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave the soldier a pang which the apparatus of death had not
+      conveyed.&mdash;"Poor Gustavus!" said he to himself, "if anything but good
+      happens to me, I had better have left him at Darnlinvarach than brought
+      him here among these Highland salvages, who scarce know the head of a
+      horse from his tail. But duty must part a man from his nearest and dearest&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "When the cannons are roaring, lads, and the colours are flying,
+     The lads that seek honour must never fear dying;
+     Then, stout cavaliers, let us toil our brave trade in,
+     And fight for the Gospel and the bold King of Sweden."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thus silencing his apprehensions with the but-end of a military ballad, he
+      followed his guide into a sort of guard-room filled with armed
+      Highlanders. It was intimated to him that he must remain here until his
+      arrival was communicated to the Marquis. To make this communication the
+      more intelligible, the doughty Captain gave to the Dunniewassel Sir Duncan
+      Campbell's packet, desiring, as well as he could, by signs, that it should
+      be delivered into the Marquis's own hand. His guide nodded, and withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Captain was left about half an hour in this place, to endure with
+      indifference, or return with scorn, the inquisitive, and, at the same
+      time, the inimical glances of the armed Gael, to whom his exterior and
+      equipage were as much subject of curiosity, as his person and country
+      seemed matter of dislike. All this he bore with military nonchalance,
+      until, at the expiration of the above period, a person dressed in black
+      velvet, and wearing a gold chain like a modern magistrate of Edinburgh,
+      but who was, in fact, steward of the household to the Marquis of Argyle,
+      entered the apartment, and invited, with solemn gravity, the Captain to
+      follow him to his master's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suite of apartments through which he passed, were filled with
+      attendants or visitors of various descriptions, disposed, perhaps, with
+      some ostentation, in order to impress the envoy of Montrose with an idea
+      of the superior power and magnificence belonging to the rival house of
+      Argyle. One ante-room was filled with lacqueys, arrayed in brown and
+      yellow, the colours of the family, who, ranged in double file, gazed in
+      silence upon Captain Dalgetty as he passed betwixt their ranks. Another
+      was occupied by Highland gentlemen and chiefs of small branches, who were
+      amusing themselves with chess, backgammon, and other games, which they
+      scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger. A third was
+      filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers, who seemed also in attendance;
+      and, lastly, the presence-chamber of the Marquis himself showed him
+      attended by a levee which marked his high importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This apartment, the folding doors of which were opened for the reception
+      of Captain Dalgetty, was a long gallery, decorated with tapestry and
+      family portraits, and having a vaulted ceiling of open wood-work, the
+      extreme projections of the beams being richly carved and gilded. The
+      gallery was lighted by long lanceolated Gothic casements, divided by heavy
+      shafts, and filled with painted glass, where the sunbeams glimmered dimly
+      through boars'-heads, and galleys, and batons, and swords, armorial
+      bearings of the powerful house of Argyle, and emblems of the high
+      hereditary offices of Justiciary of Scotland, and Master of the Royal
+      Household, which they long enjoyed. At the upper end of this magnificent
+      gallery stood the Marquis himself, the centre of a splendid circle of
+      Highland and Lowland gentlemen, all richly dressed, among whom were two or
+      three of the clergy, called in, perhaps, to be witnesses of his lordship's
+      zeal for the Covenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis himself was dressed in the fashion of the period, which
+      Vandyke has so often painted, but his habit was sober and uniform in
+      colour, and rather rich than gay. His dark complexion, furrowed forehead,
+      and downcast look, gave him the appearance of one frequently engaged in
+      the consideration of important affairs, and who has acquired, by long
+      habit, an air of gravity and mystery, which he cannot shake off even where
+      there is nothing to be concealed. The cast with his eyes, which had
+      procured him in the Highlands the nickname of Gillespie Grumach (or the
+      grim), was less perceptible when he looked downward, which perhaps was one
+      cause of his having adopted that habit. In person, he was tall and thin,
+      but not without that dignity of deportment and manners, which became his
+      high rank. Something there was cold in his address, and sinister in his
+      look, although he spoke and behaved with the usual grace of a man of such
+      quality. He was adored by his own clan, whose advancement he had greatly
+      studied, although he was in proportion disliked by the Highlanders of
+      other septs, some of whom he had already stripped of their possessions,
+      while others conceived themselves in danger from his future schemes, and
+      all dreaded the height to which he was elevated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have already noticed, that in displaying himself amidst his
+      councillors, his officers of the household, and his train of vassals,
+      allies, and dependents, the Marquis of Argyle probably wished to make an
+      impression on the nervous system of Captain Dugald Dalgetty. But that
+      doughty person had fought his way, in one department or another, through
+      the greater part of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, a period when a
+      brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes. The King of
+      Sweden, and, after his example, even the haughty Princes of the Empire,
+      had found themselves fain, frequently to compound with their dignity, and
+      silence, when they could not satisfy the pecuniary claims of their
+      soldiers, by admitting them to unusual privileges and familiarity. Captain
+      Dugald Dalgetty had it to boast, that he had sate with princes at feasts
+      made for monarchs, and therefore was not a person to be brow-beat even by
+      the dignity which surrounded M'Callum More. Indeed, he was naturally by no
+      means the most modest man in the world, but, on the contrary, had so good
+      an opinion of himself, that into whatever company he chanced to be thrown,
+      he was always proportionally elevated in his own conceit; so that he felt
+      as much at ease in the most exalted society as among his own ordinary
+      companions. In this high opinion of his own rank, he was greatly fortified
+      by his ideas of the military profession, which, in his phrase, made a
+      valiant cavalier a camarade to an emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When introduced, therefore, into the Marquis's presence-chamber, he
+      advanced to the upper end with an air of more confidence than grace, and
+      would have gone close up to Argyle's person before speaking, had not the
+      latter waved his hand, as a signal to him to stop short. Captain Dalgetty
+      did so accordingly, and having made his military congee with easy
+      confidence, he thus accosted the Marquis: "Give you good morrow, my lord&mdash;or
+      rather I should say, good even; BESO A USTED LOS MANOS, as the Spaniard
+      says."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are you, sir, and what is your business?" demanded the Marquis, in a
+      tone which was intended to interrupt the offensive familiarity of the
+      soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is a fair interrogative, my lord," answered Dalgetty, "which I shall
+      forthwith answer as becomes a cavalier, and that PEREMPTORIE, as we used
+      to say at Mareschal-College."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "See who or what he is, Neal," said the Marquis sternly, to a gentleman
+      who stood near him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will save the honourable gentleman the labour of investigation,"
+      continued the Captain. "I am Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, that should
+      be, late Ritt-master in various services, and now Major of I know not what
+      or whose regiment of Irishes; and I am come with a flag of truce from a
+      high and powerful lord, James Earl of Montrose, and other noble persons
+      now in arms for his Majesty. And so, God save King Charles!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know where you are, and the danger of dallying with us, sir,"
+      again demanded the Marquis, "that you reply to me as if I were a child or
+      a fool? The Earl of Montrose is with the English malignants; and I suspect
+      you are one of those Irish runagates, who are come into this country to
+      burn and slay, as they did under Sir Phelim O'Neale."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lord," replied Captain Dalgetty, "I am no renegade, though a Major of
+      Irishes, for which I might refer your lordship to the invincible Gustavus
+      Adolphus the Lion of the North, to Bannier, to Oxenstiern, to the warlike
+      Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Tilly, Wallenstein, Piccolomini, and other great
+      captains, both dead and living; and touching the noble Earl of Montrose, I
+      pray your lordship to peruse these my full powers for treating with you in
+      the name of that right honourable commander."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis looked slightingly at the signed and sealed paper which
+      Captain Dalgetty handed to him, and, throwing it with contempt upon a
+      table, asked those around him what he deserved who came as the avowed
+      envoy and agent of malignant traitors, in arms against the state?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A high gallows and a short shrift," was the ready answer of one of the
+      bystanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will crave of that honourable cavalier who hath last spoken," said
+      Dalgetty, "to be less hasty in forming his conclusions, and also of your
+      lordship to be cautelous in adopting the same, in respect such threats are
+      to be held out only to base bisognos, and not to men of spirit and action,
+      who are bound to peril themselves as freely in services of this nature, as
+      upon sieges, battles, or onslaughts of any sort. And albeit I have not
+      with me a trumpet, or a white flag, in respect our army is not yet
+      equipped with its full appointments, yet the honourable cavaliers and your
+      lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an envoy who cometh on
+      matter of truth or parle, consisteth not in the fanfare of a trumpet,
+      whilk is but a sound, or in the flap of a white flag, whilk is but an old
+      rag in itself, but in the confidence reposed by the party sending, and the
+      party sent, in the honour of those to whom the message is to be carried,
+      and their full reliance that they will respect the JUS GENTIUM, as weel as
+      the law of arms, in the person of the commissionate."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are not come hither to lecture us upon the law of arms, sir," said
+      the Marquis, "which neither does nor can apply to rebels and insurgents;
+      but to suffer the penalty of your insolence and folly for bringing a
+      traitorous message to the Lord Justice General of Scotland, whose duty
+      calls upon him to punish such an offence with death."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," said the Captain, who began much to dislike the turn which
+      his mission seemed about to take, "I pray you to remember, that the Earl
+      of Montrose will hold you and your possessions liable for whatever injury
+      my person, or my horse, shall sustain by these unseemly proceedings, and
+      that he will be justified in executing retributive vengeance on your
+      persons and possessions."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This menace was received with a scornful laugh, while one of the Campbells
+      replied, "It is a far cry to Lochow;" proverbial expression of the tribe,
+      meaning that their ancient hereditary domains lay beyond the reach of an
+      invading enemy. "But, gentlemen," further urged the unfortunate Captain,
+      who was unwilling to be condemned, without at least the benefit of a full
+      hearing, "although it is not for me to say how far it may be to Lochow, in
+      respect I am a stranger to these parts, yet, what is more to the purpose,
+      I trust you will admit that I have the guarantee of an honourable
+      gentleman of your own name, Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, for my
+      safety on this mission; and I pray you to observe, that in breaking the
+      truce towards me, you will highly prejudicate his honour and fair fame."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed to be new information to many of the gentlemen, for they spoke
+      aside with each other, and the Marquis's face, notwithstanding his power
+      of suppressing all external signs of his passions, showed impatience and
+      vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr pledge his honour for this person's safety,
+      my lord?" said one of the company, addressing the Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not believe it," answered the Marquis; "but I have not yet had time
+      to read his letter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We will pray your lordship to do so," said another of the Campbells; "our
+      name must not suffer discredit through the means of such a fellow as
+      this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A dead fly," said a clergyman, "maketh the ointment of the apothecary to
+      stink."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Reverend sir," said Captain Dalgetty, "in respect of the use to be
+      derived, I forgive you the unsavouriness of your comparison; and also
+      remit to the gentleman in the red bonnet, the disparaging epithet of
+      FELLOW, which he has discourteously applied to me, who am no way to be
+      distinguished by the same, unless in so far as I have been called
+      fellow-soldier by the great Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and
+      other choice commanders, both in Germany and the Low Countries. But,
+      touching Sir Duncan Campbell's guarantee of my safety, I will gage my life
+      upon his making my words good thereanent, when he comes hither to-morrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If Sir Duncan be soon expected, my Lord," said one of the intercessors,
+      "it would be a pity to anticipate matters with this poor man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Besides that," said another, "your lordship&mdash;I speak with reverence&mdash;should,
+      at least, consult the Knight of Ardenvohr's letter, and learn the terms on
+      which this Major Dalgetty, as he calls himself, has been sent hither by
+      him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They closed around the Marquis, and conversed together in a low tone, both
+      in Gaelic and English. The patriarchal power of the Chiefs was very great,
+      and that of the Marquis of Argyle, armed with all his grants of hereditary
+      jurisdiction, was particularly absolute. But there interferes some check
+      of one kind or other even in the most despotic government. That which
+      mitigated the power of the Celtic Chiefs, was the necessity which they lay
+      under of conciliating the kinsmen who, under them, led out the lower
+      orders to battle, and who formed a sort of council of the tribe in time of
+      peace. The Marquis on this occasion thought himself under the necessity of
+      attending to the remonstrances of this senate, or more properly
+      COUROULTAI, of the name of Campbell, and, slipping out of the circle, gave
+      orders for the prisoner to be removed to a place of security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Prisoner!" exclaimed Dalgetty, exerting himself with such force as
+      wellnigh to shake off two Highlanders, who for some minutes past had
+      waited the signal to seize him, and kept for that purpose close at his
+      back. Indeed the soldier had so nearly attained his liberty, that the
+      Marquis of Argyle changed colour, and stepped back two paces, laying,
+      however, his hand on his sword, while several of his clan, with ready
+      devotion, threw themselves betwixt him and the apprehended vengeance of
+      the prisoner. But the Highland guards were too strong to be shaken off,
+      and the unlucky Captain, after having had his offensive weapons taken from
+      him, was dragged off and conducted through several gloomy passages to a
+      small side-door grated with iron, within which was another of wood. These
+      were opened by a grim old Highlander with a long white beard, and
+      displayed a very steep and narrow flight of steps leading downward. The
+      Captain's guards pushed him down two or three steps, then, unloosing his
+      arms, left him to grope his way to the bottom as he could; a task which
+      became difficult and even dangerous, when the two doors being successively
+      locked left the prisoner in total darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Whatever stranger visits here,
+     We pity his sad case,
+     Unless to worship he draw near
+     The King of Kings&mdash;his Grace.
+     &mdash;BURNS'S  EPIGRAM ON A VISIT TO INVERARY.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Captain, finding himself deprived of light in the manner we have
+      described, and placed in a very uncertain situation, proceeded to descend
+      the narrow and broken stair with all the caution in his power, hoping that
+      he might find at the bottom some place to repose himself. But with all his
+      care he could not finally avoid making a false step, which brought him
+      down the four or five last steps too hastily to preserve his equilibrium.
+      At the bottom he stumbled over a bundle of something soft, which stirred
+      and uttered a groan, so deranging the Captain's descent, that he
+      floundered forward, and finally fell upon his hands and knees on the floor
+      of a damp and stone-paved dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over whom he had
+      stumbled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was a man a month since," answered a hollow and broken voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what is he now, then," said Dalgetty, "that he thinks it fitting to
+      lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew'd up like a hurchin, that
+      honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their noses
+      over him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is he now?" replied the same voice; "he is a wretched trunk, from
+      which the boughs have one by one been lopped away, and which cares little
+      how soon it is torn up and hewed into billets for the furnace."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Friend," said Dalgetty, "I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as the
+      Spaniard says. If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you call
+      yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands and knees."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are a soldier," replied his fellow-prisoner; "do you complain on
+      account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan himself?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A soldier?" said the Captain; "and how do you know, in this cursed dark
+      cavern, that I am a soldier?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I heard your armour clash as you fell," replied the prisoner, "and now I
+      see it glimmer. When you have remained as long as I in this darkness, your
+      eyes will distinguish the smallest eft that crawls on the floor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had rather the devil picked them out!" said Dalgetty; "if this be the
+      case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a soldier's prayer, and a
+      leap from a ladder. But what sort of provant have you got here&mdash;what
+      food, I mean, brother in affliction?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bread and water once a day," replied the voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf," said Dalgetty; "I hope we shall
+      play good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable pit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The loaf and jar of water," answered the other prisoner, "stand in the
+      corner, two steps to your right hand. Take them, and welcome. With earthly
+      food I have wellnigh done."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the
+      provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much
+      heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This bread," he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time),
+      "is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which
+      we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus foiled
+      all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero, who had
+      driven two kings out of the field&mdash;namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia and
+      Christian of Denmark. And anent this water, which is none of the most
+      sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade, not
+      forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or humming
+      Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue,
+      and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or
+      indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his voracity.
+      When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and
+      seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could obtain a
+      support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of elbow-chairs,
+      he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to question his
+      fellow-captive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mine honest friend," said he, "you and I, being comrades at bed and
+      board, should be better acquainted. I am Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket,
+      and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes, and Envoy
+      Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of Montrose.&mdash;Pray,
+      what may your name be?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It will avail you little to know," replied his more taciturn companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let me judge of that matter," answered the soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then&mdash;Ranald MacEagh is my name&mdash;that is, Ranald Son of
+      the Mist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Son of the Mist!" ejaculated Dalgetty. "Son of utter darkness, say I.
+      But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in possession of the
+      provost's court of guard? what the devil brought you here, that is to
+      say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My misfortunes and my crimes," answered Ranald. "Know ye the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do know that honourable person," replied Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But know ye where he now is?" replied Ranald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fasting this day at Ardenvohr," answered the Envoy, "that he may feast
+      to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance to fail, my
+      lease of human service will be something precarious."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe and
+      his best friend," answered Ranald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message," answered
+      Dalgetty, "Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading riddles with."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Craven Saxon," said the prisoner, "tell him I am the raven that, fifteen
+      years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the pledges he had left
+      there&mdash;I am the hunter that found out the wolfs den on the rock, and
+      destroyed his offspring&mdash;I am the leader of the band which surprised
+      Ardenvohr yesterday was fifteen years, and gave his four children to the
+      sword."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly, my honest friend," said Dalgetty, "if that is your best
+      recommendation to Sir Duncan's favour, I would pretermit my pleading
+      thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the animal creation are
+      incensed against those who intromit with their offspring forcibly, much
+      more any rational and Christian creatures, who have had violence done upon
+      their small family. But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether you
+      assailed the castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold to be
+      the true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a sconce."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings," said the
+      prisoner, "drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six
+      months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. The
+      owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared
+      against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man's
+      heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there
+      had been peace and joy at the sunset."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very sufficient
+      onslaught, and not unworthily discharged. Nevertheless, I would have
+      pressed the house from that little hillock called Drumsnab. But yours is a
+      pretty irregular Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald, much resembling that
+      of Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.&mdash;But the reason, my
+      friend, the cause of this war&mdash;the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I may say?
+      Deliver me that, Ranald."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We had been pushed at by the M'Aulays, and other western tribes," said
+      Ranald, "till our possessions became unsafe for us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah ha!" said Dalgetty; "I have faint remembrance of having heard of that
+      matter. Did you not put bread and cheese into a man's mouth, when he had
+      never a stomach whereunto to transmit the same?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have heard, then," said Ranald, "the tale of our revenge on the
+      haughty forester?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bethink me that I have," said Dalgetty, "and that not of an old date.
+      It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into the dead man's mouth,
+      but somewhat too wild and salvage for civilized acceptation, besides
+      wasting the good victuals. I have seen when at a siege or a leaguer,
+      Ranald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald, for that
+      crust of bread, whilk you threw away on a dead pow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were attacked by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my brother was
+      slain&mdash;his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled&mdash;I
+      vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never broken."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may be so," said Dalgetty; "and every thorough-bred soldier will
+      confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner this story will
+      interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless it should move him to
+      intercede with the Marquis to change the manner thereof from hanging, or
+      simple suspension, to breaking your limbs on the roue or wheel, with the
+      coulter of a plough, or otherwise putting you to death by torture,
+      surpasses my comprehension. Were I you, Ranald, I would be for miskenning
+      Sir Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly by suffocation,
+      like your ancestors before you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yet hearken, stranger," said the Highlander. "Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr had
+      four children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth survives; and
+      more would he give to dandle on his knee the fourth child which remains,
+      than to rack these old bones, which care little for the utmost indulgence
+      of his wrath. One word, if I list to speak it, could turn his day of
+      humiliation and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing, and
+      breaking of bread. O, I know it by my own heart? Dearer to me is the child
+      Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than ten sons
+      who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of the air."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I presume, Ranald," continued Dalgetty, "that the three pretty fellows
+      whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the head like rizzer'd
+      haddocks, claimed some interest in you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong
+      emotion,&mdash;"They were my sons, stranger&mdash;they were my sons!&mdash;blood
+      of my blood&mdash;bone of my bone!&mdash;fleet of foot&mdash;unerring in
+      aim&mdash;unvanquished by foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by
+      numbers! Why do I wish to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the
+      rending up of its roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful
+      boughs. But Kenneth must be trained to revenge&mdash;the young eagle must
+      learn from the old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake
+      my life and my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You may attain your end more easily," said a third voice, mingling in the
+      conference, "by entrusting it to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Highlanders are superstitious. "The Enemy of Mankind is among us!"
+      said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he
+      rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the quarter
+      whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree communicated
+      itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort of polyglot
+      gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without being able to
+      remember more than a word or two of each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College&mdash;SANTISSMA MADRE
+      DI DIOS, as the Spaniard has it&mdash;ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN,
+      saith the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther's translation&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A truce with your exorcisms," said the voice they had heard before;
+      "though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my
+      assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too
+      proud to be counselled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern, by
+      whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who had
+      thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in their
+      conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the Marquis.
+      His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven foot which
+      Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse's hoof by which
+      he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how the stranger
+      had come among them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For," said he, "the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had
+      the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly,
+      sir, put what face you will on it, you are not fit to be enrolled in a
+      regiment of living men."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I reserve my secret," answered the stranger, "until you shall merit the
+      discovery by communicating to me some of yours. It may be that I shall be
+      moved to let you out where I myself came in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It cannot be through the keyhole, then," said Captain Dalgetty, "for my
+      corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that my head-piece
+      could get through. As for secrets, I have none of my own, and but few
+      appertaining to others. But impart to us what secrets you desire to know;
+      or, as Professor Snufflegreek used to say at the Mareschal-College,
+      Aberdeen, speak that I may know thee."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not with you I have first to do," replied the stranger, turning his
+      light full on the mild and wasted features, and the large limbs of the
+      Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn up against the walls of the
+      dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether his guest was a living being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have brought you something, my friend," said the stranger, in a more
+      soothing tone, "to mend your fare; if you are to die to-morrow, it is no
+      reason wherefore you should not live to-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "None at all&mdash;no reason in the creation," replied the ready Captain
+      Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a small basket
+      which the stranger had brought under his cloak, while the Highlander,
+      either in suspicion or disdain, paid no attention to the good cheer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here's to thee, my friend," said the Captain, who, having already
+      dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a pull at the
+      wine-flask. "What is thy name, my good friend?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Murdoch Campbell, sir," answered the servant, "a lackey of the Marquis of
+      Argyle, and occasionally acting as under-warden."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then here is to thee once more, Murdoch," said Dalgetty, "drinking to you
+      by your proper name for the better luck sake. This wine I take to be
+      Calcavella. Well, honest Murdoch, I take it on me to say, thou deservest
+      to be upper-warden, since thou showest thyself twenty times better
+      acquainted with the way of victualling honest gentlemen that are under
+      misfortune, than thy principal. Bread and water? out upon him! It was
+      enough, Murdoch, to destroy the credit of the Marquis's dungeon. But I see
+      you would converse with my friend, Ranald MacEagh here. Never mind my
+      presence; I'll get me into this corner with the basket, and I will warrant
+      my jaws make noise enough to prevent my ears from hearing you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding this promise, however, the veteran listened with all the
+      attention he could to gather their discourse, or, as he described it
+      himself, "laid his ears back in his neck, like Gustavus, when he heard the
+      key turn in the girnell-kist." He could, therefore, owing to the
+      narrowness of the dungeon, easily overhear the following dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you aware, Son of the Mist," said the Campbell, "that you will never
+      leave this place excepting for the gibbet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those who are dearest to me," answered MacEagh, "have trode that path
+      before me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you would do nothing," asked the visitor, "to shun following them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would do much," at length he said; "not for my own life, but for the
+      sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?" again
+      demanded Murdoch; "I care not for what cause ye mean to shun it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you call yourself a man," said the interrogator, "who have done the
+      deeds of a wolf?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do," answered the outlaw; "I am a man like my forefathers&mdash;while
+      wrapt in the mantle of peace, we were lambs&mdash;it was rent from us, and
+      ye now call us wolves. Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom
+      ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved&mdash;collect from the
+      gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses, and whitened skulls of our
+      kinsmen&mdash;bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and
+      brothers&mdash;till then, let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a
+      dark veil of division between us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will then do nothing for your liberty," said the Campbell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Anything&mdash;but call myself the friend of your tribe," answered
+      MacEagh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans," retorted Murdoch, "and
+      would not stoop to accept it.&mdash;What I demand to know from you, in
+      exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the
+      Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be found?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master," said
+      Ranald, "after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid! Does not the valley
+      of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence offered to a
+      helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the court of the
+      Sovereign? Were not her escort compelled to hide her beneath a cauldron,
+      round which they fought till not one remained to tell the tale? and was
+      not the girl brought to this fatal castle, and afterwards wedded to the
+      brother of M'Callum More, and all for the sake of her broad lands?" [Such
+      a story is told of the heiress of the clan of Calder, who was made
+      prisoner in the manner described, and afterwards wedded to Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, from which union the Campbells of Cawdor have their descent.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And if the tale be true," said Murdoch, "she had a preferment beyond what
+      the King of Scots would have conferred on her. But this is far from the
+      purpose. The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own blood, not
+      a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as M'Callum More,
+      the chief of her clan?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is on his part, then, that you demand it!" said the outlaw. The
+      domestic of the Marquis assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And you will practise no evil against the maiden?&mdash;I have done her
+      wrong enough already."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No evil, upon the word of a Christian man," replied Murdoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?" said the Child of the Mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such is our paction," replied the Campbell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the spoiling
+      of her father's tower of strength, was bred as an adopted daughter of our
+      tribe, until we were worsted at the pass of Ballenduthil, by the fiend
+      incarnate and mortal enemy of our tribe, Allan M'Aulay of the Bloody hand,
+      and by the horsemen of Lennox, under the heir of Menteith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand," said Murdoch, "and
+      she a reputed daughter of thy tribe? Then her blood has gilded the dirk,
+      and thou hast said nothing to rescue thine own forfeited life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If my life rest on hers," answered the outlaw, "it is secure, for she
+      still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance&mdash;the frail
+      promise of a son of Diarmid."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That promise shall not fail you," said the Campbell, "if you can assure
+      me that she survives, and where she is to be found."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the Castle of Darlinvarach," said Ranald MacEagh, "under the name of
+      Annot Lyle. I have often heard of her from my kinsmen, who have again
+      approached their native woods, and it is not long since mine old eyes
+      beheld her."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You!" said Murdoch, in astonishment, "you, a chief among the Children of
+      the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Son of Diarmid, I did more," replied the outlaw; "I was in the hall of
+      the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianach. My
+      purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the M'Aulay with the
+      Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles, and to have taken thereafter
+      what fate God should send me. But I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand was
+      on the hilt of my dagger. She touched her clairshach [Harp] to a song of
+      the Children of the Mist, which she had learned when her dwelling was
+      amongst us. The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly, rustled their
+      green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with the sound of all
+      their waters. My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains of mine eyes were
+      opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.&mdash;And now, Son of
+      Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay," replied Murdoch, "if your tale be true; but what proof can you
+      assign for it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bear witness, heaven and earth," exclaimed the outlaw, "he already looks
+      how he may step over his word!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not so," replied Murdoch; "every promise shall be kept to you when I am
+      assured you have told me the truth.&mdash;But I must speak a few words
+      with your companion in captivity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fair and false&mdash;ever fair and false," muttered the prisoner, as he
+      threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of this
+      dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private. "What the HENKER
+      can this sly fellow have to say to me? I have no child, either of my own,
+      so far as I know, or of any other person, to tell him a tale about. But
+      let him come on&mdash;he will have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank
+      of the old soldier."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach, he waited
+      with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty," said Murdoch Campbell,
+      "and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-GAF, [In old
+      English, KA ME KA THEE, i.e. mutually serving each other.] which goes
+      through all nations and all services."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I should know something of it," said Dalgetty; "for, except the
+      Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served; and I have
+      sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem Gabor, or with the
+      Janizaries."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will understand me
+      at once," said Murdoch, "when I say, I mean that your freedom shall depend
+      on your true and up right answer to a few trifling questions respecting
+      the gentlemen you have left; their state of preparation; the number of
+      their men, and nature of their appointments; and as much as you chance to
+      know about their plan of operations."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just to satisfy your curiosity," said Dalgetty, "and without any farther
+      purpose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "None in the world," replied Murdoch; "what interest should a poor devil
+      like me take in their operations?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Make your interrogations, then," said the Captain, "and I will answer
+      them PREREMTORIE."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How many Irish may be on their march to join James Graham the
+      delinquent?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Probably ten thousand," said Captain Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ten thousand!" replied Murdoch angrily; "we know that scarce two thousand
+      landed at Ardnamurchan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you know more about them than I do," answered Captain Dalgetty, with
+      great composure. "I never saw them mustered yet, or even under arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And how many men of the clans may be expected?" demanded Murdoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As many as they can make," replied the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are answering from the purpose, sir," said Murdoch "speak plainly,
+      will there be five thousand men?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There and thereabouts," answered Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are playing with your life, sir, if you trifle with me," replied the
+      catechist; "one whistle of mine, and in less than ten minutes your head
+      hangs on the drawbridge."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But to speak candidly, Mr. Murdoch," replied the Captain "do you think it
+      is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our army, and I
+      engaged to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat
+      Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and chance of booty?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you," said Campbell, "that if you be stubborn, your campaign shall
+      begin and end in a march to the block at the castle-gate, which stands
+      ready for such land-laufers; but if you answer my questions faithfully, I
+      will receive you into my&mdash;into the service of M'Callum More."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does the service afford good pay?" said Captain Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act under his
+      direction."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him," said Dalgetty,
+      appearing to meditate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now," said the
+      Campbell; "always supposing that you are faithful."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose," answered the
+      Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Faithful to the cause of religion and good order," answered Murdoch,
+      "which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And the Marquis of Argyle&mdash;should I incline to enter his service, is
+      he a kind master?" demanded Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never man kinder," quoth Campbell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And bountiful to his officers?" pursued the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The most open hand in Scotland," replied Murdoch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "True and faithful to his engagements?" continued Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As honourable a nobleman as breathes," said the clansman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never heard so much good of him before," said Dalgetty; "you must know
+      the Marquis well,&mdash;or rather you must be the Marquis himself!&mdash;Lord
+      of Argyle," he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised nobleman,
+      "I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If you venture to
+      call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle's person was so sudden and
+      unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon, and
+      held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis's
+      throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for
+      assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lord of Argyle," he said, "it is now my turn to lay down the terms of
+      capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you entered
+      the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM TENENS, as
+      we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits his prisoners.
+      But if not, I will first strangle you&mdash;I learned the art from a
+      Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman seraglio&mdash;and
+      then seek out a mode of retreat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness," murmured Argyle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for your kindness, my lord," replied Dalgetty: "but first, to teach
+      your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under
+      safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing
+      dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to become
+      false to his standard during the term of his service."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spare my life," said Argyle, "and I will do as you require."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis's throat, compressing it a
+      little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him the
+      power of answering them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is the secret door into the dungeon?" he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern
+      the iron which covers the spring," replied the Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So far so good.&mdash;Where does the passage lead to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To my private apartment behind the tapestry," answered the prostrate
+      nobleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From thence how shall I reach the gateway?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys' waiting hall, the
+      grand guardroom&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?&mdash;that will
+      never do for me, my lord;&mdash;have you no secret passage to the gate, as
+      you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is a passage through the chapel," said the Marquis, "opening from
+      my apartment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what is the pass-word at the gate?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The sword of Levi," replied the Marquis; "but if you will receive my
+      pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard, and
+      set you at full liberty with a passport."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the
+      grasp of my fingers&mdash;as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the
+      Spaniard says. Yet you may grant me a passport;&mdash;are there writing
+      materials in your apartment?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you there,"
+      said the Marquis, "instantly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It were too much honour for the like of me," said Dalgetty; "your
+      lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh;
+      therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.&mdash;Honest
+      Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I doubt
+      not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do; clap your
+      hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under his ruff,
+      and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy Ranald, to
+      squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that is, till he
+      swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your gullet and mine
+      to still harder usage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If he offer at speech or struggle," said Ranald, "he dies by my hand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is right, Ranald&mdash;very spirited:&mdash;A thorough-going friend
+      that understands a hint is worth a million!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate, Dalgetty
+      pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open, though so well
+      were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the slightest noise
+      in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured by very strong
+      bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys, designed apparently to
+      undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending up through the thickness
+      of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had truly informed him, behind
+      the tapestry of his private apartment. Such communications were frequent
+      in old feudal castles, as they gave the lord of the fortress, like a
+      second Dionysius, the means of hearing the conversation of his prisoners,
+      or, if he pleased, of visiting them in disguise, an experiment which had
+      terminated so unpleasantly on the present occasion for Gillespie Grumach.
+      Having examined previously whether there was any one in the apartment, and
+      finding the coast clear, the Captain entered, and hastily possessing
+      himself of a blank passport, several of which lay on the table, and of
+      writing materials, securing, at the same time, the Marquis's dagger, and a
+      silk cord from the hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where,
+      listening a moment at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of
+      the Marquis making great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer
+      him to give an alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for a forest of deer&mdash;not for a thousand head of cattle,"
+      answered the freebooter; "not for all the lands that ever called a son of
+      Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted to him of the
+      iron-garment!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He of the iron-garment," said Dalgetty, entering, "is bounden unto you,
+      MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but first he must fill
+      up this passport with the names of Major Dugald Dalgetty and his guide, or
+      he is like to have a passport to another world."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark lantern, as
+      the soldier prescribed to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now, Ranald," said Dalgetty, "strip thy upper garment&mdash;thy plaid
+      I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M'Callum More, and make of
+      him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;&mdash;Nay, I must bring it over
+      your head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.&mdash;So,
+      now he is sufficiently muffled;&mdash;hold down your hands, or, by Heaven,
+      I will stab you to the heart with your own dagger!&mdash;nay, you shall be
+      bound with nothing less than silk, as your quality deserves.&mdash;So, now
+      he is secure till some one comes to relieve him. If he ordered us a late
+      dinner, Ranald, he is like to be the sufferer;&mdash;at what hour, my good
+      Ranald, did the jailor usually appear?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never till the sun was beneath the western wave," said MacEagh. "Then, my
+      friend, we shall have three hours good," said the cautious Captain. "In
+      the meantime, let us labour for your liberation."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To examine Ranald's chain was the next occupation. It was undone by means
+      of one of the keys which hung behind the private door, probably deposited
+      there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased, dismiss a prisoner, or
+      remove him elsewhere without the necessity of summoning the warden. The
+      outlaw stretched his benumbed arms, and bounded from the floor of the
+      dungeon in all the ecstasy of recovered freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner," said Captain Dalgetty; "put
+      it on, and follow close at my heels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The outlaw obeyed. They ascended the private stair, having first secured
+      the door behind them, and thus safely reached the apartment of the
+      Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great deal of
+      espionage into their castles. Sir Robert Carey mentions his having put on
+      the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a confession from the mouth
+      of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom he caused presently to be hanged in
+      return for the frankness of his communication. The fine old Border castle
+      of Naworth contains a private stair from the apartment of the Lord William
+      Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is alleged in the
+      preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis of Argyle.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     This was the entry then, these stairs&mdash;but whither after?
+     Yet he that's sure to perish on the land
+     May quit the nicety of card and compass,
+     And trust the open sea without a pilot.&mdash;TRAGEDY OF BENNOVALT.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "Look out for the private way through the chapel, Ranald," said the
+      Captain, "while I give a hasty regard to these matters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus speaking, he seized with one hand a bundle of Argyle's most private
+      papers, and with the other a purse of gold, both of which lay in a drawer
+      of a rich cabinet, which stood invitingly open. Neither did he neglect to
+      possess himself of a sword and pistols, with powder-flask and balls, which
+      hung in the apartment. "Intelligence and booty," said the veteran, as he
+      pouched the spoils, "each honourable cavalier should look to, the one on
+      his general's behalf, and the other on his own. This sword is an Andrew
+      Ferrara, and the pistols better than mine own. But a fair exchange is no
+      robbery. Soldados are not to be endangered, and endangered gratuitously,
+      my Lord of Argyle.&mdash;But soft, soft, Ranald; wise Man of the Mist,
+      whither art thou bound?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh's proceedings; for, not finding
+      the private passage readily, and impatient, it would seem, of farther
+      delay, he had caught down a sword and target, and was about to enter the
+      great gallery, with the purpose, doubtless, of fighting his way through
+      all opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold, while you live," whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him. "We must
+      be perdue, if possible. So bar we this door, that it may be thought
+      M'Callum More would be private&mdash;and now let me make a reconnaissance
+      for the private passage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length
+      discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated
+      by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel. But what was his
+      disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door, the
+      sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This made the villain," he said, "recommend this to us as a private
+      passage. I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery
+      used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps
+      with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance
+      upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular
+      affairs. There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the
+      Marquis,&mdash;such was the high state maintained in those days,&mdash;sate
+      during service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the
+      great man himself. This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to
+      ensconce himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon listened to
+      with more impatience, and less edification, on the part of one, at least,
+      of the audience. The Captain heard SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY
+      and TO CONCLUDE, with a sort of feeling like protracted despair. But no
+      man can lecture (for the service was called a lecture) for ever; and the
+      discourse was at length closed, the clergyman not failing to make a
+      profound bow towards the latticed gallery, little suspecting whom he
+      honoured by that reverence. To judge from the haste with which they
+      dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis were scarce more pleased with
+      their late occupation than the anxious Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of
+      them being Highlandmen, had the excuse of not understanding a single word
+      which the clergyman spoke, although they gave their attendance on his
+      doctrine by the special order of M'Callum More, and would have done so had
+      the preacher been a Turkish Imaum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine remained
+      behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its Gothic precincts,
+      seemed either to be meditating on what he had just been delivering, or
+      preparing a fresh discourse for the next opportunity. Bold as he was,
+      Dalgetty hesitated what he ought to do. Time, however, pressed, and every
+      moment increased the chance of their escape being discovered by the jailor
+      visiting the dungeon perhaps before his wonted time, and discovering the
+      exchange which had been made there. At length, whispering Ranald, who
+      watched all his motions, to follow him and preserve his countenance,
+      Captain Dalgetty, with a very composed air, descended a flight of steps
+      which led from the gallery into the body of the chapel. A less experienced
+      adventurer would have endeavoured to pass the worthy clergyman rapidly, in
+      hopes to escape unnoticed. But the Captain, who foresaw the manifest
+      danger of failing in such an attempt, walked gravely to meet the divine
+      upon his walk in the midst of the chancel, and, pulling off his cap, was
+      about to pass him after a formal reverence. But what was his surprise to
+      view in the preacher the very same person with whom he had dined in the
+      castle of Ardenvohr! Yet he speedily recovered his composure; and ere the
+      clergyman could speak, was the first to address him. "I could not," he
+      said, "leave this mansion without bequeathing to you, my very reverend
+      sir, my humble thanks for the homily with which you have this evening
+      favoured us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did not observe, sir," said the clergyman, "that you were in the
+      chapel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It pleased the honourable Marquis," said Dalgetty, modestly, "to grace me
+      with a seat in his own gallery." The divine bowed low at this intimation,
+      knowing that such an honour was only vouchsafed to persons of very high
+      rank. "It has been my fate, sir," said the Captain, "in the sort of
+      wandering life which I have led, to have heard different preachers of
+      different religions&mdash;as for example, Lutheran, Evangelical, Reformed,
+      Calvinistical, and so forth, but never have I listened to such a homily as
+      yours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Call it a lecture, worthy sir," said the divine, "such is the phrase of
+      our church."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lecture or homily," said Dalgetty, "it was, as the High Germans say, GANZ
+      FORTRE FLICH; and I could not leave this place without testifying unto you
+      what inward emotions I have undergone during your edifying prelection; and
+      how I am touched to the quick, that I should yesterday, during the
+      refection, have seemed to infringe on the respect due to such a person as
+      yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas! my worthy sir," said the clergyman, "we meet in this world as in
+      the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not knowing against whom we may chance
+      to encounter. In truth, it is no matter of marvel, if we sometimes jostle
+      those, to whom, if known, we would yield all respect. Surely, sir, I would
+      rather have taken you for a profane malignant than for such a devout
+      person as you prove, who reverences the great Master even in the meanest
+      of his servants."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is always my custom to do so, learned sir," answered Dalgetty; "for in
+      the service of the immortal Gustavus&mdash;but I detain you from your
+      meditations,"&mdash;his desire to speak of the King of Sweden being for
+      once overpowered by the necessity of his circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By no means, my worthy sir," said the clergyman. "What was, I pray you,
+      the order of that great Prince, whose memory is so dear to every
+      Protestant bosom?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly as for
+      parade; and if a soldier passed without saluting the chaplain, he had an
+      hour's ride on the wooden mare for his pains. Sir, I wish you a very good
+      evening&mdash;I am obliged to depart the castle under M'Callum More's
+      passport."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stay one instant, sir," said the preacher; "is there nothing I can do to
+      testify my respect for the pupil of the great Gustavus, and so admirable a
+      judge of preaching?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing, sir," said the Captain, "but to shew me the nearest way to the
+      gate&mdash;and if you would have the kindness," he added, with great
+      effrontery, "to let a servant bring my horse with him, the dark grey
+      gelding&mdash;call him Gustavus, and he will prick up his ears&mdash;for I
+      know not where the castle-stables are situated, and my guide," he added,
+      looking at Ranald, "speaks no English."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hasten to accommodate you," said the clergyman; "your way lies through
+      that cloistered passage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, Heaven's blessing upon your vanity!" said the Captain to himself. "I
+      was afraid I would have had to march off without Gustavus."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, so effectually did the chaplain exert himself in behalf of so
+      excellent a judge of composition, that while Dalgetty was parleying with
+      the sentinels at the drawbridge, showing his passport, and giving the
+      watchword, a servant brought him his horse, ready saddled for the journey.
+      In another place, the Captain's sudden appearance at large after having
+      been publicly sent to prison, might have excited suspicion and enquiry;
+      but the officers and domestics of the Marquis were accustomed to the
+      mysterious policy of their master, and never supposed aught else than that
+      he had been liberated and intrusted with some private commission by their
+      master. In this belief, and having received the parole, they gave him free
+      passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty rode slowly through the town of Inverary, the outlaw attending
+      upon him like a foot-page at his horse's shoulder. As they passed the
+      gibbet, the old man looked on the bodies and wrung his hands. The look and
+      gesture was momentary, but expressive of indescribable anguish. Instantly
+      recovering himself, Ranald, in passing, whispered somewhat to one of the
+      females, who, like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, seemed engaged in watching
+      and mourning the victims of feudal injustice and cruelty. The woman
+      started at his voice, but immediately collected herself and returned for
+      answer a slight inclination of the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dalgetty continued his way out of the town, uncertain whether he should
+      try to seize or hire a boat and cross the lake, or plunge into the woods,
+      and there conceal himself from pursuit. In the former event he was liable
+      to be instantly pursued by the galleys of the Marquis, which lay ready for
+      sailing, their long yard-arms pointing to the wind, and what hope could he
+      have in an ordinary Highland fishing-boat to escape from them? If he made
+      the latter choice, his chance either of supporting or concealing himself
+      in those waste and unknown wildernesses, was in the highest degree
+      precarious. The town lay now behind him, yet what hand to turn to for
+      safety he was unable to determine, and began to be sensible, that in
+      escaping from the dungeon at Inverary, desperate as the matter seemed, he
+      had only accomplished the easiest part of a difficult task. If retaken,
+      his fate was now certain; for the personal injury he had offered to a man
+      so powerful and so vindictive, could be atoned for only by instant death.
+      While he pondered these distressing reflections, and looked around with a
+      countenance which plainly expressed indecision, Ranald MacEagh suddenly
+      asked him, "which way he intended to journey?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that, honest comrade," answered Dalgetty, "is precisely the question
+      which I cannot answer you. Truly I begin to hold the opinion, Ranald, that
+      we had better have stuck by the brown loaf and water-pitcher until Sir
+      Duncan arrived, who, for his own honour, must have made some fight for
+      me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Saxon," answered MacEagh, "do not regret having exchanged the foul breath
+      of yonder dungeon for the free air of heaven. Above all, repent not that
+      you have served a Son of the Mist. Put yourself under my guidance, and I
+      will warrant your safety with my head."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the army of
+      Montrose?" said Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can," answered MacEagh; "there lives not a man to whom the mountain
+      passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the corries are known,
+      as they are to the Children of the Mist. While others crawl on the level
+      ground, by the sides of lakes and streams, ours are the steep hollows of
+      the inaccessible mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs. Not all
+      the bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I can
+      guide you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Say'st thou so, honest Ranald?" replied Dalgetty; "then have on with
+      thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own pilotage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the castle is
+      surrounded for several miles, walking with so much dispatch as kept
+      Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a number of cross cuts and
+      turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily lost all idea where he might be, and
+      all knowledge of the points of the compass. At length, the path, which had
+      gradually become more difficult, altogether ended among thickets and
+      underwood. The roaring of a torrent was heard in the neighbourhood, the
+      ground became in some places broken, in others boggy, and everywhere unfit
+      for riding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the foul fiend," said Dalgetty, "is to be done here? I must part
+      with Gustavus, I fear."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take no care for your horse," said the outlaw; "he shall soon be restored
+      to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in tartan,
+      half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong of leather,
+      to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean, and half-starved
+      in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten times the
+      proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept out, as a
+      wild beast might have done, from a thicket of brambles and briars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Give your horse to the gillie," said Ranald MacEagh; "your life depends
+      upon it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Och! och!" exclaimed the despairing veteran; "Eheu! as we used to say at
+      Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such grooming!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you frantic, to lose time thus!" said his guide; "do we stand on
+      friends' ground, that you should part with your horse as if he were your
+      brother? I tell you, you shall have him again; but if you never saw the
+      animal, is not life better than the best colt ever mare foaled?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that is true too, mine honest friend," sighed Dalgetty; "yet if you
+      knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have done and
+      suffered together&mdash;See, he turns back to look at me!&mdash;Be kind to
+      him, my good breechless friend, and I will requite you well." So saying,
+      and withal sniffling a little to swallow his grief, he turned from the
+      heart-rending spectacle in order to follow his guide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more agility
+      than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first plunge after he had
+      parted from his charger, carried him, with little assistance from a few
+      overhanging boughs, or projecting roots of trees, eight foot sheer down
+      into the course of a torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.
+      Huge stones, over which they scrambled,&mdash;thickets of them and
+      brambles, through which they had to drag themselves,&mdash;rocks which
+      were to be climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the
+      purpose of an equally precarious descent upon the other; all these, and
+      many such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-footed and
+      half-naked mountaineer with an ease and velocity which excited the
+      surprise and envy of Captain Dalgetty, who, encumbered by his head-piece,
+      corslet, and other armour, not to mention his ponderous jack-boots, found
+      himself at length so much exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of
+      the road, that he sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath,
+      while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
+      EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were understood at
+      Mareschal-College, Aberdeen. The sole answer of the mountaineer was to lay
+      his hand on the soldier's arm, and point backward in the direction of the
+      wind. Dalgetty could spy nothing, for evening was closing fast, and they
+      were at the bottom of a dark ravine. But at length he could distinctly
+      hear at a distance the sullen toll of a large bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said he, "must be the alarm&mdash;the storm-clock, as the Germans
+      call it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It strikes the hour of your death," answered Ranald, "unless you can
+      accompany me a little farther. For every toll of that bell a brave man has
+      yielded up his soul."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend," said Dalgetty, "I will not deny that
+      the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen (being, as I explained
+      to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been EXPEDITUS, I mind not pedestrian
+      exercise the flourish of a fife), that I think I had better ensconce
+      myself in one of these bushes, and even lie quiet there to abide what
+      fortune God shall send me. I entreat you, mine honest friend Ranald, to
+      shift for yourself, and leave me to my fortune, as the Lion of the North,
+      the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, my never-to-be-forgotten master (whom you
+      must surely have heard of, Ranald, though you may have heard of no one
+      else), said to Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburgh, when he was
+      mortally wounded on the plains of Lutzen. Neither despair altogether of my
+      safety, Ranald, seeing I have been in as great pinches as this in Germany&mdash;more
+      especially, I remember me, that at the fatal battle of Nerlingen&mdash;after
+      which I changed service&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you would save your father's son's breath to help his child out of
+      trouble, instead of wasting it upon the tales of Seannachies," said
+      Ranald, who now grew impatient of the Captain's loquacity, "or if your
+      feet could travel as fast as your tongue, you might yet lay your head on
+      an unbloody pillow to-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Something there is like military skill in that," replied the Captain,
+      "although wantonly and irreverently spoken to an officer of rank. But I
+      hold it good to pardon such freedoms on a march, in respect of the
+      Saturnalian license indulged in such cases to the troops of all nations.
+      And now, resume thine office, friend Ranald, in respect I am
+      well-breathed; or, to be more plain, I PRAE, SEQUAR, as we used to say at
+      Mareschal-College."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Comprehending his meaning rather from his motions than his language, the
+      Son of the Mist again led the way, with an unerring precision that looked
+      like instinct, through a variety of ground the most difficult and broken
+      that could well be imagined. Dragging along his ponderous boots,
+      encumbered with thigh-pieces, gauntlets, corslet, and back-piece, not to
+      mention the buff jerkin which he wore under all these arms, talking of his
+      former exploits the whole way, though Ranald paid not the slightest
+      attention to him, Captain Dalgetty contrived to follow his guide a
+      considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a hound was
+      heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent of its prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Black hound," said Ranald, "whose throat never boded good to a Child of
+      the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast thou already found
+      our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound of darkness, and the deer
+      has gained the herd."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone equally low
+      from the top of a pass, up which they had for some time been ascending.
+      Mending their pace, they reached the top, where the moon, which had now
+      risen bright and clear, showed to Dalgetty a party of ten or twelve
+      Highlanders, and about as many women and children, by whom Ranald MacEagh
+      was received with such transports of joy, as made his companion easily
+      sensible that those by whom he was surrounded, must of course be Children
+      of the Mist. The place which they occupied well suited their name and
+      habits. It was a beetling crag, round which winded a very narrow and
+      broken footpath, commanded in various places by the position which they
+      held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ranald spoke anxiously and hastily to the children of his tribe, and the
+      men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women,
+      clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his
+      garment. "They plight their faith to you," said Ranald MacEagh, "for
+      requital of the good deed you have done to the tribe this day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough said, Ranald," answered the soldier, "enough said&mdash;tell them
+      I love not this shaking of hands&mdash;it confuses ranks and degrees in
+      military service; and as to kissing of gauntlets, puldrons, and the like,
+      I remember that the immortal Gustavus, as he rode through the streets of
+      Nuremberg, being thus worshipped by the poulace (being doubtless far more
+      worthy of it than a poor though honourable cavalier like myself), did say
+      unto them, in the way of rebuke, 'If you idolize me thus like a god, who
+      shall assure you that the vengeance of Heaven will not soon prove me to be
+      a mortal?'&mdash;And so here, I suppose you intend to make a stand against
+      your followers, Ranald&mdash;VOTO A DIOS, as the Spaniard says?&mdash;a
+      very pretty position&mdash;as pretty a position for a small peloton of men
+      as I have seen in my service&mdash;no enemy can come towards it by the
+      road without being at the mercy of cannon and musket.&mdash;But then,
+      Ranald, my trusty comrade, you have no cannon, I dare to aver, and I do
+      not see that any of these fellows have muskets either. So with what
+      artillery you propose making good the pass, before you come to hand blows,
+      truly, Ranald, it passeth my apprehension."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With the weapons and with the courage of our fathers," said MacEagh; and
+      made the Captain observe, that the men of his party were armed with bows
+      and arrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bows and arrows!" exclaimed Dalgetty; "ha! ha! ha! have we Robin Hood and
+      Little John back again? Bows and arrows! why, the sight has not been seen
+      in civilized war for a hundred years. Bows and arrows! and why not
+      weavers' beams, as in the days of Goliah? Ah! that Dugald Dalgetty, of
+      Drumthwacket, should live to see men fight with bows and arrows!&mdash;The
+      immortal Gustavus would never have believed it&mdash;nor Wallenstein&mdash;nor
+      Butler&mdash;nor old Tilly,&mdash;Well, Ranald, a cat can have but its
+      claws&mdash;since bows and arrows are the word, e'en let us make the best
+      of it. Only, as I do not understand the scope and range of such
+      old-fashioned artillery, you must make the best disposition you can out of
+      your own head for MY taking the command, whilk I would have gladly done
+      had you been to fight with any Christian weapons, is out of the question,
+      when you are to combat like quivered Numidians. I will, however, play my
+      part with my pistols in the approaching melley, in respect my carabine
+      unhappily remains at Gustavus's saddle.&mdash;My service and thanks to
+      you," he continued, addressing a mountaineer who offered him a bow;
+      "Dugald Dalgetty may say of himself, as he learned at Mareschal-College,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu,
+     Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
+     Fusce, pharetra;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      whilk is to say&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ranald MacEagh a second time imposed silence on the talkative commander as
+      before, by pulling his sleeve, and pointing down the pass. The bay of the
+      bloodhound was now approaching nearer and nearer, and they could hear the
+      voices of several persons who accompanied the animal, and hallooed to each
+      other as they dispersed occasionally, either in the hurry of their
+      advance, or in order to search more accurately the thickets as they came
+      along. They were obviously drawing nearer and nearer every moment.
+      MacEagh, in the meantime, proposed to Captain Dalgetty to disencumber
+      himself of his armour, and gave him to understand that the women should
+      transport it to a place of safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I crave your pardon, sir," said Dalgetty, "such is not the rule of our
+      foreign service in respect I remember the regiment of Finland cuirassiers
+      reprimanded, and their kettle-drums taken from them, by the immortal
+      Gustavus, because they had assumed the permission to march without their
+      corslets, and to leave them with the baggage. Neither did they strike
+      kettle-drums again at the head of that famous regiment until they behaved
+      themselves so notably at the field of Leipsic; a lesson whilk is not to be
+      forgotten, any more than that exclamation of the immortal Gustavus, 'Now
+      shall I know if my officers love me, by their putting on their armour;
+      since, if my officers are slain, who shall lead my soldiers into victory?'
+      Nevertheless, friend Ranald, this is without prejudice to my being rid of
+      these somewhat heavy boots, providing I can obtain any other succedaneum;
+      for I presume not to say that my bare soles are fortified so as to endure
+      the flints and thorns, as seems to be the case with your followers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To rid the Captain of his cumbrous greaves, and case his feet in a pair of
+      brogues made out of deerskin, which a Highlander stripped off for his
+      accommodation, was the work of a minute, and Dalgetty found himself much
+      lightened by the exchange. He was in the act of recommending to Ranald
+      MacEagh, to send two or three of his followers a little lower to
+      reconnoitre the pass, and, at the same time, somewhat to extend his front,
+      placing two detached archers at each flank by way of posts of observation,
+      when the near cry of the hound apprised them that the pursuers were at the
+      bottom of the pass. All was then dead silence; for, loquacious as he was
+      on other occasions, Captain Dalgetty knew well the necessity of an ambush
+      keeping itself under covert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moon gleamed on the broken pathway, and on the projecting cliffs of
+      rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here and there by the
+      branches of bushes and dwarf-trees, which, finding nourishment in the
+      crevices of the rocks, in some places overshadowed the brow and ledge of
+      the precipice. Below, a thick copse-wood lay in deep and dark shadow,
+      somewhat resembling the billows of a half-seen ocean. From the bosom of
+      that darkness, and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was
+      heard at intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the
+      echoes of the woods and rocks around. At intervals, these sunk into deep
+      silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a small runnel of
+      water, which partly fell from the rock, partly found a more silent passage
+      to the bottom along its projecting surface. Voices of men were also heard
+      in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had not discovered
+      the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, or that, having
+      discovered it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the imperfect light, and
+      the uncertainty whether it might not be defended, made them hesitate to
+      attempt it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length a shadowy figure was seen, which raised itself up from the abyss
+      of darkness below, and, emerging into the pale moonlight, began cautiously
+      and slowly to ascend the rocky path. The outline was so distinctly marked,
+      that Captain Dalgetty could discover not only the person of a Highlander,
+      but the long gun which he carried in his hand, and the plume of feathers
+      which decorated his bonnet. "TAUSEND TEIFLEN! that I should say so, and so
+      like to be near my latter end!" ejaculated the Captain, but under his
+      breath, "what will become of us, now they have brought musketry to
+      encounter our archers?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But just as the pursuer had attained a projecting piece of rock about half
+      way up the ascent, and, pausing, made a signal for those who were still at
+      the bottom to follow him, an arrow whistled from the bow of one of the
+      Children of the Mist, and transfixed him with so fatal a wound, that,
+      without a single effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and fell
+      headlong from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below. The
+      crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of his fall
+      from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of horror and surprise,
+      which burst from his followers. The Children of the Mist, encouraged in
+      proportion to the alarm this first success had caused among the pursuers,
+      echoed back the clamour with a loud and shrill yell of exultation, and,
+      showing themselves on the brow of the precipice, with wild cries and
+      vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their enemies a sense at
+      once of their courage, their numbers, and their state of defence. Even
+      Captain Dalgetty's military prudence did not prevent his rising up, and
+      calling out to Ranald, more loud than prudence warranted, "CAROCCO,
+      comrade, as the Spaniard says! The long-bow for ever! In my poor
+      apprehension now, were you to order a file to advance and take position&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Sassenach!" cried a voice from beneath, "mark the Sassenach sidier! I
+      see the glitter of his breastplate." At the same time three muskets were
+      discharged; and while one ball rattled against the corslet of proof, to
+      the strength of which our valiant Captain had been more than once indebted
+      for his life, another penetrated the armour which covered the front of his
+      left thigh, and stretched him on the ground. Ranald instantly seized him
+      in his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the precipice, while he
+      dolefully ejaculated, "I always told the immortal Gustavus, Wallenstein,
+      Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my poor mind, taslets ought to
+      be made musket-proof."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the wounded
+      man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of his little
+      party, and was then about to return to the contest. But Dalgetty detained
+      him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.&mdash;"I know not how this matter
+      may end&mdash;but I request you will inform Montrose, that I died like a
+      follower of the immortal Gustavus&mdash;and I pray you, take heed how you
+      quit your present strength, even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy, if
+      you gain any advantage&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Dalgetty's breath and eyesight began to fail him through loss of
+      blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this circumstance, extricated from
+      his grasp the end of his own mantle, and substituted that of a female, by
+      which the Captain held stoutly, thereby securing, as he conceived, the
+      outlaw's attention to the military instructions which he continued to pour
+      forth while he had any breath to utter them, though they became gradually
+      more and more incoherent&mdash;"And, comrade, you will be sure to keep
+      your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes, Lochaber-axes, and
+      two-handed swords&mdash;Stand fast, dragoons, on the left flank!&mdash;where
+      was I?&mdash;Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded to retreat, leave some
+      lighted matches burning on the branches of the trees&mdash;it shows as if
+      they were lined with shot&mdash;But I forget&mdash;ye have no match-locks
+      nor habergeons&mdash;only bows and arrows&mdash;bows and arrows! ha! ha!
+      ha!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable to
+      resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he
+      connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war. It was a long
+      time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in
+      the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in
+      reality, as they were wild and uncouth in outward appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     But if no faithless action stain
+     Thy true and constant word,
+     I'll make thee famous by my pen,
+     And glorious by my sword.
+
+     I'll serve thee in such noble ways
+     As ne'er were known before;
+     I'll deck and crown thy head with bays,
+     And love thee more and more.&mdash;MONTROSE'S LINES.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We must now leave, with whatever regret, the valiant Captain Dalgetty, to
+      recover of his wounds or otherwise as fate shall determine, in order
+      briefly to trace the military operations of Montrose, worthy as they are
+      of a more important page, and a better historian. By the assistance of the
+      chieftains whom we have commemorated, and more especially by the junction
+      of the Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were peculiarly
+      zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army of two or three
+      thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully united the Irish under
+      Colkitto. This last leader, who, to the great embarrassment of Milton's
+      commentators, is commemorated in one of that great poet's sonnets, was
+      properly named Alister, or Alexander M'Donnell, by birth a Scottish
+      islesman, and related to the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage he owed
+      the command assigned him in the Irish troops. In many respects he merited
+      this distinction. He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to
+      insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely master of his
+      weapons, and always ready to show the example in the extremity of danger.
+      To counterbalance these good qualities, it must be recorded, that he was
+      inexperienced in military tactics, and of a jealous and presumptuous
+      disposition, which often lost to Montrose the fruits of Colkitto's
+      gallantry. Yet such is the predominance of outward personal qualities in
+      the eyes of a mild people, that the feats of strength and courage shown by
+      this champion, seem to have made a stronger impression upon the minds of
+      the Highlanders, than the military skill and chivalrous spirit of the
+      great Marquis of Montrose. Numerous traditions are still preserved in the
+      Highland glens concerning Alister M'Donnell, though the name of Montrose
+      is rarely mentioned among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [Milton's book, entitled TETRACHORDON, had been ridiculed, it would seem,
+      by the divines assembled at Westminster, and others, on account of the
+      hardness of the title; and Milton in his sonnet retaliates upon the
+      barbarous Scottish names which the Civil War had made familiar to English
+      ears:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     . . . . why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
+     COLKITTO or M'Donald, or Gallasp?
+     These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
+     That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "We may suppose," says Bishop Newton, "that these were persons of note
+      among the Scotch ministers, who were for pressing and enforcing the
+      Covenant;" whereas Milton only intends to ridicule the barbarism of
+      Scottish names in general, and quotes, indiscriminately, that of
+      Gillespie, one of the Apostles of the Covenant, and those of Colkitto and
+      M'Donnell (both belonging to one person), one of its bitterest enemies.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The point upon which Montrose finally assembled his little army, was in
+      Strathearn, on the verge of the Highlands of Perthshire, so as to menace
+      the principal town of that county.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His enemies were not unprepared for his reception. Argyle, at the head of
+      his Highlanders, was dogging the steps of the Irish from the west to the
+      east, and by force, fear, or influence, had collected an army nearly
+      sufficient to have given battle to that under Montrose. The Lowlands were
+      also prepared, for reasons which we assigned at the beginning of this
+      tale. A body of six thousand infantry, and six or seven thousand cavalry,
+      which profanely assumed the title of God's army, had been hastily
+      assembled from the shires of Fife, Angus, Perth, Stirling, and the
+      neighbouring counties. A much less force in former times, nay, even in the
+      preceding reign, would have been sufficient to have secured the Lowlands
+      against a more formidable descent of Highlanders, than those united under
+      Montrose; but times had changed strangely within the last half century.
+      Before that period, the Lowlanders were as constantly engaged in war as
+      the mountaineers, and were incomparably better disciplined and armed. The
+      favourite Scottish order of battle somewhat resembled the Macedonian
+      phalanx. Their infantry formed a compact body, armed with long spears,
+      impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the age, though well mounted, and
+      arrayed in complete proof. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that
+      their ranks could not be broken by the disorderly charge of Highland
+      infantry armed for close combat only, with swords, and ill furnished with
+      missile weapons, and having no artillery whatever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the introduction of
+      muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which, not being as yet
+      combined with the bayonet, was a formidable weapon at a distance, but gave
+      no assurance against the enemy who rushed on to close quarters. The pike,
+      indeed, was not wholly disused in the Scottish army; but it was no longer
+      the favourite weapon, nor was it relied upon as formerly by those in whose
+      hands it was placed; insomuch that Daniel Lupton, a tactician of the day,
+      has written a book expressly upon the superiority of the musket. This
+      change commenced as early as the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, whose marches
+      were made with such rapidity, that the pike was very soon thrown aside in
+      his army, and exchanged for fire-arms. A circumstance which necessarily
+      accompanied this change, as well as the establishment of standing armies,
+      whereby war became a trade, was the introduction of a laborious and
+      complicated system of discipline, combining a variety of words of command
+      with corresponding operations and manoeuvres, the neglect of any one of
+      which was sure to throw the whole into confusion. War therefore, as
+      practised among most nations of Europe, had assumed much more than
+      formerly the character of a profession or mystery, to which previous
+      practice and experience were indispensable requisites. Such was the
+      natural consequence of standing armies, which had almost everywhere, and
+      particularly in the long German wars, superseded what may be called the
+      natural discipline of the feudal militia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Scottish Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double
+      disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders. They were divested of the spear,
+      a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had so often repelled the
+      impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and they were subjected to a new
+      and complicated species of discipline, well adapted, perhaps, to the use
+      of regular troops, who could be rendered completely masters of it, but
+      tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen soldiers, by whom it was
+      rarely practised, and imperfectly understood. So much has been done in our
+      own time in bringing back tactics to their first principles, and in
+      getting rid of the pedantry of war, that it is easy for us to estimate the
+      disadvantages under which a half-trained militia laboured, who were taught
+      to consider success as depending upon their exercising with precision a
+      system of tactics, which they probably only so far comprehended as to find
+      out when they were wrong, but without the power of getting right again.
+      Neither can it be denied, that, in the material points of military habits
+      and warlike spirit, the Lowlanders of the seventeenth century had sunk far
+      beneath their Highland countrymen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the earliest period down to the union of the crowns, the whole
+      kingdom of Scotland, Lowlands as well as Highlands, had been the constant
+      scene of war, foreign and domestic; and there was probably scarce one of
+      its hardy inhabitants, between the age of sixteen and sixty, who was not
+      as willing in point of fact as he was literally bound in law, to assume
+      arms at the first call of his liege lord, or of a royal proclamation. The
+      law remained the same in sixteen hundred and forty-five as a hundred years
+      before, but the race of those subjected to it had been bred up under very
+      different feelings. They had sat in quiet under their vine and under their
+      fig-tree, and a call to battle involved a change of life as new as it was
+      disagreeable. Such of them, also, who lived near unto the Highlands, were
+      in continual and disadvantageous contact with the restless inhabitants of
+      those mountains, by whom their cattle were driven off, their dwellings
+      plundered, and their persons insulted, and who had acquired over them that
+      sort of superiority arising from a constant system of aggression. The
+      Lowlanders, who lay more remote, and out of reach of these depredations,
+      were influenced by the exaggerated reports circulated concerning the
+      Highlanders, whom, as totally differing in laws, language, and dress, they
+      were induced to regard as a nation of savages, equally void of fear and of
+      humanity. These various prepossessions, joined to the less warlike habits
+      of the Lowlanders, and their imperfect knowledge of the new and
+      complicated system of discipline for which they had exchanged their
+      natural mode of fighting, placed them at great disadvantage when opposed
+      to the Highlander in the field of battle. The mountaineers, on the
+      contrary, with the arms and courage of their fathers, possessed also their
+      simple and natural system of tactics, and bore down with the fullest
+      confidence upon an enemy, to whom anything they had been taught of
+      discipline was, like Saul's armour upon David, a hinderance rather than a
+      help, "because they had not proved it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with such disadvantages on the one side, and such advantages on the
+      other, to counterbalance the difference of superior numbers and the
+      presence of artillery and cavalry, that Montrose encountered the army of
+      Lord Elcho upon the field of Tippermuir. The Presbyterian clergy had not
+      been wanting in their efforts to rouse the spirit of their followers, and
+      one of them, who harangued the troops on the very day of battle, hesitated
+      not to say, that if ever God spoke by his mouth, he promised them, in His
+      name, that day, a great and assured victory. The cavalry and artillery
+      were also reckoned sure warrants of success, as the novelty of their
+      attack had upon former occasions been very discouraging to the
+      Highlanders. The place of meeting was an open heath, and the ground
+      afforded little advantage to either party, except that it allowed the
+      horse of the Covenanters to act with effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A battle upon which so much depended, was never more easily decided. The
+      Lowland cavalry made a show of charging; but, whether thrown into disorder
+      by the fire of musketry, or deterred by a disaffection to the service said
+      to have prevailed among the gentlemen, they made no impression on the
+      Highlanders whatever, and recoiled in disorder from ranks which had
+      neither bayonets nor pikes to protect them. Montrose saw, and instantly
+      availed himself of this advantage. He ordered his whole army to charge,
+      which they performed with the wild and desperate valour peculiar to
+      mountaineers. One officer of the Covenanters alone, trained in the Italian
+      wars, made a desperate defence upon the right wing. In every other point
+      their line was penetrated at the first onset; and this advantage once
+      obtained, the Lowlanders were utterly unable to contend at close quarters
+      with their more agile and athletic enemies. Many were slain on the held,
+      and such a number in the pursuit, that above one-third of the Covenanters
+      were reported to have fallen; in which number, however, must be computed a
+      great many fat burgesses who broke their wind in the flight, and thus died
+      without stroke of sword. [We choose to quote our authority for a fact so
+      singular:&mdash;"A great many burgesses were killed&mdash;twenty-five
+      householders in St. Andrews&mdash;many were bursten in the flight, and
+      died without stroke."&mdash;See Baillie's Letters, vol. ii. page 92.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victors obtained possession of Perth, and obtained considerable sums
+      of money, as well as ample supplies of arms and ammunition. But those
+      advantages were to be balanced against an almost insurmountable
+      inconvenience that uniformly attended a Highland army. The clans could be
+      in no respect induced to consider themselves as regular soldiers, or to
+      act as such. Even so late as the year 1745-6, when the Chevalier Charles
+      Edward, by way of making an example, caused a soldier to be shot for
+      desertion, the Highlanders, who composed his army, were affected as much
+      by indignation as by fear. They could not conceive any principle of
+      justice upon which a man's life could be taken, for merely going home when
+      it did not suit him to remain longer with the army. Such had been the
+      uniform practice of their fathers. When a battle was over, the campaign
+      was, in their opinion, ended; if it was lost, they sought safety in their
+      mountains&mdash;if won, they returned there to secure their booty. At
+      other times they had their cattle to look after, and their harvests to sow
+      or reap, without which their families would have perished for want. In
+      either case, there was an end of their services for the time; and though
+      they were easily enough recalled by the prospect of fresh adventures and
+      more plunder, yet the opportunity of success was, in the meantime, lost,
+      and could not afterwards be recovered. This circumstance serves to show,
+      even if history had not made us acquainted with the same fact, that the
+      Highlanders had never been accustomed to make war with the view of
+      permanent conquest, but only with the hope of deriving temporary
+      advantage, or deciding some immediate quarrel. It also explains the reason
+      why Montrose, with all his splendid successes, never obtained any secure
+      or permanent footing in the Lowlands, and why even those Lowland noblemen
+      and gentlemen, who were inclined to the royal cause, showed diffidence and
+      reluctance to join an army of a character so desultory and irregular, as
+      might lead them at all times to apprehend that the Highlanders securing
+      themselves by a retreat to their mountains, would leave whatever
+      Lowlanders might have joined them to the mercy of an offended and
+      predominant enemy. The same consideration will also serve to account for
+      the sudden marches which Montrose was obliged to undertake, in order to
+      recruit his army in the mountains, and for the rapid changes of fortune,
+      by which we often find him obliged to retreat from before those enemies
+      over whom he had recently been victorious. If there should be any who read
+      these tales for any further purpose than that of immediate amusement, they
+      will find these remarks not unworthy of their recollection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was owing to such causes, the slackness of the Lowland loyalists and
+      the temporary desertion of his Highland followers, that Montrose found
+      himself, even after the decisive victory of Tippermuir, in no condition to
+      face the second army with which Argyle advanced upon him from the
+      westward. In this emergency, supplying by velocity the want of strength,
+      he moved suddenly from Perth to Dundee, and being refused admission into
+      that town, fell northward upon Aberdeen, where he expected to be joined by
+      the Gordons and other loyalists. But the zeal of these gentlemen was, for
+      the time, effectually bridled by a large body of Covenanters, commanded by
+      the Lord Burleigh, and supposed to amount to three thousand men. These
+      Montrose boldly attacked with half their number. The battle was fought
+      under the walls Of the city, and the resolute valour of Montrose's
+      followers was again successful against every disadvantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was the fate of this great commander, always to gain the glory, but
+      seldom to reap the fruits of victory. He had scarcely time to repose his
+      small army in Aberdeen, ere he found, on the one hand, that the Gordons
+      were likely to be deterred from joining him, by the reasons we have
+      mentioned, with some others peculiar to their chief, the Marquis of
+      Huntly; on the other hand, Argyle, whose forces had been augmented by
+      those of several Lowland noblemen, advanced towards Montrose at the head
+      of an army much larger than he had yet had to cope with. These troops
+      moved, indeed, with slowness, corresponding to the cautious character of
+      their commander; but even that caution rendered Argyle's approach
+      formidable, since his very advance implied, that he was at the head of an
+      army irresistibly superior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There remained one mode of retreat open to Montrose, and he adopted it. He
+      threw himself into the Highlands, where he could set pursuit at defiance,
+      and where he was sure, in every glen, to recover those recruits who had
+      left his standard to deposit their booty in their native fastnesses. It
+      was thus that the singular character of the army which Montrose commanded,
+      while, on the one hand, it rendered his victory in some degree nugatory,
+      enabled him, on the other, under the most disadvantageous circumstances,
+      to secure his retreat, recruit his forces, and render himself more
+      formidable than ever to the enemy, before whom he had lately been unable
+      to make a stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the present occasion he threw himself into Badenoch, and rapidly
+      traversing that district, as well as the neighbouring country of Athole,
+      he alarmed the Covenanters by successive attacks upon various unexpected
+      points, and spread such general dismay, that repeated orders were
+      dispatched by the Parliament to Argyle, their commander, to engage, and
+      disperse Montrose at all rates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These commands from his superiors neither suited the haughty spirit, nor
+      the temporizing and cautious policy, of the nobleman to whom they were
+      addressed. He paid, accordingly, no regard to them, but limited his
+      efforts to intrigues among Montrose's few Lowland followers, many of whom
+      had become disgusted with the prospect of a Highland campaign, which
+      exposed their persons to intolerable fatigue, and left their estates at
+      the Covenanters' mercy. Accordingly, several of them left Montrose's camp
+      at this period. He was joined, however, by a body of forces of more
+      congenial spirit, and far better adapted to the situation in which he
+      found himself. This reinforcement consisted of a large body of
+      Highlanders, whom Colkitto, dispatched for that purpose, had levied in
+      Argyleshire. Among the most distinguished was John of Moidart, called the
+      Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts of Appin, the Clan Gregor, the
+      Clan M'Nab, and other tribes of inferior distinction. By these means,
+      Montrose's army was so formidably increased, that Argyle cared no longer
+      to remain in the command of that opposed to him, but returned to
+      Edinburgh, and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his army
+      was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner in which
+      they ought to have been. From thence the Marquis returned to Inverary,
+      there, in full security, to govern his feudal vassals, and patriarchal
+      followers, and to repose himself in safety on the faith of the Clan
+      proverb already quoted&mdash;"It is a far cry to Lochow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Such mountains steep, such craggy hills,
+     His army on one side enclose:
+     The other side, great griesly gills
+     Did fence with fenny mire and moss.
+
+     Which when the Earl understood,
+     He council craved of captains all,
+     Who bade set forth with mournful mood,
+     And take such fortune as would fall.
+     &mdash;FLODDEN FIELD, AN ANCIENT POEM.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Montrose had now a splendid career in his view, provided he could obtain
+      the consent of his gallant, but desultory troops, and their independent
+      chieftains. The Lowlands lay open before him without an army adequate to
+      check his career; for Argyle's followers had left the Covenanters' host
+      when their master threw up his commission, and many other troops, tired of
+      the war, had taken the same opportunity to disband themselves. By
+      descending Strath-Tay, therefore, one of the most convenient passes from
+      the Highlands, Montrose had only to present himself in the Lowlands, in
+      order to rouse the slumbering spirit of chivalry and of loyalty which
+      animated the gentlemen to the north of the Forth. The possession of these
+      districts, with or without a victory, would give him the command of a
+      wealthy and fertile part of the kingdom, and would enable him, by regular
+      pay, to place his army on a permanent footing, to penetrate as far as the
+      capital, perhaps from thence to the Border, where he deemed it possible to
+      communicate with the yet unsubdued forces of King Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the plan of operations by which the truest glory was to be
+      acquired, and the most important success insured for the royal cause.
+      Accordingly it did not escape the ambitious and daring spirit of him whose
+      services had already acquired him the title of the Great Marquis. But
+      other motives actuated many of his followers, and perhaps were not without
+      their secret and unacknowledged influence upon his own feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Western Chiefs in Montrose's army, almost to a man, regarded the
+      Marquis of Argyle as the most direct and proper object of hostilities.
+      Almost all of them had felt his power; almost all, in withdrawing their
+      fencible men from their own glens, left their families and property
+      exposed to his vengeance; all, without exception, were desirous of
+      diminishing his sovereignty; and most of them lay so near his territories,
+      that they might reasonably hope to be gratified by a share of his spoil.
+      To these Chiefs the possession of Inverary and its castle was an event
+      infinitely more important and desirable than the capture of Edinburgh. The
+      latter event could only afford their clansmen a little transitory pay or
+      plunder; the former insured to the Chiefs themselves indemnity for the
+      past, and security for the future. Besides these personal reasons, the
+      leaders, who favoured this opinion, plausibly urged, that though, at his
+      first descent into the Lowlands, Montrose might be superior to the enemy,
+      yet every day's march he made from the hills must diminish his own forces,
+      and expose him to the accumulated superiority of any army which the
+      Covenanters could collect from the Lowland levies and garrisons. On the
+      other hand, by crushing Argyle effectually, he would not only permit his
+      present western friends to bring out that proportion of their forces which
+      they must otherwise leave at home for protection of their families; but
+      farther, he would draw to his standard several tribes already friendly to
+      his cause, but who were prevented from joining him by fear of M'Callum
+      More.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These arguments, as we have already hinted, found something responsive in
+      Montrose's own bosom, not quite consonant with the general heroism of his
+      character. The houses of Argyle and Montrose had been in former times,
+      repeatedly opposed to each other in war and in politics, and the superior
+      advantages acquired by the former, had made them the subject of envy and
+      dislike to the neighbouring family, who, conscious of equal desert, had
+      not been so richly rewarded. This was not all. The existing heads of these
+      rival families had stood in the most marked opposition to each other since
+      the commencement of the present troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose, conscious of the superiority of his talents, and of having
+      rendered great service to the Covenanters at the beginning of the war, had
+      expected from that party the supereminence of council and command, which
+      they judged it safer to intrust to the more limited faculties, and more
+      extensive power, of his rival Argyle. The having awarded this preference,
+      was an injury which Montrose never forgave the Covenanters; and he was
+      still less likely to extend his pardon to Argyle, to whom he had been
+      postponed. He was therefore stimulated by every feeling of hatred which
+      could animate a fiery temper in a fierce age, to seek for revenge upon the
+      enemy of his house and person; and it is probable that these private
+      motives operated not a little upon his mind, when he found the principal
+      part of his followers determined rather to undertake an expedition against
+      the territories of Argyle, than to take the far more decisive step of
+      descending at once into the Lowlands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet whatever temptation Montrose found to carry into effect his attack
+      upon Argyleshire, he could not easily bring himself to renounce the
+      splendid achievement of a descent upon the Lowlands. He held more than one
+      council with the principal Chiefs, combating, perhaps, his own secret
+      inclination as well as theirs. He laid before them the extreme difficulty
+      of marching even a Highland army from the eastward into Argyleshire,
+      through passes scarcely practicable for shepherds and deer-stalkers, and
+      over mountains, with which even the clans lying nearest to them did not
+      pretend to be thoroughly acquainted. These difficulties were greatly
+      enhanced by the season of the year, which was now advancing towards
+      December, when the mountain-passes, in themselves so difficult, might be
+      expected to be rendered utterly impassable by snowstorms. These objections
+      neither satisfied nor silenced the Chiefs, who insisted upon their ancient
+      mode of making war, by driving the cattle, which, according to the Gaelic
+      phrase, "fed upon the grass of their enemy." The council was dismissed
+      late at night, and without coming to any decision, excepting that the
+      Chiefs, who supported the opinion that Argyle should be invaded, promised
+      to seek out among their followers those who might be most capable of
+      undertaking the office of guides upon the expedition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose had retired to the cabin which served him for a tent, and
+      stretched himself upon a bed of dry fern, the only place of repose which
+      it afforded. But he courted sleep in vain, for the visions of ambition
+      excluded those of Morpheus. In one moment he imagined himself displaying
+      the royal banner from the reconquered Castle of Edinburgh, detaching
+      assistance to a monarch whose crown depended upon his success, and
+      receiving in requital all the advantages and preferments which could be
+      heaped upon him whom a king delighteth to honour. At another time this
+      dream, splendid as it was, faded before the vision of gratified vengeance,
+      and personal triumph over a personal enemy. To surprise Argyle in his
+      stronghold of Inverary&mdash;to crush in him at once the rival of his own
+      house and the chief support of the Presbyterians&mdash;to show the
+      Covenanters the difference between the preferred Argyle and the postponed
+      Montrose, was a picture too flattering to feudal vengeance to be easily
+      relinquished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he lay thus busied with contradictory thoughts and feelings, the
+      soldier who stood sentinel upon his quarters announced to the Marquis that
+      two persons desired to speak with his Excellency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Their names?" answered Montrose, "and the cause of their urgency at such
+      a late hour?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On these points, the sentinel, who was one of Colkitto's Irishmen, could
+      afford his General little information; so that Montrose, who at such a
+      period durst refuse access to no one, lest he might have been neglecting
+      some important intelligence, gave directions, as a necessary precaution,
+      to put the guard under arms, and then prepared to receive his untimely
+      visitors. His groom of the chambers had scarce lighted a pair of torches,
+      and Montrose himself had scarce risen from his couch, when two men
+      entered, one wearing a Lowland dress, of shamoy leather worn almost to
+      tatters; the other a tall upright old Highlander, of a complexion which
+      might be termed iron-grey, wasted and worn by frost and tempest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What may be your commands with me, my friends?" said the Marquis, his
+      hand almost unconsciously seeking the but of one of his pistols; for the
+      period, as well as the time of night, warranted suspicions which the good
+      mien of his visitors was not by any means calculated to remove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I pray leave to congratulate you," said the Lowlander, "my most noble
+      General, and right honourable lord, upon the great battles which you have
+      achieved since I had the fortune to be detached from you, It was a pretty
+      affair that tuilzie at Tippermuir; nevertheless, if I might be permitted
+      to counsel&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Before doing so," said the Marquis, "will you be pleased to let me know
+      who is so kind as to favour me with his opinion?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly, my lord," replied the man, "I should have hoped that was
+      unnecessary, seeing it is not so long since I took on in your service,
+      under promise of a commission as Major, with half a dollar of daily pay
+      and half a dollar of arrears; and I am to trust your lordship has nut
+      forgotten my pay as well as my person?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My good friend, Major Dalgetty," said Montrose, who by this time
+      perfectly recollected his man, "you must consider what important things
+      have happened to put my friends' faces out of my memory, besides this
+      imperfect light; but all conditions shall be kept.&mdash;And what news
+      from Argyleshire, my good Major? We have long given you up for lost, and I
+      was now preparing to take the most signal vengeance upon the old fox who
+      infringed the law of arms in your person."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Truly, my noble lord," said Dalgetty, "I have no desire that my return
+      should put any stop to so proper and becoming an intention; verily it is
+      in no shape in the Earl of Argyle's favour or mercy that I now stand
+      before you, and I shall be no intercessor for him. But my escape is, under
+      Heaven, and the excellent dexterity which, as an old and accomplished
+      cavalier, I displayed in effecting the same,&mdash;I say, under these, it
+      is owing to the assistance of this old Highlander, whom I venture to
+      recommend to your lordship's special favour, as the instrument of saving
+      your lordship's to command, Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A thankworthy service," said the Marquis, gravely, "which shall certainly
+      be requited in the manner it deserves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Kneel down, Ranald," said Major Dalgetty (as we must now call him),
+      "kneel down, and kiss his Excellency's hand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prescribed form of acknowledgment not being according to the custom of
+      Ranald's country, he contented himself with folding his arms on his bosom,
+      and making a low inclination of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This poor man, my lord," said Major Dalgetty, continuing his speech with
+      a dignified air of protection towards Ranald M'Eagh, "has strained all his
+      slender means to defend my person from mine enemies, although having no
+      better weapons of a missile sort than bows and arrows, whilk your lordship
+      will hardly believe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will see a great many such weapons in my camp," said Montrose, "and
+      we find them serviceable." [In fact, for the admirers of archery it may be
+      stated, not only that many of the Highlanders in Montrose's army used
+      these antique missiles, but even in England the bow and quiver, once the
+      glory of the bold yeomen of that land, were occasionally used during the
+      great civil wars.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Serviceable, my lord!" said Dalgetty; "I trust your lordship will permit
+      me to be surprised&mdash;bows and arrows!&mdash;I trust you will forgive
+      my recommending the substitution of muskets, the first convenient
+      opportunity. But besides defending me, this honest Highlander also was at
+      the pains of curing me, in respect that I had got a touch of the wars in
+      my retreat, which merits my best requital in this special introduction of
+      him to your lordship's notice and protection."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is your name, my friend?" said Montrose, turning to the Highlander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may not be spoken," answered the mountaineer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is to say," interpreted Major Dalgetty, "he desires to have his name
+      concealed, in respect he hath in former days taken a castle, slain certain
+      children, and done other things, whilk, as your good lordship knows, are
+      often practised in war time, but excite no benevolence towards the
+      perpetrator in the friends of those who sustain injury. I have known, in
+      my military experience, many brave cavaliers put to death by the boors,
+      simply for having used military license upon the country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand," said Montrose: "This person is at feud with some of our
+      followers. Let him retire to the court of guard, and we will think of the
+      best mode of protecting him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You hear, Ranald," said Major Dalgetty, with an air of superiority, "his
+      Excellency wishes to hold privy council with me, you must go to the court
+      of guard.&mdash;He does not know where that is, poor fellow!&mdash;he is a
+      young soldier for so old a man; I will put him under the charge of a
+      sentinel, and return to your lordship incontinent." He did so, and
+      returned accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose's first enquiry respected the embassy to Inverary; and he
+      listened with attention to Dalgetty's reply, notwithstanding the prolixity
+      of the Major's narrative. It required an effort from the Marquis to
+      maintain his attention; but no one better knew, that where information is
+      to be derived from the report of such agents as Dalgetty, it can only be
+      obtained by suffering them to tell their story in their own way.
+      Accordingly the Marquis's patience was at length rewarded. Among other
+      spoils which the Captain thought himself at liberty to take, was a packet
+      of Argyle's private papers. These he consigned to the hands of his
+      General; a humour of accounting, however, which went no farther, for I do
+      not understand that he made any mention of the purse of gold which he had
+      appropriated at the same time that he made seizure of the papers
+      aforesaid. Snatching a torch from the wall, Montrose was in an instant
+      deeply engaged in the perusal of these documents, in which it is probable
+      he found something to animate his personal resentment against his rival
+      Argyle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does he not fear me?" said he; "then he shall feel me. Will he fire my
+      castle of Murdoch?&mdash;Inverary shall raise the first smoke.&mdash;O for
+      a guide through the skirts of Strath-Fillan!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever might be Dalgetty's personal conceit, he understood his business
+      sufficiently to guess at Montrose's meaning. He instantly interrupted his
+      own prolix narration of the skirmish which had taken place, and the wound
+      he had received in his retreat, and began to speak to the point which he
+      saw interested his General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If," said he, "your Excellency wishes to make an infall into Argyleshire,
+      this poor man, Ranald, of whom I told you, together with his children and
+      companions, know every pass into that land, both leading from the east and
+      from the north."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed!" said Montrose; "what reason have you to believe their knowledge
+      so extensive?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So please your Excellency," answered Dalgetty, "during the weeks that I
+      remained with them for cure of my wound, they were repeatedly obliged to
+      shift their quarters, in respect of Argyle's repeated attempts to
+      repossess himself of the person of an officer who was honoured with Your
+      Excellency's confidence; so that I had occasion to admire the singular
+      dexterity and knowledge of the face of the country with which they
+      alternately achieved their retreat and their advance; and when, at length,
+      I was able to repair to your Excellency's standard, this honest simple
+      creature, Ranald MacEagh, guided me by paths which my steed Gustavus
+      (which your lordship may remember) trode with perfect safety, so that I
+      said to myself, that where guides, spies, or intelligencers, were required
+      in a Highland campaign in that western country, more expert persons than
+      he and his attendants could not possibly be desired."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And can you answer for this man's fidelity?" said Montrose; "what is his
+      name and condition?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is an outlaw and robber by profession, something also of a homicide or
+      murderer," answered Dalgetty; "and by name, called Ranald MacEagh; whilk
+      signifies, Ranald, the Son of the Mist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should remember something of that name," said Montrose, pausing: "Did
+      not these Children of the Mist perpetrate some act of cruelty upon the
+      M'Aulays?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Dalgetty mentioned the circumstance of the murder of the forester,
+      and Montrose's active memory at once recalled all the circumstances of the
+      feud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is most unlucky," said Montrose, "this inexpiable quarrel between
+      these men and the M'Aulays. Allan has borne himself bravely in these wars,
+      and possesses, by the wild mystery of his behaviour and language, so much
+      influence over the minds of his countrymen, that the consequences of
+      disobliging him might be serious. At the same time, these men being so
+      capable of rendering useful service, and being as you say, Major Dalgetty,
+      perfectly trustworthy&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will pledge my pay and arrears, my horse and arms, my head and neck,
+      upon their fidelity," said the Major; "and your Excellency knows, that a
+      soldado could say no more for his own father."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "True," said Montrose; "but as this is a matter of particular moment, I
+      would willingly know the grounds of so positive an assurance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Concisely then, my lord," said the Major, "not only did they disdain to
+      profit by a handsome reward which Argyle did me the honour to place upon
+      this poor head of mine, and not only did they abstain from pillaging my
+      personal property, whilk was to an amount that would have tempted regular
+      soldiers in any service of Europe; and not only did they restore me my
+      horse, whilk your Excellency knows to be of value, but I could not prevail
+      on them to accept one stiver, doit, or maravedi, for the trouble and
+      expenses of my sick bed. They actually refused my coined money when freely
+      offered,&mdash;a tale seldom to be told in a Christian land."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I admit," said Montrose, after a moment's reflection, "that their conduct
+      towards you is good evidence of their fidelity; but how to secure against
+      the breaking out of this feud?" He paused, and then suddenly added, "I had
+      forgot I have supped, while you, Major, have been travelling by
+      moonlight."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called to his attendants to fetch a stoup of wine and some
+      refreshments. Major Dalgetty, who had the appetite of a convalescent
+      returned from Highland quarters, needed not any pressing to partake of
+      what was set before him, but proceeded to dispatch his food with such
+      alacrity, that the Marquis, filling a cup of wine, and drinking to his
+      health, could not help remarking, that coarse as the provisions of his
+      camp were, he was afraid Major Dalgetty had fared much worse during his
+      excursion into Argyleshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your Excellency may take your corporal oath upon that," said the worthy
+      Major, speaking with his mouth full; "for Argyle's bread and water are yet
+      stale and mouldy in my recollection, and though they did their best, yet
+      the viands that the Children of the Mist procured for me, poor helpless
+      creatures as they were, were so unrefreshful to my body, that when
+      enclosed in my armour, whilk I was fain to leave behind me for
+      expedition's sake, I rattled therein like the shrivelled kernel in a nut
+      that hath been kept on to a second Hallowe'en."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must take the due means to repair these losses, Major Dalgetty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In troth," answered the soldier, "I shall hardly be able to compass that,
+      unless my arrears are to be exchanged for present pay; for I protest to
+      your Excellency, that the three stone weight which I have lost were simply
+      raised upon the regular accountings of the States of Holland."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In that case," said the Marquis, "you are only reduced to good marching
+      order. As for the pay, let us once have victory&mdash;victory, Major, and
+      your wishes, and all our wishes, shall be amply fulfilled. Meantime, help
+      yourself to another cup of wine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To your Excellency's health," said the Major, filling a cup to the brim,
+      to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, "and victory over all our
+      enemies, and particularly over Argyle! I hope to twitch another handful
+      from his board myself&mdash;I have had one pluck at it already."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very true," answered Montrose; "but to return to those men of the Mist.
+      You understand, Dalgetty, that their presence here, and the purpose for
+      which we employ them, is a secret between you and me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Delighted, as Montrose had anticipated, with this mark of his General's
+      confidence, the Major laid his hand upon his nose, and nodded
+      intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How many may there be of Ranald's followers?" continued the Marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are reduced, so far as I know, to some eight or ten men," answered
+      Major Dalgetty, "and a few women and children."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are they now?" demanded Montrose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In a valley, at three miles' distance," answered the soldier, "awaiting
+      your Excellency's command; I judged it not fit to bring them to your
+      leaguer without your Excellency's orders."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You judged very well," said Montrose; "it would be proper that they
+      remain where they are, or seek some more distant place of refuge. I will
+      send them money, though it is a scarce article with me at present."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is quite unnecessary," said Major Dalgetty; "your Excellency has only
+      to hint that the M'Aulays are going in that direction, and my friends of
+      the Mist will instantly make volte-face, and go to the right about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That were scarce courteous," said the Marquis. "Better send them a few
+      dollars to purchase them some cattle for the support of the women and
+      children."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They know how to come by their cattle at a far cheaper rate," said the
+      Major; "but let it be as your Excellency wills."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let Ranald MacEagh," said Montrose, "select one or two of his followers,
+      men whom he can trust, and who are capable of keeping their own secret and
+      ours; these, with their chief for scout-master-general, shall serve for
+      our guides. Let them be at my tent to-morrow at daybreak, and see, if
+      possible, that they neither guess my purpose, nor hold any communication
+      with each other in private.&mdash;This old man, has he any children?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They have been killed or hanged," answered the Major, "to the number of a
+      round dozen, as I believe&mdash;but he hath left one grand-child, a smart
+      and hopeful youth, whom I have noted to be never without a pebble in his
+      plaid-nook, to fling at whatsoever might come in his way; being a symbol,
+      that, like David, who was accustomed to sling smooth stones taken from the
+      brook, he may afterwards prove an adventurous warrior."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That boy, Major Dalgetty," said the Marquis, "I will have to attend upon
+      my own person. I presume he will have sense enough to keep his name
+      secret?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your Excellency need not fear that," answered Dalgetty; "these Highland
+      imps, from the moment they chip the shell&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," interrupted Montrose, "that boy shall be pledge for the fidelity
+      of his parent, and if he prove faithful, the child's preferment shall be
+      his reward.&mdash;And now, Major Dalgetty, I will license your departure
+      for the night; tomorrow you will introduce this MacEagh, under any name or
+      character he may please to assume. I presume his profession has rendered
+      him sufficiently expert in all sort of disguises; or we may admit John of
+      Moidart into our schemes, who has sense, practicability, and intelligence,
+      and will probably allow this man for a time to be disguised as one of his
+      followers. For you, Major, my groom of the chambers will be your
+      quarter-master for this evening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Dalgetty took his leave with a joyful heart greatly elated with the
+      reception he had met with, and much pleased with the personal manners of
+      his new General, which, as he explained at great length to Ranald MacEagh,
+      reminded him in many respects of the demeanour of the immortal Gustavus
+      Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and Bulwark of the Protestant Faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     The march begins in military state,
+     And nations on his eyes suspended wait;
+     Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
+     And winter barricades the realms of frost.
+     He comes,&mdash;nor want, nor cold, his course delay.
+     &mdash;VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By break of day Montrose received in his cabin old MacEagh, and questioned
+      him long and particularly as to the means of approaching the country of
+      Argyle. He made a note of his answers, which he compared with those of two
+      of his followers, whom he introduced as the most prudent and experienced.
+      He found them to correspond in all respects; but, still unsatisfied where
+      precaution was so necessary, the Marquis compared the information he had
+      received with that he was able to collect from the Chiefs who lay most
+      near to the destined scene of invasion, and being in all respects
+      satisfied of its accuracy, he resolved to proceed in full reliance upon
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one point Montrose changed his mind. Having judged it unfit to take the
+      boy Kenneth into his own service, lest, in case of his birth being
+      discovered, it should be resented as an offence by the numerous clans who
+      entertained a feudal enmity to this devoted family, he requested the Major
+      to take him in attendance upon himself; and as he accompanied this request
+      with a handsome DOUCEUR, under pretence of clothing and equipping the lad,
+      this change was agreeable to all parties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about breakfast-time, when Major Dalgetty, being dismissed by
+      Montrose, went in quest of his old acquaintances, Lord Menteith and the
+      M'Aulays, to whom he longed to communicate his own adventures, as well as
+      to learn from them the particulars of the campaign. It may be imagined he
+      was received with great glee by men to whom the late uniformity of their
+      military life had rendered any change of society an interesting novelty.
+      Allan M'Aulay alone seemed to recoil from his former acquaintance,
+      although, when challenged by his brother, he could render no other reason
+      than a reluctance to be familiar with one who had been so lately in the
+      company of Argyle, and other enemies. Major Dalgetty was a little alarmed
+      by this sort of instinctive consciousness which Allan seemed to entertain
+      respecting the society he had been lately keeping; he was soon satisfied,
+      however, that the perceptions of the seer in this particular were not
+      infallible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Ranald MacEagh was to be placed under Major Dalgetty's protection and
+      superintendence, it was necessary he should present him to those persons
+      with whom he was most likely to associate. The dress of the old man had,
+      in the meantime, been changed from the tartan of his clan to a sort of
+      clothing peculiar to the men of the distant Isles, resembling a waistcoat
+      with sleeves, and a petticoat, all made in one piece. This dress was laced
+      from top to bottom in front, and bore some resemblance to that called
+      Polonaise, still worn by children in Scotland of the lower rank. The
+      tartan hose and bonnet completed the dress, which old men of the last
+      century remembered well to have seen worn by the distant Islesmen who came
+      to the Earl of Mar's standard in the year 1715.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Dalgetty, keeping his eye on Allan as he spoke, introduced Ranald
+      MacEagh under the fictitious name of Ranald MacGillihuron in Benbecula,
+      who had escaped with him out of Argyle's prison. He recommended him as a
+      person skilful in the arts of the harper and the senachie, and by no means
+      contemptible in the quality of a second-sighted person or seer. While
+      making this exposition, Major Dalgetty stammered and hesitated in a way so
+      unlike the usual glib forwardness of his manner, that he could not have
+      failed to have given suspicion to Allan M'Aulay, had not that person's
+      whole attention been engaged in steadily perusing the features of the
+      person thus introduced to him. This steady gaze so much embarrassed Ranald
+      MacEagh, that his hand was beginning to sink down towards his dagger, in
+      expectation of a hostile assault, when Allan, suddenly crossing the floor
+      of the hut, extended his hand to him in the way of friendly greeting. They
+      sat down side by side, and conversed in a low mysterious tone of voice.
+      Menteith and Angus M'Aulay were not surprised at this, for there prevailed
+      among the Highlanders who pretended to the second-sight, a sort of
+      Freemasonry, which generally induced them, upon meeting, to hold
+      communication with each other on the nature and extent of their visionary
+      experiences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does the sight come gloomy upon your spirits?" said Allan to his new
+      acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As dark as the shadow upon the moon," replied Ranald, "when she is
+      darkened in her mid-course in heaven, and prophets foretell of evil
+      times."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come hither," said Allan, "come more this way, I would converse with you
+      apart; for men say that in your distant islands the sight is poured forth
+      with more clearness and power than upon us, who dwell near the Sassenach."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were plunged into their mystic conference, the two English
+      cavaliers entered the cabin in the highest possible spirits, and announced
+      to Angus M'Aulay that orders had been issued that all should hold
+      themselves in readiness for an immediate march to the westward. Having
+      delivered themselves of their news with much glee, they paid their
+      compliments to their old acquaintance Major Dalgetty, whom they instantly
+      recognised, and enquired after the health of his charger, Gustavus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I humbly thank you, gentlemen," answered the soldier, "Gustavas is well,
+      though, like his master, somewhat barer on the ribs than when you offered
+      to relieve me of him at Darnlinvarach; and let me assure you, that before
+      you have made one or two of those marches which you seem to contemplate
+      with so much satisfaction in prospect, you will leave, my good knights,
+      some of your English beef, and probably an English horse or two, behind
+      you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both exclaimed that they cared very little what they found or what they
+      left, provided the scene changed from dogging up and down Angus and
+      Aberdeenshire, in pursuit of an enemy who would neither fight nor run
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If such be the case," said Angus M'Aulay, "I must give orders to my
+      followers, and make provision too for the safe conveyance of Annot Lyle;
+      for an advance into M'Callum More's country will be a farther and fouler
+      road than these pinks of Cumbrian knighthood are aware of." So saying, he
+      left the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Annot Lyle!" repeated Dalgetty, "is she following the campaign?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely," replied Sir Giles Musgrave, his eye glancing slightly from Lord
+      Menteith to Allan M'Aulay; "we could neither march nor fight, advance nor
+      retreat, without the influence of the Princess of Harps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Princess of Broadswords and Targets, I say," answered his companion;
+      "for the Lady of Montrose herself could not be more courteously waited
+      upon; she has four Highland maidens, and as many bare-legged gillies, to
+      wait upon her orders."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what would you have, gentlemen?" said Allan, turning suddenly from
+      the Highlander with whom he was in conversation; "would you yourselves
+      have left an innocent female, the companion of your infancy, to die by
+      violence, or perish by famine? There is not, by this time, a roof upon the
+      habitation of my fathers&mdash;our crops have been destroyed, and our
+      cattle have been driven&mdash;and you, gentlemen, have to bless God, that,
+      coming from a milder and more civilized country, you expose only your own
+      lives in this remorseless war, without apprehension that your enemies will
+      visit with their vengeance the defenceless pledges you may have left
+      behind you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishmen cordially agreed that they had the superiority in this
+      respect; and the company, now dispersing, went each to his several charge
+      or occupation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan lingered a moment behind, still questioning the reluctant Ranald
+      MacEagh upon a point in his supposed visions, by which he was greatly
+      perplexed. "Repeatedly," he said, "have I had the sight of a Gael, who
+      seemed to plunge his weapon into the body of Menteith,&mdash;of that young
+      nobleman in the scarlet laced cloak, who has just now left the bothy. But
+      by no effort, though I have gazed till my eyes were almost fixed in the
+      sockets, can I discover the face of this Highlander, or even conjecture
+      who he may be, although his person and air seem familiar to me." [See Note
+      II.&mdash;Wraiths.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you reversed your own plaid," said Ranald, "according to the rule of
+      the experienced Seers in such case?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have," answered Allan, speaking low, and shuddering as if with internal
+      agony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And in what guise did the phantom then appear to you?" said Ranald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With his plaid also reversed," answered Allan, in the same low and
+      convulsed tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then be assured," said Ranald, "that your own hand, and none other, will
+      do the deed of which you have witnessed the shadow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So has my anxious soul a hundred times surmised," replied Allan. "But it
+      is impossible! Were I to read the record in the eternal book of fate, I
+      would declare it impossible&mdash;we are bound by the ties of blood, and
+      by a hundred ties more intimate&mdash;we have stood side by side in
+      battle, and our swords have reeked with the blood of the same enemies&mdash;it
+      is IMPOSSIBLE I should harm him!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That you WILL do so," answered Ranald, "is certain, though the cause be
+      hid in the darkness of futurity. You say," he continued, suppressing his
+      own emotions with difficulty, "that side by side you have pursued your
+      prey like bloodhounds&mdash;have you never seen bloodhounds turn their
+      fangs against each other, and fight over the body of a throttled deer?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is false!" said M'Aulay, starting up, "these are not the forebodings
+      of fate, but the temptation of some evil spirit from the bottomless pit!"
+      So saying, he strode out of the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thou hast it!" said the Son of the Mist, looking after him with an air of
+      exultation; "the barbed arrow is in thy side! Spirits of the slaughtered,
+      rejoice! soon shall your murderers' swords be dyed in each other's blood."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the succeeding morning all was prepared, and Montrose advanced by rapid
+      marches up the river Tay, and poured his desultory forces into the
+      romantic vale around the lake of the same name, which lies at the head of
+      that river. The inhabitants were Campbells, not indeed the vassals of
+      Argyle, but of the allied and kindred house of Glenorchy, which now bears
+      the name of Breadalbane. Being taken by surprise, they were totally
+      unprepared for resistance, and were compelled to be passive witnesses of
+      the ravages which took place among their flocks and herds. Advancing in
+      this manner to the vale of Loch Dochart, and laying waste the country
+      around him, Montrose reached the most difficult point of his enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a modern army, even with the assistance of the good military road which
+      now leads up by Teinedrum to the head of Loch Awe, the passage of these
+      extensive wilds would seem a task of some difficulty. But at this period,
+      and for long afterwards, there was no road or path whatsoever; and to add
+      to the difficulty, the mountains were already covered with snow. It was a
+      sublime scene to look up to them, piled in great masses, one upon another,
+      the front rank of dazzling whiteness, while those which arose behind them
+      caught a rosy tint from the setting of a clear wintry sun. Ben Cruachan,
+      superior in magnitude, and seeming the very citadel of the Genius of the
+      Region, rose high above the others, showing his glimmering and scathed
+      peak to the distance of many miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The followers of Montrose were men not to be daunted by the sublime, yet
+      terrible prospect before them. Many of them were of that ancient race of
+      Highlanders, who not only willingly made their couch in the snow, but
+      considered it as effeminate luxury to use a snowball for a pillow. Plunder
+      and revenge lay beyond the frozen mountains which they beheld, and they
+      did not permit themselves to be daunted by the difficulty of traversing
+      them. Montrose did not allow their spirits time to subside. He ordered the
+      pipes to play in the van the ancient pibroch entitled, "HOGGIL NAM BO,"
+      etc. (that is, We come through snow-drift to drive the prey), the
+      shrilling sounds of which had often struck the vales of the Lennox with
+      terror. [It is the family-march of the M'Farlanes, a warlike and predatory
+      clan, who inhabited the western banks of Loch-Lomond. See WAVERLY, Note
+      XV.] The troops advanced with the nimble alacrity of mountaineers, and
+      were soon involved in the dangerous pass, through which Ranald acted as
+      their guide, going before them with a select party, to track out the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The power of man at no time appears more contemptible than when it is
+      placed in contrast with scenes of natural terror and dignity. The
+      victorious army of Montrose, whose exploits had struck terror into all
+      Scotland, when ascending up this terrific pass, seemed a contemptible
+      handful of stragglers, in the act of being devoured by the jaws of the
+      mountain, which appeared ready to close upon them. Even Montrose half
+      repented the boldness of his attempt, as he looked down from the summit of
+      the first eminence which he attained, upon the scattered condition of his
+      small army. The difficulty of getting forward was so great, that
+      considerable gaps began to occur in the line of march, and the distance
+      between the van, centre, and rear, was each moment increased in a degree
+      equally incommodious and dangerous. It was with great apprehension that
+      Montrose looked upon every point of advantage which the hill afforded, in
+      dread it might be found occupied by an enemy prepared for defence; and he
+      often afterwards was heard to express his conviction, that had the passes
+      of Strath-Fillan been defended by two hundred resolute men, not only would
+      his progress have been effectually stopped, but his army must have been in
+      danger of being totally cut off. Security, however, the bane of many a
+      strong country and many a fortress, betrayed, on this occasion, the
+      district of Argyle to his enemies. The invaders had only to contend with
+      the natural difficulties of the path, and with the snow, which,
+      fortunately, had not fallen in any great quantity. The army no sooner
+      reached the summit of the ridge of hills dividing Argyleshire from the
+      district of Breadalbane, than they rushed down upon the devoted vales
+      beneath them with a fury sufficiently expressive of the motives which had
+      dictated a movement so difficult and hazardous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose divided his army into three bodies, in order to produce a wider
+      and more extensive terror, one of which was commanded by the Captain of
+      Clan Ranald, one intrusted to the leading of Colkitto, and the third
+      remained under his own direction. He was thus enabled to penetrate the
+      country of Argyle at three different points. Resistance there was none.
+      The flight of the shepherds from the hills had first announced in the
+      peopled districts this formidable irruption, and wherever the clansmen
+      were summoned out, they were killed, disarmed, and dispersed, by an enemy
+      who had anticipated their motions. Major Dalgetty, who had been sent
+      forward against Inverary with the few horse of the army that were fit for
+      service, managed his matters so well, that he had very nearly surprised
+      Argyle, as he expressed it, INTER POCULA; and it was only a rapid flight
+      by water which saved that chief from death or captivity. But the
+      punishment which Argyle himself escaped fell heavily upon his country and
+      clan, and the ravages committed by Montrose on that devoted land, although
+      too consistent with the genius of the country and times, have been
+      repeatedly and justly quoted as a blot on his actions and character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Argyle in the meantime had fled to Edinburgh, to lay his complaints before
+      the Convention of Estates. To meet the exigence of the moment, a
+      considerable army was raised under General Baillie, a Presbyterian officer
+      of skill and fidelity, with whom was joined in command the celebrated Sir
+      John Urrie, a soldier of fortune like Dalgetty, who had already changed
+      sides twice during the Civil War, and was destined to turn his coat a
+      third time before it was ended. Argyle also, burning with indignation,
+      proceeded to levy his own numerous forces, in order to avenge himself of
+      his feudal enemy. He established his head-quarters at Dunbarton, where he
+      was soon joined by a considerable force, consisting chiefly of his own
+      clansmen and dependants. Being there joined by Baillie and Urrie, with a
+      very considerable army of regular forces, he prepared to march into
+      Argyleshire, and chastise the invader of his paternal territories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Montrose, while these two formidable armies were forming a junction,
+      had been recalled from that ravaged country by the approach of a third,
+      collected in the north under the Earl of Seaforth, who, after some
+      hesitation, having embraced the side of the Covenanters, had now, with the
+      assistance of the veteran garrison of Inverness, formed a considerable
+      army, with which he threatened Montrose from Inverness-shire. Enclosed in
+      a wasted and unfriendly country, and menaced on each side by advancing
+      enemies of superior force, it might have been supposed that Montrose's
+      destruction was certain. But these were precisely the circumstances under
+      which the active and enterprising genius of the Great Marquis was
+      calculated to excite the wonder and admiration of his friends, the
+      astonishment and terror of his enemies. As if by magic, he collected his
+      scattered forces from the wasteful occupation in which they had been
+      engaged; and scarce were they again united, ere Argyle and his associate
+      generals were informed, that the royalists, having suddenly disappeared
+      from Argyleshire, had retreated northwards among the dusky and
+      impenetrable mountains of Lochaber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sagacity of the generals opposed to Montrose immediately conjectured,
+      that it was the purpose of their active antagonist to fight with, and, if
+      possible, to destroy Seaforth, ere they could come to his assistance. This
+      occasioned a corresponding change in their operations. Leaving this
+      chieftain to make the best defence he could, Urrie and Baillie again
+      separated their forces from those of Argyle; and, having chiefly horse and
+      Lowland troops under their command, they kept the southern side of the
+      Grampian ridge, moving along eastward into the county of Angus, resolving
+      from thence to proceed into Aberdeenshire, in order to intercept Montrose,
+      if he should attempt to escape in that direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Argyle, with his own levies and other troops, undertook to follow
+      Montrose's march; so that, in case he should come to action either with
+      Seaforth, or with Baillie and Urrie, he might be placed between two fires
+      by this third army, which, at a secure distance, was to hang upon his
+      rear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this purpose, Argyle once more moved towards Inverary, having an
+      opportunity, at every step, to deplore the severities which the hostile
+      clans had exercised on his dependants and country. Whatever noble
+      qualities the Highlanders possessed, and they had many, clemency in
+      treating a hostile country was not of the number; but even the ravages of
+      hostile troops combined to swell the number of Argyle's followers. It is
+      still a Highland proverb, He whose house is burnt must become a soldier;
+      and hundreds of the inhabitants of these unfortunate valleys had now no
+      means of maintenance, save by exercising upon others the severities they
+      had themselves sustained, and no future prospect of happiness, excepting
+      in the gratification of revenge. His bands were, therefore, augmented by
+      the very circumstances which had desolated his country, and Argyle soon
+      found himself at the head of three thousand determined men, distinguished
+      for activity and courage, and commanded by gentlemen of his own name, who
+      yielded to none in those qualities. Under himself, he conferred the
+      principal command upon Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, and another Sir
+      Duncan Campbell of Auchenbreck, [This last character is historical] an
+      experienced and veteran soldier, whom he had recalled from the wars of
+      Ireland for this purpose. The cold spirit of Argyle himself, however,
+      clogged the military councils of his more intrepid assistants; and it was
+      resolved, notwithstanding their increased force, to observe the same plan
+      of operations, and to follow Montrose cautiously, in whatever direction he
+      should march, avoiding an engagement until an opportunity should occur of
+      falling upon his rear, while he should be engaged with another enemy in
+      front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Piobracht au Donuil-dhu,
+     Piobrachet au Donuil,
+     Piobrachet agus S'breittach
+     Feacht an Innerlochy.
+
+     The war-tune of Donald the Black,
+     The war-tune of Black Donald,
+     The pipes and the banner
+     Are up in the rendezvous of Inverlochy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The military road connecting the chains of forts, as it is called, and
+      running in the general line of the present Caledonian Canal, has now
+      completely opened the great glen, or chasm, extending almost across the
+      whole island, once doubtless filled by the sea, and still affording basins
+      for that long line of lakes, by means of which modern art has united the
+      German and Atlantic Oceans. The paths or tracks by which the natives
+      traversed this extensive valley, were, in 1645-6, in the same situation as
+      when they awaked the strain of an Irish engineer officer, who had been
+      employed in converting them into practicable military roads, and whose
+      eulogium begins, and, for aught I know, ends, as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had you seen but these roads before they were made, You would have held up
+      your hands and bless'd General Wade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, bad as the ordinary paths were, Montrose avoided them, and led his
+      army, like a herd of wild deer, from mountain to mountain, and from forest
+      to forest, where his enemies could learn nothing of his motions, while he
+      acquired the most perfect knowledge respecting theirs from the friendly
+      clans of Cameron and M'Donnell, whose mountainous districts he now
+      traversed. Strict orders had been given that Argyle's advance should be
+      watched, and that all intelligence respecting his motions should be
+      communicated instantly to the General himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a moonlight night, and Montrose, worn out by the fatigues of the
+      day, was laid down to sleep in a miserable shieling. He had only slumbered
+      two hours, when some one touched his shoulder. He looked up, and, by the
+      stately form and deep voice, easily recognised the Chief of the Camerons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have news for you," said that leader, "which is worth while to arise
+      and listen to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "M'Ilduy [Mhich-Connel Dhu, the descendant of Black Donald.] can bring no
+      other," said Montrose, addressing the Chief by his patronymic title&mdash;"are
+      they good or bad?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As you may take them," said the Chieftain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are they certain?" demanded Montrose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," answered M'Ilduy, "or another messenger should have brought them.
+      Know that, tired with the task imposed upon me of accompanying that
+      unhappy Dalgetty and his handful of horse, who detained me for hours on
+      the march at the pace of a crippled badger, I made a stretch of four miles
+      with six of my people in the direction of Inverlochy, and there met with
+      Ian of Glenroy, who had been out for intelligence. Argyle is moving upon
+      Inverlochy with three thousand chosen men, commanded by the flower of the
+      sons of Diarmid.&mdash;These are my news&mdash;they are certain&mdash;it
+      is for you to construe their purport."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Their purport must be good," answered Montrose, readily and cheerfully;
+      "the voice of M'Ilduy is ever pleasant in the ears of Montrose, and most
+      pleasant when it speaks of some brave enterprise at hand&mdash;What are
+      our musters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then called for light, and easily ascertained that a great part of his
+      followers having, as usual, dispersed to secure their booty, he had not
+      with him above twelve or fourteen hundred men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not much above a third," said Montrose, pausing, "of Argyle's force, and
+      Highlanders opposed to Highlanders.&mdash;With the blessing of God upon
+      the royal cause, I would not hesitate were the odds but one to two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then do not hesitate," said Cameron; "for when your trumpets shall sound
+      to attack M'Callum More, not a man of these glens will remain deaf to the
+      summons. Glengarry&mdash;Keppoch&mdash;I myself&mdash;would destroy, with
+      fire and sword, the wretch who should remain behind under any pretence
+      whatsoever. To-morrow, or the next day, shall be a day of battle to all
+      who bear the name of M'Donnell or Cameron, whatever be the event."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is gallantly said, my noble friend," said Montrose, grasping his hand,
+      "and I were worse than a coward did I not do justice to such followers, by
+      entertaining the most indubitable hopes of success. We will turn back on
+      this M'Callum More, who follows us like a raven to devour the relics of
+      our army, should we meet braver men who may be able to break its strength!
+      Let the Chiefs and leaders be called together as quickly as possible; and
+      you, who have brought us the first news of this joyful event,&mdash;for
+      such it shall be,&mdash;you, M'Ilduy, shall bring it to a joyful issue, by
+      guiding us the best and nearest road against our enemy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That will I willingly do," said M'Ilduy; "if I have shown you paths by
+      which to retreat through these dusky wilds, with far more readiness will I
+      teach you how to advance against your foe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A general bustle now prevailed, and the leaders were everywhere startled
+      from the rude couches on which they had sought temporary repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never thought," said Major Dalgetty, when summoned up from a handful of
+      rugged heather roots, "to have parted from a bed as hard as a stable-broom
+      with such bad will; but, indubitably, having but one man of military
+      experience in his army, his Excellency the Marquis may be vindicated in
+      putting him upon hard duty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he repaired to the council, where, notwithstanding his
+      pedantry, Montrose seemed always to listen to him with considerable
+      attention; partly because the Major really possessed military knowledge
+      and experience, and often made suggestions which were found of advantage,
+      and partly because it relieved the General from the necessity of deferring
+      entirely to the opinion of the Highland Chiefs, and gave him additional
+      ground for disputing it when it was not agreeable to his own. On the
+      present occasion, Dalgetty joyfully acquiesced in the proposal of marching
+      back and confronting Argyle, which he compared to the valiant resolution
+      of the great Gustavus, who moved against the Duke of Bavaria, and enriched
+      his troops by the plunder of that fertile country, although menaced from
+      the northward by the large army which Wallenstein had assembled in
+      Bohemia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chiefs of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Lochiel, whose clans, equal in
+      courage and military fame to any in the Highlands, lay within the
+      neighbourhood of the scene of action, dispatched the fiery cross through
+      their vassals, to summon every one who could bear arms to meet the King's
+      lieutenant, and to join the standards of their respective Chiefs, as they
+      marched towards Inverlochy. As the order was emphatically given, it was
+      speedily and willingly obeyed. Their natural love of war, their zeal for
+      the royal cause,&mdash;for they viewed the King in the light of a chief
+      whom his clansmen had deserted,&mdash;as well as their implicit obedience
+      to their own patriarch, drew in to Montrose's army not only all in the
+      neighbourhood who were able to bear arms, but some who, in age at least,
+      might have been esteemed past the use of them. During the next day's
+      march, which, being directed straight through the mountains of Lochaber,
+      was unsuspected by the enemy, his forces were augmented by handfuls of men
+      issuing from each glen, and ranging themselves under the banners of their
+      respective Chiefs. This was a circumstance highly inspiriting to the rest
+      of the army, who, by the time they approached the enemy, found their
+      strength increased considerably more than one-fourth, as had been
+      prophesied by the valiant leader of the Camerons.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
+      <img src="images/0651m.jpg" alt="0651m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0651.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      While Montrose executed this counter-march, Argyle had, at the head of his
+      gallant army, advanced up the southern side of Loch-Eil, and reached the
+      river Lochy, which combines that lake with Loch-Lochy. The ancient Castle
+      of Inverlochy, once, as it is said, a royal fortress, and still, although
+      dismantled, a place of some strength and consideration, offered convenient
+      head-quarters, and there was ample room for Argyle's army to encamp around
+      him in the valley, where the Lochy joins Loch-Eil. Several barges had
+      attended, loaded with provisions, so that they were in every respect as
+      well accommodated as such an army wished or expected to be. Argyle, in
+      council with Auchenbreck and Ardenvohr, expressed his full confidence that
+      Montrose was now on the brink of destruction; that his troops must
+      gradually diminish as he moved eastward through such uncouth paths; that
+      if he went westward, he must encounter Urrie and Baillie; if northward,
+      fall into the hands of Seaforth; or should he choose any halting-place, he
+      would expose himself to be attacked by three armies at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot rejoice in the prospect, my lord," said Auchebreck, "that James
+      Grahame will be crushed with little assistance of ours. He has left a
+      heavy account in Argyleshire against him, and I long to reckon with him
+      drop of blood for drop of blood. I love not the payment of such debts by
+      third hands."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are too scrupulous," said Argyle; "what signifies it by whose hands
+      the blood of the Grahames is spilt? It is time that of the sons of Diarmid
+      should cease to flow.&mdash;What say you, Ardenvohr?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, my lord," replied Sir Duncan, "that I think Auchenbreck will be
+      gratified, and will himself have a personal opportunity of settling
+      accounts with Montrose for his depredations. Reports have reached our
+      outposts that the Camerons are assembling their full strength on the
+      skirts of Ben-Nevis; this must be to join the advance of Montrose, and not
+      to cover his retreat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It must be some scheme of harassing and depredation," said Argyle,
+      "devised by the inveterate malignity of M'Ilduy, which he terms loyalty.
+      They can intend no more than an attack on our outposts, or some annoyance
+      to to-morrow's march."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have sent out scouts," said Sir Duncan, "in every direction, to procure
+      intelligence; and we must soon hear whether they really do assemble any
+      force, upon what point, or with what purpose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late ere any tidings were received; but when the moon had arisen, a
+      considerable bustle in the camp, and a noise immediately after heard in
+      the castle, announced the arrival of important intelligence. Of the scouts
+      first dispersed by Ardenvohr, some had returned without being able to
+      collect anything, save uncertain rumours concerning movements in the
+      country of the Camerons. It seemed as if the skirts of Ben-Nevis were
+      sending forth those unaccountable and portentous sounds with which they
+      sometimes announce the near approach of a storm. Others, whose zeal
+      carried them farther upon their mission, were entrapped and slain, or made
+      prisoners, by the inhabitants of the fastnesses into which they
+      endeavoured to penetrate. At length, on the rapid advance of Montrose's
+      army, his advanced guard and the outposts of Argyle became aware of each
+      other's presence, and after exchanging a few musket-shots and arrows, fell
+      back to their respective main bodies, to convey intelligence and receive
+      orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell, and Auchenbreck, instantly threw themselves on
+      horseback, in order to visit the state of the outposts; and Argyle
+      maintained his character of commander-in-chief with reputation, by making
+      a respectable arrangement of his forces in the plain, as it was evident
+      that they might now expect a night alarm, or an attack in the morning at
+      farthest. Montrose had kept his forces so cautiously within the defiles of
+      the mountain, that no effort which Auchenbreck or Ardenvohr thought it
+      prudent to attempt, could ascertain his probable strength. They were
+      aware, however, that, at the utmost computation, it must be inferior to
+      their own, and they returned to Argyle to inform him of the amount of
+      their observations; but that nobleman refused to believe that Montrose
+      could be in presence himself. He said, "It was a madness, of which even
+      James Grahame, in his height of presumptuous frenzy, was incapable; and he
+      doubted not that their march was only impeded by their ancient enemies,
+      Glencoe, Keppoch, and Glengarry; and perhaps M'Vourigh, with his
+      M'Phersons, might have assembled a force, which he knew must be greatly
+      inferior in numbers to his own, and whom, therefore, he doubted not to
+      disperse by force, or by terms of capitulation."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirit of Argyle's followers was high, breathing vengeance for the
+      disasters which their country had so lately undergone; and the night
+      passed in anxious hopes that the morning might dawn upon their vengeance.
+      The outposts of either army kept a careful watch, and the soldiers of
+      Argyle slept in the order of battle which they were next day to occupy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pale dawn had scarce begun to tinge the tops of these immense mountains,
+      when the leaders of both armies prepared for the business of the day. It
+      was the second of February, 1645-6. The clansmen of Argyle were arranged
+      in two lines, not far from the angle between the river and the lake, and
+      made an appearance equally resolute and formidable. Auchenbreck would
+      willingly have commenced the battle by an attack on the outposts of the
+      enemy, but Argyle, with more cautious policy, preferred receiving to
+      making the onset. Signals were soon heard, that they would not long wait
+      for it in vain. The Campbells could distinguish, in the gorge of the
+      mountains, the war-tunes of various clans as they advanced to the onset.
+      That of the Camerons, which bears the ominous words, addressed to the
+      wolves and ravens, "Come to me, and I will give you flesh," was loudly
+      re-echoed from their native glens. In the language of the Highland bards,
+      the war voice of Glengarry was not silent; and the gathering tunes of
+      other tribes could be plainly distinguished, as they successively came up
+      to the extremity of the passes from which they were to descend into the
+      plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You see," said Argyle to his kinsmen, "it is as I said, we have only to
+      deal with our neighbours; James Grahame has not ventured to show us his
+      banner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment there resounded from the gorge of the pass a lively
+      flourish of trumpets, in that note with which it was the ancient Scottish
+      fashion to salute the royal standard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You may hear, my lord, from yonder signal," said Sir Duncan Campbell,
+      "that he who pretends to be the King's Lieutenant, must be in person among
+      these men."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And has probably horse with him," said Auchenbreck, "which I could not
+      have anticipated. But shall we look pale for that, my lord, when we have
+      foes to fight, and wrongs to revenge?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Argyle was silent, and looked upon his arm, which hung in a sash, owing to
+      a fall which he had sustained in a preceding march.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," interrupted Ardenvohr, eagerly, "my Lord of Argyle, you are
+      disabled from using either sword or pistol; you must retire on board the
+      galleys&mdash;your life is precious to us as a head&mdash;your hand cannot
+      be useful to us as a soldier."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Argyle, pride contending with irresolution, "it shall never be
+      said that I fled before Montrose; if I cannot fight, I will at least die
+      in the midst of my children."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several other principal Chiefs of the Campbells, with one voice, conjured
+      and obtested their Chieftain to leave them for that day to the leading of
+      Ardenvohr and Auchenbreck, and to behold the conflict from a distance and
+      in safety.&mdash;We dare not stigmatize Argyle with poltroonery; for,
+      though his life was marked by no action of bravery, yet he behaved with so
+      much composure and dignity in the final and closing scene, that his
+      conduct upon the present and similar occasions, should be rather imputed
+      to indecision than to want of courage. But when the small still voice
+      within a man's own breast, which tells him that his life is of consequence
+      to himself, is seconded by that of numbers around him, who assure him that
+      it is of equal advantage to the public, history affords many examples of
+      men more habitually daring than Argyle, who have consulted
+      self-preservation when the temptations to it were so powerfully increased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "See him on board, if you will, Sir Duncan," said Auchenbreck to his
+      kinsman; "It must be my duty to prevent this spirit from spreading farther
+      among us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he threw himself among the ranks, entreating, commanding, and
+      conjuring the soldiers, to remember their ancient fame and their present
+      superiority; the wrongs they had to revenge, if successful, and the fate
+      they had to dread, if vanquished; and imparting to every bosom a portion
+      of the fire which glowed in his own. Slowly, meanwhile, and apparently
+      with reluctance, Argyle suffered himself to be forced by his officious
+      kinsmen to the verge of the lake, and was transported on board of a
+      galley, from the deck of which he surveyed with more safety than credit
+      the scene which ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, notwithstanding the urgency of the
+      occasion, stood with his eyes riveted on the boat which bore his Chieftain
+      from the field of battle. There were feelings in his bosom which could not
+      be expressed; for the character of a Chief was that of a father, and the
+      heart of a clansman durst not dwell upon his failings with critical
+      severity as upon those of other men. Argyle, too, harsh and severe to
+      others, was generous and liberal among his kinsmen, and the noble heart
+      of, Ardenvohr was wrung with bitter anguish, when he reflected to what
+      interpretation his present conduct might subject him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is better it should be so," said he to himself, devouring his own
+      emotion; "but&mdash;of his line of a hundred sires, I know not one who
+      would have retired while the banner of Diarmid waved in the wind, in the
+      face of its most inveterate foes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud shout now compelled him to turn, and to hasten with all dispatch to
+      his post, which was on the right flank of Argyle's little army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The retreat of Argyle had not passed unobserved by his watchful enemy,
+      who, occupying the superior ground, could mark every circumstance which
+      passed below. The movement of three or four horsemen to the rear showed
+      that those who retreated were men of rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are going," said Dalgetty, "to put their horses out of danger, like
+      prudent cavaliers. Yonder goes Sir Duncan Campbell, riding a brown bay
+      gelding, which I had marked for my own second charger."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are wrong, Major," said Montrose, with a bitter smile, "they are
+      saving their precious Chief&mdash;Give the signal for assault instantly&mdash;send
+      the word through the ranks.&mdash;Gentlemen, noble Chiefs, Glengarry,
+      Keppoch, M'Vourigh, upon them instantly!&mdash;Ride to M'Ilduy, Major
+      Dalgetty, and tell him to charge as he loves Lochaber&mdash;return and
+      bring our handful of horse to my standard. They shall be placed with the
+      Irish as a reserve."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Lochlin.
+     &mdash;OSSIAN.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The trumpets and bagpipes, those clamorous harbingers of blood and death,
+      at once united in the signal for onset, which was replied to by the cry of
+      more than two thousand warriors, and the echoes of the mountain glens
+      behind them. Divided into three bodies, or columns, the Highland followers
+      of Montrose poured from the defiles which had hitherto concealed them from
+      their enemies, and rushed with the utmost determination upon the
+      Campbells, who waited their charge with the greatest firmness. Behind
+      these charging columns marched in line the Irish, under Colkitto, intended
+      to form the reserve. With them was the royal standard, and Montrose
+      himself; and on the flanks were about fifty horse, under Dalgetty, which
+      by wonderful exertions had been kept in some sort fit for service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The right column of Royalists was led by Glengarry, the left by Lochiel,
+      and the centre by the Earl of Menteith, who preferred fighting on foot in
+      a Highland dress to remaining with the cavalry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Highlanders poured on with the proverbial fury of their country,
+      firing their guns, and discharging their arrows, at a little distance from
+      the enemy, who received the assault with the most determined gallantry.
+      Better provided with musketry than their enemies, stationary also, and
+      therefore taking the more decisive aim, the fire of Argyle's followers was
+      more destructive than that which they sustained. The royal clans,
+      perceiving this, rushed to close quarters, and succeeded on two points in
+      throwing their enemies into disorder. With regular troops this must have
+      achieved a victory; but here Highlanders were opposed to Highlanders, and
+      the nature of the weapons, as well as the agility of those who wielded
+      them, was equal on both sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their strife was accordingly desperate; and the clash of the swords and
+      axes, as they encountered each other, or rung upon the targets, was
+      mingled with the short, wild, animating shrieks with which Highlanders
+      accompany the battle, the dance, or indeed violent exertion of any kind.
+      Many of the foes opposed were personally acquainted, and sought to match
+      themselves with each other from motives of hatred, or a more generous
+      emulation of valour. Neither party would retreat an inch, while the place
+      of those who fell (and they fell fast on both sides) was eagerly supplied
+      by others, who thronged to the front of danger. A steam, like that which
+      arises from a seething cauldron, rose into the thin, cold, frosty air, and
+      hovered above the combatants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So stood the fight on the right and the centre, with no immediate
+      consequence, except mutual wounds and death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the right of the Campbells, the Knight of Ardenvohr obtained some
+      advantage, through his military skill and by strength of numbers. He had
+      moved forward obliquely the extreme flank of his line at the instant the
+      Royalists were about to close, so that they sustained a fire at once on
+      front and in flank, and, despite the utmost efforts of their leader, were
+      thrown into some confusion. At this instant, Sir Duncan Campbell gave the
+      word to charge, and thus unexpectedly made the attack at the very moment
+      he seemed about to receive it. Such a change of circumstances is always
+      discouraging, and often fatal. But the disorder was remedied by the
+      advance of the Irish reserve, whose heavy and sustained fire compelled the
+      Knight of Ardenvohr to forego his advantage, and content himself with
+      repulsing the enemy. The Marquis of Montrose, in the meanwhile, availing
+      himself of some scattered birch trees, as well as of the smoke produced by
+      the close fire of the Irish musketry, which concealed the operation,
+      called upon Dalgetty to follow him with the horse, and wheeling round so
+      as to gain the right flank and even the rear of the enemy, he commanded
+      his six trumpets to sound the charge. The clang of the cavalry trumpets,
+      and the noise of the galloping of the horse, produced an effect upon
+      Argyle's right wing which no other sounds could have impressed them with.
+      The mountaineers of that period had a superstitious dread of the
+      war-horse, like that entertained by the Peruvians, and had many strange
+      ideas respecting the manner in which that animal was trained to combat.
+      When, therefore, they found their ranks unexpectedly broken, and that the
+      objects of their greatest terror were suddenly in the midst of them, the
+      panic, in spite of Sir Duncan's attempts to stop it, became universal.
+      Indeed, the figure of Major Dalgetty alone, sheathed in impenetrable
+      armour, and making his horse caracole and bound, so as to give weight to
+      every blow which he struck, would have been a novelty in itself sufficient
+      to terrify those who had never seen anything more nearly resembling such a
+      cavalier, than a SHELTY waddling under a Highlander far bigger than
+      itself. The repulsed Royalists returned to the charge; the Irish, keeping
+      their ranks, maintained a fire equally close and destructive. There was no
+      sustaining the fight longer. Argyle's followers began to break and fly,
+      most towards the lake, the remainder in different directions. The defeat
+      of the right wing, of itself decisive, was rendered irreparable by the
+      death of Auchenbreck, who fell while endeavouring to restore order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Knight of Ardenvohr, with two or three hundred men, all gentlemen of
+      descent and distinguished gallantry,&mdash;for the Campbells are supposed
+      to have had more gentlemen in their ranks than any of the Highland clans,
+      endeavoured, with unavailing heroism, to cover the tumultuary retreat of
+      the common file. Their resolution only proved fatal to themselves, as they
+      were charged again and again by fresh adversaries, and forced to separate
+      from each other, until at length their aim seemed only to be to purchase
+      an honourable death by resisting to the very last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good quarter, Sir Duncan," called out Major Dalgetty, when he discovered
+      his late host, with one or two others, defending himself against several
+      Highlanders; and, to enforce his offer, he rode up to him with his sword
+      uplifted. Sir Duncan's reply was the discharge of a reserved pistol, which
+      took effect not on the person of the rider, but on that of his gallant
+      horse, which, shot through the heart, fell dead under him. Ranald MacEagh,
+      who was one of those who had been pressing Sir Duncan hard, took the
+      opportunity to cut him down with his broadsword, as he turned from him in
+      the act of firing the pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan M'Aulay came up at this moment. They were, excepting Ranald,
+      followers of his brother who were engaged on that part of the field,
+      "Villains!" he said, "which of you has dared to do this, when it was my
+      positive order that the Knight of Ardenvohr should be taken alive?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-a-dozen of busy hands, which were emulously employed in plundering
+      the fallen knight, whose arms and accoutrements were of a magnificence
+      befitting his quality, instantly forbore the occupation, and half the
+      number of voices exculpated themselves, by laying the blame on the
+      Skyeman, as they called Ranald MacEagh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dog of an Islander!" said Allan, forgetting, in his wrath, their
+      prophetic brotherhood, "follow the chase, and harm him no farther, unless
+      you mean to die by my hand." They were at this moment left almost alone;
+      for Allan's threats had forced his own clan from the spot, and all around
+      had pressed onwards toward the lake, carrying before them noise, terror,
+      and confusion, and leaving behind only the dead and dying. The moment was
+      tempting to MacEagh's vengeful spirit.&mdash;"That I should die by your
+      hand, red as it is with the blood of my kindred," said he, answering the
+      threat of Allan in a tone as menacing as his own, "is not more likely than
+      that you should fall by mine." With that, he struck at M'Aulay with such
+      unexpected readiness, that he had scarce time to intercept the blow with
+      his target.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Villain!" said Allan, in astonishment, "what means this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am Ranald of the Mist!" answered the Islesman, repeating the blow; and
+      with that word, they engaged in close and furious conflict. It seemed to
+      be decreed, that in Allan M'Aulay had arisen the avenger of his mother's
+      wrongs upon this wild tribe, as was proved by the issue of the present, as
+      well as of former combats. After exchanging a few blows, Ranald MacEagh
+      was prostrated by a deep wound on the skull; and M'Aulay, setting his foot
+      on him, was about to pass the broadsword through his body, when the point
+      of the weapon was struck up by a third party, who suddenly interposed.
+      This was no other than Major Dalgetty, who, stunned by the fall, and
+      encumbered by the dead body of his horse, had now recovered his legs and
+      his understanding. "Hold up your sword," said he to M'Aulay, "and
+      prejudice this person no farther, in respect that he is here in my
+      safeconduct, and in his Excellency's service; and in regard that no
+      honourable cavalier is at liberty, by the law martial, to avenge his own
+      private injuries, FLAGRANTE BELLO, MULTO MAJUS FLAGRANTE PRAELIO."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fool!" said Allan, "stand aside, and dare not to come between the tiger
+      and his prey!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, far from quitting his point, Dalgetty stept across the fallen body of
+      MacEagh, and gave Allan to understand, that if he called himself a tiger,
+      he was likely, at present, to find a lion in his path. There required no
+      more than the gesture and tone of defiance to turn the whole rage of the
+      military Seer against the person who was opposing the course of his
+      vengeance, and blows were instantly exchanged without farther ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strife betwixt Allan and MacEagh had been unnoticed by the stragglers
+      around, for the person of the latter was known to few of Montrose's
+      followers; but the scuffle betwixt Dalgetty and him, both so well known,
+      attracted instant attention; and fortunately, among others, that of
+      Montrose himself, who had come for the purpose of gathering together his
+      small body of horse, and following the pursuit down Loch-Eil. Aware of the
+      fatal consequences of dissension in his little army, he pushed his horse
+      up to the spot, and seeing MacEagh on the ground, and Dalgetty in the
+      attitude of protecting him against M'Aulay, his quick apprehension
+      instantly caught the cause of quarrel, and as instantly devised means to
+      stop it. "For shame," he said, "gentlemen cavaliers, brawling together in
+      so glorious a field of victory!&mdash;Are you mad? Or are you intoxicated
+      with the glory which you have both this day gained?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not my fault, so please your Excellency," said Dalgetty. "I have
+      been known a BONUS SOCIUS, A BON CAMARADO, in all the services of Europe;
+      but he that touches a man under my safeguard&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And he," said Allan, speaking at the same time, "who dares to bar the
+      course of my just vengeance&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For shame, gentlemen!" again repeated Montrose; "I have other business
+      for you both,&mdash;business of deeper importance than any private
+      quarrel, which you may easily find a more fitting time to settle. For you,
+      Major Dalgetty, kneel down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Kneel!" said Dalgetty; "I have not learned to obey that word of command,
+      saving when it is given from the pulpit. In the Swedish discipline, the
+      front rank do indeed kneel, but only when the regiment is drawn up six
+      file deep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nevertheless," repeated Montrose,&mdash;"kneel down, in the name of King
+      Charles and of his representative."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Dalgetty reluctantly obeyed, Montrose struck him lightly on the neck
+      with the flat of his sword, saying,&mdash;"In reward of the gallant
+      service of this day, and in the name and authority of our Sovereign, King
+      Charles, I dub thee knight; be brave, loyal, and fortunate. And now, Sir
+      Dugald Dalgetty, to your duty. Collect what horsemen you can, and pursue
+      such of the enemy as are flying down the side of the lake. Do not disperse
+      your force, nor venture too far; but take heed to prevent their rallying,
+      which very little exertion may do. Mount, then, Sir Dugald, and do your
+      duty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what shall I mount?" said the new-made chevalier. "Poor Gustavus
+      sleeps in the bed of honour, like his immortal namesake! and I am made a
+      knight, a rider, as the High Dutch have it, just when I have not a horse
+      left to ride upon." [In German, as in Latin, the original meaning of the
+      word Ritter, corresponding to Eques, is merely a horseman.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That shall not be said," answered Montrose, dismounting; "I make you a
+      present of my own, which has been thought a good one; only, I pray you,
+      resume the duty you discharge so well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With many acknowledgments, Sir Dugald mounted the steed so liberally
+      bestowed upon him; and only beseeching his Excellency to remember that
+      MacEagh was under his safe-conduct, immediately began to execute the
+      orders assigned to him, with great zeal and alacrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And you, Allan M'Aulay," said Montrose, addressing the Highlander, who,
+      leaning his sword-point on the ground, had regarded the ceremony of his
+      antagonist's knighthood with a sneer of sullen scorn,&mdash;"you, who are
+      superior to the ordinary men led by the paltry motives of plunder, and
+      pay, and personal distinction,&mdash;you, whose deep knowledge renders you
+      so valuable a counsellor,&mdash;is it YOU whom I find striving with a man
+      like Dalgetty, for the privilege of trampling the remains of life out of
+      so contemptible an enemy as lies there? Come, my friend, I have other work
+      for you. This victory, skilfully improved, shall win Seaforth to our
+      party. It is not disloyalty, but despair of the good cause, that has
+      induced him to take arms against us. These arms, in this moment of better
+      augury, he may be brought to unite with ours. I shall send my gallant
+      friend, Colonel Hay, to him, from this very field of battle, but he must
+      be united in commission with a Highland gentleman of rank, befitting that
+      of Seaforth, and of talents and of influence such as may make an
+      impression upon him. You are not only in every respect the fittest for
+      this most important mission, but, having no immediate command, your
+      presence may be more easily spared than that of a Chief whose following is
+      in the field. You know every pass and glen in the Highlands, as well as
+      the manners and customs of every tribe. Go therefore to Hay, on the right
+      wing; he has instructions, and expects you. You will find him with
+      Glenmorrison's men; be his guide, his interpreter, and his colleague."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan M'Aulay bent on the Marquis a dark and penetrating glance, as if to
+      ascertain whether this sudden mission was not conferred for some latent
+      and unexplained purpose. But Montrose, skilful in searching the motives of
+      others, was an equal adept in concealing his own. He considered it as of
+      the last consequence, in this moment of enthusiasm and exalted passion, to
+      remove Allan from the camp for a few days, that he might provide, as his
+      honour required, for the safety of those who had acted as his guides, when
+      he trusted the Seer's quarrel with Dalgetty might be easily made up.
+      Allan, at parting, only recommended to the Marquis the care of Sir Duncan
+      Campbell, whom Montrose instantly directed to be conveyed to a place of
+      safety. He took the same precaution for MacEagh, committing the latter,
+      however, to a party of the Irish, with directions that he should be taken
+      care of, but that no Highlander, of any clan, should have access to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis then mounted a led horse, which was held by one of his
+      attendants, and rode on to view the scene of his victory, which was more
+      decisive than even his ardent hopes had anticipated. Of Argyle's gallant
+      army of three thousand men, fully one-half fell in the battle, or in the
+      flight. They had been chiefly driven back upon that part of the plain
+      where the river forms an angle with the lake, so that there was no free
+      opening either for retreat or escape. Several hundreds were forced into
+      the lake and drowned. Of the survivors, about one-half escaped by swimming
+      the river, or by an early flight along the left bank of the lake. The
+      remainder threw themselves into the old Castle of Inverlochy; but being
+      without either provisions or hopes of relief, they were obliged to
+      surrender, on condition of being suffered to return to their homes in
+      peace. Arms, ammunition, standards, and baggage, all became the prey of
+      the conquerors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the greatest disaster that ever befell the race of Diarmid, as
+      the Campbells were called in the Highlands; it being generally remarked
+      that they were as fortunate in the issue of their undertakings, as they
+      were sagacious in planning, and courageous in executing them. Of the
+      number slain, nearly five hundred were dunniwassels, or gentlemen claiming
+      descent from known and respected houses. And, in the opinion of many of
+      the clan, even this heavy loss was exceeded by the disgrace arising from
+      the inglorious conduct of their Chief, whose galley weighed anchor when
+      the day was lost, and sailed down the lake with all the speed to which
+      sails and oars could impel her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Faint the din of battle bray'd,
+     Distant down the hollow wind;
+     War and terror fled before,
+     Wounds and death remain'd behind.&mdash;PENROSE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Montrose's splendid success over his powerful rival was not attained
+      without some loss, though not amounting to the tenth of what he inflicted.
+      The obstinate valour of the Campbells cost the lives of many brave men of
+      the opposite party; and more were wounded, the Chief of whom was the brave
+      young Earl of Menteith, who had commanded the centre. He was but slightly
+      touched, however, and made rather a graceful than a terrible appearance
+      when he presented to his general the standard of Argyle, which he had
+      taken from the standard-bearer with his own hand, and slain him in single
+      combat. Montrose dearly loved his noble kinsman, in whom there was
+      conspicuous a flash of the generous, romantic, disinterested chivalry of
+      the old heroic times, entirely different from the sordid, calculating, and
+      selfish character, which the practice of entertaining mercenary troops had
+      introduced into most parts of Europe, and of which degeneracy Scotland,
+      which furnished soldiers of fortune for the service of almost every
+      nation, had been contaminated with a more than usual share. Montrose,
+      whose native spirit was congenial, although experience had taught him how
+      to avail himself of the motives of others, used to Menteith neither the
+      language of praise nor of promise, but clasped him to his bosom as he
+      exclaimed, "My gallant kinsman!" And by this burst of heartfelt applause
+      was Menteith thrilled with a warmer glow of delight, than if his praises
+      had been recorded in a report of the action sent directly to the throne of
+      his sovereign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing," he said, "my lord, now seems to remain in which I can render
+      any assistance; permit me to look after a duty of humanity&mdash;the
+      Knight of Ardenvohr, as I am told, is our prisoner, and severely wounded."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And well he deserves to be so," said Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who came up to
+      them at that moment with a prodigious addition of acquired importance,
+      "since he shot my good horse at the time that I was offering him
+      honourable quarter, which, I must needs say, was done more like an
+      ignorant Highland cateran, who has not sense enough to erect a sconce for
+      the protection of his old hurley-house of a castle, than like a soldier of
+      worth and quality."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are we to condole with you then," said Lord Menteith, "upon the loss of
+      the famed Gustavus?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Even so, my lord," answered the soldier, with a deep sigh, "DIEM CLAUSIT
+      SUPREMUM, as we said at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen. Better so than
+      be smothered like a cadger's pony in some flow-moss, or snow-wreath, which
+      was like to be his fate if this winter campaign lasted longer. But it has
+      pleased his Excellency" (making an inclination to Montrose) "to supply his
+      place by the gift of a noble steed, whom I have taken the freedom to name
+      'LOYALTY'S REWARD,' in memory of this celebrated occasion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope," said the Marquis, "you'll find Loyalty's Reward, since you call
+      him so, practised in all the duties of the field,&mdash;but I must just
+      hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty is more frequently
+      rewarded with a halter than with a horse."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ahem! your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty's Reward is as
+      perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a far finer figure.
+      Marry! his social qualities are less cultivated, in respect he has kept
+      till now inferior company."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope," said Lord Menteith. "For
+      shame, Sir Dugald!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lord," answered the knight gravely, "I am incapable to mean anything
+      so utterly unbecoming. What I asseverate is, that his Excellency, having
+      the same intercourse with his horse during his exercise, that he hath with
+      his soldiers when training them, may form and break either to every feat
+      of war which he chooses to practise, and accordingly that this noble
+      charger is admirably managed. But as it is the intercourse of private life
+      that formeth the social character, so I do not apprehend that of the
+      single soldier to be much polished by the conversation of the corporal or
+      the sergeant, or that of Loyalty's Reward to have been much dulcified, or
+      ameliorated, by the society of his Excellency's grooms, who bestow more
+      oaths, and kicks, and thumps, than kindness or caresses, upon the animals
+      intrusted to their charge; whereby many a generous quadruped, rendered as
+      it were misanthropic, manifests during the rest of his life a greater
+      desire to kick and bite his master, than to love and to honour him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spoken like an oracle," said Montrose. "Were there an academy for the
+      education of horses to be annexed to the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen,
+      Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the chair."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because, being an ass," said Menteith, aside to the General, "there would
+      be some distant relation between the professor and the students."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now, with your Excellency's permission," said the new-made knight, "I
+      am going to pay my last visit to the remains of my old companion in arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not with the purpose of going through the ceremonial of interment?" said
+      the Marquis, who did not know how far Sir Dugald's enthusiasm might lead
+      him; "consider our brave fellows themselves will have but a hasty burial."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your Excellency will pardon me," said Dalgetty; "my purpose is less
+      romantic. I go to divide poor Gustavus's legacy with the fowls of heaven,
+      leaving the flesh to them, and reserving to myself his hide; which, in
+      token of affectionate remembrance, I purpose to form into a cassock and
+      trowsers, after the Tartar fashion, to be worn under my armour, in respect
+      my nether garments are at present shamefully the worse of the wear.&mdash;Alas!
+      poor Gustavus, why didst thou not live at least one hour more, to have
+      borne the honoured weight of knighthood upon thy loins!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now turning away, when the Marquis called after him,&mdash;"As you
+      are not likely to be anticipated in this act of kindness, Sir Dugald, to
+      your old friend and companion, I trust," said the Marquis, "you will first
+      assist me, and our principal friends, to discuss some of Argyle's good
+      cheer, of which we have found abundance in the Castle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Most willingly, please your Excellency," said Sir Dugald; "as meat and
+      mass never hinder work. Nor, indeed, am I afraid that the wolves or eagles
+      will begin an onslaught on Gustavus to-night, in regard there is so much
+      better cheer lying all around. But," added he, "as I am to meet two
+      honourable knights of England, with others of the knightly degree in your
+      lordship's army, I pray it may be explained to them, that now, and in
+      future, I claim precedence over them all, in respect of my rank as a
+      Banneret, dubbed in a field of stricken battle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The devil confound him!" said Montrose, speaking aside; "he has contrived
+      to set the kiln on fire as fast as I put it out.&mdash;'This is a point,
+      Sir Dugald," said he, gravely addressing him, "which I shall reserve for
+      his Majesty's express consideration; in my camp, all must be upon
+      equality, like the Knights of the Round Table; and take their places as
+      soldiers should, upon the principle of,&mdash;first come, first served."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I shall take care," said Menteith, apart to the Marquis, "that Don
+      Dugald is not first in place to-day.&mdash;Sir Dugald," added he, raising
+      his voice, "as you say your wardrobe is out of repair, had you not better
+      go to the enemy's baggage yonder, over which there is a guard placed? I
+      saw them take out an excellent buff suit, embroidered in front in silk and
+      silver."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "VOTO A DIOS! as the Spaniard says," exclaimed the Major, "and some
+      beggarly gilly may get it while I stand prating here!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prospect of booty having at once driven out of his head both Gustavus
+      and the provant, he set spurs to Loyalty's Reward, and rode off through
+      the field of battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There goes the hound," said Menteith, "breaking the face, and trampling
+      on the body, of many a better man than himself; and as eager on his sordid
+      spoil as a vulture that stoops upon carrion. Yet this man the world calls
+      a soldier&mdash;and you, my lord, select him as worthy of the honours of
+      chivalry, if such they can at this day be termed. You have made the collar
+      of knighthood the decoration of a mere bloodhound."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What could I do?" said Montrose. "I had no half-picked bones to give him,
+      and bribed in some manner he must be,&mdash;I cannot follow the chase
+      alone. Besides, the dog has good qualities."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If nature has given him such," said Menteith, "habit has converted them
+      into feelings of intense selfishness. He may be punctilious concerning his
+      reputation, and brave in the execution of his duty, but it is only because
+      without these qualities he cannot rise in the service;&mdash;nay, his very
+      benevolence is selfish; he may defend his companion while he can keep his
+      feet, but the instant he is down, Sir Dugald will be as ready to ease him
+      of his purse, as he is to convert the skin of Gustavus into a buff
+      jerkin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And yet, if all this were true, cousin," answered Montrose, "there is
+      something convenient in commanding a soldier, upon whose motives and
+      springs of action you can calculate to a mathematical certainty. A fine
+      spirit like yours, my cousin, alive to a thousand sensations to which this
+      man's is as impervious as his corslet,&mdash;it is for such that thy
+      friend must feel, while he gives his advice." Then, suddenly changing his
+      tone, he asked Menteith when he had seen Annot Lyle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Earl coloured deeply, and answered, "Not since last evening,&mdash;excepting,"
+      he added, with hesitation, "for one moment, about half an hour before the
+      battle began."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Menteith," said Montrose, very kindly, "were you one of the gay
+      cavaliers of Whitehall, who are, in their way, as great self-seekers as
+      our friend Dalgetty, should I need to plague you with enquiring into such
+      an amourette as this? it would be an intrigue only to be laughed at. But
+      this is the land of enchantment, where nets strong as steel are wrought
+      out of ladies' tresses, and you are exactly the destined knight to be so
+      fettered. This poor girl is exquisitely beautiful, and has talents formed
+      to captivate your romantic temper. You cannot think of injuring her&mdash;you
+      cannot think of marrying her?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lord," replied Menteith, "you have repeatedly urged this jest, for so
+      I trust it is meant, somewhat beyond bounds. Annot Lyle is of unknown
+      birth,&mdash;a captive,&mdash;the daughter, probably, of some obscure
+      outlaw; a dependant on the hospitality of the M'Aulays."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do not be angry, Menteith," said the Marquis, interrupting him; "you love
+      the classics, though not educated at Mareschal-College; and you may
+      remember how many gallant hearts captive beauty has subdued:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Movit Ajacem, Telamone natum,
+     Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In a word, I am seriously anxious about this&mdash;I should not have time,
+      perhaps," he added very gravely, "to trouble you with my lectures on the
+      subject, were your feelings, and those of Annot, alone interested; but you
+      have a dangerous rival in Allan M'Aulay; and there is no knowing to what
+      extent he may carry his resentment. It is my duty to tell you that the
+      King's service may be much prejudiced by dissensions betwixt you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lord," said Menteith, "I know what you mean is kind and friendly; I
+      hope you will be satisfied when I assure you, that Allan M'Aulay and I
+      have discussed this circumstance; and that I have explained to him, that
+      it is utterly remote from my character to entertain dishonourable views
+      concerning this unprotected female; so, on the other hand, the obscurity
+      of her birth prevents my thinking of her upon other terms. I will not
+      disguise from your lordship, what I have not disguised from M'Aulay,&mdash;that
+      if Annot Lyle were born a lady, she should share my name and rank; as
+      matters stand, it is impossible. This explanation, I trust, will satisfy
+      your lordship, as it has satisfied a less reasonable person."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose shrugged his shoulders. "And, like true champions in romance," he
+      said, "you have agreed, that you are both to worship the same mistress, as
+      idolaters do the same image, and that neither shall extend his pretensions
+      farther?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did not go so far, my lord," answered Menteith&mdash;"I only said in
+      the present circumstances&mdash;and there is no prospect of their being
+      changed,&mdash;I could, in duty to myself and family, stand in no relation
+      to Annot Lyle, but as that of friend or brother&mdash;But your lordship
+      must excuse me; I have," said he, looking at his arm, round which he had
+      tied his handkerchief, "a slight hurt to attend to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A wound?" said Montrose, anxiously; "let me see it.&mdash;Alas!" he said,
+      "I should have heard nothing of this, had I not ventured to tent and sound
+      another more secret and more rankling one, Menteith; I am sorry for you&mdash;I
+      too have known&mdash;But what avails it to awake sorrows which have long
+      slumbered!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he shook hands with his noble kinsman, and walked into the
+      castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle, as was not unusual for females in the Highlands, was possessed
+      of a slight degree of medical and even surgical skill. It may readily be
+      believed, that the profession of surgery, or medicine, as a separate art,
+      was unknown; and the few rude rules which they observed were intrusted to
+      women, or to the aged, whom constant casualties afforded too much
+      opportunity of acquiring experience. The care and attention, accordingly,
+      of Annot Lyle, her attendants, and others acting under her direction, had
+      made her services extremely useful during this wild campaign. And most
+      readily had these services been rendered to friend and foe, wherever they
+      could be most useful. She was now in an apartment of the castle, anxiously
+      superintending the preparation of vulnerary herbs, to be applied to the
+      wounded; receiving reports from different females respecting those under
+      their separate charge, and distributing what means she had for their
+      relief, when Allan M'Aulay suddenly entered the apartment. She started,
+      for she had heard that he had left the camp upon a distant mission; and,
+      however accustomed she was to the gloom of his countenance, it seemed at
+      present to have even a darker shade than usual. He stood before her
+      perfectly silent, and she felt the necessity of being the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I thought," she said, with some effort, "you had already set out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My companion awaits me," said Allan; "I go instantly." Yet still he stood
+      before her, and held her by the arm, with a pressure which, though
+      insufficient to give her pain, made her sensible of his great personal
+      strength, his hand closing on her like the gripe of a manacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I take the harp?" she said, in a timid voice; "is&mdash;is the
+      shadow falling upon you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of replying, he led her to the window of the apartment, which
+      commanded a view of the field of the slain, with all its horrors. It was
+      thick spread with dead and wounded, and the spoilers were busy tearing the
+      clothes from the victims of war and feudal ambition, with as much
+      indifference as if they had not been of the same species, and themselves
+      exposed, perhaps to-morrow, to the same fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does the sight please you?" said M'Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is hideous!" said Annot, covering her eyes with her hands; "how can
+      you bid me look upon it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must be inured to it," said he, "if you remain with this destined
+      host&mdash;you will soon have to search such a field for my brother's
+      corpse&mdash;for Menteith's&mdash;for mine&mdash;-but that will be a more
+      indifferent task&mdash;You do not love me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the first time you have taxed me with unkindness," said Annot,
+      weeping. "You are my brother&mdash;my preserver&mdash;my protector&mdash;and
+      can I then BUT love you?&mdash;But your hour of darkness is approaching,
+      let me fetch my harp&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Remain," said Allan, still holding her fast; "be my visions from heaven
+      or hell, or from the middle sphere of disembodied spirits&mdash;or be
+      they, as the Saxons hold, but the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they
+      do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the
+      visible world.&mdash;You love not me, Annot&mdash;you love Menteith&mdash;by
+      him you are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the
+      corpses which encumber yonder heath."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It cannot be supposed that this strange speech conveyed any new
+      information to her who was thus addressed. No woman ever lived who could
+      not, in the same circumstances, have discerned long since the state of her
+      lover's mind. But by thus suddenly tearing off the veil, thin as it was,
+      Allan prepared her to expect consequences violent in proportion to the
+      enthusiasm of his character. She made an effort to repel the charge he had
+      stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You forget," she said, "your own worth and nobleness when you insult so
+      very helpless a being, and one whom fate has thrown so totally into your
+      power. You know who and what I am, and how impossible it is that Menteith
+      or you can use language of affection to me, beyond that of friendship. You
+      know from what unhappy race I have too probably derived my existence."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will not believe it," said Allan, impetuously; "never flowed crystal
+      drop from a polluted spring."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yet the very doubt," pleaded Annot, "should make you forbear to use this
+      language to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know," said M'Aulay, "it places a bar between us&mdash;but I know also
+      that it divides you not so inseparably from Menteith.&mdash;Hear me, my
+      beloved Annot!&mdash;leave this scene of terrors and danger&mdash;go with
+      me to Kintail&mdash;I will place you in the house of the noble Lady of
+      Seaforth&mdash;or you shall be removed in safety to Icolmkill, where some
+      women yet devote themselves to the worship of God, after the custom of our
+      ancestors."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You consider not what you ask of me," replied Annot; "to undertake such a
+      journey under your sole guardianship, were to show me less scrupulous than
+      maiden ought. I will remain here, Allan&mdash;here under the protection of
+      the noble Montrose; and when his motions next approach the Lowlands, I
+      will contrive some proper means to relieve you of one, who has, she knows
+      not how, become an object of dislike to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Allan stood as if uncertain whether to give way to sympathy with her
+      distress, or to anger at her resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Annot," he said, "you know too well how little your words apply to my
+      feelings towards you&mdash;but you avail yourself of your power, and you
+      rejoice in my departure, as removing a spy upon your intercourse with
+      Menteith. But beware both of you," he added, in a stern tone; "for when
+      was it ever heard that an injury was offered to Allan M'Aulay, for which
+      he exacted not tenfold vengeance?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he pressed her arm forcibly, pulled the bonnet over his brows,
+      and strode out of the apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &mdash;After you're gone,
+     I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd,
+     What stirr'd it so.&mdash;Alas!  I found it love.
+     Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived
+     In presence of you, I had had my end.&mdash;PHILASTER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle had now to contemplate the terrible gulf which Allan M'Aulay's
+      declaration of love and jealousy had made to open around her. It seemed as
+      if she was tottering on the very brink of destruction, and was at once
+      deprived of every refuge, and of all human assistance. She had long been
+      conscious that she loved Menteith dearer than a brother; indeed, how could
+      it be otherwise, considering their early intimacy, the personal merit of
+      the young nobleman, his assiduous attentions,&mdash;and his infinite
+      superiority in gentleness of disposition, and grace of manners, over the
+      race of rude warriors with whom she lived? But her affection was of that
+      quiet, timid, meditative character, which sought rather a reflected share
+      in the happiness of the beloved object, than formed more presumptuous or
+      daring hopes. A little Gaelic song, in which she expressed her feelings,
+      has been translated by the ingenious and unhappy Andrew M'Donald; and we
+      willingly transcribe the lines:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Wert thou, like me, in life's low vale,
+     With thee how blest, that lot I'd share;
+     With thee I'd fly wherever gale
+     Could waft, or bounding galley bear.
+     But parted by severe decree,
+     Far different must our fortunes prove;
+     May thine be joy&mdash;enough for me
+     To weep and pray for him I love.
+
+     The pangs this foolish heart must feel,
+     When hope shall be forever flown,
+     No sullen murmur shall reveal,
+     No selfish murmurs ever own.
+     Nor will I through life's weary years,
+     Like a pale drooping mourner move,
+     While I can think my secret tears
+     May wound the heart of him I love.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The furious declaration of Allan had destroyed the romantic plan which she
+      had formed, of nursing in secret her pensive tenderness, without seeking
+      any other requital. Long before this, she had dreaded Allan, as much as
+      gratitude, and a sense that he softened towards her a temper so haughty
+      and so violent, could permit her to do; but now she regarded him with
+      unalloyed terror, which a perfect knowledge of his disposition, and of his
+      preceding history, too well authorised her to entertain. Whatever was in
+      other respects the nobleness of his disposition, he had never been known
+      to resist the wilfulness of passion,&mdash;he walked in the house, and in
+      the country of his fathers, like a tamed lion, whom no one dared to
+      contradict, lest they should awaken his natural vehemence of passion. So
+      many years had elapsed since he had experienced contradiction, or even
+      expostulation, that probably nothing but the strong good sense, which, on
+      all points, his mysticism excepted, formed the ground of his character,
+      prevented his proving an annoyance and terror to the whole neighbourhood.
+      But Annot had no time to dwell upon her fears, being interrupted by the
+      entrance of Sir Dugald Dalgetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may well be supposed, that the scenes in which this person had passed
+      his former life, had not much qualified him to shine in female society. He
+      himself felt a sort of consciousness that the language of the barrack,
+      guard-room, and parade, was not proper to entertain ladies. The only
+      peaceful part of his life had been spent at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen;
+      and he had forgot the little he had learned there, except the arts of
+      darning his own hose, and dispatching his commons with unusual celerity,
+      both which had since been kept in good exercise by the necessity of
+      frequent practice. Still it was from an imperfect recollection of what he
+      had acquired during this pacific period, that he drew his sources of
+      conversation when in company with women; in other words, his language
+      became pedantic when it ceased to be military.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mistress Annot Lyle," said he, upon the present occasion, "I am just now
+      like the half-pike, or spontoon of Achilles, one end of which could wound
+      and the other cure&mdash;a property belonging neither to Spanish pike,
+      brown-bill, partizan, halberd, Lochaber-axe, or indeed any other modern
+      staff-weapon whatever." This compliment he repeated twice; but as Annot
+      scarce heard him the first time, and did not comprehend him the second, he
+      was obliged to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean," he said, "Mistress Annot Lyle, that having been the means of an
+      honourable knight receiving a severe wound in this day's conflict,&mdash;he
+      having pistolled, somewhat against the law of arms, my horse, which was
+      named after the immortal King of Sweden,&mdash;I am desirous of procuring
+      him such solacement as you, madam, can supply, you being like the heathen
+      god Esculapius" (meaning possibly Apollo), "skilful not only in song and
+      in music, but in the more noble art of chirurgery-OPIFERQUE PER ORBEM
+      DICOR."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you would have the goodness to explain," said Annot, too sick at heart
+      to be amused by Sir Dugald's airs of pedantic gallantry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That, madam," replied the Knight, "may not be so easy, as I am out of the
+      habit of construing&mdash;but we shall try. DICOR, supply EGO&mdash;I am
+      called,&mdash;OPIFER? OPIFER?&mdash;I remember SIGNIFER and FURCIFER&mdash;but
+      I believe OPIFER stands in this place for M.D., that is, Doctor of
+      Physic."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is a busy day with us all," said Annot; "will you say at once what
+      you want with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Merely," replied Sir Dugald, "that you will visit my brother knight, and
+      let your maiden bring some medicaments for his wound, which threatens to
+      be what the learned call a DAMNUM FATALE."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annot Lyle never lingered in the cause of humanity. She informed herself
+      hastily of the nature of the injury, and interesting herself for the
+      dignified old Chief whom she had seen at Darnlinvarach, and whose presence
+      had so much struck her, she hastened to lose the sense of her own sorrow
+      for a time, in the attempt to be useful to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald with great form ushered Annot Lyle to the chamber of her
+      patient, in which, to her surprise, she found Lord Menteith. She could not
+      help blushing deeply at the meeting, but, to hide her confusion, proceeded
+      instantly to examine the wound of the Knight of Ardenvohr, and easily
+      satisfied herself that it was beyond her skill to cure it. As for Sir
+      Dugald, he returned to a large outhouse, on the floor of which, among
+      other wounded men, was deposited the person of Ranald of the Mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mine old friend," said the Knight, "as I told you before, I would
+      willingly do anything to pleasure you, in return for the wound you have
+      received while under my safe-conduct. I have, therefore, according to your
+      earnest request, sent Mrs. Annot Lyle to attend upon the wound of the
+      knight of Ardenvohr, though wherein her doing so should benefit you, I
+      cannot imagine.&mdash;I think you once spoke of some blood relationship
+      between them; but a soldado, in command and charge like me, has other
+      things to trouble his head with than Highland genealogies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed, to do the worthy Major justice, he never enquired after,
+      listened to, or recollected, the business of other people, unless it
+      either related to the art military, or was somehow or other connected with
+      his own interest, in either of which cases his memory was very tenacious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now, my good friend of the Mist," said he, "can you tell me what has
+      become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him since he assisted
+      me to disarm after the action, a negligence which deserveth the strapado?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is not far from hence," said the wounded outlaw&mdash;"lift not your
+      hand upon him, for he is man enough to pay a yard of leathern scourge with
+      a foot of tempered steel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A most improper vaunt," said Sir Dugald; "but I owe you some favours,
+      Ranald, and therefore shall let it pass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And if you think you owe me anything," said the outlaw, "it is in your
+      power to requite me by granting me a boon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Friend Ranald," answered Dalgetty, "I have read of these boons in silly
+      story-books, whereby simple knights were drawn into engagements to their
+      great prejudice; wherefore, Ranald, the more prudent knights of this day
+      never promise anything until they know that they may keep their word anent
+      the premises, without any displeasure or incommodement to themselves. It
+      may be, you would have me engage the female chirurgeon to visit your
+      wound; though you ought to consider, Ranald, that the uncleanness of the
+      place where you are deposited may somewhat soil the gaiety of her
+      garments, concerning the preservation of which, you may have observed,
+      women are apt to be inordinately solicitous. I lost the favour of the lady
+      of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam, by touching with the sole of my boot
+      the train of her black velvet gown, which I mistook for a foot-cloth, it
+      being half the room distant from her person."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not to bring Annot Lyle hither," answered MacEagh, "but to
+      transport me into the room where she is in attendance upon the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr. Somewhat I have to say of the last consequence to them both."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is something out of the order of due precedence," said Dalgetty, "to
+      carry a wounded outlaw into the presence of a knight; knighthood having
+      been of yore, and being, in some respects, still, the highest military
+      grade, independent always of commissioned officers, who rank according to
+      their patents; nevertheless, as your boon, as you call it, is so slight, I
+      shall not deny compliance with the same." So saying, he ordered three
+      files of men to transport MacEagh on their shoulders to Sir Duncan
+      Campbell's apartment, and he himself hastened before to announce the cause
+      of his being brought thither. But such was the activity of the soldiers
+      employed, that they followed him close at the heels, and, entering with
+      their ghastly burden, laid MacEagh on the floor of the apartment. His
+      features, naturally wild, were now distorted by pain; his hands and scanty
+      garments stained with his own blood, and those of others, which no kind
+      hand had wiped away, although the wound in his side had been secured by a
+      bandage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you," he said, raising his head painfully towards the couch where lay
+      stretched his late antagonist, "he whom men call the Knight of Ardenvohr?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The same," answered Sir Duncan,&mdash;"what would you with one whose
+      hours are now numbered?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My hours are reduced to minutes," said the outlaw; "the more grace, if I
+      bestow them in the service of one, whose hand has ever been against me, as
+      mine has been raised higher against him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thine higher against me!&mdash;Crushed worm!" said the Knight, looking
+      down on his miserable adversary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," answered the outlaw, in a firm voice, "my arm hath been highest. In
+      the deadly contest betwixt us, the wounds I have dealt have been deepest,
+      though thine have neither been idle nor unfelt.&mdash;I am Ranald MacEagh&mdash;I
+      am Ranald of the Mist&mdash;the night that I gave thy castle to the winds
+      in one huge blaze of fire, is now matched with the day in which you have
+      fallen under the sword of my fathers.&mdash;Remember the injuries thou
+      hast done our tribe&mdash;never were such inflicted, save by one, beside
+      thee. HE, they say, is fated and secure against our vengeance&mdash;a
+      short time will show."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My Lord Menteith," said Sir Duncan, raising himself out of his bed, "this
+      is a proclaimed villain, at once the enemy of King and Parliament, of God
+      and man&mdash;one of the outlawed banditti of the Mist; alike the enemy of
+      your house, of the M'Aulays, and of mine. I trust you will not suffer
+      moments, which are perhaps my last, to be embittered by his barbarous
+      triumph."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He shall have the treatment he merits," said Menteith; "let him be
+      instantly removed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald here interposed, and spoke of Ranald's services as a guide, and
+      his own pledge for his safety; but the high harsh tones of the outlaw
+      drowned his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said he, "be rack and gibbet the word! let me wither between heaven
+      and earth, and gorge the hawks and eagles of Ben-Nevis; and so shall this
+      haughty Knight, and this triumphant Thane, never learn the secret I alone
+      can impart; a secret which would make Ardenvohr's heart leap with joy,
+      were he in the death agony, and which the Earl of Menteith would purchase
+      at the price of his broad earldom.&mdash;Come hither, Annot Lyle," he
+      said, raising himself with unexpected strength; "fear not the sight of him
+      to whom thou hast clung in infancy. Tell these proud men, who disdain thee
+      as the issue of mine ancient race, that thou art no blood of ours,&mdash;no
+      daughter of the race of the Mist, but born in halls as lordly, and cradled
+      on couch as soft, as ever soothed infancy in their proudest palaces."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the name of God," said Menteith, trembling with emotion, "if you know
+      aught of the birth of this lady, do thy conscience the justice to
+      disburden it of the secret before departing from this world!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And bless my enemies with my dying breath?" said MacEagh, looking at him
+      malignantly.&mdash;"Such are the maxims your priests preach&mdash;but
+      when, or towards whom, do you practise them? Let me know first the worth
+      of my secret ere I part with it&mdash;What would you give, Knight of
+      Ardenvohr, to know that your superstitious fasts have been vain, and that
+      there still remains a descendant of your house?&mdash;I pause for an
+      answer&mdash;without it, I speak not one word more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I could," said Sir Duncan, his voice struggling between the emotions of
+      doubt, hatred, and anxiety&mdash;"I could&mdash;but that I know thy race
+      are like the Great Enemy, liars and murderers from the beginning&mdash;but
+      could it be true thou tellest me, I could almost forgive thee the injuries
+      thou hast done me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hear it!" said Ranald; "he hath wagered deeply for a son of Diarmid&mdash;And
+      you, gentle Thane&mdash;the report of the camp says, that you would
+      purchase with life and lands the tidings that Annot Lyle was no daughter
+      of proscription, but of a race noble in your estimation as your own&mdash;Well&mdash;It
+      is for no love I tell you&mdash;The time has been that I would have
+      exchanged this secret against liberty; I am now bartering it for what is
+      dearer than liberty or life.&mdash;Annot Lyle is the youngest, the sole
+      surviving child of the Knight of Ardenvohr, who alone was saved when all
+      in his halls besides was given to blood and ashes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can this man speak truth?" said Annot Lyle, scarce knowing what she said;
+      "or is this some strange delusion?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Maiden," replied Ranald, "hadst thou dwelt longer with us, thou wouldst
+      have better learnt to know how to distinguish the accents of truth. To
+      that Saxon lord, and to the Knight of Ardenvohr, I will yield such proofs
+      of what I have spoken, that incredulity shall stand convinced. Meantime,
+      withdraw&mdash;I loved thine infancy, I hate not thy youth&mdash;no eye
+      hates the rose in its blossom, though it groweth upon a thorn, and for
+      thee only do I something regret what is soon to follow. But he that would
+      avenge him of his foe must not reck though the guiltless be engaged in the
+      ruin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He advises well, Annot," said Lord Menteith; "in God's name retire! if&mdash;if
+      there be aught in this, your meeting with Sir Duncan must be more prepared
+      for both your sakes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will not part from my father, if I have found one!" said Annot&mdash;"I
+      will not part from him under circumstances so terrible."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And a father you shall ever find in me," murmured Sir Duncan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then," said Menteith, "I will have MacEagh removed into an adjacent
+      apartment, and will collect the evidence of his tale myself. Sir Dugald
+      Dalgetty will give me his attendance and assistance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With pleasure, my lord," answered Sir Dugald.&mdash;"I will be your
+      confessor, or assessor&mdash;either or both. No one can be so fit, for I
+      had heard the whole story a month ago at Inverary castle&mdash;but
+      onslaughts like that of Ardenvohr confuse each other in my memory, which
+      is besides occupied with matters of more importance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon hearing this frank declaration, which was made as they left the
+      apartment with the wounded man, Lord Menteith darted upon Dalgetty a look
+      of extreme anger and disdain, to which the self-conceit of the worthy
+      commander rendered him totally insensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     I am as free as nature first made man,
+     Ere the base laws of servitude began,
+     When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
+     &mdash;CONQUEST OF GRANADA
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Earl of Menteith, as he had undertaken, so he proceeded to investigate
+      more closely the story told by Ranald of the Mist, which was corroborated
+      by the examination of his two followers, who had assisted in the capacity
+      of guides. These declarations he carefully compared with such
+      circumstances concerning the destruction of his castle and family as Sir
+      Duncan Campbell was able to supply; and it may be supposed he had
+      forgotten nothing relating to an event of such terrific importance. It was
+      of the last consequence to prove that this was no invention of the
+      outlaw's, for the purpose of passing an impostor as the child and heiress
+      of Ardenvohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps Menteith, so much interested in believing the tale, was not
+      altogether the fittest person to be intrusted with the investigation of
+      its truth; but the examinations of the Children of the Mist were simple,
+      accurate, and in all respects consistent with each other. A personal mark
+      was referred to, which was known to have been borne by the infant child of
+      Sir Duncan, and which appeared upon the left shoulder of Annot Lyle. It
+      was also well remembered, that when the miserable relics of the other
+      children had been collected, those of the infant had nowhere been found.
+      Other circumstances of evidence, which it is unnecessary to quote, brought
+      the fullest conviction not only to Menteith, but to the unprejudiced mind
+      of Montrose, that in Annot Lyle, an humble dependant, distinguished only
+      by beauty and talent, they were in future to respect the heiress of
+      Ardenvohr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Menteith hastened to communicate the result of these enquiries to
+      the persons most interested, the outlaw demanded to speak with his
+      grandchild, whom he usually called his son. "He would be found," he said,
+      "in the outer apartment, in which he himself had been originally
+      deposited."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, the young savage, after a close search, was found lurking in
+      a corner, coiled up among some rotten straw, and brought to his grandsire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Kenneth," said the old outlaw, "hear the last words of the sire of thy
+      father. A Saxon soldier, and Allan of the Red-hand, left this camp within
+      these few hours, to travel to the country to Caberfae. Pursue them as the
+      bloodhound pursues the hurt deer&mdash;swim the lake-climb the mountain&mdash;thread
+      the forest&mdash;tarry not until you join them;" and then the countenance
+      of the lad darkened as his grandfather spoke, and he laid his hand upon a
+      knife which stuck in the thong of leather that confined his scanty plaid.
+      "No!" said the old man; "it is not by thy hand he must fall. They will ask
+      the news from the camp&mdash;say to them that Annot Lyle of the Harp is
+      discovered to be the daughter of Duncan of Ardenvohr; that the Thane of
+      Menteith is to wed her before the priest; and that you are sent to bid
+      guests to the bridal. Tarry not their answer, but vanish like the
+      lightning when the black cloud swallows it.&mdash;And now depart, beloved
+      son of my best beloved! I shall never more see thy face, nor hear the
+      light sound of thy footstep&mdash;yet tarry an instant and hear my last
+      charge. Remember the fate of our race, and quit not the ancient manners of
+      the Children of the Mist. We are now a straggling handful, driven from
+      every vale by the sword of every clan, who rule in the possessions where
+      their forefathers hewed the wood, and drew the water for ours. But in the
+      thicket of the wilderness, and in the mist of the mountain, Kenneth, son
+      of Eracht, keep thou unsoiled the freedom which I leave thee as a
+      birthright. Barter it not neither for the rich garment, nor for the
+      stone-roof, nor for the covered board, nor for the couch of down&mdash;on
+      the rock or in the valley, in abundance or in famine&mdash;in the leafy
+      summer, and in the days of the iron winter&mdash;Son of the Mist! be free
+      as thy forefathers. Own no lord&mdash;receive no law&mdash;take no hire&mdash;give
+      no stipend&mdash;build no hut&mdash;enclose no pasture&mdash;sow no grain;&mdash;let
+      the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and herds&mdash;if these fail thee,
+      prey upon the goods of our oppressors&mdash;of the Saxons, and of such
+      Gael as are Saxons in their souls, valuing herds and flocks more than
+      honour and freedom. Well for us that they do so&mdash;it affords the
+      broader scope for our revenge. Remember those who have done kindness to
+      our race, and pay their services with thy blood, should the hour require
+      it. If a MacIan shall come to thee with the head of the king's son in his
+      hand, shelter him, though the avenging army of the father were behind him;
+      for in Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, we have dwelt in peace in the years that
+      have gone by. The sons of Diarmid&mdash;the race of Darnlinvarach&mdash;the
+      riders of Menteith&mdash;my curse on thy head, Child of the Mist, if thou
+      spare one of those names, when the time shall offer for cutting them off!
+      and it will come anon, for their own swords shall devour each other, and
+      those who are scattered shall fly to the Mist, and perish by its Children.
+      Once more, begone&mdash;shake the dust from thy feet against the
+      habitations of men, whether banded together for peace or for war.
+      Farewell, beloved! and mayst thou die like thy forefathers, ere infirmity,
+      disease, or age, shall break thy spirit&mdash;Begone!&mdash;begone!&mdash;live
+      free&mdash;requite kindness&mdash;avenge the injuries of thy race!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young savage stooped, and kissed the brow of his dying parent; but
+      accustomed from infancy to suppress every exterior sign of emotion, he
+      parted without tear or adieu, and was soon far beyond the limits of
+      Montrose's camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who was present during the latter part of this scene,
+      was very little edified by the conduct of MacEagh upon the occasion. "I
+      cannot think, my friend Ranald," said he, "that you are in the best
+      possible road for a dying man. Storms, onslaughts, massacres, the burning
+      of suburbs, are indeed a soldier's daily work, and are justified by the
+      necessity of the case, seeing that they are done in the course of duty;
+      for burning of suburbs, in particular, it may be said that they are
+      traitors and cut-throats to all fortified towns. Hence it is plain, that a
+      soldier is a profession peculiarly favoured by Heaven, seeing that we may
+      hope for salvation, although we daily commit actions of so great violence.
+      But then, Ranald, in all services of Europe, it is the custom of the dying
+      soldier not to vaunt him of such doings, or to recommend them to his
+      fellows; but, on the contrary, to express contrition for the same, and to
+      repeat, or have repeated to him, some comfortable prayer; which, if you
+      please, I will intercede with his Excellency's chaplain to prefer on your
+      account. It is otherwise no point of my duty to put you in mind of those
+      things; only it may be for the ease of your conscience to depart more like
+      a Christian, and less like a Turk, than you seem to be in a fair way of
+      doing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only answer of the dying man&mdash;(for as such Ranald MacEagh might
+      now be considered)&mdash;was a request to be raised to such a position
+      that he might obtain a view from the window of the Castle. The deep frost
+      mist, which had long settled upon the top of the mountains, was now
+      rolling down each rugged glen and gully, where the craggy ridges showed
+      their black and irregular outline, like desert islands rising above the
+      ocean of vapour. "Spirit of the Mist!" said Ranald MacEagh, "called by our
+      race our father, and our preserver&mdash;receive into thy tabernacle of
+      clouds, when this pang is over, him whom in life thou hast so often
+      sheltered." So saying, he sunk back into the arms of those who upheld him,
+      spoke no further word, but turned his face to the wall for a short space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe," said Dalgetty, "my friend Ranald will be found in his heart
+      to be little better than a heathen." And he renewed his proposal to
+      procure him the assistance of Dr. Wisheart, Montrose's military chaplain;
+      "a man," said Sir Dugald, "very clever in his exercise, and who will do
+      execution on your sins in less time than I could smoke a pipe of tobacco."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Saxon," said the dying man, "speak to me no more of thy priest&mdash;I
+      die contented. Hadst thou ever an enemy against whom weapons were of no
+      avail&mdash;whom the ball missed, and against whom the arrow shivered, and
+      whose bare skin was as impenetrable to sword and dirk as thy steel garment&mdash;Heardst
+      thou ever of such a foe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very frequently, when I served in Germany," replied Sir Dugald. "There
+      was such a fellow at Ingolstadt; he was proof both against lead and steel.
+      The soldiers killed him with the buts of their muskets."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This impassible foe," said Ranald, without regarding the Major's
+      interruption, "who has the blood dearest to me upon his hands&mdash;to
+      this man I have now bequeathed agony of mind, jealousy, despair, and
+      sudden death,&mdash;or a life more miserable than death itself. Such shall
+      be the lot of Allan of the Red-hand, when he learns that Annot weds
+      Menteith and I ask no more than the certainty that it is so, to sweeten my
+      own bloody end by his hand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If that be the case," said the Major, "there's no more to be said; but I
+      shall take care as few people see you as possible, for I cannot think your
+      mode of departure can be at all creditable or exemplary to a Christian
+      army." So saying, he left the apartment, and the Son of the Mist soon
+      after breathed his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Menteith, in the meanwhile, leaving the new-found relations to their
+      mutual feelings of mingled emotion, was eagerly discussing with Montrose
+      the consequences of this discovery. "I should now see," said the Marquis,
+      "even had I not before observed it, that your interest in this discovery,
+      my dear Menteith, has no small reference to your own happiness. You love
+      this new-found lady,&mdash;your affection is returned. In point of birth,
+      no exceptions can be made; in every other respect, her advantages are
+      equal to those which you yourself possess&mdash;think, however, a moment.
+      Sir Duncan is a fanatic&mdash;Presbyterian, at least&mdash;in arms against
+      the King; he is only with us in the quality of a prisoner, and we are, I
+      fear, but at the commencement of a long civil war. Is this a time, think
+      you, Menteith, for you to make proposals for his heiress? Or what chance
+      is there that he will now listen to it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passion, an ingenious, as well as an eloquent advocate, supplied the young
+      nobleman with a thousand answers to these objections. He reminded Montrose
+      that the Knight of Ardenvohr was neither a bigot in politics nor religion.
+      He urged his own known and proved zeal for the royal cause, and hinted
+      that its influence might be extended and strengthened by his wedding the
+      heiress of Ardenvohr. He pleaded the dangerous state of Sir Duncan's
+      wound, the risk which must be run by suffering the young lady to be
+      carried into the country of the Campbells, where, in case of her father's
+      death, or continued indisposition, she must necessarily be placed under
+      the guardianship of Argyle, an event fatal to his (Menteith's) hopes,
+      unless he could stoop to purchase his favour by abandoning the King's
+      party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose allowed the force of these arguments, and owned, although the
+      matter was attended with difficulty, yet it seemed consistent with the
+      King's service that it should be concluded as speedily as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I could wish," said he, "that it were all settled in one way or another,
+      and that this fair Briseis were removed from our camp before the return of
+      our Highland Achilles, Allan M'Aulay.&mdash;I fear some fatal feud in that
+      quarter, Menteith&mdash;and I believe it would be best that Sir Duncan be
+      dismissed on his parole, and that you accompany him and his daughter as
+      his escort. The journey can be made chiefly by water, so will not greatly
+      incommode his wound&mdash;and your own, my friend, will be an honourable
+      excuse for the absence of some time from my camp."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never!" said Menteith. "Were I to forfeit the very hope that has so
+      lately dawned upon me, never will I leave your Excellency's camp while the
+      royal standard is displayed. I should deserve that this trifling scratch
+      should gangrene and consume my sword-arm, were I capable of holding it as
+      an excuse for absence at this crisis of the King's affairs."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On this, then, you are determined?" said Montrose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As fixed as Ben-Nevis," said the young nobleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must, then," said Montrose, "lose no time in seeking an explanation
+      with the Knight of Ardenvohr. If this prove favourable, I will talk myself
+      with the elder M'Aulay, and we will devise means to employ his brother at
+      a distance from the army until he shall be reconciled to his present
+      disappointment. Would to God some vision would descend upon his
+      imagination fair enough to obliterate all traces of Annot Lyle! That
+      perhaps you think impossible, Menteith?&mdash;Well, each to his service;
+      you to that of Cupid, and I to that of Mars."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They parted, and in pursuance of the scheme arranged, Menteith, early on
+      the ensuing morning, sought a private interview with the wounded Knight of
+      Ardenvohr, and communicated to him his suit for the hand of his daughter.
+      Of their mutual attachment Sir Duncan was aware, but he was not prepared
+      for so early a declaration on the part of Menteith. He said, at first,
+      that he had already, perhaps, indulged too much in feelings of personal
+      happiness, at a time when his clan had sustained so great a loss and
+      humiliation, and that he was unwilling, therefore, farther to consider the
+      advancement of his own house at a period so calamitous. On the more urgent
+      suit of the noble lover, he requested a few hours to deliberate and
+      consult with his daughter, upon a question so highly important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of this interview and deliberation was favourable to Menteith.
+      Sir Duncan Campbell became fully sensible that the happiness of his
+      new-found daughter depended upon a union with her lover; and unless such
+      were now formed, he saw that Argyle would throw a thousand obstacles in
+      the way of a match in every respect acceptable to himself. Menteith's
+      private character was so excellent, and such was the rank and
+      consideration due to his fortune and family, that they outbalanced, in Sir
+      Duncan's opinion, the difference in their political opinions. Nor could he
+      have resolved, perhaps, had his own opinion of the match been less
+      favourable, to decline an opportunity of indulging the new-found child of
+      his hopes. There was, besides, a feeling of pride which dictated his
+      determination. To produce the Heiress of Ardenvohr to the world as one who
+      had been educated a poor dependant and musician in the family of
+      Darnlinvarach, had something in it that was humiliating. To introduce her
+      as the betrothed bride, or wedded wife, of the Earl of Menteith, upon an
+      attachment formed during her obscurity, was a warrant to the world that
+      she had at all times been worthy of the rank to which she was elevated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was under the influence of these considerations that Sir Duncan
+      Campbell announced to the lovers his consent that they should be married
+      in the chapel of the Castle, by Montrose's chaplain, and as privately as
+      possible. But when Montrose should break up from Inverlochy, for which
+      orders were expected in the course of a very few days, it was agreed that
+      the young Countess should depart with her father to his Castle, and remain
+      there until the circumstances of the nation permitted Menteith to retire
+      with honour from his present military employment. His resolution being
+      once taken, Sir Duncan Campbell would not permit the maidenly scruples of
+      his daughter to delay its execution; and it was therefore resolved that
+      the bridal should take place the next evening, being the second after the
+      battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     My maid&mdash;my blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
+     Due to the toils of many a bloody day.&mdash;ILLIAD.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M'Aulay, so long the kind
+      protector of Annot Lyle, should be made acquainted with the change in the
+      fortunes of his late protege; and Montrose, as he had undertaken,
+      communicated to him these remarkable events. With the careless and
+      cheerful indifference of his character, he expressed much more joy than
+      wonder at Annot's good fortune; had no doubt whatever she would merit it,
+      and as she had always been bred in loyal principles, would convey the
+      whole estate of her grim fanatical father to some honest fellow who loved
+      the king. "I should have no objection that my brother Allan should try his
+      chance," added he, "notwithstanding that Sir Duncan Campbell was the only
+      man who ever charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality. Annot Lyle could
+      always charm Allan out of the sullens, and who knows whether matrimony
+      might not make him more a man of this world?" Montrose hastened to
+      interrupt the progress of his castle-building, by informing him that the
+      lady was already wooed and won, and, with her father's approbation, was
+      almost immediately to be wedded to his kinsman, the Earl of Menteith; and
+      that in testimony of the high respect due to M'Aulay, so long the lady's
+      protector, he was now to request his presence at the ceremony. M'Aulay
+      looked very grave at this intimation, and drew up his person with the air
+      of one who thought that he had been neglected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He contrived," he said, "that his uniform kind treatment of the young
+      lady, while so many years under his roof, required something more upon
+      such an occasion than a bare compliment of ceremony. He might," he
+      thought, "without arrogance, have expected to have been consulted. He
+      wished his kinsman of Menteith well, no man could wish him better; but he
+      must say he thought he had been hasty in this matter. Allan's sentiments
+      towards the young lady had been pretty well understood, and he, for one,
+      could not see why the superior pretensions which he had upon her gratitude
+      should have been set aside, without at least undergoing some previous
+      discussion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed, entreated M'Aulay to be
+      reasonable, and to consider what probability there was that the Knight of
+      Ardenvohr could be brought to confer the hand of his sole heiress upon
+      Allan, whose undeniable excellent qualities were mingled with others, by
+      which they were overclouded in a manner that made all tremble who
+      approached him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lord," said Angus M'Aulay, "my brother Allan has, as God made us all,
+      faults as well as merits; but he is the best and bravest man of your army,
+      be the other who he may, and therefore ill deserved that his happiness
+      should have been so little consulted by your Excellency&mdash;by his own
+      near kinsman&mdash;and by a young person who owes all to him and to his
+      family."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montrose in vain endeavoured to place the subject in a different view;
+      this was the point in which Angus was determined to regard it, and he was
+      a man of that calibre of understanding, who is incapable of being
+      convinced when he has once adopted a prejudice. Montrose now assumed a
+      higher tone, and called upon Angus to take care how he nourished any
+      sentiments which might be prejudicial to his Majesty's service. He pointed
+      out to him, that he was peculiarly desirous that Allan's efforts should
+      not be interrupted in the course of his present mission; "a mission," he
+      said, "highly honourable for himself, and likely to prove most
+      advantageous to the King's cause. He expected his brother would hold no
+      communication with him upon other subjects, nor stir up any cause of
+      dissension, which might divert his mind from a matter of such importance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that "he was no makebate, or stirrer-up
+      of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker. His brother knew as well as
+      most men how to resent his own quarrels&mdash;as for Allan's mode of
+      receiving information, it was generally believed he had other sources than
+      those of ordinary couriers. He should not be surprised if they saw him
+      sooner than they expected."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A promise that he would not interfere, was the farthest to which Montrose
+      could bring this man, thoroughly good-tempered as he was on all occasions,
+      save when his pride, interest, or prejudices, were interfered with. And at
+      this point the Marquis was fain to leave the matter for the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A more willing guest at the bridal ceremony, certainly a more willing
+      attendant at the marriage feast, was to be expected in Sir Dugald
+      Dalgetty, whom Montrose resolved to invite, as having been a confidant to
+      the circumstances which preceded it. But even Sir Dugald hesitated, looked
+      on the elbows of his doublet, and the knees of his leather breeches, and
+      mumbled out a sort of reluctant acquiescence in the invitation, providing
+      he should find it possible, after consulting with the noble bridegroom.
+      Montrose was somewhat surprised, but scorning to testify displeasure, he
+      left Sir Dugald to pursue his own course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This carried him instantly to the chamber of the bride-groom, who, amidst
+      the scanty wardrobe which his camp-equipage afforded, was seeking for such
+      articles as might appear to the best advantage upon the approaching
+      occasion. Sir Dugald entered, and paid his compliments, with a very grave
+      face, upon his approaching happiness, which, he said, "he was very sorry
+      he was prevented from witnessing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In plain truth," said he, "I should but disgrace the ceremony, seeing
+      that I lack a bridal garment. Rents, and open seams, and tatters at elbows
+      in the apparel of the assistants, might presage a similar solution of
+      continuity in your matrimonial happiness&mdash;and to say truth, my lord,
+      you yourself must partly have the blame of this disappointment, in respect
+      you sent me upon a fool's errand to get a buff-coat out of the booty taken
+      by the Camerons, whereas you might as well have sent me to fetch a pound
+      of fresh butter out of a black dog's throat. I had no answer, my lord, but
+      brandished dirks and broadswords, and a sort of growling and jabbering in
+      what they call their language. For my part, I believe these Highlanders to
+      be no better than absolute pagans, and have been much scandalized by the
+      manner in which my acquaintance, Ranald MacEagh, was pleased to beat his
+      final march, a little while since."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Menteith's state of mind, disposed to be pleased with everything, and
+      everybody, the grave complaint of Sir Dugald furnished additional
+      amusement. He requested his acceptance of a very handsome buff-dress which
+      was lying on the floor. "I had intended it," he said, "for my own
+      bridal-garment, as being the least formidable of my warlike equipments,
+      and I have here no peaceful dress."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald made the necessary apologies&mdash;would not by any means
+      deprive&mdash;and so forth, until it happily occurred to him that it was
+      much more according to military rule that the Earl should be married in
+      his back and breast pieces, which dress he had seen the bridegroom wear at
+      the union of Prince Leo of Wittlesbach with the youngest daughter of old
+      George Frederick, of Saxony, under the auspices of the gallant Gustavus
+      Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and so forth. The good-natured young Earl
+      laughed, and acquiesced; and thus having secured at least one merry face
+      at his bridal, he put on a light and ornamented cuirass, concealed partly
+      by a velvet coat, and partly by a broad blue silk scarf, which he wore
+      over his shoulder, agreeably to his rank, and the fashion of the times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was now arranged; and it had been settled that, according to
+      the custom of the country, the bride and bridegroom should not again meet
+      until they were before the altar. The hour had already struck that
+      summoned the bridegroom thither, and he only waited in a small anteroom
+      adjacent to the chapel, for the Marquis, who condescended to act as
+      bride's-man upon the occasion. Business relating to the army having
+      suddenly required the Marquis's instant attention, Menteith waited his
+      return, it may be supposed, in some impatience; and when he heard the door
+      of the apartment open, he said, laughing, "You are late upon parade."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will find I am too early," said Allan M'Aulay, who burst into the
+      apartment. "Draw, Menteith, and defend yourself like a man, or die like a
+      dog!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are mad, Allan!" answered Menteith, astonished alike at his sudden
+      appearance, and at the unutterable fury of his demeanour. His cheeks were
+      livid&mdash;his eyes started from their sockets&mdash;his lips were
+      covered with foam, and his gestures were those of a demoniac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You lie, traitor!" was his frantic reply&mdash;"you lie in that, as you
+      lie in all you have said to me. Your life is a lie!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did I not speak my thoughts when I called you mad," said Menteith,
+      indignantly, "your own life were a brief one. In what do you charge me
+      with deceiving you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You told me," answered M'Aulay, "that you would not marry Annot Lyle!&mdash;False
+      traitor!&mdash;she now waits you at the altar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is you who speak false," retorted Menteith. "I told you the obscurity
+      of her birth was the only bar to our union&mdash;that is now removed; and
+      whom do you think yourself, that I should yield up my pretensions in your
+      favour?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Draw then," said M'Aulay; "we understand each other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not now," said Menteith, "and not here. Allan, you know me well&mdash;wait
+      till to-morrow, and you shall have fighting enough."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This hour&mdash;this instant&mdash;or never," answered M'Aulay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your triumph shall not go farther than the hour which is stricken.
+      Menteith, I entreat you by our relationship&mdash;by our joint conflicts
+      and labours&mdash;draw your sword, and defend your life!" As he spoke, he
+      seized the Earl's hand, and wrung it with such frantic earnestness, that
+      his grasp forced the blood to start under the nails. Menteith threw him
+      off with violence, exclaiming, "Begone, madman!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, be the vision accomplished!" said Allan; and, drawing his dirk,
+      struck with his whole gigantic force at the Earl's bosom. The temper of
+      the corslet threw the point of the weapon upwards, but a deep wound took
+      place between the neck and shoulder; and the force of the blow prostrated
+      the bridegroom on the floor. Montrose entered at one side of the anteroom.
+      The bridal company, alarmed at the noise, were in equal apprehension and
+      surprise; but ere Montrose could almost see what had happened, Allan
+      M'Aulay had rushed past him, and descended the castle stairs like
+      lightning. "Guards, shut the gate!" exclaimed Montrose&mdash;"Seize him&mdash;kill
+      him, if he resists!&mdash;He shall die, if he were my brother!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Allan prostrated, with a second blow of his dagger, a sentinel who was
+      upon duty&mdash;-traversed the camp like a mountain-deer, though pursued
+      by all who caught the alarm&mdash;threw himself into the river, and,
+      swimming to the opposite side, was soon lost among the woods. In the
+      course of the same evening, his brother Angus and his followers left
+      Montrose's camp, and, taking the road homeward, never again rejoined him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of Allan himself it is said, that, in a wonderfully short space after the
+      deed was committed, he burst into a room in the Castle of Inverary, where
+      Argyle was sitting in council, and flung on the table his bloody dirk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is it the blood of James Grahame?" said Argyle, a ghastly expression of
+      hope mixing with the terror which the sudden apparition naturally excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is the blood of his minion," answered M'Aulay&mdash;"It is the blood
+      which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have spilt my own."
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
+      <img src="images/0669m.jpg" alt="0669m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0669.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from that moment
+      nothing certain is known of his fate. As the boy Kenneth, with three of
+      the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards to cross Lochfine, it
+      is supposed they dogged his course, and that he perished by their hand in
+      some obscure wilderness. Another opinion maintains, that Allan M'Aulay
+      went abroad and died a monk of the Carthusian order. But nothing beyond
+      bare presumption could ever be brought in support of either opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His vengeance was much less complete than he probably fancied; for
+      Menteith, though so severely wounded as to remain long in a dangerous
+      state, was, by having adopted Major Dalgetty's fortunate recommendation of
+      a cuirass as a bridal-garment, happily secured from the worst consequences
+      of the blow. But his services were lost to Montrose; and it was thought
+      best, that he should be conveyed with his intended countess, now truly a
+      mourning bride, and should accompany his wounded father-in-law to the
+      castle of Sir Duncan at Ardenvohr. Dalgetty followed them to the water's
+      edge, reminding Menteith of the necessity of erecting a sconce on Drumsnab
+      to cover his lady's newly-acquired inheritance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They performed their voyage in safety, and Menteith was in a few weeks so
+      well in health, as to be united to Annot in the castle of her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Highlanders were somewhat puzzled to reconcile Menteith's recovery
+      with the visions of the second sight, and the more experienced Seers were
+      displeased with him for not having died. But others thought the credit of
+      the vision sufficiently fulfilled, by the wound inflicted by the hand, and
+      with the weapon, foretold; and all were of opinion, that the incident of
+      the ring, with the death's head, related to the death of the bride's
+      father, who did not survive her marriage many months. The incredulous
+      held, that all this was idle dreaming, and that Allan's supposed vision
+      was but a consequence of the private suggestions of his own passion,
+      which, having long seen in Menteith a rival more beloved than himself,
+      struggled with his better nature, and impressed upon him, as it were
+      involuntarily, the idea of killing his competitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Menteith did not recover sufficiently to join Montrose during his brief
+      and glorious career; and when that heroic general disbanded his army and
+      retired from Scotland, Menteith resolved to adopt the life of privacy,
+      which he led till the Restoration. After that happy event, he occupied a
+      situation in the land befitting his rank, lived long, happy alike in
+      public regard and in domestic affection, and died at a good old age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our DRAMATIS PERSONAE have been so limited, that, excepting Montrose,
+      whose exploits and fate are the theme of history, we have only to mention
+      Sir Dugald Dalgetty. This gentleman continued, with the most rigorous
+      punctuality, to discharge his duty, and to receive his pay, until he was
+      made prisoner, among others, upon the field of Philiphaugh. He was
+      condemned to share the fate of his fellow-officers upon that occasion, who
+      were doomed to death rather by denunciations from the pulpit, than the
+      sentence either of civil or military tribunal; their blood being
+      considered as a sort of sin-offering to take away the guilt of the land,
+      and the fate imposed upon the Canaanites, under a special dispensation,
+      being impiously and cruelly applied to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several Lowland officers, in the service of the Covenanters, interceded
+      for Dalgetty on this occasion, representing him as a person whose skill
+      would be useful in their army, and who would be readily induced to change
+      his service. But on this point they found Sir Dugald unexpectedly
+      obstinate. He had engaged with the King for a certain term, and, till that
+      was expired, his principles would not permit any shadow of changing. The
+      Covenanters, again, understood no such nice distinction, and he was in the
+      utmost danger of falling a martyr, not to this or that political
+      principle, but merely to his own strict ideas of a military enlistment.
+      Fortunately, his friends discovered, by computation, that there remained
+      but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which,
+      though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make
+      him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short
+      space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any
+      engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates
+      accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker's
+      corps, commonly called the Kirk's Own Regiment of Horse. Of his farther
+      history we know nothing, until we find him in possession of his paternal
+      estate of Drumthwacket, which he acquired, not by the sword, but by a
+      pacific intermarriage with Hannah Strachan, a matron somewhat stricken in
+      years, the widow of the Aberdeenshire Covenanter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Dugald is supposed to have survived the Revolution, as traditions of
+      no very distant date represent him as cruising about in that country, very
+      old, very deaf, and very full of interminable stories about the immortal
+      Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
+      Protestant Faith.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      READER! THE TALES OF MY LANDLORD ARE NOW FINALLY CLOSED, closed, and it
+      was my purpose to have addressed thee in the vein of Jedediah
+      Cleishbotham; but, like Horam the son of Asmar, and all other imaginary
+      story-tellers, Jedediah has melted into thin air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Cleishbotham bore the same resemblance to Ariel, as he at whose voice
+      he rose doth to the sage Prospero; and yet, so fond are we of the fictions
+      of our own fancy, that I part with him, and all his imaginary localities,
+      with idle reluctance. I am aware this is a feeling in which the reader
+      will little sympathize; but he cannot be more sensible than I am, that
+      sufficient varieties have now been exhibited of the Scottish character, to
+      exhaust one individual's powers of observation, and that to persist would
+      be useless and tedious. I have the vanity to suppose, that the popularity
+      of these Novels has shown my countrymen, and their peculiarities, in
+      lights which were new to the Southern reader; and that many, hitherto
+      indifferent upon the subject, have been induced to read Scottish history,
+      from the allusions to it in these works of fiction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I retire from the field, conscious that there remains behind not only a
+      large harvest, but labourers capable of gathering it in. More than one
+      writer has of late displayed talents of this description; and if the
+      present author, himself a phantom, may be permitted to distinguish a
+      brother, or perhaps a sister shadow, he would mention, in particular, the
+      author of the very lively work entitled MARRIAGE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV. APPENDIX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      No. I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scarcity of my late friend's poem may be an excuse for adding the
+      spirited conclusion of Clan Alpin's vow. The Clan Gregor has met in the
+      ancient church of Balquidder. The head of Drummond-Ernoch is placed on the
+      altar, covered for a time with the banner of the tribe. The Chief of the
+      tribe advances to the altar:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     And pausing, on the banner gazed;
+     Then cried in scorn, his finger raised,
+     "This was the boon of Scotland's king;"
+     And, with a quick and angry fling,
+     Tossing the pageant screen away,
+     The dead man's head before him lay.
+     Unmoved he scann'd the visage o'er,
+     The clotted locks were dark with gore,
+     The features with convulsion grim,
+     The eyes contorted, sunk, and dim.
+     But unappall'd, in angry mood,
+     With lowering brow, unmoved he stood.
+     Upon the head his bared right hand
+     He laid, the other grasp'd his brand:
+     Then kneeling, cried, "To Heaven I swear
+     This deed of death I own, and share;
+     As truly, fully mine, as though
+     This my right hand had dealt the blow:
+     Come then, our foeman, one, come all;
+     If to revenge this caitiffs fall
+     One blade is bared, one bow is drawn,
+     Mine everlasting peace I pawn,
+     To claim from them, or claim from him,
+     In retribution, limb for limb.
+     In sudden fray, or open strife,
+     This steel shall render life for life."
+     He ceased; and at his beckoning nod,
+     The clansmen to the altar trod;
+     And not a whisper breathed around,
+     And nought was heard of mortal sound,
+     Save from the clanking arms they bore,
+     That rattled on the marble floor;
+     And each, as he approach'd in haste,
+     Upon the scalp his right hand placed;
+     With livid lip, and gather'd brow,
+     Each uttered, in his turn, the vow.
+     Fierce Malcolm watch'd the passing scene,
+     And search'd them through with glances keen;
+     Then dash'd a tear-drop from his eye;
+     Unhid it came&mdash;he knew not why.
+     Exulting high, he towering stood:
+     "Kinsmen," he cried, "of Alpin's blood,
+     And worthy of Clan Alpin's name,
+     Unstain'd by cowardice and shame,
+     E'en do, spare nocht, in time of ill
+     Shall be Clan Alpin's legend still!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      No. II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It has been disputed whether the Children of the Mist were actual
+      MacGregors, or whether they were not outlaws named MacDonald, belonging to
+      Ardnamurchan. The following act of the Privy Council seems to decide the
+      question:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Edinburgh, 4th February, 1589.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The same day, the Lords of Secret Council being crediblie informed of ye
+      cruel and mischievous proceeding of ye wicked Clangrigor, so lang
+      continueing in blood, slaughters, herships, manifest reifts, and stouths
+      committed upon his Hieness' peaceable and good subjects; inhabiting ye
+      countries ewest ye brays of ye Highlands, thir money years bybgone; but
+      specially heir after ye cruel murder of umqll Jo. Drummond of
+      Drummoneyryuch, his Majesties proper tennant and ane of his fosters of
+      Glenartney, committed upon ye day of last bypast, be certain of ye said
+      clan, be ye council and determination of ye haill, avow and to defend ye
+      authors yrof qoever wald persew for revenge of ye same, qll ye said Jo.
+      was occupied in seeking of venison to his Hieness, at command of Pat. Lord
+      Drummond, stewart of Stratharne, and principal forrester of Clenartney;
+      the Queen, his Majesties dearest spouse, being yn shortlie looked for to
+      arrive in this realm. Likeas, after ye murder committed, ye authors yrof
+      cutted off ye said umqll Jo. Drummond's head, and carried the same to the
+      Laird of M'Grigor, who, and the haill surname of M'Grigors, purposely
+      conveined upon the Sunday yrafter, at the Kirk of Buchquhidder; qr they
+      caused ye said umqll John's head to be pnted to ym, and yr avowing ye sd
+      murder to have been committed by yr communion, council, and determination,
+      laid yr hands upon the pow, and in eithnik, and barbarous manner, swear to
+      defend ye authors of ye sd murder, in maist proud contempt of our sovrn
+      Lord and his authoritie, and in evil example to others wicked limmaris to
+      do ye like, give ys sall be suffered to remain unpunished."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then follows a commission to the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Athole,
+      Montrose, Pat. Lord Drummond, Ja. Commendator of Incheffray, And. Campbel
+      of Lochinnel, Duncan Campbel of Ardkinglas, Lauchlane M'Intosh of
+      Dunnauchtane, Sir Jo. Murray of Tullibarden, knt., Geo. Buchanan of that
+      Ilk, and And. M'Farlane of Ariquocher, to search for and apprehend Alaster
+      M'Grigor of Glenstre (and a number of others nominatim), "and all others
+      of the said Clangrigor, or ye assistars, culpable of the said odious
+      murther, or of thift, reset of thift, herships, and sornings, qrever they
+      may be apprehended. And if they refuse to be taken, or flees to strengths
+      and houses, to pursue and assege them with fire and sword; and this
+      commission to endure for the space of three years."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the system of police in 1589; and such the state of Scotland
+      nearly thirty years after the Reformation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V. NOTES.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Note I.&mdash;FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The military men of the times agreed upon dependencies of honour, as they
+      called them, with all the metaphysical argumentation of civilians, or
+      school divines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The English officer, to whom Sir James Turner was prisoner after the rout
+      at Uttoxeter, demanded his parole of honour not to go beyond the wall of
+      Hull without liberty. "He brought me the message himself,&mdash;I told him
+      I was ready to do so, provided he removed his guards from me, for FIDES ET
+      FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA; and, if he took my word for my fidelity, he was
+      obliged to trust it, otherwise, it was needless for him to seek it, either
+      to give trust to my word, which I would not break, or his own guards, who
+      I supposed would not deceive him. In this manner I dealt with him, because
+      I knew him to be a scholar."&mdash;TURNER'S MEMOIRS, p. 80. The English
+      officer allowed the strength of the reasoning; but that concise reasoner,
+      Cromwell, soon put an end to the dilemma: "Sir James Turner must give his
+      parole, or be laid in irons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Note II.&mdash;WRAITHS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A species of apparition, similar to what the Germans call a Double-Ganger,
+      was believed in by the Celtic tribes, and is still considered as an emblem
+      of misfortune or death. Mr. Kirke (See Note to ROB ROY,), the minister of
+      Aberfoil, who will no doubt be able to tell us more of the matter should
+      he ever come back from Fairy-land, gives us the following:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Some men of that exalted sight, either by art or nature, have told me
+      they have seen at these meetings a double man, or the shape of some man in
+      two places, that is, a superterranean and a subterranean inhabitant
+      perfectly resembling one another in all points, whom he, notwithstanding,
+      could easily distinguish one fro another by some secret tokens and
+      operations, and so go speak to the man his neighbour and familiar, passing
+      by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch that every element
+      and different state of being have animals resembling those of another
+      element, as there be fishes at sea resembling Monks of late order in all
+      their hoods and dresses, so as the Roman invention of good and bad daemons
+      and guardian angels particularly assigned, is called by them ane ignorant
+      mistake, springing only from this originall. They call this reflex man a
+      Co-Walker, every way like the man, as a twin-brother and companion
+      haunting him as his shadow, as is that seen and known among men resembling
+      the originall, both before and after the originall is dead, and was also
+      often seen of old to enter a hous, by which the people knew that the
+      person of that liknes was to visit them within a few days. This copy,
+      echo, or living picture, goes at last to his own herd. It accompanied that
+      person so long and frequently for ends best known to its selve, whether to
+      guard him from the secret assaults of some of its own folks, or only as an
+      sportfull ape to counterfeit all his actions."&mdash;KIRKE'S SECRET
+      COMMOMWEALTH, p. 3.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two following apparitions, resembling the vision of Allan M'Aulay in
+      the text, occur in Theophilus Insulanus (Rev. Mr. Fraser's Treatise on the
+      Second Sight, Relations x. and xvii.):&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barbara Macpherson, relict of the deceased Mr. Alexander MacLeod, late
+      minister of St. Kilda, informed me the natives of that island had a
+      particular kind of second sight, which is always a forerunner of their
+      approaching end. Some months before they sicken, they are haunted with an
+      apparition, resembling themselves in all respects as to their person,
+      features, or clothing. This image, seemingly animated, walks with them in
+      the field in broad daylight; and if they are employed in delving,
+      harrowing, seed-sowing, or any other occupation, they are at the same time
+      mimicked by this ghostly visitant. My informer added further that having
+      visited a sick person of the inhabitants, she had the curiosity to enquire
+      of him, if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself as above
+      described; he answered in the affirmative, and told her, that to make
+      farther trial, as he was going out of his house of a morning, he put on
+      straw-rope garters instead of those he formerly used, and having gone to
+      the fields, his other self appeared in such garters. The conclusion was,
+      the sick man died of that ailment, and she no longer questioned the truth
+      of those remarkable presages."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Margaret MacLeod, an honest woman advanced in years, informed me, that
+      when she was a young woman in the family of Grishornish, a dairy-maid, who
+      daily used to herd the calves in a park close to the house, observed, at
+      different times, a woman resembling herself in shape and attire, walking
+      solitarily at no great distance from her, and being surprised at the
+      apparition, to make further trial, she put the back part of her upper
+      garment foremost, and anon the phantom was dressed in the same manner,
+      which made her uneasy, believing it portended some fatal consequence to
+      herself. In a short time thereafter she was seized with a fever, which
+      brought her to her end, and before her sickness and on her deathbed,
+      declared the second sight to several."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Legend of Montrose, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LEGEND OF MONTROSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1461-h.htm or 1461-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/6/1461/
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/old/mntrs10.txt b/old/old/mntrs10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..15d86a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/mntrs10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10428 @@
+Project Gutenberg Etext of A Legend of Montrose, by Walter Scott
+#5 in our series by Walter Scott
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+Project Gutenberg surfs with a modem donated by Supra.
+
+
+A Legend of Montrose
+
+by Walter Scott
+
+September, 1998  [Etext #1461]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext of A Legend of Montrose, by Walter Scott
+******This file should be named mntrs10.txt or mntrs10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, mntrs11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mntrs10a.txt
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we do NOT keep these books
+in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
+files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1998 for a total of 1500+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 150 billion Etexts given away.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only 10% of the present number of computer users.  2001
+should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
+will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
+
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF MONTROSE
+
+by
+
+Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+I.      Introduction to A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+II.     Introduction (Supplement).  Sergeant More M'Alpin.
+III.    Main text of A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+IV.     Appendix    No. I       Clan Alpin's Vow.
+                    No. II      The Children of the Mist.
+V.      Notes       Note I      Fides et Fiducia sunt relativa.
+                    Note II     Wraiths.
+
+Note: Footnotes in the printed book have been inserted in the
+      etext in square brackets ("[]") close to the place where
+      they were referenced by a suffix in the original text.
+
+
+
+
+I.  INTRODUCTION TO A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+
+The Legend of Montrose was written chiefly with a view to place
+before the reader the melancholy fate of John Lord Kilpont,
+eldest son of William Earl of Airth and Menteith, and the
+singular circumstances attending the birth and history of James
+Stewart of Ardvoirlich, by whose hand the unfortunate nobleman
+fell.
+
+Our subject leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin
+with one still more ancient than that to which our story relates.
+During the reign of James IV., a great feud between the powerful
+families of Drummond and Murray divided Perthshire.  The former,
+being the most numerous and powerful, cooped up eight score of
+the Murrays in the kirk of Monivaird, and set fire to it.  The
+wives and the children of the ill-fated men, who had also found
+shelter in the church, perished by the same conflagration.  One
+man, named David Murray, escaped by the humanity of one of the
+Drummonds, who received him in his arms as he leaped from amongst
+the flames.  As King James IV. ruled with more activity than most
+of his predecessors, this cruel deed was severely revenged, and
+several of the perpetrators were beheaded at Stirling.  In
+consequence of the prosecution against his clan, the Drummond by
+whose assistance David Murray had escaped, fled to Ireland,
+until, by means of the person whose life he had saved, he was
+permitted to return to Scotland, where he and his descendants
+were distinguished by the name of Drummond-Eirinich, or Ernoch,
+that is, Drummond of Ireland; and the same title was bestowed on
+their estate.
+
+The Drummond-ernoch of James the Sixth's time was a king's
+forester in the forest of Glenartney, and chanced to be employed
+there in search of venison about the year 1588, or early in 1589.
+This forest was adjacent to the chief haunts of the MacGregors,
+or a particular race of them, known by the title of MacEagh, or
+Children of the Mist.  They considered the forester's hunting in
+their vicinity as an aggression, or perhaps they had him at feud,
+for the apprehension or slaughter of some of their own name, or
+for some similar reason.  This tribe of MacGregors were outlawed
+and persecuted, as the reader may see in the Introduction to ROB
+ROY; and every man's hand being against them, their hand was of
+course directed against every man.  In short, they surprised and
+slew Drummond-ernoch, cut off his head, and carried it with them,
+wrapt in the corner of one of their plaids.
+
+In the full exultation of vengeance, they stopped at the house of
+Ardvoirlich and demanded refreshment, which the lady, a sister of
+the murdered Drummond-ernoch (her husband being absent), was
+afraid or unwilling to refuse.  She caused bread and cheese to be
+placed before them, and gave directions for more substantial
+refreshments to be prepared.  While she was absent with this
+hospitable intention, the barbarians placed the head of her
+brother on the table, filling the mouth with bread and cheese,
+and bidding him eat, for many a merry meal he had eaten in that
+house.
+
+The poor woman returning, and beholding this dreadful sight,
+shrieked aloud, and fled into the woods, where, as described in
+the romance, she roamed a raving maniac, and for some time
+secreted herself from all living society.  Some remaining
+instinctive feeling brought her at length to steal a glance from
+a distance at the maidens while they milked the cows, which being
+observed, her husband, Ardvoirlich, had her conveyed back to her
+home, and detained her there till she gave birth to a child, of
+whom she had been pregnant; after which she was observed
+gradually to recover her mental faculties.
+
+Meanwhile the outlaws had carried to the utmost their insults
+against the regal authority, which indeed, as exercised, they had
+little reason for respecting.  They bore the same bloody trophy,
+which they had so savagely exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich,
+into the old church of Balquidder, nearly in the centre of their
+country, where the Laird of MacGregor and all his clan being
+convened for the purpose, laid their hands successively on the
+dead man's head, and swore, in heathenish and barbarous manner,
+to defend the author of the deed.  This fierce and vindictive
+combination gave the author's late and lamented friend, Sir
+Alexander Boswell, Bart., subject for a spirited poem, entitled
+"Clan-Alpin's Vow," which was printed, but not, I believe,
+published, in 1811 [See Appendix No. I].
+
+The fact is ascertained by a proclamation from the Privy Council,
+dated 4th February, 1589, directing letters of fire and sword
+against the MacGregors [See Appendix No. II].  This fearful
+commission was executed with uncommon fury.  The late excellent
+John Buchanan of Cambusmore showed the author some correspondence
+between his ancestor, the Laird of Buchanan, and Lord Drummond,
+about sweeping certain valleys with their followers, on a fixed
+time and rendezvous, and "taking sweet revenge for the death of
+their cousin, Drummond-ernoch." In spite of all, however, that
+could be done, the devoted tribe of MacGregor still bred up
+survivors to sustain and to inflict new cruelties and injuries.
+
+[I embrace the opportunity given me by a second mention of this
+tribe, to notice an error, which imputes to an individual named
+Ciar Mohr MacGregor, the slaughter of the students at the battle
+of Glenfruin. I am informed from the authority of John Gregorson,
+Esq., that the chieftain so named was dead nearly a century
+before the battle in question, and could not, therefore, have
+done the cruel action mentioned.  The mistake does not rest with
+me, as I disclaimed being responsible for the tradition while I
+quoted it, but with vulgar fame, which is always disposed to
+ascribe remarkable actions to a remarkable name.--See the
+erroneous passage, ROB ROY, Introduction; and so soft sleep the
+offended phantom of Dugald Ciar Mohr.
+
+It is with mingled pleasure and shame that I record the more
+important error, of having announced as deceased my learned
+acquaintance, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, minister of Aberfoil.--See
+ROB ROY, p.360.  I cannot now recollect the precise ground of my
+depriving my learned and excellent friend of his existence,
+unless, like Mr. Kirke, his predecessor in the parish, the
+excellent Doctor had made a short trip to Fairyland, with whose
+wonders he is so well acquainted.  But however I may have been
+misled, my regret is most sincere for having spread such a
+rumour; and no one can be more gratified than I that the report,
+however I have been induced to credit and give it currency, is a
+false one, and that Dr. Grahame is still the living pastor of
+Aberfoil, for the delight and instruction of his brother
+antiquaries.]
+
+Meanwhile Young James Stewart of Ardvoirlich grew up to manhood
+uncommonly tall, strong, and active, with such power in the grasp
+of his hand in particular, as could force the blood from beneath
+the nails of the persons who contended with him in this feat of
+strength.  His temper was moody, fierce, and irascible; yet he
+must have had some ostensible good qualities, as he was greatly
+beloved by Lord Kilpont, the eldest son of the Earl of Airth and
+Menteith.
+
+This gallant young nobleman joined Montrose in the setting up his
+standard in 1644, just before the decisive battle at Tippermuir,
+on the 1st September in that year.  At that time, Stewart of
+Ardvoirlich shared the confidence of the young Lord by day, and
+his bed by night, when, about four or five days after the battle,
+Ardvoirlich, either from a fit of sudden fury or deep malice long
+entertained against his unsuspecting friend, stabbed Lord Kilpont
+to the heart, and escaped from the camp of Montrose, having
+killed a sentinel who attempted to detain him.  Bishop Guthrie
+gives us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont
+had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to
+assassinate Montrose.  But it does not appear that there is any
+authority for this charge, which rests on mere suspicion.
+Ardvoirlich, the assassin, certainly did fly to the Covenanters,
+and was employed and promoted by them.  He obtained a pardon for
+the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, confirmed by Parliament in 1634,
+and was made Major of Argyle's regiment in 1648.  Such are the
+facts of the tale here given as a Legend of Montrose's wars.  The
+reader will find they are considerably altered in the fictitious
+narrative.
+
+The author has endeavoured to enliven the tragedy of the tale by
+the introduction of a personage proper to the time and country.
+In this he has been held by excellent judges to have been in some
+degree successful.  The contempt of commerce entertained by young
+men having some pretence to gentility, the poverty of the country
+of Scotland, the national disposition to wandering and to
+adventure, all conduced to lead the Scots abroad into the
+military service of countries which were at war with each other.
+They were distinguished on the Continent by their bravery; but in
+adopting the trade of mercenary soldiers, they necessarily
+injured their national character.  The tincture of learning,
+which most of them possessed, degenerated into pedantry; their
+good breeding became mere ceremonial; their fear of dishonour no
+longer kept them aloof from that which was really unworthy, but
+was made to depend on certain punctilious observances totally
+apart from that which was in itself deserving of praise.  A
+cavalier of honour, in search of his fortune, might, for example,
+change his service as he would his shirt, fight, like the doughty
+Captain Dalgetty, in one cause after another, without regard to
+the justice of the quarrel, and might plunder the peasantry
+subjected to him by the fate of war with the most unrelenting
+rapacity; but he must beware how he sustained the slightest
+reproach, even from a clergyman, if it had regard to neglect on
+the score of duty. The following occurrence will prove the truth
+of what I mean:--
+
+"Here I must not forget the memory of one preacher, Master
+William Forbesse, a preacher for souldiers, yea, and a captaine
+in neede to leade souldiers on a good occasion, being full of
+courage, with discretion and good conduct, beyond some captaines
+I have knowne, that were not so capable as he.  At this time he
+not onely prayed for us, but went on with us, to remarke, as I
+thinke, men's carriage; and having found a sergeant neglecting
+his dutie and his honour at such a time (whose name I will not
+expresse), having chidden him, did promise to reveale him unto
+me, as he did after their service.  The sergeant being called
+before me, and accused, did deny his accusation, alleaging, if he
+were no pasteur that had alleaged it, he would not lie under the
+injury, The preacher offered to fight with him, [in proof] that
+it was truth he had spoken of him; whereupon I cashiered the
+sergeant, and gave his place to a worthier, called Mungo Gray, a
+gentleman of good worth, and of much courage. The sergeant being
+cashiered, never called Master William to account, for which he
+was evill thought of; so that he retired home, and quit the
+warres."
+
+The above quotation is taken from a work which the author
+repeatedly consulted while composing the following sheets, and
+which is in great measure written in the humour of Captain Dugald
+Dalgetty.  It bears the following formidable title:--"MONRO his
+Expedition with the worthy Scots Regiment, called MacKeye's
+Regiment, levied in August 1626, by Sir Donald MacKeye Lord Rees
+Colonel, for his Majestie's service of Denmark, and reduced after
+the battle of Nerling, in September 1634, at Wormes, in the Palz:
+Discharged in several duties and observations of service, first,
+under the magnanimous King of Denmark, during his wars against
+the Empire; afterwards under the invincible King of Sweden,
+during his Majestie's lifetime; and since under the Director-
+General, the Rex-Chancellor Oxensterne, and his Generals:
+collected and gathered together, at spare hours, by Colonel
+Robert Monro, as First Lieutenant under the said Regiment, to the
+noble and worthy Captain Thomas MacKenzie of Kildon, brother to
+the noble Lord, the Lord Earl of Seaforth, for the use of all
+noble Cavaliers favouring the laudable profession of arms.  To
+which is annexed, the Abridgement of Exercise, and divers
+Practical Observations for the Younger Officer, his
+consideration.  Ending with the Soldier's Meditations on going on
+Service."--London, 1637.
+
+Another worthy of the same school, and nearly the same views of
+the military character, is Sir James Turner, a soldier of
+fortune, who rose to considerable rank in the reign of Charles
+II., had a command in Galloway and Dumfries-shire, for the
+suppression of conventicles, and was made prisoner by the
+insurgent Covenanters in that rising which was followed by the
+battle of Pentland.  Sir James is a person even of superior
+pretensions to Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, having written a
+Military Treatise on the Pike-Exercise, called "Pallas Armata."
+Moreover, he was educated at Glasgow College, though he escaped
+to become an Ensign in the German wars, instead of taking his
+degree of Master of Arts at that learned seminary.
+
+In latter times, he was author of several discourses on
+historical and literary subjects, from which the Bannatyne Club
+have extracted and printed such passages as concern his Life and
+Times, under the title of SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS.  From this
+curious book I extract the following passage, as an example of
+how Captain Dalgetty might have recorded such an incident had he
+kept a journal, or, to give it a more just character, it is such
+as the genius of De Foe would have devised, to give the minute
+and distinguishing features of truth to a fictitious narrative:--
+
+"Heere I will set doun ane accident befell me; for thogh it was
+not a very strange one, yet it was a very od one in all its
+parts.  My tuo brigads lay in a village within halfe a mile of
+Applebie; my own quarter was in a gentleman's house, ho was a
+Ritmaster, and at that time with Sir Marmaduke; his wife keepd
+her chamber readie to be brought to bed. The castle being over,
+and Lambert farre enough, I resolved to goe to bed everie night,
+haveing had fatigue enough before. 'The first night I sleepd well
+enough; and riseing nixt morning, I misd one linnen stockine, one
+halfe silke one, and one boothose, the accoustrement under a
+boote for one leg; neither could they be found for any search.
+Being provided of more of the same kind, I made myselfe reddie,
+and rode to the head-quarters.  At my returne, I could heare no
+news of my stockins.  That night I went to bed, and nixt morning
+found myselfe just so used; missing the three stockins for one
+leg onlie, the other three being left intire as they were the day
+before.  A narrower search then the first was made, bot without
+successe.  I had yet in reserve one paire of whole stockings, and
+a paire of boothose, greater then the former. These I put on my
+legs.  The third morning I found the same usage, the stockins for
+one leg onlie left me.  It was time for me then, and my servants
+too, to imagine it must be rats that had shard my stockins so
+inequallie with me; and this the mistress of the house knew well
+enough, but would not tell it me.  The roome, which was a low
+parlour, being well searched with candles, the top of my great
+boothose was found at a hole, in which they had drawne all the
+rest. I went abroad and ordered the boards to be raised, to see
+how the rats had disposed of my moveables.  The mistress sent a
+servant of her oune to be present at this action, which she knew
+concerned her.  One board being bot a litle opend, a litle boy of
+mine thrust in his hand, and fetchd with him foure and tuentie
+old peeces of gold, and one angell.  The servant of the house
+affirmed it appertained to his mistres. The boy bringing the gold
+to me, I went immediatlie to the gentlewomans chamber, and told
+her, it was probable Lambert haveing quarterd in that house, as
+indeed he had, some of his servants might have hid that gold; and
+if so, it was lawfullie mine; bot if she could make it appeare it
+belongd to her, I should immediatlie give it her.  The poore
+gentlewoman told me with many teares, that her husband being none
+of the frugallest men (and indeed he was a spendthrift), she had
+hid that gold without his, knowledge, to make use of it as she
+had occasion, especiallie when she lay in; and conjured me, as I
+lovd the King (for whom her husband and she had suffered much),
+not to detaine her gold.  She said, if there was either more or
+lesse then foure and tuentie whole peeces, and two halfe ones, it
+sould be none of hers; and that they were put by her in a red
+velvet purse.  After I had given her assureance of her gold, a
+new search is made, the other angell is found, the velvet purse
+all gnawd in bits, as my stockins were, and the gold instantlie
+restord to the gentlewoman.  I have often heard that the eating
+or gnawing of cloths by rats is ominous, and portends some
+mischance to fall on those to whom the cloths belong.  I thank
+God I was never addicted to such divinations, or heeded them.  It
+is true, that more misfortunes then one fell on me shortlie
+after; bot I am sure I could have better forseene them myselfe
+then rats or any such vermine, and yet did it not. I have heard
+indeed many fine stories told of rats, how they abandon houses
+and ships, when the first are to be burnt and the second dround.
+Naturalists say they are very sagacious creatures, and I beleeve
+they are so; bot I shall never be of the opinion they can forsee
+future contingencies, which I suppose the divell himselfe can
+neither forknow nor fortell; these being things which the
+Almightie hath keepd hidden in the bosome of his divine
+prescience.  And whither the great God hath preordained or
+predestinated these things, which to us are contingent, to fall
+out by ane uncontrollable and unavoidable necessitie, is a
+question not yet decided." [SIR JAMES TURNER'S MEMOIRS, Bannatyne
+edition, p. 59.]
+
+In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more
+modern sketch of a Scottish soldier of the old fashion, by a
+masterhand, in the character of Lesmahagow, since the existence
+of that doughty Captain alone must deprive the present author of
+all claim to absolute originality.  Still Dalgetty, as the
+production of his own fancy, has been so far a favourite with its
+parent, that he has fallen into the error of assigning to the
+Captain too prominent a part in the story. This is the opinion of
+a critic who encamps on the highest pinnacles of literature; and
+the author is so far fortunate in having incurred his censure,
+that it gives his modesty a decent apology for quoting the
+praise, which it would have ill-befited him to bring forward in
+an unmingled state.  The passage occurs in the EDINBURGH REVIEW,
+No. 55, containing a criticism on IVANHOE:--
+
+"There is too much, perhaps, of Dalgetty,--or, rather, he
+engrosses too great a proportion of the work,--for, in himself,
+we think he is uniformly entertaining;--and the author has
+nowhere shown more affinity to that matchless spirit who could
+bring out his Falstaffs and his Pistols, in act after act, and
+play after play, and exercise them every time with scenes of
+unbounded loquacity, without either exhausting their humour, or
+varying a note from its characteristic tone, than in his large
+and reiterated specimens of the eloquence of the redoubted Ritt-
+master.  The general idea of the character is familiar to our
+comic dramatists after the Restoration--and may be said in some
+measure to be compounded of Captain Fluellen and Bobadil;--but
+the ludicrous combination of the SOLDADO with the Divinity
+student of Mareschal-College, is entirely original; and the
+mixture of talent, selfishness, courage, coarseness, and conceit,
+was never so happily exemplified.  Numerous as his speeches are,
+there is not one that is not characteristic--and, to our taste,
+divertingly ludicrous."
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+While these pages were passing through the press, the author
+received a letter from the present Robert Stewart of Ardvoirlich,
+favouring him with the account of the unhappy slaughter of Lord
+Kilpont, differing from, and more probable than, that given by
+Bishop Wishart, whose narrative infers either insanity or the
+blackest treachery on the part of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich,
+the ancestor of the present family of that name.  It is but fair
+to give the entire communication as received from my respected
+correspondent, which is more minute than the histories of the
+period.
+
+"Although I have not the honour of being personally known to you,
+I hope you will excuse the liberty I now take, in addressing you
+on the subject of a transaction more than once alluded to by you,
+in which an ancestor of mine was unhappily concerned.  I allude
+to the slaughter of Lord Kilpont, son of the Earl of Airth and
+Monteith, in 1644, by James Stewart of Ardvoirlich.  As the cause
+of this unhappy event, and the quarrel which led to it, have
+never been correctly stated in any history of the period in which
+it took place, I am induced, in consequence of your having, in
+the second series of your admirable Tales on the History of
+Scotland, adopted Wishart's version of the transaction, and being
+aware that your having done so will stamp it with an authenticity
+which it does not merit, and with a view, as far as possible, to
+do justice to the memory of my unfortunate ancestor, to send you
+the account of this affair as it has been handed down in the
+family.
+
+"James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, who lived in the early part of the
+17th century, and who was the unlucky cause of the slaughter of
+Lord Kilpont, as before mentioned, was appointed to the command
+of one of several independent companies raised in the Highlands
+at the commencement of the troubles in the reign of Charles I.;
+another of these companies was under the command of Lord Kilpont,
+and a strong intimacy, strengthened by a distant relationship,
+subsisted between them.  When Montrose raised the royal standard,
+Ardvoirlich was one of the first to declare for him, and is said
+to have been a principal means of bringing over Lord Kilpont to
+the same cause; and they accordingly, along with Sir John
+Drummond and their respective followers, joined Montrose, as
+recorded by Wishart, at Buchanty.  While they served together, so
+strong was their intimacy, that they lived and slept in the same
+tent.
+
+"In the meantime, Montrose had been joined by the Irish under the
+command of Alexander Macdonald; these, on their march to join
+Montrose, had committed some excesses on lands belonging to
+Ardvoirlich, which lay in the line of their march from the west
+coast.  Of this Ardvoirlich complained to Montrose, who, probably
+wishing as much as possible to conciliate his new allies, treated
+it in rather an evasive manner.  Ardvoirlich, who was a man of
+violent passions, having failed to receive such satisfaction as
+he required, challenged Macdonald to single combat.  Before they
+met, however, Montrose, on the information and by advice, as it
+is said, of Kilpont, laid them both under arrest. Montrose,
+seeing the evils of such a feud at such a critical time, effected
+a sort of reconciliation between them, and forced them to shake
+hands in his presence; when, it was said, that Ardvoirlich, who
+was a very powerful man, took such a hold of Macdonald's hand as
+to make the blood start from his fingers.  Still, it would
+appear, Ardvoirlich was by no means reconciled.
+
+"A few days after the battle of Tippermuir, when Montrose with
+his army was encamped at Collace, an entertainment was given by
+him to his officers, in honour of the victory he had obtained,
+and Kilpont and his comrade Ardvoirlich were of the party.  After
+returning to their quarters, Ardvoirlich, who seemed still to
+brood over his quarrel with Macdonald, and being heated with
+drink, began to blame Lord Kilpont for the part he had taken in
+preventing his obtaining redress, and reflecting against Montrose
+for not allowing him what he considered proper reparation.
+Kilpont of course defended the conduct of himself and his
+relative Montrose, till their argument came to high words; and
+finally, from the state they were both in, by an easy transition,
+to blows, when Ardvoirlich, with his dirk, struck Kilpont dead on
+the spot.  He immediately fled, and under the cover of a thick
+mist escaped pursuit, leaving his eldest son Henry, who had been
+mortally wounded at Tippermuir, on his deathbed.
+
+"His followers immediately withdrew from Montrose, and no course
+remained for him but to throw himself into the arms of the
+opposite faction, by whom he was well received. His name is
+frequently mentioned in Leslie's campaigns, and on more than one
+occasion he is mentioned as having afforded protection to several
+of his former friends through his interest with Leslie, when the
+King's cause became desperate.
+
+"The foregoing account of this unfortunate transaction, I am well
+aware, differs materially from the account given by Wishart, who
+alleges that Stewart had laid a plot for the assassination of
+Montrose, and that he murdered Lord Kilpont in consequence of his
+refusal to participate in his design. Now, I may be allowed to
+remark, that besides Wishart having always been regarded as a
+partial historian, and very questionable authority on any subject
+connected with the motives or conduct of those who differed from
+him in opinion, that even had Stewart formed such a design,
+Kilpont, from his name and connexions, was likely to be the very
+last man of whom Stewart would choose to make a confidant and
+accomplice.  On the other hand, the above account, though never,
+that I am aware, before hinted at, has been a constant tradition
+in the family; and, from the comparative recent date of the
+transaction, and the sources from which the tradition has been
+derived, I have no reason to doubt its perfect authenticity.  It
+was most circumstantially detailed as above, given to my father,
+Mr. Stewart, now of Ardvoirlich, many years ago, by a man nearly
+connected with the family, who lived to the age of 100.  This man
+was a great-grandson of James Stewart, by a natural son John, of
+whom many stories are still current in this country, under his
+appellation of JOHN DHU MHOR.  This John was with his father at
+the time, and of course was a witness of the whole transaction;
+he lived till a considerable time after the Revolution, and it
+was from him that my father's informant, who was a man before his
+grandfather, John dhu Mhor's death, received the information as
+above stated.
+
+"I have many apologies to offer for trespassing so long on your
+patience; but I felt a natural desire, if possible, to correct
+what I conceive to be a groundless imputation on the memory of my
+ancestor, before it shall come to be considered as a matter of
+History.  That he was a man of violent passions and singular
+temper, I do not pretend to deny, as many traditions still
+current in this country amply verify; but that he was capable of
+forming a design to assassinate Montrose, the whole tenor of his
+former conduct and principles contradict.  That he was obliged to
+join the opposite party, was merely a matter of safety, while
+Kilpont had so many powerful friends and connexions able and
+ready to avenge his death.
+
+"I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make
+what use of this communication you please, and either to reject
+it altogether, or allow it such credit as you think it deserves;
+and I shall be ready at all times to furnish you with any further
+information on this subject which you may require, and which it
+may be in my power to afford.
+
+"ARDVOIRLICH,
+15TH JANUARY, 1830."
+
+The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so
+correct, is a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the
+victim, it would seem, of his own violent passions, but perhaps
+incapable of an act of premeditated treachery.
+
+ABBOTSFORD,
+1ST AUGUST, 1830.
+
+
+*
+
+
+II.  INTRODUCTION (Supplement).
+
+Sergeant More M'Alpin was, during his residence among us, one of
+the most honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh.  No one thought of
+disputing his title to the great leathern chair on the "cosiest
+side of the chimney," in the common room of the Wallace Arms, on
+a Saturday evening.  No less would our sexton, John Duirward,
+have held it an unlicensed intrusion, to suffer any one to induct
+himself into the corner of the left-hand pew nearest to the
+pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly occupied on Sundays.  There
+he sat, his blue invalid uniform brushed with the most scrupulous
+accuracy.  Two medals of merit displayed at his button-hole, as
+well as the empty sleeve which should have been occupied by his
+right arm, bore evidence of his hard and honourable service.  His
+weatherbeaten features, his grey hair tied in a thin queue in the
+military fashion of former days, and the right side of his head a
+little turned up, the better to catch the sound of the
+clergyman's voice, were all marks of his profession and
+infirmities. Beside him sat his sister Janet, a little neat old
+woman, with a Highland curch and tartan plaid, watching the very
+looks of her brother, to her the greatest man upon earth, and
+actively looking out for him, in his silver-clasped Bible, the
+texts which the minister quoted or expounded.
+
+I believe it was the respect that was universally paid to this
+worthy veteran by all ranks in Gandercleugh which induced him to
+choose our village for his residence, for such was by no means
+his original intention.
+
+He had risen to the rank of sergeant-major of artillery, by hard
+service in various quarters of the world, and was reckoned one of
+the most tried and trusty men of the Scotch Train.  A ball, which
+shattered his arm in a peninsular campaign, at length procured
+him an honourable discharge. with an allowance from Chelsea, and
+a handsome gratuity from the patriotic fund.  Moreover, Sergeant
+More M'Alpin had been prudent as well as valiant; and, from
+prize-money and savings, had become master of a small sum in the
+three per cent consols.
+
+He retired with the purpose of enjoying this income in the wild
+Highland glen, in which, when a boy, he had herded black cattle
+and goats, ere the roll of the drum had made him cock his bonnet
+an inch higher, and follow its music for nearly forty years.  To
+his recollection, this retired spot was unparalleled in beauty by
+the richest scenes he had visited in his wanderings.  Even the
+Happy Valley of Rasselas would have sunk into nothing upon the
+comparison.  He came--he revisited the loved scene; it was but a
+sterile glen, surrounded with rude crags, and traversed by a
+northern torrent.  This was not the worst.  The fires had been
+quenched upon thirty hearths--of the cottage of his fathers he
+could but distinguish a few rude stones--the language was almost
+extinguished--the ancient race from which he boasted his descent
+had found a refuge beyond the Atlantic.  One southland farmer,
+three grey-plaided shepherds, and six dogs, now tenanted the
+whole glen, which in his youth had maintained, in content, if not
+in competence, upwards of two hundred inhabitants,
+
+In the house of the new tenant, Sergeant M'Alpin found, however,
+an unexpected source of pleasure, and a means of employing his
+social affections.  His sister Janet had fortunately entertained
+so strong a persuasion that her brother would one day return,
+that she had refused to accompany her kinsfolk upon their
+emigration.  Nay, she had consented, though not without a feeling
+of degradation, to take service with the intruding Lowlander,
+who, though a Saxon, she said, had proved a kind man to her.
+This unexpected meeting with his sister seemed a cure for all the
+disappointments which it had been Sergeant More's lot to
+encounter, although it was not without a reluctant tear that he
+heard told, as a Highland woman alone could ten it, the story of
+the expatriation of his kinsmen.
+
+She narrated at great length the vain offers they had made of
+advanced rent, the payment of which must have reduced them to the
+extremity of poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for
+permission to live and die on their native soil.  Nor did Janet
+forget the portents which had announced the departure of the
+Celtic race, and the arrival of the strangers.  For two years
+previous to the emigration, when the night wind howled dawn the
+pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled to the tune
+of "HA TIL MI TULIDH" (we return no more), with which the
+emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores.  The
+uncouth cries of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of
+their dogs, were often heard in the midst of the hills long
+before their actual arrival.  A bard, the last of his race, had
+commemorated the expulsion of the natives of the glen in a tune,
+which brought tears into the aged eyes of the veteran, and of
+which the first stanza may be thus rendered:--
+
+Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander,
+Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border?
+Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander,
+Wasting the glen that was once in fair order?
+
+What added to Sergeant More M'Alpin's distress upon the occasion
+was, that the chief by whom this change had been effected, was,
+by tradition and common opinion, held to represent the ancient
+leaders and fathers of the expelled fugitives; and it had
+hitherto been one of Sergeant More's principal subjects of pride
+to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what degree of kindred he
+stood to this personage.  A woful change was now wrought in his
+sentiments towards him.
+
+"I cannot curse him," he said, as he rose and strode through the
+room, when Janet's narrative was finished--"I will not curse him;
+he is the descendant and representative of my fathers.  But never
+shall mortal man hear me name his name again."  And he kept his
+word; for, until his dying day, no man heard him mention his
+selfish and hard-hearted chieftain.
+
+After giving a day to sad recollections, the hardy spirit which
+had carried him through so many dangers, manned the Sergeant's
+bosom against this cruel disappointment.  "He would go," he said,
+"to Canada to his kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic
+valley after the glen of their fathers.  Janet," he said, "should
+kilt her coats like a leaguer lady; d--n the distance!  it was a
+flea's leap to the voyages and marches he had made on a slighter
+occasion."
+
+With this purpose he left the Highlands, and came with his sister
+as far as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage
+to Canada.  But winter was now set in, and as he thought it
+advisable to wait for a spring passage, when the St. Lawrence
+should be open, he settled among us for the few months of his
+stay in Britain.  As we said before, the respectable old man met
+with deference and attention from all ranks of society; and when
+spring returned, he was so satisfied with his quarters, that he
+did not renew the purpose of his voyage.  Janet was afraid of the
+sea, and he himself felt the infirmities of age and hard service
+more than he had at first expected.  And, as he confessed to the
+clergyman, and my worthy principal, Mr. Cleishbotham, "it was
+better staying with kend friends, than going farther, and faring
+worse."
+
+He therefore established himself and his domicile at
+Gandercleugh, to the great satisfaction, as we have already said,
+of all its inhabitants, to whom he became, in respect of military
+intelligence, and able commentaries upon the newspapers,
+gazettes, and bulletins, a very oracle, explanatory of all
+martial events, past, present, or to come.
+
+It is true, the Sergeant had his inconsistencies.  He was a
+steady jacobite, his father and his four uncles having been out
+in the forty-five; but he was a no less steady adherent of King
+George, in whose service he had made his little fortune, and lost
+three brothers; so that you were in equal danger to displease
+him, in terming Prince Charles, the Pretender, or by saying
+anything derogatory to the dignity of King George. Further, it
+must not be denied, that when the day of receiving his dividends
+came round, the Sergeant was apt to tarry longer at the Wallace
+Arms of an evening, than was consistent with strict temperance,
+or indeed with his worldly interest; for upon these occasions,
+his compotators sometimes contrived to flatter his partialities
+by singing jacobite songs, and drinking confusion to Bonaparte,
+and the health of the Duke of Wellington, until the Sergeant was
+not only flattered into paying the whole reckoning, but
+occasionally induced to lend small sums to his interested
+companions.  After such sprays, as he called them, were over, and
+his temper once more cool, he seldom failed to thank God, and the
+Duke of York, who had made it much more difficult for an old
+soldier to ruin himself by his folly, than had been the case in
+his younger days.
+
+It was not on such occasions that I made a part of Sergeant More
+M'Alpin's society.  But often, when my leisure would permit, I
+used to seek him, on what he called his morning and evening
+parade, on which, when the weather was fair, he appeared as
+regularly as if summoned by tuck of drum.  His morning walk was
+beneath the elms in the churchyard; "for death," he said, "had
+been his next-door neighbour for so many years, that he had no
+apology for dropping the acquaintance."  His evening promenade
+was on the bleaching-green by the river-side, where he was
+sometimes to be seen on an open bench, with spectacles on nose,
+conning over the newspapers to a circle of village politicians,
+explaining military terms, and aiding the comprehension of his
+hearers by lines drawn on the ground with the end of his rattan.
+On other occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of school-boys,
+whom he sometimes drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with less
+approbation on the part of their parents, instructed in the
+mystery of artificial fire-works; for in the case of public
+rejoicings, the Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as the Encyclopedia
+calls it) to the village of Gandercleugh.
+
+It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the
+veteran.  And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath,
+overshadowed by the row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his
+upright form advancing towards me with measured step, and his
+cane advanced, ready to pay me the military salute--but he is
+dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet, under the third of
+those very trees, counting from the stile at the west corner of
+the churchyard.
+
+The delight which I had in Sergeant M'Alpin's conversation,
+related not only to his own adventures, of which he had
+encountered many in the course of a wandering life, but also to
+his recollection of numerous Highland traditions, in which his
+youth had been instructed by his parents, and of which he would
+in after life have deemed it a kind of heresy to question the
+authenticity.  Many of these belonged to the wars of Montrose, in
+which some of the Sergeant's ancestry had, it seems, taken a
+distinguished part.  It has happened, that, although these civil
+commotions reflect the highest honour upon the Highlanders, being
+indeed the first occasion upon which they showed themselves
+superior, or even equal to their Low-country neighbours in
+military encounters, they have been less commemorated among them
+than any one would have expected, judging from the abundance of
+traditions which they have preserved upon less interesting
+subjects.  It was, therefore, with great pleasure, that I
+extracted from my military friend some curious particulars
+respecting that time; they are mixed with that measure of the
+wild and wonderful which belongs to the period and the narrator,
+but which I do not in the least object to the reader's treating
+with disbelief, providing he will be so good as to give implicit
+credit to the natural events of the story, which, like all those
+which I have had the honour to put under his notice, actually
+rest upon a basis of truth.
+
+*
+
+
+
+III.  A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
+
+
+*
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  Such as do build their faith upon
+  The holy text of pike and gun,
+  Decide all controversies by
+  Infallible artillery,
+  And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+  By apostolic blows and knocks.       BUTLER.
+
+It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which
+agitated Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale
+has its commencement.  Scotland had as yet remained free from the
+ravages of intestine war, although its inhabitants were much
+divided in political opinions; and many of them, tired of the
+control of the Estates of Parliament, and disapproving of the
+bold measure which they had adopted, by sending into England a
+large army to the assistance of the Parliament, were determined
+on their part to embrace the earliest opportunity of declaring
+for the King, and making such a diversion as should at least
+compel the recall of General Leslie's army out of England, if it
+did not recover a great part of Scotland to the King's
+allegiance.  This plan was chiefly adopted by the northern
+nobility, who had resisted with great obstinacy the adoption of
+the Solemn League and Covenant, and by many of the chiefs of the
+Highland clans, who conceived their interest and authority to be
+connected with royalty, who had, besides, a decided aversion to
+the Presbyterian form of religion, and who, finally, were in that
+half savage state of society, in which war is always more welcome
+than peace.
+
+Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these
+concurrent causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation,
+which the Scotch Highlanders at all times exercised upon the
+Lowlands, began to assume a more steady, avowed, and systematic
+form, as part of a general military system.
+
+Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of
+the moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel
+it.  They considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader
+or name of consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of
+royalists, or even to direct the efforts of those desultory
+bands, whom love of plunder, perhaps, as much as political
+principle, had hurried into measures of hostility.  It was
+generally hoped that the quartering a sufficient number of troops
+in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland line, would have the
+effect of restraining the mountain chieftains; while the power of
+various barons in the north, who had espoused the Covenant, as,
+for example, the Earl Mareschal, the great families of Forbes,
+Leslie, and Irvine, the Grants, and other Presbyterian clans,
+might counterbalance and bridle, not only the strength of the
+Ogilvies and other cavaliers of Angus and Kincardine, but even
+the potent family of the Gordons, whose extensive authority was
+only equalled by their extreme dislike to the Presbyterian model.
+
+In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but
+the power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken,
+and the spirit of their chieftains intimidated, by the
+predominating influence of the Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the
+confidence of the Convention of Estates was reposed with the
+utmost security; and whose power in the Highlands, already
+exorbitant, had been still farther increased by concessions
+extorted from the King at the last pacification.  It was indeed
+well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise
+than personal courage, and better calculated to manage an
+intrigue of state, than to control the tribes of hostile
+mountaineers; yet the numbers of his clan, and the spirit of the
+gallant gentlemen by whom it was led, might, it was supposed,
+atone for the personal deficiencies of their chief; and as the
+Campbells had already severely humbled several of the
+neighbouring tribes, it was supposed these would not readily
+again provoke an encounter with a body so powerful.
+
+Thus having at their command the whole west and south of
+Scotland, indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,--
+Fifeshire being in a peculiar manner their own, and possessing
+many and powerful friends even north of the Forth and Tay,--the
+Scottish Convention of Estates saw no danger sufficient to induce
+them to alter the line of policy they had adopted, or to recall
+from the assistance of their brethren of the English Parliament
+that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means of which
+accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the
+defensive, when in full career of triumph and success.
+
+The causes which moved the Convention of Estates at this time to
+take such an immediate and active interest in the civil war of
+England, are detailed in our historians, but may be here shortly
+recapitulated.  They had indeed no new injury or aggression to
+complain of at the hand of the King, and the peace which had been
+made between Charles and his subjects of Scotland had been
+carefully observed; but the Scottish rulers were well aware that
+this peace had been extorted from the King, as well by the
+influence of the parliamentary party in England, as by the terror
+of their own arms. It is true, King Charles had since then
+visited the capital of his ancient kingdom, had assented to the
+new organization of the church, and had distributed honours and
+rewards among the leaders of the party which had shown themselves
+most hostile to his interests; but it was suspected that
+distinctions so unwillingly conferred would be resumed as soon as
+opportunity offered.  The low state of the English Parliament was
+seen in Scotland with deep apprehension; and it was concluded,
+that should Charles triumph by force of arms against his
+insurgent subjects of England, he would not be long in exacting
+from the Scotch the vengeance which he might suppose due to those
+who had set the example of taking up arms against him.  Such was
+the policy of the measure which dictated the sending the
+auxiliary army into England; and it was avowed in a manifesto
+explanatory of their reasons for giving this timely and important
+aid to the English Parliament.  The English Parliament, they said,
+had been already friendly to them, and might be so again; whereas
+the King, although he had so lately established religion among
+them according to their desires, had given them no ground to
+confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had found his
+promises and actions inconsistent with each other.  "Our
+conscience," they concluded, "and God, who is greater than our
+conscience, beareth us record, that we aim altogether at the
+glory of God, peace of both nations, and honour of the King, in
+suppressing and punishing in a legal way, those who are the
+troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell, the Korahs, the
+Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs, the
+Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied.  Neither
+have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean
+for compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which
+we could think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us,
+ULTIMUM ET UNICUM REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy."
+
+Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party
+is justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion
+that, in certain future contingencies, it might be infringed by
+the other, we shall proceed to mention two other circumstances
+that had at least equal influence with the Scottish rulers and
+nation, with any doubts which they entertained of the King's good
+faith.
+
+The first of these was the nature and condition of their army;
+headed by a poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was
+officered chiefly by Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served
+in the German wars until they had lost almost all distinction of
+political principle, and even of country, in the adoption of the
+mercenary faith, that a soldier's principal duty was fidelity to
+the state or sovereign from whom he received his pay, without
+respect either to the justice of the quarrel, or to their own
+connexion with either of the contending parties.  To men of this
+stamp, Grotius applies the severe character--NULLUM VITAE GENUS
+ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE
+CONDUCTI, MILITANT.  To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to
+the needy gentry with whom they were mixed in command, and who
+easily imbibed the same opinions, the success of the late short
+invasion of England in 1641 was a sufficient reason for renewing
+so  profitable an experiment.  The good pay and free quarters of
+England had made a feeling impression upon the recollection of
+these military adventurers, and the prospect of again levying
+eight hundred and fifty pounds a-day, came in place of all
+arguments, whether of state or of morality.
+
+Another cause inflamed the minds of the nation at large, no less
+than the tempting prospect of the wealth of England animated the
+soldiery.  So much had been written and said on either side
+concerning the form of church government, that it had become a
+matter of infinitely more consequence in the eyes of the
+multitude than the doctrines of that gospel which both churches
+had embraced.  The Prelatists and Presbyterians of the more
+violent kind became as illiberal as the Papists, and would
+scarcely allow the possibility of salvation beyond the pale of
+their respective churches.  It was in vain remarked to these
+zealots, that had the Author of our holy religion considered any
+peculiar form of church government as essential to salvation, it
+would have been revealed with the same precision as under the Old
+Testament dispensation.  Both parties continued as violent as if
+they could have pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to
+justify their intolerance, Laud, in the days of his domination,
+had fired the train, by attempting to impose upon the Scottish
+people church ceremonies foreign to their habits and opinions.
+The success with which this had been resisted, and the
+Presbyterian model substituted in its place, had endeared the
+latter to the nation, as the cause in which they had triumphed.
+The Solemn League and Covenant, adopted with such zeal by the
+greater part of the kingdom, and by them forced, at the sword's
+point, upon the others, bore in its bosom, as its principal
+object, the establishing the doctrine and discipline of the
+Presbyterian church, and the putting down all error and heresy;
+and having attained for their own country an establishment of
+this golden candlestick, the Scots became liberally and
+fraternally anxious to erect the same in England.  This they
+conceived might be easily attained by lending to the Parliament
+the effectual assistance of the Scottish forces.  The
+Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in the English
+Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the
+King; while the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards,
+under Cromwell, resumed the power of the sword, and overset the
+Presbyterian model both in Scotland and England, were as yet
+contented to lurk under the shelter of the wealthier and more
+powerful party.  The prospect of bringing to a uniformity the
+kingdoms of England and Scotland in discipline and worship,
+seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.
+
+The celebrated Sir Henry Vane, one of the commissioners who
+negotiated the alliance betwixt England and Scotland, saw the
+influence which this bait had upon the spirits of those with whom
+he dealt; and although himself a violent Independent, he
+contrived at once to gratify and to elude the eager desires of
+the Presbyterians, by qualifying the obligation to reform the
+Church of England, as a change to be executed "according to the
+word of God, and the best reformed churches."  Deceived by their
+own eagerness, themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS
+DIVINUM of their own ecclesiastical establishments, and not
+holding it possible such doubts could be adopted by others, the
+Convention of Estates and the Kirk of Scotland conceived, that
+such expressions necessarily inferred the establishment of
+Presbytery; nor were they undeceived, until, when their help was
+no longer needful, the sectaries gave them to understand, that
+the phrase might be as well applied to Independency, or any other
+mode of worship, which those who were at the head of affairs at
+the time might consider as agreeable "to the word of God, and the
+practice of the reformed churches."  Neither were the outwitted
+Scottish less astonished to find, that the designs of the English
+sectaries struck against the monarchial constitution of Britain,
+it having been their intention to reduce the power of the King,
+but by no means to abrogate the office.  They fared, however, in
+this respect, like rash physicians, who commence by over-
+physicking a patient, until he is reduced to a state of weakness,
+from which cordials are afterwards unable to recover him.
+
+But these events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the
+Scottish Parliament held their engagement with England consistent
+with justice, prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking
+seemed to succeed to their very wish.  The junction of the
+Scottish army with those of Fairfax and Manchester, enabled the
+Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to fight the desperate
+action of  Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert and the
+Marquis of Newcastle were defeated.  The Scottish auxiliaries,
+indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their
+countrymen could desire.  David Leslie, with their cavalry, fought
+bravely, and to them, as well as to Cromwell's brigade of
+Independents, the honour of the day belonged; but the old Earl of
+Leven, the covenanting general, was driven out of the field by
+the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert, and was thirty miles
+distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he was overtaken
+by the news that his party had gained a complete victory.
+
+The absence of these auxiliary troops, upon this crusade for the
+establishment of Presbyterianism in England, had considerably
+diminished the power of the Convention of Estates in Scotland,
+and had given rise to those agitations among the anti-
+covenanters, which we have noticed at the beginning of this
+chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+His mother could for him as cradle set
+Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
+Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,
+That never plain'd of his uneasy nest;
+Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,
+And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.  HALL'S SATIRES
+
+It was towards the close of a summer's evening, during the
+anxious period which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman
+of quality, well mounted and armed, and accompanied by two
+servants, one of whom led a sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of
+those steep passes, by which the Highlands are accessible from
+the Lowlands of Perthshire.  [The beautiful pass of Leny, near
+Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects, answer this
+description.] Their course had lain for some time along the banks
+of a lake, whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the
+western sun.  The broken path which they pursued with some
+difficulty, was in some places shaded by ancient birches and oak-
+trees, and in others overhung by fragments of huge rock.
+Elsewhere, the hill, which formed the northern side of this
+beautiful sheet of water, arose in steep, but less precipitous
+acclivity, and was arrayed in heath of the darkest purple.  In
+the present times, a scene so romantic would have been judged to
+possess the highest charms for the traveller; but those who
+journey in days of doubt and dread, pay little attention to
+picturesque scenery.
+
+The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one
+or both of his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with
+them, probably because the distinctions of rank are readily set
+aside among those who are made to be sharers of common danger.
+The dispositions of the leading men who inhabit this wild
+country, and the probability of their taking part in the
+political convulsions that were soon expected, were the subjects
+of their conversation.
+
+They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young
+gentleman was pointing to his attendants the spot where their
+intended road turned northwards, and, leaving the verge of the
+loch, ascended a ravine to the right hand, when they discovered a
+single horseman coming down the shore, as if to meet them.  The
+gleam of the sunbeams upon his head-piece and corslet showed that
+he was in armour, and the purpose of the other travellers
+required that he should not pass unquestioned.  "We must know who
+he is," said the young gentleman, "and whither he is going."  And
+putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the rugged
+state of the road would permit, followed by his two attendants,
+until he reached the point where the pass along the side of the
+lake was intersected by that which descended from the ravine,
+securing thus against the possibility of the stranger eluding
+them, by turning into the latter road before they came up with
+him.
+
+The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed
+the three riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw
+them halt and form a front, which completely occupied the path,
+he checked his horse, and advanced with great deliberation; so
+that each party had an opportunity to take a full survey of the
+other.  The solitary stranger was mounted upon an able horse, fit
+for military service, and for the great weight which he had to
+carry, and his rider occupied his demipique, or war-saddle, with
+an air that showed it was his familiar seat.  He had a bright
+burnished head-piece, with a plume of feathers, together with a
+cuirass, thick enough to resist a musket-ball, and a back-piece
+of lighter materials.  These defensive arms he wore over a buff
+jerkin, along with a pair of gauntlets, or steel gloves, the tops
+of which reached up to his elbow, and which, like the rest of his
+armour, were of bright steel.  At the front of his military
+saddle hung a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size,
+nearly two feet in length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the
+pound.  A buff belt, with a broad silver buckle, sustained on one
+side a long straight double-edged broadsword, with a strong
+guard, and a blade calculated either to strike or push.  On the
+right side hung a dagger of about eighteen inches in length; a
+shoulder-belt sustained at his back a musketoon or blunderbuss,
+and was crossed by a bandelier containing his charges of
+ammunition.  Thigh-pieces of steel, then termed taslets, met the
+tops of his huge jack-boots, and completed the equipage of a
+well-armed trooper of the period.
+
+The appearance of the horseman himself corresponded well with his
+military equipage, to which he had the air of having been long
+inured.  He was above the middle size, and of strength sufficient
+to bear with ease the weight of his weapons, offensive and
+defensive.  His age might be forty and upwards, and his
+countenance was that of a resolute weather-beaten veteran, who
+had seen many fields, and brought away in token more than one
+scar.  At the distance of about thirty yards he halted and stood
+fast, raised himself on his stirrups, as if to reconnoitre and
+ascertain the purpose of the opposite party, and brought his
+musketoon under his right arm, ready for use, if occasion should
+require it.  In everything but numbers, he had the advantage of
+those who seemed inclined to interrupt his passage.
+
+The leader of the party was, indeed, well mounted and clad in a
+buff coat, richly embroidered, the half-military dress of the
+period; but his domestics had only coarse jackets of thick felt,
+which could scarce be expected to turn the edge of a sword, if
+wielded by a strong man; and none of them had any weapons, save
+swords and pistols, without which gentlemen, or their attendants,
+during those disturbed times, seldom stirred abroad.
+
+When they had stood at gaze for about a minute, the younger
+gentleman gave the challenge which was then common in the mouth
+of all strangers who met in such circumstances--"For whom are
+you?"
+
+"Tell me first," answered the soldier, "for whom are you?--the
+strongest party should speak first."
+
+"We are for God and King Charles," answered the first speaker.--"
+Now tell your faction, you know ours."
+
+"I am for God and my standard," answered the single horseman.
+
+"And for which standard?"  replied the chief of the other party
+--"Cavalier or Roundhead, King or Convention?"
+
+"By my troth, sir," answered the soldier, "I would be loath to
+reply to you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of
+fortune and a soldier.  But to answer your query with beseeming
+veracity, it is necessary I should myself have resolved to whilk
+of the present divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately
+adhere, being a matter whereon my mind is not as yet preceesely
+ascertained."
+
+"I should have thought," answered the gentleman, "that, when
+loyalty and religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour
+could be long in choosing his party."
+
+"Truly, sir," replied the trooper, "if ye speak this in the way
+of vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I
+would blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel
+with my single person against you three.  But if you speak it in
+the way of logical ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my
+youth at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove
+to ye LOGICE, that my resolution to defer, for a certain season,
+the taking upon me either of these quarrels, not only becometh me
+as a gentleman and a man of honour, but also as a person of sense
+and prudence, one imbued with humane letters in his early youth,
+and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars under the
+banner of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and
+under many other heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist,
+Papist and Arminian."
+
+After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger
+gentleman replied, "I should be glad, sir, to have some
+conversation with you upon so interesting a question, and should
+be proud if I can determine you in favour of the cause I have
+myself espoused.  I ride this evening to a friend's house not
+three miles distant, whither, if you choose to accompany me, you
+shall have good quarters for the night, and free permission to
+take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no
+inclination to join with us."
+
+"Whose word am I to take for this?"  answered the cautious
+soldier--"A man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an
+ambuscade."
+
+"I am called," answered the younger stranger, "the Earl of
+Menteith, and, I trust, you will receive my honour as a
+sufficient security."
+
+"A worthy nobleman," answered the soldier, "whose parole is not
+to be doubted."  With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his
+back, and with another made his military salute to the young
+nobleman, and continuing to talk as he rode forward to join him
+--"And, I trust," said he, "my own assurance, that I will be BON
+CAMARADO to your lordship in peace or in peril, during the time
+we shall abide together, will not be altogether vilipended in
+these doubtful times, when, as they say, a man's head is safer in
+a steel-cap than in a marble palace."
+
+"I assure you, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that to judge from your
+appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort;
+but, I trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of
+valour, as I expect to conduct you to good and friendly
+quarters."
+
+"Good quarters, my lord," replied the soldier, "are always
+acceptable, and are only to be postponed to good pay or good
+booty,--not to mention the honour of a cavalier, or the needful
+points of commanded duty.  And truly, my lord, your noble proffer
+is not the less welcome, in that I knew not preceesely this night
+where I and my poor companion" (patting his horse) "were to find
+lodgments."
+
+"May I be permitted to ask, then," said Lord Menteith, "to whom I
+have the good fortune to stand quarter-master?"
+
+"Truly, my lord," said the trooper, "my name is Dalgetty--Dugald
+Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your
+honourable service to command.  It is a name you may have seen in
+GALLO BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High
+Dutch, in the FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic.  My father, my
+lord, having by unthrifty courses reduced a fair patrimony to a
+nonentity, I had no better shift, when I was eighteen years auld,
+than to carry the learning whilk I had acquired at the Mareschal-
+College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and designation of
+Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and legs
+conform, to the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier
+of fortune.  My lord, my legs and arms stood me in more stead
+than either my gentle kin or my book-lear, and I found myself
+trailing a pike as a private gentleman under old Sir Ludovick
+Leslie, where I learned the rules of service so tightly, that I
+will not forget them in a hurry.  Sir, I have been made to stand
+guard eight hours, being from twelve at noon to eight o'clock of
+the night, at the palace, armed with back and breast, head-piece
+and bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter frost, and
+the ice was as hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping an
+instant to speak to my landlady, when I should have gone to roll-
+call."
+
+"And, doubtless, sir," replied Lord Menteith, "you have gone
+through some hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk
+of?"
+
+"Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that
+hath seen the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to
+have seen pitched battles.  And one who hath witnessed the
+intaking of Frankfort, and Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth,
+should know somewhat about leaguers, storms, onslaughts and
+outfalls."
+
+"But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
+promotion?"
+
+"It came slow, my lord, dooms slow," replied Dalgetty; "but as my
+Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of
+those valorous Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany,
+began to fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with
+the sword, why we, their children, succeeded to their
+inheritance.  Sir, I was six years first private gentleman of the
+company, and three years lance speisade; disdaining to receive a
+halberd, as unbecoming my birth.  Wherefore I was ultimately
+promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call it (which
+signifies an ancient), in the King's Leif Regiment of Black-
+Horse, and thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master,
+under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant
+faith, the Lion of the North, the terror of Austria, Gustavus the
+Victorious."
+
+"And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,--I think that
+rank corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master--"
+
+"The same grade preceesely," answered Dalgetty; "ritt-master
+signifying literally file-leader."
+
+"I was observing," continued Lord Menteith, "that, if I
+understood you right, you had left the service of this great
+Prince."
+
+"It was after his death--it was after his death, sir," said
+Dalgetty, "when I was in no shape bound to continue mine
+adherence.  There are things, my lord, in that service, that
+cannot but go against the stomach of any cavalier of honour. In
+especial, albeit the pay be none of the most superabundant, being
+only about sixty dollars a-month to a ritt-master, yet the
+invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of that sum, whilk
+was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when justly
+considered, it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of
+the additional two-thirds which were due to the soldier.  And I
+have seen some whole regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on
+the field of battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt,
+signifying their desire of pay, instead of falling to blows like
+our noble Scottish blades, who ever disdained, my lord,
+postponing of honour to filthy lucre."
+
+"But were not these arrears," said Lord Menteith, "paid to the
+soldiery at some stated period?"
+
+"My lord," said Dalgetty, "I take it on my conscience, that at no
+period, and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them
+ever be recovered.  I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own
+all the time I served the invincible Gustavus, unless it was from
+the chance of a storm or victory, or the fetching in some town or
+doorp, when a cavalier of fortune, who knows the usage of wars,
+seldom faileth to make some small profit."
+
+"I begin rather to wonder, sir," said Lord Menteith, "that you
+should have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that
+you should have ultimately withdrawn from it."
+
+"Neither I should," answered the Ritt-master; "but that great
+leader, captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark
+of the Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking
+towns, over-running countries, and levying contributions, whilk
+made his service irresistibly delectable to all true-bred
+cavaliers who follow the noble profession of arms. Simple as I
+ride here, my lord, I have myself commanded the whole stift of
+Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine, occupying the Palsgrave's palace,
+consuming his choice wines with my comrades, calling in
+contributions, requisitions, and caduacs, and not failing to lick
+my fingers, as became a good cook.  But truly all this glory
+hastened to decay, after our great master had been shot with
+three bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore, finding that
+Fortune had changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings went
+on as before out of our pay, while the caduacs and casualties
+were all cut off, I e'en gave up my commission, and took service
+with Wallenstein, in Walter Butler's Irish regiment."
+
+"And may I beg to know of you," said Lord Menteith, apparently
+interested in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, "how you
+liked this change of masters?"
+
+"Indifferent well," said the Captain--"very indifferent well.  I
+cannot say that the Emperor paid much better than the great
+Gustavus.  For hard knocks, we had plenty of them.  I was often
+obliged to run my head against my old acquaintances, the Swedish
+feathers, whilk your honour must conceive to be double-pointed
+stakes, shod with iron at each end, and planted before the squad
+of pikes to prevent an onfall of the cavalry.  The whilk Swedish
+feathers, although they look gay to the eye, resembling the
+shrubs or lesser trees of ane forest, as the puissant pikes,
+arranged in battalia behind them, correspond to the tall pines
+thereof, yet, nevertheless, are not altogether so soft to
+encounter as the plumage of a goose.  Howbeit, in despite of
+heavy blows and light pay, a cavalier of fortune may thrive
+indifferently well in the Imperial service, in respect his
+private casualties are nothing so closely looked to as by the
+Swede; and so that an officer did his duty on the field, neither
+Wallenstein nor Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before them, would
+likely listen to the objurgations of boors or burghers against
+any commander or soldado, by whom they chanced to be somewhat
+closely shorn.  So that an experienced cavalier, knowing how to
+lay, as our Scottish phrase runs, 'the head of the sow to the
+tail of the grice,' might get out of the country the pay whilk he
+could not obtain from the Emperor."
+
+"With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest," said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"Indubitably, my lord," answered Dalgetty, composedly; "for it
+would be doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his
+name called in question for any petty delinquency."
+
+"And pray, Sir," continued Lord Menteith, "what made you leave so
+gainful a service?"
+
+"Why, truly, sir," answered the soldier, "an Irish cavalier,
+called O'Quilligan, being major of our regiment, and I having had
+words with him the night before, respecting the worth and
+precedence of our several nations, it pleased him the next day to
+deliver his orders to me with the point of his batoon advanced
+and held aloof, instead of declining and trailing the same, as is
+the fashion from a courteous commanding officer towards his equal
+in rank, though, it may be, his inferior in military grade.  Upon
+this quarrel, sir, we fought in private rencontre; and as, in the
+perquisitions which followed, it pleased Walter Butler, our
+oberst, or colonel, to give the lighter punishment to his
+countryman, and the heavier to me, whereupon, ill-stomaching such
+partiality, I exchanged my commission for one under the
+Spaniard."
+
+"I hope you found yourself better off by the change?" said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"In good sooth," answered the Ritt-master, "I had but little to
+complain of.  The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by
+the rich Flemings and Waloons of the Low Country.  The quarters
+were excellent; the good wheaten loaves of the Flemings were
+better than the Provant rye-bread of the Swede, and Rhenish wine
+was more plenty with us than ever I saw the black-beer of Rostock
+in Gustavus's camp.  Service there was none, duty there was
+little; and that little we might do, or leave undone, at our
+pleasure; an excellent retirement for a cavalier somewhat weary
+of field and leaguer, who had purchased with his blood as much
+honour as might serve his turn, and was desirous of a little ease
+and good living."
+
+"And may I ask," said Lord Menteith, "why you, Captain, being, as
+I suppose, in the situation you describe, retired from the
+Spanish service also?"
+
+"You are to consider, my lord, that your Spaniard," replied
+Captain Dalgetty, "is a person altogether unparalleled in his own
+conceit, where-through he maketh not fit account of such foreign
+cavaliers of valour as are pleased to take service with him.  And
+a galling thing it is to every honourable soldado, to be put
+aside, and postponed, and obliged to yield preference to every
+puffing signor, who, were it the question which should first
+mount a breach at push of pike, might be apt to yield willing
+place to a Scottish cavalier.  Moreover, sir, I was pricked in
+conscience respecting a matter of religion."
+
+"I should not have thought, Captain Dalgetty," said the young
+nobleman, "that an old soldier, who had changed service so often,
+would have been too scrupulous on that head."
+
+"No more I am, my lord," said the Captain, "since I hold it to be
+the duty of the chaplain of the regiment to settle those matters
+for me, and every other brave cavalier, inasmuch as he does
+nothing else that I know of for his pay and allowances.  But this
+was a particular case, my lord, a CASUS IMPROVISUS, as I may say,
+in whilk I had no chaplain of my own persuasion to act as my
+adviser.  I found, in short, that although my being a Protestant
+might be winked at, in respect that I was a man of action, and
+had more experience than all the Dons in our TERTIA put together,
+yet, when in garrison, it was expected I should go to mass with
+the regiment.  Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated
+at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the
+mass to be an act of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I
+was altogether unwilling to homologate by my presence.  True it
+is, that I consulted on the point with a worthy countryman of my
+own, one Father Fatsides, of the Scottish Covenant in Wurtzburg
+--"
+
+"And I hope," observed Lord Menteith, "you obtained a clear
+opinion from this same ghostly father?"
+
+"As clear as it could be," replied Captain Dalgetty, "considering
+we had drunk six flasks of Rhenish, and about two mutchkins of
+Kirchenwasser.  Father Fatsides informed me, that, as nearly as
+he could judge for a heretic like myself, it signified not much
+whether I went to mass or not, seeing my eternal perdition was
+signed and sealed at any rate, in respect of my impenitent and
+obdurate perseverance in my damnable heresy.  Being discouraged
+by this response, I applied to a Dutch pastor of the reformed
+church, who told me, he thought I might lawfully go to mass, in
+respect that the prophet permitted Naaman, a mighty man of
+valour, and an honourable cavalier of Syria, to follow his master
+into the house of Rimmon, a false god, or idol, to whom he had
+vowed service, and to bow down when the king was leaning upon his
+hand.  But neither was this answer satisfactory to me, both
+because there was an unco difference between an anointed King of
+Syria and our Spanish colonel, whom I could have blown away like
+the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly because I could not find the
+thing was required of me by any of the articles of war; neither
+was I proffered any consideration, either in perquisite or pay,
+for the wrong I might thereby do to my conscience."
+
+"So you again changed your service?"  said Lord Menteith.
+
+"In troth did I, my lord; and after trying for a short while two
+or three other powers, I even took on for a time with their High
+Mightinesses the States of Holland."
+
+"And how did their service jump with your humour?" again demanded
+his companion.
+
+"O!  my lord," said the soldier, in a sort of enthusiasm, "their
+behaviour on pay-day might be a pattern to all Europe--no
+borrowings, no lendings, no offsets no arrears--all balanced and
+paid like a banker's book.  The quarters, too, are excellent, and
+the allowances unchallengeable; but then, sir, they are a
+preceese, scrupulous people, and will allow nothing for
+peccadilloes.  So that if a boor complains of a broken head, or a
+beer-seller of a broken can, or a daft wench does but squeak loud
+enough to be heard above her breath, a soldier of honour shall be
+dragged, not before his own court-martial, who can best judge of
+and punish his demerits, hut before a base mechanical burgo-
+master, who shall menace him with the rasp-house, the cord, and
+what not, as if he were one of their own mean, amphibious,
+twenty-breeched boors.  So not being able to dwell longer among
+those ungrateful plebeians, who, although unable to defend
+themselves by their proper strength, will nevertheless allow the
+noble foreign cavalier who engages with them nothing beyond his
+dry wages, which no honourable spirit will put in competition
+with a liberal license and honourable countenance, I resolved to
+leave the service of the Mynheers.  And hearing at this time, to
+my exceeding satisfaction, that there is something to be doing
+this summer in my way in this my dear native country, I am come
+hither, as they say, like a beggar to a bridal, in order to give
+my loving countrymen the advantage of that experience which I
+have acquired in foreign parts.  So your lordship has an outline
+of my brief story, excepting my deportment in those passages of
+action in the field, in leaguers, storms, and onslaughts, whilk
+would be wearisome to narrate, and might, peradventure, better
+befit any other tongue than mine own."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+For pleas of right let statesmen vex their head,
+Battle's my business, and my guerdon bread;
+And, with the sworded Switzer, I can say,
+The best of causes is the best of pay.     DONNE.
+
+The difficulty and narrowness of the road had by this time become
+such as to interrupt the conversation of the travellers, and Lord
+Menteith, reining back his horse, held a moment's private
+conversation with his domestics.  The Captain, who now led the
+van of the party, after about a quarter of a mile's slow and
+toilsome advance up a broken and rugged ascent, emerged into an
+upland valley, to which a mountain stream acted as a drain, and
+afforded sufficient room upon its greensward banks for the
+travellers to pursue their journey in a more social manner.
+
+Lord Menteith accordingly resumed the conversation, which had
+been interrupted by the difficulties of the way.  "I should have
+thought," said he to Captain Dalgetty, "that a cavalier of your
+honourable mark, who hath so long followed the valiant King of
+Sweden, and entertains such a suitable contempt for the base
+mechanical States of Holland, would not have hesitated to embrace
+the cause of King Charles, in preference to that of the low-born,
+roundheaded, canting knaves, who are in rebellion against his
+authority?"
+
+"Ye speak reasonably, my lord," said Dalgetty, "and, CAETERIS
+PARIBUS, I might be induced to see the matter in the same light.
+But, my lord, there is a southern proverb, fine words butter no
+parsnips.  I have heard enough since I came here, to satisfy me
+that a cavalier of honour is free to take any part in this civil
+embroilment whilk he may find most convenient for his own
+peculiar.  Loyalty is your pass-word, my lord--Liberty, roars
+another chield from the other side of the strath--the King,
+shouts one war-cry--the Parliament, roars another--Montrose, for
+ever, cries Donald, waving his bonnet--Argyle and Leven, cries a
+south-country Saunders, vapouring with his hat and feather.
+Fight for the bishops, says a priest, with his gown and rochet
+--Stand stout for the Kirk, cries a minister, in a Geneva cap and
+band.--Good watchwords all--excellent watchwords.  Whilk cause is
+the best I cannot say.  But sure am I, that I have fought knee-
+deep in blood many a day for one that was ten degrees worse than
+the worst of them all."
+
+"And pray, Captain Dalgetty," said his lordship, "since the
+pretensions of both parties seem to you so equal, will you please
+to inform us by what circumstances your preference will be
+determined?"
+
+"Simply upon two considerations, my lord," answered the soldier.
+"Being, first, on which side my services would be in most
+honourable request;--And, secondly, whilk is a corollary of the
+first, by whilk party they are likely to be most gratefully
+requited.  And, to deal plainly with you, my lord, my opinion at
+present doth on both points rather incline to the side of the
+Parliament."
+
+"Your reasons, if you please," said Lord Menteith, "and perhaps I
+may be able to meet them with some others which are more
+powerful."
+
+"Sir, I shall be amenable to reason," said Captain Dalgetty,
+"supposing it addresses itself to my honour and my interest.
+Well, then, my lord, here is a sort of Highland host assembled,
+or expected to assemble, in these wild hills, in the King's
+behalf.  Now, sir, you know the nature of our Highlanders.  I
+will not deny them to be a people stout in body and valiant in
+heart, and courageous enough in their own wild way of fighting,
+which is as remote from the usages and discipline of war as ever
+was that of the ancient Scythians, or of the salvage Indians of
+America that now is, They havena sae mickle as a German whistle,
+or a drum, to beat a march, an alarm, a charge, a retreat, a
+reveille, or the tattoo, or any other point of war; and their
+damnable skirlin' pipes, whilk they themselves pretend to
+understand, are unintelligible to the ears of any cavaliero
+accustomed to civilised warfare.  So that, were I undertaking to
+discipline such a breechless mob, it were impossible for me to be
+understood; and if I were understood, judge ye, my lord, what
+chance I had of being obeyed among a band of half salvages, who
+are accustomed to pay to their own lairds and chiefs, allenarly,
+that respect and obedience whilk ought to be paid to
+commissionate officers.  If I were teaching them to form battalia
+by extracting the square root, that is, by forming your square
+battalion of equal number of men of rank and file, corresponding
+to the square root of the full number present, what return could
+I expect for communicating this golden secret of military tactic,
+except it may be a dirk in my wame, on placing some M'Alister
+More M'Shemei or Capperfae, in the flank or rear, when he claimed
+to be in the van?--Truly, well saith holy writ, 'if ye cast
+pearls before swine, they will turn again and rend ye.'"
+
+"I believe, Anderson," said Lord Menteith, looking back to one of
+his servants, for both were close behind him, "you can assure
+this gentleman, we shall have more occasion for experienced
+officers, and be more disposed to profit by their instructions,
+than he seems to be aware of."
+
+"With your honour's permission," said Anderson, respectfully
+raising his cap, "when we are joined by the Irish infantry, who
+are expected, and who should be landed in the West Highlands
+before now, we shall have need of good soldiers to discipline our
+levies."
+
+"And I should like well--very well, to be employed in such
+service," said Dalgetty; "the Irish are pretty fellows--very
+pretty fellows--I desire to see none better in the field. I once
+saw a brigade of Irish, at the taking of Frankfort upon the Oder,
+stand to it with sword and pike until they beat off the blue and
+yellow Swedish brigades, esteemed as stout as any that fought
+under the immortal Gustavus.  And although stout Hepburn, valiant
+Lumsdale, courageous Monroe, with myself and other cavaliers,
+made entry elsewhere at point of pike, yet, had we all met with
+such opposition, we had returned with great loss and little
+profit.  Wherefore these valiant Irishes, being all put to the
+sword, as is usual in such cases, did nevertheless gain immortal
+praise and honour; so that, for their sakes, I have always loved
+and honoured those of that nation next to my own country of
+Scotland."
+
+"A command of Irish," said Menteith, "I think I could almost
+promise you, should you be disposed to embrace the royal cause."
+
+"And yet," said Captain Dalgetty, "my second and greatest
+difficulty remains behind; for, although I hold it a mean and
+sordid thing for a soldado to have nothing in his mouth but pay
+and gelt, like the base cullions, the German lanz-knechts, whom I
+mentioned before; and although I will maintain it with my sword,
+that honour is to be preferred before pay, free quarters, and
+arrears, yet, EX CONTRARIO, a soldier's pay being the counterpart
+of his engagement of service, it becomes a wise and considerate
+cavalier to consider what remuneration he is to receive for his
+service, and from what funds it is to be paid.  And truly, my
+lord, from what I can see and hear, the Convention are the purse-
+masters.  The Highlanders, indeed, may be kept in humour, by
+allowing them to steal cattle; and for the Irishes, your lordship
+and your noble associates may, according to the practice of the
+wars in such cases, pay them as seldom or as little as may suit
+your pleasure or convenience; but the same mode of treatment doth
+not apply to a cavalier like me, who must keep up his horses,
+servants, arms, and equipage, and who neither can, nor will, go
+to warfare upon his own charges."
+
+Anderson, the domestic who had before spoken now respectfully
+addressed his master.--"I think, my lord," he said, "that, under
+your lordship's favour, I could say something to remove Captain
+Dalgetty's second objection also.  He asks us where we are to
+collect our pay; now, in my poor mind, the resources are as open
+to us as to the Covenanters.  They tax the country according to
+their pleasure, and dilapidate the estates of the King's friends;
+now, were we once in the Lowlands, with our Highlanders and our
+Irish at our backs, and our swords in our hands, we can find many
+a fat traitor, whose ill-gotten wealth shall fill our military
+chest and satisfy our soldiery.  Besides, confiscations will fall
+in thick; and, in giving donations of forfeited lands to every
+adventurous cavalier who joins his standard, the King will at
+once reward his friends and punish his enemies.  In short, he
+that joins these Roundhead dogs may get some miserable pittance
+of pay--he that joins our standard has a chance to be knight,
+lord, or earl, if luck serve him."
+
+"Have you ever served, my good friend?" said the Captain to the
+spokesman.
+
+"A little, sir, in these our domestic quarrels," answered the
+man, modestly.
+
+"But never in Germany or the Low Countries?" said Dalgetty.
+
+"I never had the honour," answered Anderson.
+
+"I profess," said Dalgetty, addressing Lord Menteith, "your
+lordship's servant has a sensible, natural, pretty idea of
+military matters; somewhat irregular, though, and smells a little
+too much of selling the bear's skin before he has hunted him.--I
+will take the matter, however, into my consideration."
+
+"Do so, Captain," said Lord Menteith; "you will have the night to
+think of it, for we are now near the house, where I hope to
+ensure you a hospitable reception."
+
+"And that is what will be very welcome," said the Captain, "for I
+have tasted no food since daybreak but a farl of oatcake, which I
+divided with my horse.  So I have been fain to draw my sword-belt
+three bores tighter for very extenuation, lest hunger and heavy
+iron should make the gird slip."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Once on a time, no matter when,
+Some Glunimies met in a glen;
+As deft and tight as ever wore
+A durk, a targe, and a claymore,
+Short hose, and belted plaid or trews,
+In Uist, Lochaber, Skye, or Lewes,
+Or cover'd hard head with his bonnet;
+Had you but known them, you would own it.    MESTON.
+
+A hill was now before the travellers, covered with an ancient
+forest of Scottish firs, the topmost of which, flinging their
+scathed branches across the western horizon, gleamed ruddy in the
+setting sun.  In the centre of this wood rose the towers, or
+rather the chimneys, of the house, or castle, as it was called,
+destined for the end of their journey.
+
+As usual at that period, one or two high-ridged narrow buildings,
+intersecting and crossing each other, formed the CORPS DE LOGIS.
+A protecting bartizan or two, with the addition of small turrets
+at the angles, much resembling pepper-boxes, had procured for
+Darnlinvarach the dignified appellation of a castle.  It was
+surrounded by a low court-yard wall, within which were the usual
+offices.
+
+As the travellers approached more nearly, they discovered marks
+of recent additions to the defences of the place, which had been
+suggested, doubtless, by the insecurity of those troublesome
+times.  Additional loop-holes for musketry were struck out in
+different parts of the building, and of its surrounding wall.
+The windows had just been carefully secured by stancheons of
+iron, crossing each other athwart and end-long, like the grates
+of a prison.  The door of the court-yard was shut; and it was
+only after cautious challenge that one of its leaves was opened
+by two domestics, both strong Highlanders, and both under arms,
+like Bitias and Pandarus in the AEneid, ready to defend the
+entrance if aught hostile had ventured an intrusion.
+
+When the travellers were admitted into the court, they found
+additional preparations for defence.  The walls were scaffolded
+for the use of fire-arms, and one or two of the small guns,
+called sackers, or falcons, were mounted at the angles and
+flanking turrets.
+
+More domestics, both in the Highland and Lowland dress, instantly
+rushed from the anterior of the mansion, and some hastened to
+take the horses of the strangers, while others waited to marshal
+them a way into the dwelling-house.  But Captain Dalgetty refused
+the proffered assistance of those who wished to relieve him of
+the charge of his horse.  "It is my custom, my friends, to see
+Gustavus (for so I have called him, after my invincible master)
+accommodated myself; we are old friends and fellow-travellers,
+and as I often need the use of his legs, I always lend him in my
+turn the service of my tongue, to call for whatever he has
+occasion for;" and accordingly he strode into the stable after
+his steed without farther apology.
+
+Neither Lord Menteith nor his attendants paid the same attention
+to their horses, but, leaving them to the proffered care of the
+servants of the place, walked forward into the house, where a
+sort of dark vaulted vestibule displayed, among other
+miscellaneous articles, a huge barrel of two-penny ale, beside
+which were ranged two or three wooden queichs, or bickers, ready,
+it would appear, for the service of whoever thought proper to
+employ them.  Lord Menteith applied himself to the spigot, drank
+without ceremony, and then handed the stoup to Anderson, who
+followed his master's example, but not until he had flung out the
+drop of ale which remained, and slightly rinsed the wooden cup.
+
+"What the deil, man," said an old Highland servant belonging to
+the family, "can she no drink after her ain master without
+washing the cup and spilling the ale, and be tamned to her!"
+
+"I was bred in France," answered Anderson, "where nobody drinks
+after another out of the same cup, unless it be after a young
+lady."
+
+"The teil's in their nicety!"  said Donald; "and if the ale be
+gude, fat the waur is't that another man's beard's been in the
+queich before ye?"
+
+Anderson's companion drank without observing the ceremony which
+had given Donald so much offence, and both of them followed their
+master into the low-arched stone hall, which was the common
+rendezvous of a Highland family.  A large fire of peats in the
+huge chimney at the upper end shed a dim light through the
+apartment, and was rendered necessary by the damp, by which, even
+during the summer, the apartment was rendered uncomfortable.
+Twenty or thirty targets, as many claymores, with dirks, and
+plaids, and guns, both match-lock and fire-lock, and long-bows,
+and cross-bows, and Lochaber axes, and coats of plate armour, and
+steel bonnets, and headpieces, and the more ancient haborgeons,
+or shirts of reticulated mail, with hood and sleeves
+corresponding to it, all hung in confusion about the walls, and
+would have formed a month's amusement to a member of a modern
+antiquarian society.  But such things were too familiar, to
+attract much observation on the part of the present spectators.
+
+There was a large clumsy oaken table, which the hasty hospitality
+of the domestic who had before spoken, immediately spread with
+milk, butter, goat-milk cheese, a flagon of beer, and a flask of
+usquebae, designed for the refreshment of Lord Menteith; while an
+inferior servant made similar preparations at the bottom of the
+table for the benefit of his attendants.  The space which
+intervened between them was, according to the manners of the
+times, sufficient distinction between master and servant, even
+though the former was, as in the present instance, of high rank.
+Meanwhile the guests stood by the fire--the young nobleman under
+the chimney, and his servants at some little distance.
+
+"What do you think, Anderson," said the former, "of our fellow-
+traveller?"
+
+"A stout fellow," replied Anderson, "if all be good that is
+upcome.  I wish we had twenty such, to put our Teagues into some
+sort of discipline."
+
+"I differ from you, Anderson," said Lord Menteith; "I think this
+fellow Dalgetty is one of those horse-leeches, whose appetite for
+blood being only sharpened by what he has sucked in foreign
+countries, he is now returned to batten upon that of his own.
+Shame on the pack of these mercenary swordmen! they have made the
+name of Scot through all Europe equivalent to that of a pitiful
+mercenary, who knows neither honour nor principle but his month's
+pay, who transfers his allegiance from standard to standard, at
+the pleasure of fortune or the highest bidder; and to whose
+insatiable thirst for plunder and warm quarters we owe much of
+that civil dissension which is now turning our swords against our
+own bowels.  I had scarce patience with the hired gladiator, and
+yet could hardly help laughing at the extremity of his
+impudence."
+
+"Your lordship will forgive me," said Anderson, "if I recommend
+to you, in the present circumstances, to conceal at least a part
+of this generous indignation; we cannot, unfortunately, do our
+work without the assistance of those who act on baser motives
+than our own.  We cannot spare the assistance of such fellows as
+our friend the soldado.  To use the canting phrase of the saints
+in the English Parliament, the sons of Zeruiah are still too many
+for us."
+
+"I must dissemble, then, as well as I can," said Lord Menteith,
+"as I have hitherto done, upon your hint.  But I wish the fellow
+at the devil with all my heart."
+
+"Ay, but still you must remember, my lord," resumed Anderson,
+"that to cure the bite of a scorpion, you must crush another
+scorpion on the wound--But stop, we shall be overheard."
+
+From a side-door in the hall glided a Highlander into the
+apartment, whose lofty stature and complete equipment, as well as
+the eagle's feather in his bonnet, and the confidence of his
+demeanour, announced to be a person of superior rank.  He walked
+slowly up to the table, and made no answer to Lord Menteith, who,
+addressing him by the name of Allan, asked him how he did.
+
+"Ye manna speak to her e'en now," whispered the old attendant.
+
+The tall Highlander, sinking down upon the empty settle next the
+fire, fixed his eyes upon the red embers and the huge heap of
+turf, and seemed buried in profound abstraction.  His dark eyes,
+and wild and enthusiastic features, bore the air of one who,
+deeply impressed with his own subjects of meditation, pays little
+attention to exterior objects.  An air of gloomy severity, the
+fruit perhaps of ascetic and solitary habits, might, in a
+Lowlander, have been ascribed to religious fanaticism; but by
+that disease of the mind, then so common both in England and the
+Lowlands of Scotland, the Highlanders of this period were rarely
+infected.  They had, however, their own peculiar superstitions,
+which overclouded the mind with thick-coming fancies, as
+completely as the puritanism of their neighbours.
+
+"His lordship's honour," said the Highland servant sideling up to
+Lord Menteith, and speaking in a very low tone, "his lordship
+manna speak to Allan even now, for the cloud is upon his mind."
+
+Lord Menteith nodded, and took no farther notice of the reserved
+mountaineer.
+
+"Said I not," asked the latter, suddenly raising his stately
+person upright, and looking at the domestic--"said I not that
+four were to come, and here stand but three on the hall floor?"
+
+"In troth did ye say sae, Allan," said the old Highlander, "and
+here's the fourth man coming clinking in at the yett e'en now
+from the stable, for he's shelled like a partan, wi' airn on back
+and breast, haunch and shanks.  And am I to set her chair up near
+the Menteith's, or down wi' the honest gentlemen at the foot of
+the table?"
+
+Lord Menteith himself answered the enquiry, by pointing to a seat
+beside his own.
+
+"And here she comes," said Donald, as Captain Dalgetty entered
+the hall; "and I hope gentlemens will all take bread and cheese,
+as we say in the glens, until better meat be ready, until the
+Tiernach comes back frae the hill wi' the southern gentlefolk,
+and then Dugald Cook will show himself wi' his kid and hill
+venison.''
+
+In the meantime, Captain Dalgetty had entered the apartment, and
+walking up to the seat placed next Lord Menteith, was leaning on
+the back of it with his arms folded.  Anderson and his companion
+waited at the bottom of the table, in a respectful attitude,
+until they should receive permission to seat themselves; while
+three or four Highlanders, under the direction of old Donald, ran
+hither and thither to bring additional articles of food, or stood
+still to give attendance upon the guests.
+
+In the midst of these preparations, Allan suddenly started up,
+and snatching a lamp from the hand of an attendant, held it close
+to Dalgetty's face, while he perused his features with the most
+heedful and grave attention.
+
+"By my honour," said Dalgetty, half displeased, as, mysteriously
+shaking his head, Allan gave up the scrutiny--"I trow that lad
+and I will ken each other when we meet again."
+
+Meanwhile Allan strode to the bottom of the table, and having, by
+the aid of his lamp, subjected Anderson and his companion to the
+same investigation, stood a moment as if in deep reflection;
+then, touching his forehead, suddenly seized Anderson by the arm,
+and before he could offer any effectual resistance, half led and
+half dragged him to the vacant seat at the upper end, and having
+made a mute intimation that he should there place himself, he
+hurried the soldado with the same unceremonious precipitation to
+the bottom of the table.  The Captain, exceedingly incensed at
+this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from him with violence;
+but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle inferior to
+the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such violence,
+that after reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and the
+vaulted hall rang with the clash of his armour.  When he arose,
+his first action was to draw his sword and to fly at Allan, who,
+with folded arms, seemed to await his onset with the most
+scornful indifference.  Lord Menteith and his attendants
+interposed to preserve peace, while the Highlanders, snatching
+weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase the broil.
+
+"He is mad," whispered Lord Menteith, "he is perfectly mad; there
+is no purpose in quarrelling with him."
+
+"If your lordship is assured that he is NON COMPOS MENTIS," said
+Captain Dalgetty, "the whilk his breeding and behaviour seem to
+testify, the matter must end here, seeing that a madman can
+neither give an affront, nor render honourable satisfaction.
+But, by my saul, if I had my provstnt and a bottle of Rhenish
+under my belt, I should hive stood otherways up to him.  And yet
+it's a pity he should be sae weak in the intellectuals, being a
+strong proper man of body, fit to handle pike, morgenstern, or
+any other military implement whatsoever."  [This was a sort of
+club or mace, used in the earlier part of the seventeenth century
+in the defence of breaches and walls.  When the Germans insulted
+a Scotch regiment then besieged in Trailsund, saying they heard
+there was a ship come from Denmark to them laden with tobacco
+pipes, "One of our soldiers," says Colonel Robert Munro, "showing
+them over the work a morgenstern, made of a large stock banded
+with iron, like the shaft of a halberd, with a round globe at the
+end with cross iron pikes, saith, 'Here is one of the tobacco
+pipes, wherewith we will beat out your brains when you intend to
+storm us.'"]
+
+Peace was thus restored, and the party seated themselves
+agreeably to their former arrangement, with which Allan, who had
+now returned to his settle by the fire, and seemed once more
+immersed in meditation, did not again interfere.  Lord Menteith,
+addressing the principal domestic, hastened to start some theme
+of conversation which might obliterate all recollection of the
+fray that had taken place.  "The laird is at the hill then,
+Donald, I understand, and some English strangers with him?"
+
+"At the hill he is, an it like your honour, and two Saxon
+calabaleros are with him sure eneugh; and that is Sir Miles
+Musgrave and Christopher Hall, both from the Cumraik, as I think
+they call their country."
+
+"Hall and Musgrave?"  said Lord Menteith, looking at his
+attendants, "the very men that we wished to see."
+
+"Troth," said Donald, "an' I wish I had never seen them between
+the een, for they're come to herry us out o' house and ha'."
+
+"Why, Donald," said Lord Menteith, "you did not use to be so
+churlish of your beef and ale; southland though they be, they'll
+scarce eat up all the cattle that's going on the castle mains."
+
+"Teil care an they did," said Donald, "an that were the warst
+o't, for we have a wheen canny trewsmen here that wadna let us
+want if there was a horned beast atween this and Perth.  But this
+is a warse job--it's nae less than a wager."
+
+"A wager!"  repeated Lord Menteith, with some surprise.
+
+"Troth," continued Donald, to the full as eager to tell his news
+as Lord Menteith was curious to hear them, "as your lordship is a
+friend and kinsman o' the house, an' as ye'll hear eneugh o't in
+less than an hour, I may as weel tell ye mysell. Ye sall be
+pleased then to know, that when our Laird was up in England where
+he gangs oftener than his friends can wish, he was biding at the
+house o' this Sir Miles Musgrave, an' there was putten on the
+table six candlesticks, that they tell me were twice as muckle as
+the candlesticks in Dunblane kirk, and neither airn, brass, nor
+tin, but a' solid silver, nae less;--up wi' their English pride,
+has sae muckle, and kens sae little how to guide it!  Sae they
+began to jeer the Laird, that he saw nae sic graith in his ain
+poor country; and the Laird, scorning to hae his country put down
+without a word for its credit, swore, like a gude Scotsman, that
+he had mair candlesticks, and better candlesticks, in his ain
+castle at hame, than were ever lighted in a hall in Cumberland,
+an Cumberland be the name o' the country."
+
+"That was patriotically said," observed Lord Menteith.
+
+"Fary true," said Donald; "but her honour had better hae hauden
+her tongue:  for if ye say ony thing amang the Saxons that's a
+wee by ordinar, they clink ye down for a wager as fast as a
+Lowland smith would hammer shoon on a Highland shelty.  An' so
+the Laird behoved either to gae back o' his word, or wager twa
+hunder merks; and sa he e'en tock the wager, rather than be
+shamed wi' the like o' them.  And now he's like to get it to pay,
+and I'm thinking that's what makes him sae swear to come hame at
+e'en."
+
+"Indeed," said Lord Menteith, "from my idea of your family plate,
+Donald, your master is certain to lose such a wager."
+
+"Your honour may swear that; an' where he's to get the siller I
+kenna, although he borrowed out o' twenty purses.  I advised him
+to pit the twa Saxon gentlemen and their servants cannily into
+the pit o' the tower till they gae up the bagain o' free gude-
+will, but the Laird winna hear reason."
+
+Allan here started up, strode forward, and interrupted the
+conversation, saying to the domestic in a voice like thunder,
+"And how dared you to give my brother such dishonourable advice?
+or how dare you to say he will lose this or any other wager which
+it is his pleasure to lay?"
+
+"Troth, Allan M'Aulay," answered the old man, "it's no for my
+father's son to gainsay what your father's son thinks fit to say,
+an' so the Laird may no doubt win his wager.  A' that I ken
+against it is, that the teil a candlestick, or ony thing like it,
+is in the house, except the auld airn branches that has been here
+since Laird Kenneth's time, and the tin sconces that your father
+gard be made by auld Willie Winkie the tinkler, mair be token
+that deil an unce of siller plate is about the house at a', forby
+the lady's auld posset dish, that wants the cover and ane o' the
+lugs."
+
+"Peace, old man!"  said Allan, fiercely; "and do you, gentlemen,
+if your refection is finished, leave this apartment clear; I must
+prepare it for the reception of these southern guests."
+
+"Come away," said the domestic, pulling Lord Menteith by the
+sleeve; "his hour is on him," said he, looking towards Allan,
+"and he will not be controlled."
+
+They left the hall accordingly, Lord Menteith and the Captain
+being ushered one way by old Donald, and the two attendants
+conducted elsewhere by another Highlander.  The former had
+scarcely reached a sort of withdrawing apartment ere they were
+joined by the lord of the mansion, Angus M'Aulay by name, and his
+English guests.  Great joy was expressed by all parties, for Lord
+Menteith and the English gentlemen were well known to each other;
+and on Lord Menteith's introduction, Captain Dalgetty was well
+received by the Laird.  But after the first burst of hospitable
+congratulation was over, Lord Menteith could observe that there
+was a shade of sadness on the brow of his Highland friend.
+
+"You must have heard," said Sir Christopher Hall, "that our fine
+undertaking in Cumberland is all blown up.  The militia would not
+march into Scotland, and your prick-ear'd Covenanters have been
+too hard for our friends in the southern shires.  And so,
+understanding there is some stirring work here, Musgrave and I,
+rather than sit idle at home, are come to have a campaign among
+your kilts and plaids."
+
+"I hope you have brought arms, men, and money with you," said
+Lord Menteith, smiling.
+
+"Only some dozen or two of troopers, whom we left at the last
+Lowland village," said Musgrave, "and trouble enough we had to
+get them so far."
+
+"As for money," said his companion, "We expect a small supply
+from our friend and host here."
+
+The Laird now, colouring highly, took Menteith a little apart,
+and expressed to him his regret that he had fallen into a foolish
+blunder.
+
+"I heard it from Donald," said Lord Menteith, scarce able to
+suppress a smile.
+
+"Devil take that old man," said M'Aulay, "he would tell every
+thing, were it to cost one's life; but it's no jesting matter to
+you neither, my lord, for I reckon on your friendly and fraternal
+benevolence, as a near kinsman of our house, to help me out with
+the money due to these pock-puddings; or else, to be plain wi'
+ye, the deil a M'Aulay will there be at the muster, for curse me
+if I do not turn Covenanter rather than face these fellows
+without paying them; and, at the best, I shall be ill enough off,
+getting both the scaith and the scorn."
+
+"You may suppose, cousin," said Lord Menteith, "I am not too well
+equipt just now; but you may be assured I shall endeavour to help
+you as well as I can, for the sake of old kindred, neighbourhood,
+and alliance."
+
+"Thank ye--thank ye--thank ye," reiterated M'Aulay; "and as they
+are to spend the money in the King's service, what signifies
+whether you, they, or I pay it?--we are a' one man's bairns, I
+hope?  But you must help me out too with some reasonable excuse,
+or else I shall be for taking to Andrew Ferrara; for I like not
+to be treated like a liar or a braggart at my own board-end,
+when, God knows, I only meant to support my honour, and that of
+my family and country.
+
+Donald, as they were speaking, entered, with rather a blither
+face than he might have been expected to wear, considering the
+impending fate of his master's purse and credit.  "Gentlemens,
+her dinner is ready, and HER CANDLES ARE LIGHTED TOO," said
+Donald, with a strong guttural emphasis on the last clause of his
+speech.
+
+"What the devil can he mean?"  said Musgrave, looking to his
+countryman.
+
+Lord Menteith put the same question with his eyes to the Laird,
+which M'Aulay answered by shaking his head.
+
+A short dispute about precedence somewhat delayed their leaving
+the apartment.  Lord Menteith insisted upon yielding up that
+which belonged to his rank, on consideration of his being in his
+own country, and of his near connexion with the family in which
+they found themselves.  The two English strangers, therefore,
+were first ushered into the hall, where an unexpected display
+awaited them.  The large oaken table was spread with substantial
+joints of meat, and seats were placed in order for the guests.
+Behind every seat stood a gigantic Highlander, completely dressed
+and armed after the fashion of his country, holding in his right
+hand his drawn sword, with the point turned downwards, and in the
+left a blazing torch made of the bog-pine.  This wood, found in
+the morasses, is so full of turpentine, that, when split and
+dried, it is frequently used in the Highlands instead of candles.
+The unexpected and somewhat startling apparition was seen by the
+red glare of the torches, which displayed the wild features,
+unusual dress, and glittering arms of those who bore them, while
+the smoke, eddying up to the roof of the hall, over-canopied them
+with a volume of vapour.  Ere the strangers had recovered from
+their surprise, Allan stept forward, and pointing with his
+sheathed broadsword to the torch-bearers, said, in a deep and
+stern tone of voice, "Behold, gentlemen cavaliers, the
+chandeliers of my brother's house, the ancient fashion of our
+ancient name; not one of these men knows any law but their Chiefs
+command--Would you dare to compare to THEM in value the richest
+ore that ever was dug out of the mine?  How say you, cavaliers?
+--is your wager won or lost?"
+
+"Lost; lost," said Musgrave, gaily--"my own silver candlesticks
+are all melted and riding on horseback by this time, and I wish
+the fellows that enlisted were half as trusty as these.--Here,
+sir," he added to the Chief, "is your money; it impairs Hall's
+finances and mine somewhat, but debts of honour must be settled."
+
+"My father's curse upon my father's son," said Allan,
+interrupting him, "if he receive from you one penny!  It is
+enough that you claim no right to exact from him what is his
+own."
+
+Lord Menteith eagerly supported Allan's opinion, and the elder
+M'Aulay readily joined, declaring the whole to be a fool's
+business, and not worth speaking more about.  The Englishmen,
+after some courteous opposition, were persuaded to regard the
+whole as a joke.
+
+"And now, Allan," said the Laird, "please to remove your candles;
+for, since the Saxon gentlemen have seen them, they will eat
+their dinner as comfortably by the light of the old tin sconces,
+without scomfishing them with so much smoke."
+
+Accordingly, at a sign from Allan, the living chandeliers,
+recovering their broadswords, and holding the point erect,
+marched out of the hall, and left the guests to enjoy their
+refreshment.  [Such a bet as that mentioned in the text is said
+to have been taken by MacDonald of Keppoch, who extricated
+himself in the manner there narrated.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Thareby so fearlesse and so fell he grew,
+That his own syre and maister of his guise
+Did often tremble at his horrid view;
+And if for dread of hurt would him advise,
+The angry beastes not rashly to despise,
+Nor too much to provoke; for he would learne
+The lion stoup to him in lowly wise,
+(A lesson hard,) and make the libbard sterne
+Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did earne.    SPENSER.
+
+Notwithstanding the proverbial epicurism of the English,
+--proverbial, that is to say, in Scotland at the period,--the
+English visitors made no figure whatever at the entertainment,
+compared with the portentous voracity of Captain Dalgetty,
+although that gallant soldier had already displayed much
+steadiness and pertinacity in his attack upon the lighter
+refreshment set before them at their entrance, by way of forlorn
+hope.  He spoke to no one during the time of his meal; and it was
+not until the victuals were nearly withdrawn from the table, that
+he gratified the rest of the company, who had watched him with
+some surprise, with an account of the reasons why he ate so very
+fast and so very long.
+
+"The former quality," he said, "he had acquired, while he filled
+a place at the bursar's table at the Mareschal-College of
+Aberdeen; when," said he; "if you did not move your jaws as fast
+as a pair of castanets, you were very unlikely to get any thing
+to put between them.  And as for the quantity of my food, be it
+known to this honourable company," continued the Captain, "that
+it's the duty of every commander of a fortress, on all occasions
+which offer, to secure as much munition and vivers as their
+magazines can possibly hold, not knowing when they may have to
+sustain a siege or a blockade.  Upon which principle, gentlemen,"
+said he, "when a cavalier finds that provant is good and
+abundant, he will, in my estimation, do wisely to victual himself
+for at least three days, as there is no knowing when he may come
+by another meal."
+
+The Laird expressed his acquiescence in the prudence of this
+principle, and recommended to the veteran to add a tass of brandy
+and a flagon of claret to the substantial provisions he had
+already laid in, to which proposal the Captain readily agreed.
+
+When dinner was removed, and the servants had withdrawn,
+excepting the Laird's page, or henchman, who remained in the
+apartment to call for or bring whatever was wanted, or, in a
+word, to answer the purposes of a modern bell-wire, the
+conversation began to turn upon politics, and the state of the
+country; and Lord Menteith enquired anxiously and particularly
+what clans were expected to join the proposed muster of the
+King's friends.
+
+"That depends much, my lord, on the person who lifts the banner,"
+said the Laird; "for you know we Highlanders, when a few clans
+are assembled, are not easily commanded by one of our own Chiefs,
+or, to say the truth, by any other body.  We have heard a rumour,
+indeed, that Colkitto--that is, young Colkitto, or Alaster
+M'Donald, is come over the Kyle from Ireland, with a body of the
+Earl of Antrim's people, and that they had got as far as
+Ardnamurchan.  They might have been here before now, but, I
+suppose, they loitered to plunder the country as they came
+along."
+
+"Will Colkitto not serve you for a leader, then?"  said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"Colkitto?"  said Allan M'Aulay, scornfully; "who talks of
+Colkitto?--There lives but one man whom we will follow, and that
+is Montrose."
+
+"But Montrose, sir," said Sir Christopher Hall, "has not been
+heard of since our ineffectual attempt to rise in the north of
+England.  It is thought he has returned to the King at Oxford for
+farther instructions."
+
+"Returned!"  said Allan, with a scornful laugh; "I could tell ye,
+but it is not worth my while; ye will know soon enough."
+
+"By my honour, Allan," said Lord Menteith, "you will weary out
+your friends with this intolerable, froward, and sullen humour
+--But I know the reason," added he, laughing; "you have not seen
+Annot Lyle to-day."
+
+"Whom did you say I had not seen?"  said Allan, sternly.
+
+"Annot Lyle, the fairy queen of song and minstrelsy," said Lord
+Menteith.
+
+"Would to God I were never to see her again," said Allan,
+sighing, "On condition the same weird were laid on you!"
+
+"And why on me?"  said Lord Menteith, carelessly.
+
+"Because," said Allan, "it is written on your forehead, that you
+are to be the ruin of each other."  So saying, he rose up and
+left the room.
+
+"Has he been long in this way?"  asked Lord Menteith, addressing
+his brother.
+
+"About three days," answered Angus; "the fit is wellnigh over, he
+will be better to-morrow.--But come, gentlemen, don't let the
+tappit-hen scraugh to be emptied.  The King's health, King
+Charles's health!  and may the covenanting dog that refuses it,
+go to Heaven by the road of the Grassmarket!"
+
+The health was quickly pledged, and as fast succeeded by another,
+and another, and another, all of a party cast, and enforced in
+an earnest manner.  Captain Dalgetty, however, thought it
+necessary to enter a protest.
+
+"Gentlemen cavaliers," he said, "I drink these healths, PRIMO,
+both out of respect to this honourable and hospitable roof-tree,
+and, SECUNDO, because I hold it not good to be preceese in such
+matters, INTER POCULA; but I protest, agreeable to the warrandice
+granted by this honourable lord, that it shall be free to me,
+notwithstanding my present complaisance, to take service with the
+Covenanters to-morrow, providing I shall be so minded."
+
+M'Aulay and his English guests stared at this declaration, which
+would have certainly bred new disturbance, if Lord Menteith had
+not taken up the affair, and explained the circumstances and
+conditions.  "I trust," he concluded, "we shall be able to secure
+Captain Dalgetty's assistance to our own party."
+
+"And if not," said the Laird, "I protest, as the Captain says,
+that nothing that has passed this evening, not even his having
+eaten my bread and salt, and pledged me in brandy, Bourdeaux, or
+usquebaugh, shall prejudice my cleaving him to the neck-bone."
+
+"You shall be heartily welcome," said the Captain, "providing my
+sword cannot keep my head, which it has done in worse dangers
+than your fend is likely to make for me."
+
+Here Lord Menteith again interposed, and the concord of the
+company being with no small difficulty restored, was cemented by
+some deep carouses.  Lord Menteith, however, contrived to break
+up the party earlier than was the usage of the Castle, under
+pretence of fatigue and indisposition.  This was somewhat to the
+disappointment of the valiant Captain, who, among other habits
+acquired in the Low countries, had acquired both a disposition to
+drink, and a capacity to bear, an exorbitant quantity of strong
+liquors.
+
+Their landlord ushered them in person to a sort of sleeping
+gallery, in which there was a four-post bed, with tartan
+curtains, and a number of cribs, or long hampers, placed along
+the wall, three of which, well stuffed with blooming heather,
+were prepared for the reception of guests.
+
+"I need not tell your lordship," said M'Aulay to Lord Menteith, a
+little apart, "our Highland mode of quartering. Only that, not
+liking you should sleep in the room alone with this German land-
+louper, I have caused your servants' beds to be made here in the
+gallery.  By G--d, my lord, these are times when men go to bed
+with a throat hale and sound as ever swallowed brandy, and before
+next morning it may be gaping like an oyster-shell."
+
+Lord Menteith thanked him sincerely, saying, "It was just the
+arrangement he would have requested; for, although he had not the
+least apprehension of violence from Captain Dalgetty, yet
+Anderson was a better kind of person, a sort of gentleman, whom
+he always liked to have near his person."
+
+"I have not seen this Anderson," said M'Aulay; "did you hire him
+in England?"
+
+"I did so," said Lord Menteith; "you will see the man to-morrow;
+in the meantime I wish you good-night."
+
+His host left the apartment after the evening salutation, and was
+about to pay the same compliment to Captain Dalgetty, but
+observing him deeply engaged in the discussion of a huge pitcher
+filled with brandy posset, he thought it a pity to disturb him in
+so laudable an employment, and took his leave without farther
+ceremony.
+
+Lord Menteith's two attendants entered the apartment almost
+immediately after his departure.  The good Captain, who was now
+somewhat encumbered with his good cheer, began to find the
+undoing of the clasps of his armour a task somewhat difficult,
+and addressed Anderson in these words, interrupted by a slight
+hiccup,--"Anderson, my good friend, you may read in Scripture,
+that he that putteth off his armour should not boast himself like
+he that putteth it on--I believe that is not the right word of
+command; but the plain truth of it is, I am like to sleep in my
+corslet, like many an honest fellow that never waked again,
+unless you unloose this buckle."
+
+"Undo his armour, Sibbald," said Anderson to the other servant.
+
+"By St. Andrew!"  exclaimed the Captain, turning round in great
+astonishment, "here's a common fellow--a stipendiary with four
+pounds a-year and a livery cloak, thinks himself too good to
+serve Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who has
+studied humanity at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, and served
+half the princes of Europe!"
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," said Lord Menteith, whose lot it was to stand
+peacemaker throughout the evening, "please to understand that
+Anderson waits upon no one but myself; but I will help Sibbald to
+undo your corslet with much pleasure."
+
+"Too much trouble for you, my lord," said Dalgetty; "and yet it
+would do you no harm to practise how a handsome harness is put on
+and put off.  I can step in and out of mine like a glove; only
+to-night, although not EBRIUS, I am, in the classic phrase, VINO
+CIBOQUE GRAVATUS."
+
+By this time he was unshelled, and stood before the fire musing
+with a face of drunken wisdom on the events of the evening.  What
+seemed chiefly to interest him, was the character of Allan
+M'Aulay.  "To come over the Englishmen so cleverly with his
+Highland torch-bearers--eight bare-breeched Rories for six silver
+candlesticks!--it was a master-piece--a TOUR DE PASSE--it was
+perfect legerdemain--and to be a madman after all!--I doubt
+greatly, my lord" (shaking his head), "that I must allow him,
+notwithstanding his relationship to your lordship, the privileges
+of a rational person, and either batoon him sufficiently to
+expiate the violence offered to my person, or else bring it to a
+matter of mortal arbitrement, as becometh an insulted cavalier."
+
+"If you care to hear a long story," said Lord Menteith, at this
+time of night, I can tell you how the circumstances of Allan's
+birth account so well for his singular character, as to put such
+satisfaction entirely out of the question."
+
+"A long story, my lord," said Captain Dalgetty, "is, next to a
+good evening draught and a warm nightcap, the best shoeinghorn
+for drawing on a sound sleep.  And since your lordship is pleased
+to take the trouble to tell it, I shall rest your patient and
+obliged auditor."
+
+"Anderson," said Lord Menteith, "and you, Sibbald, are dying to
+hear, I suppose, of this strange man too!  and I believe I must
+indulge your curiosity, that you may know how to behave to him in
+time of need.  You had better step to the fire then."
+
+Having thus assembled an audience about him, Lord Menteith sat
+down upon the edge of the four-post bed, while Captain Dalgetty,
+wiping the relics of the posset from his beard and mustachoes,
+and repeating the first verse of the Lutheran psalm, ALLE GUTER
+GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, etc. rolled himself into one of the
+places of repose, and thrusting his shock pate from between the
+blankets, listened to Lord Menteith's relation in a most
+luxurious state, between sleeping and waking.
+
+"The father," said Lord Menteith, "of the two brothers, Angus and
+Allan M'Aulay, was a gentleman of consideration and family, being
+the chief of a Highland clan, of good account, though not
+numerous; his lady, the mother of these young men, was a
+gentlewoman of good family, if I may be permitted to say so of
+one nearly connected with my own.  Her brother, an honourable and
+spirited young man, obtained from James the Sixth a grant of
+forestry, and other privileges, over a royal chase adjacent to
+this castle; and, in exercising and defending these rights, he
+was so unfortunate as to involve himself in a quarrel with some
+of our Highland freebooters or caterans, of whom I think, Captain
+Dalgetty, you must have heard."
+
+"And that I have," said the Captain, exerting himself to answer
+the appeal.  "Before I left the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen,
+Dugald Garr was playing the devil in the Garioch, and the
+Farquharsons on Dee-side, and the Clan Chattan on the Gordons'
+lands, and the Grants and Camerons in Moray-land.  And since
+that, I have seen the Cravats and Pandours in Pannonia and
+Transylvania, and the Cossacks from the Polish frontier, and
+robbers, banditti, and barbarians of all countries besides, so
+that I have a distinct idea of your broken Highlandmen."
+
+"The clan," said Lord Menteith, "with whom the maternal uncle of
+the M'Aulays had been placed in feud, was a small sept of
+banditti, called, from their houseless state, and their
+incessantly wandering among the mountains and glens, the Children
+of the Mist.  They are a fierce and hardy people, with all the
+irritability, and wild and vengeful passions, proper to men who
+have never known the restraint of civilized society.  A party of
+them lay in wait for the unfortunate Warden of the Forest,
+surprised him while hunting alone and unattended, and slew him
+with every circumstance of inventive cruelty.  They cut off his
+head, and resolved, in a bravado, to exhibit it at the castle of
+his brother-in-law.  The laird was absent, and the lady
+reluctantly received as guests, men against whom, perhaps, she
+was afraid to shut her gates.  Refreshments were placed before
+the Children of the Mist, who took an opportunity to take the
+head of their victim from the plaid in which it was wrapt, placed
+it on the table, put a piece of bread between the lifeless jaws,
+bidding them do their office now, since many a good meal they had
+eaten at that table.  The lady, who had been absent for some
+household purpose, entered at this moment, and, upon beholding
+her brother's head, fled like an arrow out of the house into the
+woods, uttering shriek upon shriek.  The ruffians, satisfied with
+this savage triumph, withdrew.  The terrified menials, after
+overcoming the alarm to which they had been subjected, sought
+their unfortunate mistress in every direction, but she was
+nowhere to be found.  The miserable husband returned next day,
+and, with the assistance of his people, undertook a more anxious
+and distant search, but to equally little purpose.  It was
+believed universally, that, in the ecstasy of her terror, she
+must either have thrown herself over one of the numerous
+precipices which overhang the river, or into a deep lake about a
+mile from the castle.  Her loss was the more lamented, as she was
+six months advanced in her pregnancy; Angus M'Aulay, her eldest
+son, having been born about eighteen months before.--But I tire
+you, Captain Dalgetty, and you seem inclined to sleep."
+
+"By no means," answered the soldier; "I am no whit somnolent; I
+always hear best with my eyes shut.  It is a fashion I learned
+when I stood sentinel."
+
+"And I daresay," said Lord Menteith, aside to Anderson, "the
+weight of the halberd of the sergeant of the rounds often made
+him open them."
+
+Being apparently, however, in the humour of story-telling, the
+young nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his
+servants, without minding the slumbering veteran.
+
+"Every baron in the country," said he, "now swore revenge for
+this dreadful crime.  They took arms with the relations and
+brother-in-law of the murdered person, and the Children of the
+Mist were hunted down, I believe, with as little mercy as they
+had themselves manifested.  Seventeen heads, the bloody trophies
+of their vengeance, were distributed among the allies, and fed
+the crows upon the gates of their castles.  The survivors sought
+out more distant wildernesses, to which they retreated."
+
+"To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former
+ground," said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having
+produced the correspondent word of command; and then starting up,
+professed he had been profoundly atttentive to every word that
+had been spoken.
+
+"It is the custom in summer," said Lord Menteith, without
+attending to his apology, "to send the cows to the upland
+pastures to have the benefit of the grass; and the maids of the
+village, and of the family, go there to milk them in the morning
+and evening.  While thus employed, the females of this family, to
+their great terror, perceived that their motions were watched at
+a distance by a pale, thin, meagre figure, bearing a strong
+resemblance to their deceased mistress, and passing, of course,
+for her apparition.  When some of the boldest resolved to
+approach this faded form, it fled from them into the woods with a
+wild shriek.  The husband, informed of this circumstance, came up
+to the glen with some attendants, and took his measures so well
+as to intercept the retreat of the unhappy fugitive, and to
+secure the person of his unfortunate lady, though her intellect
+proved to be totally deranged.  How she supported herself during
+her wandering in the woods could not be known--some supposed she
+lived upon roots and wild-berries, with which the woods at that
+season abounded; but the greater part of the vulgar were
+satisfied that she must have subsisted upon the milk of the wild
+does, or been nourished by the fairies, or supported in some
+manner equally marvellous.  Her re-appearance was more easily
+accounted for.  She had seen from the thicket the milking of the
+cows, to superintend which had been her favourite domestic
+employment, and the habit had prevailed even in her deranged
+state of mind.
+
+"In due season the unfortunate lady was delivered of a boy, who
+not only showed no appearance of having suffered from his
+mother's calamities, but appeared to be an infant of uncommon
+health and strength.  The unhappy mother, after her confinement,
+recovered her reason--at least in a great measure, but never her
+health and spirits.  Allan was her only joy.  Her attention to
+him was unremitting; and unquestionably she must have impressed
+upon his early mind many of those superstitious ideas to which
+his moody and enthusiastic temper gave so ready a reception.  She
+died when he was about ten years old.  Her last words were spoken
+to him in private; but there is little doubt that they conveyed
+an injunction of vengeance upon the Children of the Mist, with
+which he has since amply complied.
+
+"From this moment, the habits of Allan M'Aulay were totally
+changed.  He had hitherto been his mother's constant companion,
+listening to her dreams, and repeating his own, and feeding his
+imagination, which, probably from the circumstances preceding his
+birth, was constitutionally deranged, with all the wild and
+terrible superstitions so common to the mountaineers, to which
+his unfortunate mother had become much addicted since her
+brother's death.  By living in this manner, the boy had gotten a
+timid, wild, startled look, loved to seek out solitary places in
+the woods, and was never so much terrified, as by the approach of
+children of the same age.  I remember, although some years
+younger, being brought up here by my father upon a visit, nor can
+I forget the astonishment with which I saw this infant-hermit
+shun every attempt I made to engage him in the sports natural to
+our age.  I can remember his father bewailing his disposition to
+mine, and alleging, at the same time, that it was impossible for
+him to take from his wife the company of the boy, as he seemed to
+be the only consolation that remained to her in this world, and
+as the amusement which Allan's society afforded her seemed to
+prevent the recurrence, at least in its full force, of that
+fearful malady by which she had been visited.  But, after the
+death of his mother, the habits and manners of the boy seemed at
+once to change.  It is true he remained as thoughtful and serious
+as before; and long fits of silence and abstraction showed
+plainly that his disposition, in this respect, was in no degree
+altered.  But at other times, he sought out the rendezvous of the
+youth of the c]an, which he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid.
+He took share in all their exercises; and, from his very
+extraordinary personal strength, soon excelled his brother and
+other youths, whose age considerably exceeded his own.  They who
+had hitherto held him in contempt, now feared, if they did not
+love him; and, instead of Allan's being esteemed a dreaming,
+womanish, and feeble-minded boy, those who encountered him in
+sports or military exercise, now complained that, when heated by
+the strife, he was too apt to turn game into earnest, and to
+forget that he was only engaged in a friendly trial of strength.
+--But I speak to regardless ears," said Lord Menteith,
+interrupting himself, for the Captain's nose now gave the most
+indisputable signs that he was fast locked in the arms of
+oblivion.
+
+"If you mean the ears of that snorting swine, my lord," said
+Anderson, "they are, indeed, shut to anything that you can say;
+nevertheless, this place being unfit for more private conference,
+I hope you will have the goodness to proceed, for Sibbald's
+benefit and for mine.  The history of this poor young fellow has
+a deep and wild interest in it."
+
+"You must know, then," proceeded Lord Menteith, "that Allan
+continued to increase in strength and activity, till his
+fifteenth year, about which time he assumed a total independence
+of character, and impatience of control, which much alarmed his
+surviving parent.  He was absent in the woods for whole days and
+nights, under pretence of hunting, though he did not always bring
+home game.  His father was the more alarmed, because several of
+the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing troubles
+of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did he
+think it altogether safe to renew any attack upon them.  The risk
+of Allan, in his wanderings, sustaining injury from these
+vindictive freebooters, was a perpetual source of apprehension.
+
+"I was myself upon a visit to the castle when this matter was
+brought to a crisis.  Allan had been absent since day-break in
+the woods, where I had sought for him in vain; it was a dark
+stormy night, and he did not return.  His father expressed the
+utmost anxiety, and spoke of detaching a party at the dawn of
+morning in quest of him; when, as we were sitting at the supper-
+table, the door suddenly opened, and Allan entered the room with
+a proud, firm, and confident air.  His intractability of temper,
+as well as the unsettled state of his mind, had such an influence
+over his father, that he suppressed all other tokens of
+displeasure, excepting the observation that I had killed a fat
+buck, and had returned before sunset, while he supposed Allan,
+who had been on the hill till midnight, had returned with empty
+hands.  'Are you sure of that?'  said Allan, fiercely; 'here is
+something will tell you another tale.'
+
+"We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots
+of blood on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when
+suddenly, undoing the comer of his plaid, he rolled down on the
+table a human head, bloody and new severed, saying at the same
+time, 'Lie thou where the head of a better man lay before ye.'
+From the haggard features, and matted red hair and beard, partly
+grizzled with age, his father and others present recognised the
+head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known leader among the
+outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had been active
+in the murder of the unfortunate Forester, uncle to Allan, and
+had escaped by a desperate defence and extraordinary agility,
+when so many of his companions were destroyed.  We were all, it
+may be believed, struck with surprise, but Allan refused to
+gratify our curiosity; and we only conjectured that he must have
+overcome the outlaw after a desperate struggle, because we
+discovered that he had sustained several wounds from the contest.
+All measures were now taken to ensure him against the vengeance
+of the freebooters; but neither his wounds, nor the positive
+command of his father, nor even the locking of the gates of the
+castle and the doors of his apartment, were precautions adequate
+to prevent Allan from seeking out the very persons to whom he was
+peculiarly obnoxious.  He made his escape by night from the
+window of the apartment, and laughing at his father's vain care,
+produced on one occasion the head of one, and upon another those
+of two, of the Children of the Mist.  At length these men, fierce
+as they were, became appalled by the inveterate animosity and
+audacity with which Allan sought out their recesses.  As he never
+hesitated to encounter any odds, they concluded that he must bear
+a charmed life, or fight under the guardianship of some
+supernatural influence.  Neither gun, dirk, nor dourlach
+[DOURLACH--quiver; literally, satchel--of arrows.], they said,
+availed aught against him.  They imputed this to the remarkable
+circumstances under which he was born; and at length five or six
+of the stoutest caterans of the Highlands would have fled at
+Allan's halloo, or the blast of his horn.
+
+"In the meanwhile, however, the Children of the Mist carried on
+their old trade, and did the M'Aulays, as well as their kinsmen
+and allies, as much mischief as they could.  This provoked
+another expedition against the tribe, in which I had my share; we
+surprised them effectually, by besetting at once the upper and
+under passes of the country, and made such clean work as is usual
+on these occasions, burning and slaying right before us.  In this
+terrible species of war, even the females and the helpless do not
+always escape.  One little maiden alone, who smiled upon Allan's
+drawn dirk, escaped his vengeance upon my earnest entreaty.  She
+was brought to the castle, and here bred up under the name of
+Annot Lyle, the most beautiful little fairy certainly that ever
+danced upon a heath by moonlight.  It was long ere Allan could
+endure the presence of the child, until it occurred to his
+imagination, from her features perhaps, that she did not belong
+to the hated blood of his enemies, but had become their captive
+in some of their incursions; a circumstance not in itself
+impossible, but in which he believes as firmly as in holy writ.
+He is particularly delighted by her skill in music, which is so
+exquisite, that she far exceeds the best performers in this
+country in playing on the clairshach, or harp.  It was discovered
+that this produced upon the disturbed spirits of Allan, in his
+gloomiest moods, beneficial effects, similar to those experienced
+by the Jewish monarch of old; and so engaging is the temper of
+Annot Lyle, so fascinating the innocence and gaiety of her
+disposition, that she is considered and treated in the castle
+rather as the sister of the proprietor, than as a dependent upon
+his charity.  Indeed, it is impossible for any one to see her
+without being deeply interested by the ingenuity, liveliness, and
+sweetness of her disposition."
+
+"Take care, my lord," said Anderson, smiling; "there is danger in
+such violent commendations.  Allan M'Aulay, as your lordship
+describes him, would prove no very safe rival."
+
+"Pooh!  pooh!"  said Lord Menteith, laughing, yet blushing at the
+same time; "Allan is not accessible to the passion of love; and
+for myself," said he, more gravely; "Annot's unknown birth is a
+sufficient reason against serious designs, and her unprotected
+state precludes every other."
+
+"It is spoken like yourself, my lord," said Anderson.--"But I
+trust you will proceed with your interesting story."
+
+"It is wellnigh finished," said Lord Menteith; "I have only to
+add, that from the great strength and courage of Allan M'Aulay,
+from his energetic and uncontrollable disposition, and from an
+opinion generally entertained and encouraged by himself that he
+holds communion with supernatural beings, and can predict future
+events, the clan pay a much greater degree of deference to him
+than even to his brother, who is a bold-hearted rattling
+Highlander, but with nothing which can possibly rival the
+extraordinary character of his younger brother."
+
+"Such a character," said Anderson, "cannot but have the deepest
+effect on the minds of a Highland host.  We must secure Allan, my
+lord, at all events.  What between his bravery and his second
+sight--"
+
+"Hush!"  said Lord Menteith, "that owl is awaking."
+
+"Do you talk of the second sight, or DEUTERO-SCOPIA?"  said the
+soldier; "I remember memorable Major Munro telling me how Murdoch
+Mackenzie, born in Assint, a private gentleman in a company, and
+a pretty soldier, foretold the death of Donald Tough, a Lochaber
+man, and certain other persons, as well as the hurt of the major
+himself at a sudden onfall at the siege of Trailsund."
+
+"I have often heard of this faculty," observed Anderson, "but I
+have always thought those pretending to it were either
+enthusiasts or impostors."
+
+"I should be loath," said Lord Menteith, "to apply either
+character to my kinsman, Allan M'Aulay.  He has shown on many
+occasions too much acuteness and sense, of which you this night
+had an instance, for the character of an enthusiast; and his high
+sense of honour, and manliness of disposition, free him from the
+charge of imposture."
+
+"Your lordship, then," said Anderson, "is a believer in his
+supernatural attributes?"
+
+"By no means," said the young nobleman; "I think that he
+persuades himself that the predictions which are, in reality, the
+result of judgment and reflection, are supernatural impressions
+on his mind, just as fanatics conceive the workings of their own
+imagination to be divine inspiration--at least, if this will not
+serve you, Anderson, I have no better explanation to give; and it
+is time we were all asleep after the toilsome journey of the
+day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Coming events cast their shadows before.   CAMPBELL.
+
+At an early hour in the morning the guests of the castle sprung
+from their repose; and, after a moment's private conversation
+with his attendants, Lord Menteith addressed the soldier, who was
+seated in a corner burnishing his corslet with rot-stone and
+chamois-leather, while he hummed the old song in honour of the
+victorious Gustavus Adolphus:--
+
+ When cannons are roaring, and bullets are flying,
+ The lad that would have honour, boys, must never fear dying.
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," said Lord Menteith, "the time is come that we
+must part, or become comrades in service."
+
+"Not before breakfast, I hope?"  said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+"I should have thought," replied his lordship, "that your
+garrison was victualled for three days at least."
+
+"I have still some stowage left for beef and bannocks," said the
+Captain; "and I never miss a favourable opportunity of renewing
+my supplies."
+
+"But," said Lord Menteith, "no judicious commander allows either
+flags of truce or neutrals to remain in his camp longer than is
+prudent; and therefore we must know your mind exactly, according
+to which you shall either have a safe-conduct to depart in peace,
+or be welcome to remain with us."
+
+"Truly," said the Captain, "that being the case, I will not
+attempt to protract the capitulation by a counterfeited parley,
+(a thing excellently practised by Sir James Ramsay at the siege
+of Hannau, in the year of God 1636,) but I will frankly own, that
+if I like your pay as well as your provant and your company, I
+care not how soon I take the oath to your colours."
+
+"Our pay," said Lord Menteith, "must at present be small, since
+it is paid out of the common stock raised by the few amongst us
+who can command some funds--As major and adjutant, I dare not
+promise Captain Dalgetty more than half a dollar a-day."
+
+"The devil take all halves and quarters!"  said the Captain;
+"were it in my option, I could no more consent to the halving of
+that dollar, than the woman in the Judgment of Solomon to the
+disseverment of the child of her bowels."
+
+"The parallel will scarce hold, Captain Dalgetty, for I think you
+would rather consent to the dividing of the dollar, than give it
+up entire to your competitor.  However, in the way of arrears, I
+may promise you the other half-dollar at the end of the
+campaign."
+
+"Ah!  these arrearages!"  said Captain Dalgetty, "that are always
+promised, and always go for nothing!  Spain, Austria, and Sweden,
+all sing one song.  Oh!  long life to the Hoganmogans! if they
+were no officers of soldiers, they were good paymasters.--And
+yet, my lord, if I could but be made certiorate that my natural
+hereditament of Drumthwacket had fallen into possession of any of
+these loons of Covenanters, who could be, in the event of our
+success, conveniently made a traitor of, I have so much value for
+that fertile and pleasant spot, that I would e'en take on with
+you for the campaign."
+
+"I can resolve Captain Dalgetty's question," said Sibbald, Lord
+Menteith's second attendant; "for if his estate of Drumthwacket
+be, as I conceive, the long waste moor so called, that lies five
+miles south of Aberdeen, I can tell him it was lately purchased
+by Elias Strachan, as rank a rebel as ever swore the Covenant"
+
+"The crop-eared hound!"  said Captain Dalgetty, in a rage; "What
+the devil gave him the assurance to purchase the inheritance of a
+family of four hundred years standing?--CYNTHIUS AUREM VELLET,
+as we used to say at Mareschal-College; that is to say, I will
+pull him out of my father's house by the ears.  And so, my Lord
+Menteith, I am yours, hand and sword, body and soul, till death
+do us part, or to the end of the next campaign, whichever event
+shall first come to pass."
+
+"And I," said the young nobleman, "rivet the bargain with a
+month's pay in advance."
+
+"That is more than necessary," said Dalgetty, pocketing the money
+however.  "But now I must go down, look after my war-saddle and
+abuilziements, and see that Gustavus has his morning, and tell
+him we have taken new service."
+
+There goes your precious recruit," said Lord Menteith to
+Anderson, as the Captain left the room; "I fear we shall have
+little credit of him."
+
+"He is a man of the times, however," said Anderson; "and without
+such we should hardly be able to carry on our enterprise."
+
+"Let us go down," answered Lord Menteith, "and see how our muster
+is likely to thrive, for I hear a good deal of bustle in the
+castle."
+
+When they entered the hall, the domestics keeping modestly in the
+background, morning greetings passed between Lord Menteith, Angus
+M'Aulay, and his English guests, while Allan, occupying the same
+settle which he had filled the preceding evening, paid no
+attention whatever to any one.  Old Donald hastily rushed into
+the apartment.  "A message from Vich Alister More; [The
+patronymic of MacDonell of Glengarry.] he is coming up in the
+evening."
+
+"With how many attendants?"  said M'Aulay.
+
+"Some five-and-twenty or thirty," said Donald, "his ordinary
+retinue."
+
+"Shake down plenty of straw in the great barn," said the Laird.
+
+Another servant here stumbled hastily in, announcing the expected
+approach of Sir Hector M'Lean, "who is arriving with a large
+following."
+
+"Put them in the malt-kiln," said M'Aulay; "and keep the
+breadth of the middenstead between them and the M'Donalds; they
+are but unfriends to each other."
+
+Donald now re-entered, his visage considerably lengthened --"The
+tell's i' the folk," he said; "the haill Hielands are asteer, I
+think.  Evan Dhu, of Lochiel, will be here in an hour, with Lord
+kens how many gillies."
+
+"Into the great barn with them beside the M'Donalds," said the
+Laird.
+
+More and more chiefs were announced, the least of whom would have
+accounted it derogatory to his dignity to stir without a retinue
+of six or seven persons.  To every new annunciation, Angus
+M'Aulay answered by naming some place of accommodation,--the
+stables, the loft, the cow-house, the sheds, every domestic
+office, were destined for the night to some hospitable purpose or
+other.  At length the arrival of M'Dougal of Lorn, after all his
+means of accommodation were exhausted, reduced him to some
+perplexity.  "What the devil is to be done, Donald?"  said he;
+"the great barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads
+and thraws; but there would be drawn dirks amang them which
+should lie upper-most, and so we should have bloody puddings
+before morning!"
+
+"What needs all this?"  said Allan, starting up, and coming
+forward with the stern abruptness of his usual manner; "are the
+Gael to-day of softer flesh or whiter blood than their fathers
+were?  Knock the head out of a cask of usquebae; let that be
+their night-gear--their plaids their bed-clothes--the blue sky
+their canopy, and the heather their couch.--Come a thousand more,
+and they would not quarrel on the broad heath for want of room!"
+
+"Allan is right," said his brother; "it is very odd how Allan,
+who, between ourselves," said he to Musgrave, "is a little wowf,
+[WOWF, i.e. crazed.] seems at times to have more sense than us
+all put together.  Observe him now."
+
+"Yes" continued Allan, fixing his eyes with a ghastly stare upon
+the opposite side of the hall, "they may well begin as they are
+to end; many a man will sleep this night upon the heath, that
+when the Martinmas wind shalt blow shall lie there stark enough,
+and reck little of cold or lack of covering."
+
+"Do not forespeak us, brother," said Angus; "that is not lucky."
+
+"And what luck is it then that you expect?"  said Allan; and
+straining his eyes until they almost started from their sockets,
+he fell with a convulsive shudder into the arms of Donald and his
+brother, who, knowing the nature of his fits, had come near to
+prevent his fall.  They seated him upon a bench, and supported
+him until he came to himself, and was about to speak.
+
+For God's sake, Allan," said his brother, who knew the impression
+his mystical words were likely to make on many of the guests,
+"say nothing to discourage us."
+
+"Am I he who discourages you?"  said Allan; "let every man face
+his weird as I shall face mine.  That which must come, will come;
+and we shall stride gallantly over many a field of victory, ere
+we reach yon fatal slaughter-place, or tread yon sable
+scaffolds."
+
+"What slaughter-place?  what scaffolds?"  exclaimed several
+voices; for Allan's renown as a seer was generally established in
+the Highlands.
+
+"You will know that but too soon," answered Allan. "Speak to me
+no more, I am weary of your questions."  He then pressed his hand
+against his brow, rested his elbow upon his knee, and sunk into a
+deep reverie.
+
+Send for Annot Lyle, and the harp," said Angus, in a whisper, to
+his servant; "and let those gentlemen follow me who do not fear a
+Highland breakfast."
+
+All accompanied their hospitable landlord excepting only Lord
+Menteith, who lingered in one of the deep embrasures formed by
+the windows of the hall.  Annot Lyle shortly after glided into
+the room, not ill described by Lord Menteith as being the
+lightest and most fairy figure that ever trode the turf by
+moonlight.  Her stature, considerably less than the ordinary size
+of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth, insomuch,
+that although she was near eighteen, she might have passed for
+four years younger.  Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed
+upon a model of exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of
+her person, so that Titania herself could scarce have found a
+more fitting representative. Her hair was a dark shade of the
+colour usually termed flaxen, whose clustering ringlets suited
+admirably with her fair complexion, and with the playful, yet
+simple, expression of her features.  When we add to these charms,
+that Annot, in her orphan state, seemed the gayest and happiest
+of maidens, the reader must allow us to claim for her the
+interest of almost all who looked on her.  In fact, it was
+impossible to find a more universal favourite, and she often came
+among the rude inhabitants of the castle, as Allan himself, in a
+poetical mood, expressed it, "like a sunbeam on a sullen sea,"
+communicating to all others the cheerfulness that filled her own
+mind.
+
+Annot, such as we have described her, smiled and blushed, when,
+on entering the apartment, Lord Menteith came from his place of
+retirement, and kindly wished her good-morning.
+
+"And good-morning to you, my lord," returned she, extending her
+hand to her friend; "we have seldom seen you of late at the
+castle, and now I fear it is with no peaceful purpose."
+
+"At least, let me not interrupt your harmony, Annot," said Lord
+Menteith, "though my arrival may breed discord elsewhere.  My
+cousin Allan needs the assistance of your voice and music."
+
+"My preserver," said Annot Lyle, "has a right to my poor
+exertions; and you, too, my lord,--you, too, are my preserver,
+and were the most active to save a life that is worthless enough,
+unless it can benefit my protectors."
+
+So saying, she sate down at a little distance upon the bench on
+which Allan M'Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a
+small harp, about thirty inches in height, she accompanied it
+with her voice.  The air was an ancient Gaelic melody, and the
+words, which were supposed to be very old, were in the same
+language; but we subjoin a translation of them, by Secundus
+Macpherson, Esq. of Glenforgen, which, although submitted to the
+fetters of English rhythm, we trust will be found nearly as
+genuine as the version of Ossian by his celebrated namesake.
+
+"Birds of omen dark and foul,
+ Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
+ Leave the sick man to his dream--
+ All night long he heard your scream--
+ Haste to cave and ruin'd tower,
+ Ivy, tod, or dingled bower,
+ There to wink and mope, for, hark!
+ In the mid air sings the lark.
+
+"Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
+ Prowling wolf and wily fox,--
+ Hie you fast, nor turn your view,
+ Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
+ Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
+ Safety parts with parting night;
+ And on distant echo borne,
+ Comes the hunter's early horn.
+
+"The moon's wan crescent scarcely gleams,
+ Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
+ Hie hence each peevish imp and fay,
+ That scare the pilgrim on his way:--
+ Quench, kelpy!  quench, in bog and fen,
+ Thy torch that cheats benighted men;
+ Thy dance is o'er, thy reign is done,
+ For Benyieglo hath seen the sun.
+
+"Wild thoughts, that, sinful, dark, and deep,
+ O'erpower the passive mind in sleep,
+ Pass from the slumberer's soul away,
+ Like night-mists from the brow of day:
+ Foul hag, whose blasted visage grim
+ Smothers the pulse, unnerves the limb,
+ Spur thy dark palfrey, and begone!
+ Thou darest not face the godlike sun."
+
+As the strain proceeded, Allan M'Aulay gradually gave signs of
+recovering his presence of mind, and attention to the objects
+around him.  The deep-knit furrows of his brow relaxed and
+smoothed themselves; and the rest of his features, which had
+seemed contorted with internal agony, relapsed into a more
+natural state.  When he raised his head and sat upright, his
+countenance, though still deeply melancholy, was divested of its
+wildness and ferocity; and in its composed state, although by no
+means handsome, the expression of his features was striking,
+manly, and even noble.  His thick, brown eyebrows, which had
+hitherto been drawn close together, were now slightly separated,
+as in the natural state; and his grey eyes, which had rolled and
+flashed from under them with an unnatural and portentous gleam,
+now recovered a steady and determined expression.
+
+"Thank God!"  he said, after sitting silent for about a minute,
+until the very last sounds of the harp had ceased to vibrate, "my
+soul is no longer darkened--the mist hath passed from my spirit."
+
+"You owe thanks, cousin Allan," said Lord Menteith, coming
+forward, "to Annot Lyle, as well as to heaven, for this happy
+change in your melancholy mood."
+
+"My noble cousin Menteith," said Allan, rising and greeting him
+very respectfully, as well as kindly, "has known my unhappy
+circumstances so long, that his goodness will require no excuse
+for my being thus late in bidding him welcome to the castle."
+
+"We are too old acquaintances, Allan," said Lord Menteith, "and
+too good friends, to stand on the ceremonial of outward greeting;
+but half the Highlands will be here to-day, and you know, with
+our mountain Chiefs, ceremony must not be neglected.  What will
+you give little Annot for making you fit company to meet Evan
+Dhu, and I know not how many bonnets and feathers?"
+
+"What will he give me?"  said Annot, smiling; "nothing less, I
+hope, than the best ribbon at the Fair of Doune."
+
+"The Fair of Doune, Annot?"  said Allan sadly; "there will be
+bloody work before that day, and I may never see it; but you have
+well reminded me of what I have long intended to do."
+
+Having said this, he left the room.
+
+"Should he talk long in this manner," said Lord Menteith, "you
+must keep your harp in tune, my dear Annot."
+
+"I hope not," said Annot, anxiously; "this fit has been a long
+one, and probably will not soon return.  It is fearful to see a
+mind, naturally generous and affectionate, afflicted by this
+constitutional malady."
+
+As she spoke in a low and confidential tone, Lord Menteith
+naturally drew close, and stooped forward, that he might the
+better catch the sense of what she said.  When Allan suddenly
+entered the apartment, they as naturally drew back from each
+other with a manner expressive of consciousness, as if surprised
+in a conversation which they wished to keep secret from him.
+This did not escape Allan's observation; he stopt short at the
+door of the apartment--his brows were contracted--his eyes
+rolled; but it was only the paroxysm of a moment.  He passed his
+broad sinewy hand across his brow, as if to obliterate these
+signs of emotion, and advanced towards Annot, holding in his hand
+a very small box made of oakwood, curiously inlaid.  "I take you
+to witness," he said, "cousin Menteith, that I give this box and
+its contents to Annot Lyle.  It contains a few ornaments that
+belonged to my poor mother--of trifling value, you may guess, for
+the wife of a Highland laird has seldom a rich jewel-casket."
+
+"But these ornaments," said Annot Lyle, gently and timidly
+refusing the box, "belong to the family--I cannot accept--"
+
+"They belong to me alone, Annot," said Allan, interrupting her;
+"they were my mother's dying bequest.  They are all I can call my
+own, except my plaid and my claymore.  Take them, therefore--they
+are to me valueless trinkets--and keep them for my sake--should I
+never return from these wars."
+
+So saying, he opened the case, and presented it to Annot.  "If,"
+said he, "they are of any value, dispose of them for your own
+support, when this house has been consumed with hostile fire, and
+can no longer afford you protection.  But keep one ring in memory
+of Allan, who has done, to requite your kindness, if not all he
+wished, at least all he could."
+
+Annot Lyle endeavoured in vain to restrain the gathering tears,
+when she said, "ONE ring, Allan, I will accept from you as a
+memorial of your goodness to a poor orphan, but do not press me
+to take more; for I cannot, and will not, accept a gift of such
+disproportioned value."
+
+"Make your choice, then," said Allan; "your delicacy may be well
+founded; the others will assume a shape in which they may be more
+useful to you."
+
+"Think not of it," said Annot, choosing from the contents of the
+casket a ring, apparently the most trifling in value which it
+contained; "keep them for your own, or your brother's bride.
+--But, good heavens!"  she said, interrupting herself, and
+looking at the ring, "what is this that I have chosen?"
+
+Allan hastened to look upon it, with eyes of gloomy apprehension;
+it bore, in enamel, a death's head above two crossed daggers.
+When Allan recognised the device, he uttered a sigh so deep, that
+she dropped the ring from her hand, which rolled upon the floor.
+Lord Menteith picked it up, and returned it to the terrified
+Annot.
+
+"I take God to witness," said Allan, in a solemn tone, "that your
+hand, young lord, and not mine, has again delivered to her this
+ill-omened gift.  It was the mourning ring worn by my mother in
+memorial of her murdered brother."
+
+"I fear no omens," said Annot, smiling through her tears; "and
+nothing coming through the hands of my two patrons," so she was
+wont to call Lord Menteith and Allan, "can bring bad luck to the
+poor orphan."
+
+She put the ring on her finger, and, turning to her harp, sung,
+to a lively air, the following verses of one of the fashionable
+songs of the period, which had found its way, marked as it was
+with the quaint hyperbolical taste of King Charles's time, from
+some court masque to the wilds of Perthshire:--
+
+"Gaze not upon the stars, fond sage,
+ In them no influence lies;
+ To read the fate of youth or age,
+ Look on my Helen's eyes.
+
+"Yet, rash astrologer, refrain!
+ Too dearly would be won
+ The prescience of another's pain,
+ If purchased by thine own."
+
+"She is right, Allan," said Lord Menteith; "and this end of an
+old song is worth all we shall gain by our attempt to look into
+futurity."
+
+"She is WRONG, my lord," said Allan, sternly, "though you, who
+treat with lightness the warnings I have given you, may not live
+to see the event of the omen.--laugh not so scornfully," he
+added, interrupting himself "or rather laugh on as loud and as
+long as you will; your term of laughter will find a pause ere
+long."
+
+"I care not for your visions, Allan," said Lord Menteith; however
+short my span of life, the eye of no Highland seer can see its
+termination."
+
+"For heaven's sake," said Annot Lyle, interrupting him, "you know
+his nature, and how little he can endure--"
+
+"Fear me not," said Allan, interrupting her,--"my mind is now
+constant and calm.--But for you, young lord," said he, turning to
+Lord Menteith, "my eye has sought you through fields of battle,
+where Highlanders and Lowlanders lay strewed as thick as ever the
+rooks sat on those ancient trees," pointing to a rookery which
+was seen from the window--"my eye sought you, but your corpse was
+not there--my eye sought you among a train of unresisting and
+disarmed captives, drawn up within the bounding walls of an
+ancient and rugged fortress;--flash after flash--platoon after
+platoon--the hostile shot fell amongst them, They dropped like
+the dry leaves in autumn, but you were not among their ranks;
+--scaffolds were prepared--blocks were arranged, saw-dust was
+spread--the priest was ready with his book, the headsman with his
+axe--but there, too, mine eye found you not."
+
+"The gibbet, then, I suppose, must be my doom?"  said Lord
+Menteith.  "Yet I wish they had spared me the halter, were it but
+for the dignity of the peerage."
+
+He spoke this scornfully, yet not without a sort of curiosity,
+and a wish to receive an answer; for the desire of prying into
+futurity frequently has some influence even on the minds of those
+who disavow all belief in the possibility of such predictions.
+
+"Your rank, my lord, will suffer no dishonour in your person, or
+by the manner of your death.  Three times have I seen a
+Highlander plant his dirk in your bosom--and such will be your
+fate."
+
+"I wish you would describe him to me," said Lord Menteith, "and I
+shall save him the trouble of fulfilling your prophecy, if his
+plaid be passible to sword or pistol."
+
+"Your weapons," said Allan, "would avail you little; nor can I
+give you the information you desire.  The face of the vision has
+been ever averted from me."
+
+"So be it then," said Lord Menteith, "and let it rest in the
+uncertainty in which your augury has placed it.  I shall dine not
+the less merrily among plaids, and dirks, and kilts to-day."
+
+"It may be so," said Allan; "and, it may be, you do well to enjoy
+these moments, which to me are poisoned by auguries of future
+evil.  But I," he continued--"I repeat to you, that this weapon
+--that is, such a weapon as this," touching the hilt of the dirk
+which he wore, "carries your fate."  "In the meanwhile," said
+Lord Menteith, "you, Allan, have frightened the blood from the
+cheeks of Annot Lyle--let us leave this discourse, my friend, and
+go to see what we both understand,--the progress of our military
+preparations."
+
+They joined Angus M'Aulay and his English guests, and, in the
+military discussions which immediately took place, Allan showed a
+clearness of mind, strength of judgment, and precision of
+thought, totally inconsistent with the mystical light in which
+his character has been hitherto exhibited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+When Albin her claymore indignantly draws,
+When her bonneted chieftains around her shall crowd,
+Clan-Ranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
+All plaided and plumed in their tartan array--
+                                          LOCHEIL'S WARNING.
+
+Whoever saw that morning, the Castle of Darnlinvarach, beheld a
+busy and a gallant sight.
+
+The various Chiefs, arriving with their different retinues,
+which, notwithstanding their numbers, formed no more than their
+usual equipage and body-guard upon occasions of solemnity,
+saluted the lord of the castle and each other with overflowing
+kindness, or with haughty and distant politeness, according to
+the circumstances of friendship or hostility in which their clans
+had recently stood to each other.  Each Chief, however small his
+comparative importance, showed the full disposition to exact from
+the rest the deference due to a separate and independent prince;
+while the stronger and more powerful, divided among themselves by
+recent contentions or ancient feuds, were constrained in policy
+to use great deference to the feelings of their less powerful
+brethren, in order, in case of need, to attach as many well-
+wishers as might be to their own interest and standard.  Thus the
+meeting of Chiefs resembled not a little those ancient Diets of
+the Empire, where the smallest FREY-GRAF, who possessed a castle
+perched upon a barren crag, with a few hundred acres around it,
+claimed the state and honours of a sovereign prince, and a seat
+according to his rank among the dignitaries of the Empire.
+
+The followers of the different leaders were separately arranged
+and accommodated, as room and circumstances best permitted, each
+retaining however his henchman, who waited, close as the shadow,
+upon his person, to execute whatever might be required by his
+patron.
+
+The exterior of the castle afforded a singular scene.  The
+Highlanders, from different islands, glens, and straths, eyed
+each other at a distance with looks of emulation, inquisitive
+curiosity, or hostile malevolence; but the most astounding part
+of the assembly, at least to a Lowland ear, was the rival
+performance of the bagpipers.  These warlike minstrels, who had
+the highest opinion, each, of the superiority of his own tribe,
+joined to the most overweening idea of the importance connected
+with his profession, at first, performed their various pibrochs
+in front each of his own clan.  At length, however, as the black-
+cocks towards the end of the season, when, in sportsman's
+language, they are said to flock or crowd, attracted together by
+the sound of each others' triumphant crow, even so did the
+pipers, swelling their plaids and tartans in the same triumphant
+manner in which the birds ruffle up their feathers, begin to
+approach each other within such distance as might give to their
+brethren a sample of their skill.  Walking within a short
+interval, and eyeing each other with looks in which self-
+importance and defiance might be traced, they strutted, puffed,
+and plied their screaming instruments, each playing his own
+favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had
+lain buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the
+dead to run out of hearing.
+
+The Chieftains meanwhile had assembled in close conclave in the
+great hall of the castle.  Among them were the persons of the
+greatest consequence in the Highlands, some of them attracted by
+zeal for the royal cause, and many by aversion to that severe and
+general domination which the Marquis of Argyle, since his rising
+to such influence in the state, had exercised over his Highland
+neighbours.  That statesman, indeed, though possessed of
+considerable abilities, and great power, had failings, which
+rendered him unpopular among the Highland chiefs.  The devotion
+which he professed was of a morose and fanatical character; his
+ambition appeared to be insatiable, and inferior chiefs
+complained of his want of bounty and liberality.  Add to this,
+that although a Highlander, and of a family distinguished for
+valour before and since, Gillespie Grumach [GRUMACH--ill-
+favored.] (which, from an obliquity in his eyes, was the personal
+distinction he bore in the Highlands, where titles of rank are
+unknown) was suspected of being a better man in the cabinet than
+in the field.  He and his tribe were particularly obnoxious to
+the M'Donalds and the M'Leans, two numerous septs, who, though
+disunited by ancient feuds, agreed in an intense dislike to the
+Campbells, or, as they were called, the Children of Diarmid.
+
+For some time the assembled Chiefs remained silent, until some
+one should open the business of the meeting.  At length one of
+the most powerful of them commenced the diet by saying,--"We have
+been summoned hither, M'Aulay, to consult of weighty matters
+concerning the King's affairs, and those of the state; and we
+crave to know by whom they are to be explained to us?"
+
+M'Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his
+wish that Lord Menteith should open the business of the council.
+With great modesty, and at the same time with spirit, that young
+lord said,"he wished what he was about to propose had come from
+some person of better known and more established character.
+Since, however, it lay with him to be spokesman, he had to state
+to the Chiefs assembled, that those who wished to throw off the
+base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to wreath round their
+necks, had not a moment to lose.  "The Covenanters," he said,
+"after having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having
+extorted from him every request, reasonable or unreasonable,
+which they thought proper to demand--after their Chiefs had been
+loaded with dignities and favours--after having publicly
+declared, when his Majesty, after a gracious visit to the land of
+his nativity, was upon his return to England, that he returned a
+contented king from a contented people,--after all this, and
+without even the pretext for a national grievance, the same men
+have, upon doubts and suspicions, equally dishonourable to the
+King, and groundless in themselves, detached a strong army to
+assist his rebels in England, in a quarrel with which Scotland
+had no more to do than she has with the wars in Germany.  It was
+well," he said, "that the eagerness with which this treasonable
+purpose was pursued, had blinded the junta who now usurped the
+government of Scotland to the risk which they were about to
+incur.  The army which they had dispatched to England under old
+Leven comprehended their veteran soldiers, the strength of those
+armies which had been levied in Scotland during the two former
+wars--"
+
+Here Captain Dalgetty endeavoured to rise, for the purpose of
+explaining how many veteran officers, trained in the German wars,
+were, to his certain knowledge, in the army of the Earl of Leven.
+But Allan M'Aulay holding him down in his seat with one hand,
+pressed the fore-finger of the other upon his own lips, and,
+though with some difficulty, prevented his interference.  Captain
+Dalgetty looked upon him with a very scornful and indignant air,
+by which the other's gravity was in no way moved, and Lord
+Menteith proceeded without farther interruption.
+
+"The moment," he said, "was most favourable for all true-hearted
+and loyal Scotchmen to show, that the reproach their country had
+lately undergone arose from the selfish ambition of a few
+turbulent and seditious men, joined to the absurd fanaticism
+which, disseminated from five hundred pulpits, had spread like a
+land-flood over the Lowlands of Scotland.  He had letters from
+the Marquis of Huntly in the north, which he should show to the
+Chiefs separately.  That nobleman, equally loyal and powerful was
+determined to exert his utmost energy in the common cause, and
+the powerful Earl of Seaforth was prepared to join the same
+standard.  From the Earl of Airly, and the Ogilvies in
+Angusshire, he had had communications equally decided; and there
+was no doubt that these, who, with the Hays, Leiths, Burnets, and
+other loyal gentlemen, would be soon on horseback, would form a
+body far more than sufficient to overawe the northern
+Covenanters, who had already experienced their valour in the
+well-known rout which was popularly termed the Trot of Turiff.
+South of Forth and Tay," he said, "the King had many friends,
+who, oppressed by enforced oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy
+taxes, unjustly imposed and unequally levied, by the tyranny of
+the Committee of Estates, and the inquisitorial insolence of the
+Presbyterian divines, waited but the waving of the royal banner
+to take up arms.  Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh, Hume, all friendly
+to the royal cause, would counterbalance," he said, "the
+covenanting interest in the south; and two gentlemen, of name and
+quality, here present, from the north of England, would answer
+for the zeal of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Northumberland.
+Against so many gallant gentlemen the southern Covenanters could
+but arm raw levies; the Whigamores of the western shires, and the
+ploughmen and mechanics of the Low-country.  For the West
+Highlands, he knew no interest which the Covenanters possessed
+there, except that of one individual, as well known as he was
+odious.  But was there a single man, who, on casting his eye
+round this hall, and recognising the power, the gallantry, and
+the dignity of the chiefs assembled, could entertain a moment's
+doubt of their success against the utmost force which Gillespie
+Grumach could collect against them?  He had only farther to add,
+that considerable funds, both of money and ammunition, had been
+provided for the army"--(Here Dalgetty pricked up his ears)--
+"that officers of ability and experience in the foreign wars,
+one of whom was now present," (the Captain drew himself up, and
+looked round,) "had engaged to train such levies as might require
+to be disciplined;--and that a numerous body of auxiliary forces
+from Ireland, having been detached from the Earl of Antrim, from
+Ulster, had successfully accomplished their descent upon the main
+land, and, with the assistance of Clanranald's people, having
+taken and fortified the Castle of Mingarry, in spite of Argyle's
+attempts to intercept them, were in full march to this place of
+rendezvous.  It only remained," he said, "that the noble Chiefs
+assembled, laying aside every lesser consideration, should unite,
+heart and hand, in the common cause; send the fiery cross through
+their clans, in order to collect their utmost force, and form
+their junction with such celerity as to leave the enemy no time,
+either for preparation, or recovery from the panic which would
+spread at the first sound of their pibroch.  He himself," he
+said, "though neither among the richest nor the most powerful of
+the Scottish nobility, felt that he had to support the dignity of
+an ancient and honourable house, the independence of an ancient
+and honourable nation, and to that cause he was determined to
+devote both life and fortune.  If those who were more powerful
+were equally prompt, he trusted they would deserve the thanks of
+their King, and the gratitude of posterity."
+
+Loud applause followed this speech of Lord Menteith, and
+testified the general acquiescence of all present in the
+sentiments which he had expressed; but when the shout had died
+away, the assembled Chiefs continued to gaze upon each other as
+if something yet remained to be settled.  After some whispers
+among themselves, an aged man,whom his grey hairs rendered
+respectable, although he was not of the highest order of Chiefs,
+replied to what had been said.
+
+"Thane of Menteith," he said, "you have well spoken; nor is there
+one of us in whose bosom the same sentiments do not burn like
+fire.  But it is not strength alone that wins the fight; it is
+the head of the commander, as well as the arm of the soldier,
+that brings victory.  I ask of you who is to raise and sustain
+the banner under which we are invited to rise and muster
+ourselves?  Will it be expected that we should risk our children,
+and the flower of our kinsmen, ere we know to whose guidance they
+are to be intrusted?  This were leading those to slaughter, whom,
+by the laws of God and man, it is our duty to protect.  Where is
+the royal commission, under which the lieges are to be convocated
+in arms?  Simple and rude as we may be deemed, we know something
+of the established rules of war, as well as of the laws of our
+country; nor will we arm ourselves against the general peace of
+Scotland, unless by the express commands of the King, and under a
+leader fit to command such men as are here assembled."
+
+"Where would you find such a leader," said another Chief,
+starting up, "saving the representative of the Lord of the Isles,
+entitled by birth and hereditary descent to lead forth the array
+of every clan of the Highlands; and where is that dignity lodged,
+save in the house of Vich Alister More?"
+
+"I acknowledge," said another Chief, eagerly interrupting the
+speaker, "the truth in what has been first said, but not the
+inference.  If Vich Alister More desires to be held
+representative of the Lord of the Isles, let him first show his
+blood is redder than mine."
+
+"That is soon tried," said Vich Alister More, laying his hand
+upon the basket hilt of his claymore.  Lord Menteith threw
+himself between them, entreating and imploring each to remember
+that the interests of Scotland, the liberty of their country, and
+the cause of their King, ought to be superior in their eyes to
+any personal disputes respecting descent, rank, and precedence.
+Several of the Highland Chiefs, who had no desire to admit the
+claims of either chieftain, interfered to the same purpose, and
+none with more emphasis than the celebrated Evan Dhu.
+
+"I have come from my lakes," he said, "as a stream descends from
+the hills, not to turn again, but to accomplish my course.  It is
+not by looking back to our own pretensions that we shall serve
+Scotland or King Charles.  My voice shall be for that general
+whom the King shall name, who will doubtless possess those
+qualities which are necessary to command men like us.  High-born
+he must be, or we shall lose our rank in obeying him--wise and
+skilful, or we shall endanger the safety of our people--bravest
+among the brave, or we shall peril our own honour--temperate,
+firm, and manly, to keep us united.  Such is the man that must
+command us.  Are you prepared, Thane of Menteith, to say where
+such a general is to be found?"
+
+"There is but ONE," said Allan M'Aulay; "and here," he said,
+laying his hand upon the shoulder of Anderson, who stood behind
+Lord Menteith, "here he stands!"
+
+The general surprise of the meeting was expressed by an impatient
+murmur; when Anderson, throwing back the cloak in which his face
+was muffled, and stepping forward, spoke thus:--"I did not long
+intend to be a silent spectator of this interesting scene,
+although my hasty friend has obliged me to disclose myself
+somewhat sooner than was my intention.  Whether I deserve the
+honour reposed in me by this parchment will best appear from what
+I shall be able to do for the King's service.  It is a commission
+under the great seal, to James Graham, Earl of Montrose, to
+command those forces which are to be assembled for the service of
+his Majesty in this kingdom."
+
+A loud shout of approbation burst from the assembly.  There was,
+in fact, no other person to whom, in point of rank, these proud
+mountaineers would have been disposed to submit.  His inveterate
+and hereditary hostility to the Marquis of Argyle insured his
+engaging in the war with sufficient energy, while his well-known
+military talents, and his tried valour, afforded every hope of
+his bringing it to a favourable conclusion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+   Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
+   constant:  a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation:
+   an excellent plot, very good friends.    HENRY IV Part I.
+
+No sooner had the general acclamation of joyful surprise
+subsided, than silence was eagerly demanded for reading the royal
+commission; and the bonnets, which hitherto each Chief had worn,
+probably because unwilling to be the first to uncover, were now
+at once vailed in honour of the royal warrant.  It was couched in
+the most full and ample terms, authorizing the Earl of Montrose
+to assemble the subjects in arms, for the putting down the
+present rebellion, which divers traitors and seditious persons
+had levied against the King, to the manifest forfaulture, as it
+stated, of their allegiance, and to the breach of the
+pacification between the two kingdoms. It enjoined all
+subordinate authorities to be obedient and assisting to Montrose
+in his enterprise; gave him the power of making ordinances and
+proclamations, punishing misdemeanours, pardoning criminals,
+placing and displacing governors and commanders.  In fine, it was
+as large and full a commission as any with which a prince could
+intrust a subject.  As soon as it was finished, a shout burst
+from the assembled Chiefs, in testimony of their ready submission
+to the will of their sovereign.  Not contented with generally
+thanking them for a reception so favourable, Montrose hastened to
+address himself to individuals, The most important Chiefs had
+already been long personally known to him, but even to those of
+inferior consequence he now introduced himself and by the
+acquaintance he displayed with their peculiar designations, and
+the circumstances and history of their clans, he showed how long
+he must have studied the character of the mountaineers, and
+prepared himself for such a situation as he now held.
+
+While he was engaged in these acts of courtesy, his graceful
+manner, expressive features, and dignity of deportment, made a
+singular contrast with the coarseness and meanness of his dress.
+Montrose possessed that sort of form and face, in which the
+beholder, at the first glance, sees nothing extraordinary, but of
+which the interest becomes more impressive the longer we gaze
+upon them.  His stature was very little above the middle size,
+but in person he was uncommonly well-built, and capable both of
+exerting great force, and enduring much fatigue.  In fact, he
+enjoyed a constitution of iron, without which he could not have
+sustained the trials of his extraordinary campaigns, through all
+of which he subjected himself to the hardships of the meanest
+soldier.  He was perfect in all exercises, whether peaceful or
+martial, and possessed, of course, that graceful ease of
+deportment proper to those to whom habit has rendered all
+postures easy.
+
+His long brown hair, according to the custom of men of quality
+among the Royalists, was parted on the top of his head, and
+trained to hang down on each side in curled locks, one of which,
+descending two or three inches lower than the others, intimated
+Montrose's compliance with that fashion against which it pleased
+Mr. Prynne, the puritan, to write a treatise, entitled, THE
+UNLOVELINESS OF LOVE-LOCKS.  The features which these tresses
+enclosed, were of that kind which derive their interest from the
+character of the man, rather than from the regularity of their
+form.  But a high nose, a full, decided, well-opened, quick grey
+eye, and a sanguine complexion, made amends for some coarseness
+and irregularity in the subordinate parts of the face; so that,
+altogether, Montrose might be termed rather a handsome, than a
+hard-featured man.  But those who saw him when his soul looked
+through those eyes with all the energy and fire of genius--those
+who heard him speak with the authority of talent, and the
+eloquence of nature, were impressed with an opinion even of his
+external form, more enthusiastically favourable than the
+portraits which still survive would entitle us to ascribe to it.
+Such, at least, was the impression he made upon the assembled
+Chiefs of the mountaineers, over whom, as upon all persons in
+their state of society, personal appearance has no small
+influence.
+
+In the discussions which followed his discovering himself,
+Montrose explained the various risks which he had run in his
+present undertaking.  His first attempt had been to assemble a
+body of loyalists in the north of England, who, in obedience to
+the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle, he expected would have
+marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of the English to
+cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim, who was to
+have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army, prevented
+his executing this design.  Other plans having in like manner
+failed, he stated that he found himself under the necessity of
+assuming a disguise to render his passage secure through the
+Lowlands, in which he had been kindly assisted by his kinsman of
+Menteith.  By what means Allan M'Aulay had come to know him, he
+could not pretend to explain.  Those who knew Allan's prophetic
+pretensions, smiled mysteriously; but he himself only replied,
+that "the Earl of Montrose need not be surprised if he was known
+to thousands, of whom he himself could retain no memory."
+
+"By the honour of a cavalier," said Captain Dalgetty, finding at
+length an opportunity to thrust in his word, "I am proud and
+happy in having an opportunity of drawing a sword under your
+lordship's command;  and I do forgive all grudge, malecontent,
+and malice of my heart, to Mr. Allan M'Aulay, for having thrust
+me down to the lowest seat of the board yestreen.  Certes, he
+hath this day spoken so like a man having full command of his
+senses, that I had resolved in my secret purpose that he was no
+way entitled to claim the privilege of insanity.  But since I was
+only postponed to a noble earl, my future commander-in-chief, I
+do, before you all, recognise the justice of the preference, and
+heartily salute Allan as one who is to be his BON-CAMARADO."
+
+Having made this speech, which was little understood or attended
+to, without putting off his military glove, he seized on Allan's
+hand, and began to shake it with violence, which Allan, with a
+gripe like a smith's vice, returned with such force, as to drive
+the iron splents of the gauntlet into the hand of the wearer.
+
+Captain Dalgetty might have construed this into a new affront,
+had not his attention, as he stood blowing and shaking the
+injured member, been suddenly called by Montrose himself.
+
+"Hear this news," he said, "Captain Dalgetty--I should say Major
+Dalgetty,--the Irish, who are to profit by your military
+experience, are now within a few leagues of us."
+
+"Our deer-stalkers," said Angus M'Aulay, "who were abroad to
+bring in venison for this honourable party, have heard of a band
+of strangers, speaking neither Saxon nor pure Gaelic, and with
+difficulty making themselves understood by the people of the
+country, who are marching this way in arms, under the leading, it
+is said, of Alaster M'Donald, who is commonly called Young
+Colkitto."
+
+"These must be our men," said Montrose; "we must hasten to send
+messengers forward, both to act as guides and to relieve their
+wants."
+
+"The last," said Angus M'Aulay, "will be no easy matter; for I am
+informed, that, excepting muskets and a very little ammunition,
+they want everything that soldiers should have; and they are
+particularly deficient in money, in shoes, and in raiment."
+
+"There is at least no use in saying so," said Montrose, "in so
+loud a tone.  The puritan weavers of Glasgow shall provide them
+plenty of broad-cloth, when we make a descent from the Highlands;
+and if the ministers could formerly preach the old women of the
+Scottish boroughs out of their webs of napery, to make tents to
+the fellows on Dunse Law, [The Covenanters encamped on Dunse Law,
+during the troubles of 1639.] I will try whether I have not a
+little interest both to make these godly dames renew their
+patriotic gift, and the prick-eared knaves, their husbands, open
+their purses."
+
+"And respecting arms," said Captain Dalgetty, "if your lordship
+will permit an old cavalier to speak his mind, so that the one-
+third have muskets, my darling weapon would be the pike for the
+remainder, whether for resisting a charge of horse, or for
+breaking the infantry.  A common smith will make a hundred pike-
+heads in a day; here is plenty of wood for shafts; and I will
+uphold, that, according to the best usages of war, a strong
+battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of the
+North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx,
+of which I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied
+in the ancient town of Bon-accord; and further, I will venture to
+predicate--"
+
+The Captain's lecture upon tactics was here suddenly interrupted
+by Allan M'Aulay, who said, hastily,--"Room for an unexpected and
+unwelcome guest!"
+
+At the same moment, the door of the hall opened, and a grey-
+haired man, of a very stately appearance, presented himself to
+the assembly.  There was much dignity, and even authority, in his
+manner.  His stature was above the common size, and his looks
+such as were used to command.  He cast a severe, and almost stern
+glance upon the assembly of Chiefs.  Those of the higher rank
+among them returned it with scornful indifference; but some of
+the western gentlemen of inferior power, looked as if they wished
+themselves elsewhere.
+
+"To which of this assembly," said the stranger, "am I to address
+myself as leader?  or have you not fixed upon the person who is
+to hold an office at least as perilous as it is honourable?"
+
+"Address yourself to me, Sir Duncan Campbell," said Montrose,
+stepping forward.
+
+"To you!"  said Sir Duncan Campbell, with some scorn.
+
+"Yes,--to me," repeated Montrose,--"to the Earl of Montrose, if
+you have forgot him."
+
+"I should now, at least," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "have had
+some difficulty in recognising him in the disguise of a groom.
+--and yet I might have guessed that no evil influence inferior to
+your lordship's, distinguished as one who troubles Israel, could
+have collected together this rash assembly of misguided persons."
+
+"I will answer unto you," said Montrose, "in the manner of your
+own Puritans.  I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy
+father's house.  But let us leave an altercation, which is of
+little consequence but to ourselves, and hear the tidings you
+have brought from your Chief of Argyle; for I must conclude that
+it is in his name that you have come to this meeting."
+
+"It is in the name of the Marquis of Argyle," said Sir Duncan
+Campbell,--" in the name of the Scottish Convention of Estates,
+that I demand to know the meaning of this singular convocation.
+If it is designed to disturb the peace of the country, it were
+but acting like neighbours, and men of honour, to give us some
+intimation to stand upon our guard."
+
+"It is a singular, and new state of affairs in Scotland," said
+Montrose, turning from Sir Duncan Campbell to the assembly, "when
+Scottish men of rank and family cannot meet in the house of a
+common friend without an inquisitorial visit and demand, on the
+part of our rulers, to know the subject of our conference.
+Methinks our ancestors were accustomed to hold Highland huntings,
+or other purposes of meeting, without asking the leave either of
+the great M'Callum More himself, or any of his emissaries or
+dependents."
+
+"The times have been such in Scotland," answered one of the
+Western Chiefs, "and such they will again be, when the intruders
+on our ancient possessions are again reduced to be Lairds of
+Lochow instead of overspreading us like a band of devouring
+locusts."
+
+"Am I to understand, then," said Sir Duncan, that it is against
+my name alone that these preparations are directed?  or are the
+race of Diarmid only to be sufferers in common with the whole of
+the peaceful and orderly inhabitants of Scotland?"
+
+"I would ask," said a wild-looking Chief, starting hastily up,
+"one question of the Knight of Ardenvohr, ere he proceeds farther
+in his daring catechism.--Has he brought more than one life to
+this castle, that he ventures to intrude among us for the
+purposes of insult?"
+
+"Gentlemen," said Montrose, "let me implore your patience; a
+messenger who comes among us for the purpose of embassy, is
+entitled to freedom of speech and safe-conduct.  And since Sir
+Duncan Campbell is so pressing, I care not if I inform him, for
+his guidance, that he is in an assembly of the King's loyal
+subjects, convoked by me, in his Majesty's name and authority,
+and as empowered by his Majesty's royal commission."
+
+"We are to have, then, I presume," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "a
+civil war in all its forms?  I have been too long a soldier to
+view its approach with anxiety; but it would have been for my
+Lord of Montrose's honour, if, in this matter, he had consulted
+his own ambition less, and the peace of the country more."
+
+"Those consulted their own ambition and self-interest, Sir
+Duncan," answered Montrose, "who brought the country to the pass
+in which it now stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies
+which we are now reluctantly about to use."
+
+"And what rank among these self-seekers," said Sir Duncan
+Campbell, "we shall assign to a noble Earl, so violently attached
+to the Covenant, that he was the first, in 1639, to cross the
+Tyne, wading middle deep at the head of his regiment, to charge
+the royal forces?  It was the same, I think, who imposed the
+Covenant upon the burgesses and colleges of Aberdeen, at the
+point of sword and pike."
+
+"I understand your sneer, Sir Duncan," said Montrose,
+temperately; "and I can only add, that if sincere repentance can
+make amends for youthful error, and for yielding to the artful
+representation of ambitious hypocrites, I shall be pardoned for
+the crimes with which you taunt me.  I will at least endeavour to
+deserve forgiveness, for I am here, with my sword in my hand,
+willing to spend the best blood of my body to make amends for my
+error; and mortal man can do no more."
+
+"Well, my lord," said Sir Duncan, "I shall be sorry to carry back
+this language to the Marquis of Argyle.  I had it in farther
+charge from the Marquis, that, to prevent the bloody feuds which
+must necessarily follow a Highland war, his lordship will be
+contented if terms of truce could be arranged to the north of the
+Highland line, as there is ground enough in Scotland to fight
+upon, without neighbours destroying each other's families and
+inheritances."
+
+"It is a peaceful proposal," said Montrose, smiling," such as it
+should be, coming from one whose personal actions have always
+been more peaceful than his measures.  Yet, if the terms of such
+a truce could be equally fixed, and if we can obtain security,
+for that, Sir Duncan, is indispensable,--that your Marquis will
+observe these terms with strict fidelity, I, for my part, should
+be content to leave peace behind us, since we must needs carry
+war before us.  But, Sir Duncan, you are too old and experienced
+a soldier for us to permit you to remain in our leaguer, and
+witness our proceedings; we shall therefore, when you have
+refreshed yourself, recommend your speedy return to Inverary, and
+we shall send with you a gentleman on our part to adjust the
+terms of the Highland armistice, in case the Marquis shall be
+found serious in proposing such a measure."  Sir Duncan Campbell
+assented by a bow.
+
+"My Lord of Menteith," continued Montrose, "will you have the
+goodness to attend Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, while we
+determine who shall return with him to his Chief?  M'Aulay will
+permit us to request that he be entertained with suitable
+hospitality."
+
+"I will give orders for that," said Allan M'Aulay, rising and
+coming forward.  "I love Sir Duncan Campbell; we have been joint
+sufferers in former days, and I do not forget it now."
+
+"My Lord of Menteith," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "I am grieved to
+see you, at your early age, engaged in such desperate and
+rebellious courses."
+
+"I am young," answered Menteith, "yet old enough to distinguish
+between right and wrong, between loyalty and rebellion; and the
+sooner a good course is begun, the longer and the better have I a
+chance of running it."
+
+"And you too, my friend, Allan M'Aulay," said Sir Duncan, taking
+his hand, "must we also call each other enemies, that have been
+so often allied against a common foe?"  Then turning round to the
+meeting, he said, "Farewell, gentlemen; there are so many of you
+to whom I wish well, that your rejection of all terms of
+mediation gives me deep affliction.  May Heaven," he said,
+looking upwards, "judge between our motives, and those of the
+movers of this civil commotion!"
+
+"Amen," said Montrose; "to that tribunal we all submit us."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell left the hall, accompanied by Allan M'Aulay
+and Lord Menteith.  "There goes a true-bred Campbell," said
+Montrose, as the envoy departed, "for they are ever fair and
+false."
+
+"Pardon me, my lord," said Evan Dhu; "hereditary enemy as I am to
+their name, I have ever found the Knight of Ardenvohr brave in
+war, honest in peace, and true in council."
+
+"Of his own disposition," said Montrose, "such he is undoubtedly;
+but he now acts as the organ or mouth-piece of his Chief, the
+Marquis, the falsest man that ever drew breath.  And, M'Aulay,"
+he continued in a whisper to his host, "lest he should make some
+impression upon the inexperience of Menteith, or the singular
+disposition of your brother, you had better send music into their
+chamber, to prevent his inveigling them into any private
+conference."
+
+"The devil a musician have I," answered M'Aulay, "excepting the
+piper, who has nearly broke his wind by an ambitious contention
+for superiority with three of his own craft; but I can send Annot
+Lyle and her harp."  And he left the apartment to give orders
+accordingly.
+
+Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the
+perilous task of returning with Sir Duncan to Inverary.  To the
+higher dignitaries, accustomed to consider themselves upon an
+equality even with M'Callum More, this was an office not to be
+proposed; unto others who could not plead the same excuse, it was
+altogether unacceptable.  One would have thought Inverary had
+been the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the inferior chiefs
+showed such reluctance to approach it.  After a considerable
+hesitation, the plain reason was at length spoken out, namely,
+that whatever Highlander should undertake an office so
+distasteful to M'Callum More, he would be sure to treasure the
+offence in his remembrance, and one day or other to make him
+bitterly repent of it.
+
+In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice
+as a mere stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not
+ventured bluntly to reject it in presence of those whom it
+concerned so nearly, resolved to impose the danger and dignity
+upon Captain Dalgetty, who had neither clan nor estate in the
+Highlands upon which the wrath of Argyle could wreak itself.
+
+"But I have a neck though," said Dalgetty, bluntly; "and what if
+he chooses to avenge himself upon that?  I have known a case
+where an honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before
+now.  Neither did the Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully
+at the siege of Capua, although I read that they only cut off
+their hands and noses, put out their eyes, and suffered them to
+depart in peace."
+
+"By my honour Captain Dalgetty," said Montrose, "should the
+Marquis, contrary to the rules of war, dare to practise any
+atrocity against you, you may depend upon my taking such signal
+vengeance that all Scotland shall ring of it."
+
+"That will do but little for Dalgetty," returned the Captain;
+"but corragio!  as the Spaniard says.  With the Land of Promise
+full in view, the Moor of Drumthwacket, MEA PAUPERA REGNA, as we
+said at Mareschal-College, I will not refuse your Excellency's
+commission, being conscious it becomes a cavalier of honour to
+obey his commander's orders, in defiance both of gibbet and
+sword."
+
+"Gallantly resolved," said Montrose; "and if you will come apart
+with me, I will furnish you with the conditions to be laid before
+M'Callum More, upon which we are willing to grant him a truce for
+his Highland dominions."
+
+With these we need not trouble our readers.  They were of an
+evasive nature, calculated to meet a proposal which Montrose
+considered to have been made only for the purpose of gaining
+time.  When he had put Captain Dalgetty in complete possession of
+his instructions, and when that worthy, making his military
+obeisance, was near the door of his apartment, Montrose made him
+a sign to return.
+
+"I presume," said he, "I need not remind an officer who has
+served under the great Gustavus, that a little more is required
+of a person sent with a flag of truce than mere discharge of his
+instructions, and that his general will expect from him, on his
+return, some account of the state of the enemy's affairs, as far
+as they come under his observation. In short, Captain Dalgetty,
+you must be UN PEU CLAIR-VOYANT."
+
+"Ah ha!  your Excellency," said the Captain, twisting his hard
+features into an inimitable expression of cunning and
+intelligence, "if they do not put my head in a poke, which I have
+known practised upon honourable soldados who have been suspected
+to come upon such errands as the present, your Excellency may
+rely on a preceese narration of whatever DugaId Dalgetty shall
+hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune there are in
+M'Callum More's pibroch, or how many checks in the sett of his
+plaid and trews."
+
+"Enough," answered Montrose; "farewell, Captain Dalgetty:  and as
+they say that a lady's mind is always expressed in her
+postscript, so I would have you think that the most important
+part of your commission lies in what I have last said to you."
+
+Dalgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual
+his charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching
+mission.
+
+At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first
+care,--he met Angus M'Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been
+looking at his horse; and, after praising his points and
+carriage, both united in strongly dissuading the Captain from
+taking an animal of such value with him upon his present very
+fatiguing journey.
+
+Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather
+wild tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel
+into Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bothies where he would
+be condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be
+procured for his horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old
+heather.  In short, he pronounced it absolutely impossible, that,
+after undertaking such a pilgrimage, the animal could be in any
+case for military service.  The Englishman strongly confirmed all
+that Angus had said, and gave himself, body and soul, to the
+devil, if he thought it was not an act little short of absolute
+murder to carry a horse worth a farthing into such a waste and
+inhospitable desert. Captain Dalgetty for an instant looked
+steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and next at the other,
+and then asked them, as if in a state of indecision, what they
+would advise him to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.
+
+"By the hand of my father, my dear friend," answered M'Aulay, "if
+you leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed
+and sorted according to his worth and quality, and that upon your
+happy return, you will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in
+butter."
+
+"Or," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "if this worthy cavalier chooses
+to part with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part
+of the silver candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse,
+which I shall be very willing to transfer to his."
+
+"In brief, mine honourable friends," said Captain Dalgetty, again
+eyeing them both with an air of comic penetration, "I find it
+would not be altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have
+some token to remember the old soldier by, in case it shall
+please M'Callum More to hang him up at the gate of his own
+castle.  And doubtless it would be no small satisfaction to me,
+in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier like Sir Miles
+Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our excellent
+landlord, should act as my executor."
+
+Both hastened to protest that they had no such object, and
+insisted again upon the impassable character of the Highland
+paths.  Angus M'Aulay mumbled over a number of hard Gaellic
+names, descriptive of the difficult passes, precipices, corries,
+and beals, through which he said the road lay to Inverary, when
+old Donald, who had now entered, sanctioned his master's account
+of these difficulties, by holding up his hands, and elevating his
+eyes, and shaking his head, at every gruttural which M'Aulay
+pronounced.  But all this did not move the inflexible Captain.
+
+"My worthy friends," said he, "Gustavus is not new to the dangers
+of travelling, and the mountains of Bohemia; and (no
+disparagement to the beals and corries Mr. Angus is pleased to
+mention, and of which Sir Miles, who never saw them, confirms the
+horrors,) these mountains may compete with the vilest roads in
+Europe.  In fact, my horse hath a most excellent and social
+quality; for although he cannot pledge in my cup, yet we share
+our loaf between us, and it will be hard if he suffers famine
+where cakes or bannocks are to be found.  And, to cut this matter
+short, I beseech you, my good friends, to observe the state of
+Sir Duncan Campbell's palfrey, which stands in that stall before
+us, fat and fair; and, in return for your anxiety an my account,
+I give you my honest asseveration, that while we travel the same
+road, both that palfrey and his rider shall lack for food before
+either Gustavus or I."
+
+Having said this he filled a large measure with corn, and walked
+up with it to his charger, who, by his low whinnying neigh, his
+pricked ears, and his pawing, showed how close the alliance was
+betwixt him and his rider.  Nor did he taste his corn until he
+had returned his master's caresses, by licking his hands and
+face.  After this interchange of greeting, the steed began to his
+provender with an eager dispatch, which showed old military
+habits; and the master, after looking on the animal with great
+complacency for about five minutes, said,--"Much good may it do
+your honest heart, Gustavus;--now must I go and lay in provant
+myself for the campaign."
+
+He then departed, having first saluted the Englishman and Angus
+M'Aulay, who remained looking at each other for some time in
+silence, and then burst out into a fit of laughter.
+
+"That fellow," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "is formed to go through
+the world."
+
+"I shall think so too," said M'Aulay, "if he can slip through
+M'Callum More's fingers as easily as he has done through ours."
+
+"Do you think," said the Englishman, "that the Marquis will not
+respect, in Captain Dalgetty's person, the laws of civilized
+war?"
+
+"No more than I would respect a Lowland proclamation," said Angus
+M'Aulay.--"But come along, it is time I were returning to my
+guests."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+ --In a rebellion,
+ When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
+ Then were they chosen, in a better hour,
+ Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
+ And throw their power i' the dust.     CORIOLANUS.
+
+In a small apartment, remote from the rest of the guests
+assembled at the castle, Sir Duncan Campbell was presented with
+every species of refreshment, and respectfully attended by Lord
+Menteith, and by Allan M'Aulay.  His discourse with the latter
+turned upon a sort of hunting campaign, in which they had been
+engaged together against the Children of the Mist, with whom the
+Knight of Ardenvohr, as well as the M'Aulays, had a deadly and
+irreconcilable feud.  Sir Duncan, however, speedily endeavoured
+to lead back the conversation to the subject of his present
+errand to the castle of Darnlinvarach.
+
+"It grieved him to the very heart," he said, "to see that friends
+and neighbours, who should stand shoulder to shoulder, were
+likely to be engaged hand to hand in a cause which so little
+concerned them.  What signifies it," he said, "to the Highland
+Chiefs, whether King or Parliament got uppermost?  Were it not
+better to let them settle their own differences without
+interference, while the Chiefs, in the meantime, took the
+opportunity of establishing their own authority in a manner not
+to be called in question hereafter by either King or Parliament?"
+He reminded Allan M'Aulay that the measures taken in the last
+reign to settle the peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were
+in fact levelled at the patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and
+he mentioned the celebrated settlement of the Fife Undertakers,
+as they were called, in the Lewis, as part of a deliberate plan,
+formed to introduce strangers among the Celtic tribes, to destroy
+by degrees their ancient customs and mode of government, and to
+despoil them of the inheritance of their fathers.  [In the reign
+of James VI., an attempt of rather an extraordinary kind was made
+to civilize the extreme northern part of the Hebridean
+Archipelago.  That monarch granted the property of the Island of
+Lewis, as if it had been an unknown and savage country, to a
+number of Lowland gentlemen, called undertakers, chiefly natives
+of the shire of Fife, that they might colonize and settle there.
+The enterprise was at first successful, but the natives of the
+island, MacLeods and MacKenzies, rose on the Lowland adventurers,
+and put most of them to the sword.]  "And yet," he continued,
+addressing Allan, "it is for the purpose of giving despotic
+authority to the monarch by whom these designs have been nursed,
+that so many Highland Chiefs are upon the point of quarrelling
+with, and drawing the sword against, their neighbours, allies,
+and ancient confederates."  "It is to my brother," said Allan,
+"it is to the eldest son of my father's house, that the Knight of
+Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances.  I am, indeed, the
+brother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his
+clansmen, and bound to show an example to the others by my
+cheerful and ready obedience to his commands."
+
+"The cause also," said Lord Menteith, interposing, "is far more
+general than Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it.  It is
+neither limited to Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath,
+to Highlands nor to Lowlands.  The question is, if we will
+continue to be governed by the unlimited authority assumed by a
+set of persons in no respect superior to ourselves, instead of
+returning to the natural government of the Prince against whom
+they have rebelled.  And respecting the interest of the Highlands
+in particular," he added, "I crave Sir Duncan Campbell's pardon
+for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the only
+effect produced by the present usurpation, will be the
+aggrandisement of one overgrown clan at the expense of every
+independent Chief in the Highlands."
+
+"I will not reply to you, my lord," said Sir Duncan Campbell,
+"because I know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed;
+yet you will pardon my saying, that being at the head of a rival
+branch of the House of Graham, I have both read of and known an
+Earl of Menteith, who would have disdained to have been tutored
+in politics, or to have been commanded in war, by an Earl of
+Montrose."
+
+"You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan," said Lord Menteith,
+haughtily, "to set my vanity in arms against my principles.  The
+King gave my ancestors their title and rank; and these shall
+never prevent my acting, in the royal cause, under any one who is
+better qualified than myself to be a commander-in-chief.  Least
+of all, shall any miserable jealousy prevent me from placing my
+hand and sword under the guidance of the bravest, the most loyal,
+the most heroic spirit among our Scottish nobility."
+
+"Pity," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "that you cannot add to this
+panegyric the farther epithets of the most steady, and the most
+consistent.  But I have no purpose of debating these points with
+you, my lord," waving his hand, as if to avoid farther
+discussion; "the die is cast with you; allow me only to express
+my sorrow for the disastrous fate to which Angus M'Aulay's
+natural rashness, and your lordship's influence, are dragging my
+gallant friend Allan here, with his father's clan, and many a
+brave man besides."
+
+"The die is cast for us all, Sir Duncan," replied Allan, looking
+gloomy, and arguing on his own hypochondriac feelings; "the iron
+hand of destiny branded our fate upon our forehead long ere we
+could form a wish, or raise a finger in our own behalf.  Were
+this otherwise, by what means does the Seer ascertain the future
+from those shadowy presages which haunt his waking and his
+sleeping eye?  Nought can be foreseen but that which is certain
+to happen."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell was about to reply, and the darkest and most
+contested point of metaphysics might have been brought into
+discussion betwixt two Highland disputants, when the door opened,
+and Annot Lyle, with her clairshach in her hand, entered the
+apartment.  The freedom of a Highland maiden was in her step and
+in her eye; for, bred up in the closest intimacy with the Laird
+of M'Aulay and his brother, with Lord Menteith, and other young
+men who frequented Darnlinvarach, she possessed none of that
+timidity which a female, educated chiefly among her own sex,
+would either have felt, or thought necessary to assume, on an
+occasion like the present,
+
+Her dress partook of the antique, for new fashions seldom
+penetrated into the Highlands, nor would they easily have found
+their way to a castle inhabited chiefly by men, whose sole
+occupation was war and the chase.  Yet Annot's garments were not
+only becoming, but even rich.  Her open jacket, with a high
+collar, was composed of blue cloth, richly embroidered, and had
+silver clasps to fasten, when it pleased the wearer.  Its
+sleeves, which were wide, came no lower than the elbow, and
+terminated in a golden fringe; under this upper coat, if it can
+be so termed, she wore an under dress of blue satin, also richly
+embroidered, but which was several shades lighter in colour than
+the upper garment.  The petticoat was formed of tartan silk, in
+the sett, or pattern, of which the colour of blue greatly
+predominated, so as to remove the tawdry effect too frequently
+produced in tartan, by the mixture and strong opposition of
+colours.  An antique silver chain hung round her neck, and
+supported the WREST, or key, with which she turned her
+instrument.  A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured
+by a brooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith.
+Her profusion of light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while,
+with a smile and a blush, she mentioned that she had M'Aulay's
+directions to ask them if they chose music.  Sir Duncan Campbell
+gazed with considerable surprise and interest at the lovely
+apparition, which thus interrupted his debate with Allan M'Aulay.
+
+"Can this," he said to him in a whisper, "a creature so beautiful
+and so elegant, be a domestic musician of your brother's
+establishment?"
+
+"By no means," answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation;
+"she is a--a--near relation of our family--and treated," he
+added, more firmly, "as an adopted daughter of our father's
+house."
+
+As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of
+courtesy which every Highlander can assume when it suits him to
+practise it, he resigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the
+same time, whatever refreshments the table afforded, with an
+assiduity which was probably designed to give Sir Duncan an
+impression of her rank and consequence.  If such was Allan's
+purpose, however, it was unnecessary.  Sir Duncan kept his eyes
+fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeper interest than
+could have arisen from any impression that she was a person of
+consequence.  Annot even felt embarrassed under the old knight's
+steady gaze; and it was not without considerable hesitation,
+that, tuning her instrument, and receiving an assenting look from
+Lord Menteith and Allan, she executed the following ballad, which
+our friend, Mr. Secundus M'Pherson, whose goodness we had before
+to acknowledge, has thus translated into the English tongue:
+
+THE ORPHAN MAID.
+
+November's hail-cloud drifts away,
+November's sunbeam wan
+Looks coldly on the castle grey,
+When forth comes Lady Anne.
+
+The orphan by the oak was set,
+Her arms, her feet, were bare,
+The hail-drops had not melted yet,
+Amid her raven hair.
+
+"And, Dame," she said, "by all the ties
+That child and mother know,
+Aid one who never knew these joys,
+Relieve an orphan's woe."
+
+The Lady said, "An orphan's state
+Is hard and sad to bear;
+Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate,
+Who mourns both lord and heir.
+
+"Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
+Since, when from vengeance wild
+Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled,
+Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."
+
+"Twelve times the year its course has born,"
+The wandering maid replied,
+"Since fishers on St. Bridget's morn
+Drew nets on Campsie side.
+
+"St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;--
+An infant, wellnigh dead,
+They saved, and rear'd in want and toil,
+To beg from you her bread."
+
+That orphan maid the lady kiss'd--
+"My husband's looks you bear;
+St. Bridget and her morn be bless'd!
+You are his widow's heir."
+
+They've robed that maid, so poor and pale,
+In silk and sandals rare;
+And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
+Are glistening in her hair.
+
+The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the
+elegance of the above translation, may be desirous to see a
+literal version from the original Gaelic, which we therefore
+subjoin; and have only to add, that the original is deposited
+with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.
+
+LITERAL TRANSLATION.
+
+The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale of
+autumn.  The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as the
+wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when the roar
+of battle hath passed over him.
+
+Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her maidens
+pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].
+
+There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of
+appointment.  The withered leaves fell around her, and her heart
+was more withered than they.
+
+The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost] still
+congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like the specks
+of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the blackened and half-
+consumed oak that blazes in the hall.
+
+And the maiden said, "Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan
+child."  And the Lady replied, "How can I give that which I have
+not?  I am the widow of a slain lord,--the mother of a perished
+child.  When I fled in my fear from the vengeance of my husband's
+foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide, and my infant
+perished.  This was on St. Bridget's morn, near the strong Lyns
+of Campsie.  May ill luck light upon the day."  And the maiden
+answered, "It was on St. Bridget's morn, and twelve harvests
+before this time, that the fishermen of Campsie drew in their
+nets neither grilse nor salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath
+since lived in misery, and must die, unless she is now aided."
+And the Lady answered, "Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn,
+for these are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord;
+and thine shall be the inheritance of his widow."  And she called
+for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe that maiden
+in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which they wove among her
+black tresses, were whiter than the frozen hail-drops.
+
+While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some
+surprise, that it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon
+the mind of Sir Duncan Campbell, than he could possibly have
+anticipated from his age and character.  He well knew that the
+Highlanders of that period possessed a much greater sensibility
+both for tale and song than was found among their Lowland
+neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardly accounted for the
+embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyes from the
+songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an object
+so interesting.  Still less was it to be expected, that features
+which expressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit
+of authority, should have been so much agitated by so trivial a
+circumstance.  As the Chief's brow became clouded, he drooped his
+large shaggy grey eyebrows until they almost concealed his eyes,
+on the lids of which something like a tear might be seen to
+glisten.  He remained silent and fixed in the same posture for a
+minute or two, after the last note had ceased to vibrate.  He
+then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as if
+purposing to speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose,
+and was about to address Allan, when the door opened, and the
+Lord of the Castle made his appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ Dark on their journey lour'd the gloomy day,
+ Wild were the hills, and doubtful grew the way;
+ More dark, more gloomy, and more doubtful, show'd
+ The mansion, which received them from the road.
+                           THE TRAVELLERS, A ROMANCE.
+
+Angus M'Aulay was charged with a message which he seemed to find
+some difficulty in communicating; for it was not till after he
+had framed his speech several different ways, and blundered them
+all, that he succeeded in letting Sir Duncan Campbell know, that
+the cavalier who was to accompany him was waiting in readiness,
+and that all was prepared for his return to Inverary.  Sir Duncan
+Campbell rose up very indignantly; the affront which this message
+implied immediately driving out of his recollection the
+sensibility which had been awakened by the music.
+
+"I little expected this," he said, looking indignantly at Angus
+M'Aulay.  "I little thought that there was a Chief in the West
+Highlands, who, at the pleasure of a Saxon, would have bid the
+Knight of Ardenvohr leave his castle, when the sun was declining
+from the meridian, and ere the second cup had been filled.  But
+farewell, sir, the food of a churl does not satisfy the appetite;
+when I next revisit Darnlinvarach, it shall be with a naked sword
+in one hand, and a firebrand in the other."
+
+"And if you so come," said Angus, "I pledge myself to meet you
+fairly, though you brought five hundred Campbells at your back,
+and to afford you and them such entertainment, that you shall not
+again complain of the hospitality of Darnlinvarach."
+
+"Threatened men," said Sir Duncan, "live long.  Your turn for
+gasconading, Laird of M'Aulay, is too well known, that men of
+honour should regard your vaunts.  To you, my lord, and to Allan,
+who have supplied the place of my churlish host, I leave my
+thanks.--And to you, pretty mistress," he said, addressing Annot
+Lyle, "this little token, for having opened a fountain which hath
+been dry for many a year."  So saying, he left the apartment, and
+commanded his attendants to be summoned.  Angus M'Aulay, equally
+embarrassed and incensed at the charge of inhospitality, which
+was the greatest possible affront to a Highlander, did not follow
+Sir Duncan to the court-yard, where, mounting his palfrey, which
+was in readiness, followed by six mounted attendants, and
+accompanied by the noble Captain Dalgetty, who had also awaited
+him, holding Gustavus ready for action, though he did not draw
+his girths and mount till Sir Duncan appeared, the whole
+cavalcade left the castle.
+
+The journey was long and toilsome, but without any of the extreme
+privations which the Laird of M'Aulay had prophesied.  In truth,
+Sir Duncan was very cautious to avoid those nearer and more
+secret paths, by means of which the county of Argyle was
+accessible from the eastward; for his relation and chief, the
+Marquis, was used to boast, that he would not for a hundred
+thousand crowns any mortal should know the passes by which an
+armed force could penetrate into his country.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell, therefore, rather shunned the Highlands, and
+falling into the Low-country, made for the nearest seaport in the
+vicinity, where he had several half-decked galleys, or birlings,
+as they were called, at his command.  In one of these they
+embarked, with Gustavus in company, who was so seasoned to
+adventure, that land and sea seemed as indifferent to him as to
+his master.
+
+The wind being favourable, they pursued their way rapidly with
+sails and oars; and early the next morning it was announced to
+Captain Dalgetty, then in a small cabin beneath the hall-deck,
+that the galley was under the walls of Sir Duncan Campbell's
+castle.
+
+Ardenvohr, accordingly, rose high above him, when he came upon
+the deck of the galley.  It was a gloomy square tower, of
+considerable size and great height, situated upon a headland
+projecting into the salt-water lake, or arm of the sea, which
+they had entered on the preceding evening.  A wall, with flanking
+towers at each angle, surrounded the castle to landward; but,
+towards the lake, it was built so near the brink of the precipice
+as only to leave room for a battery of seven guns, designed to
+protect the fortress from any insult from that side, although
+situated too high to be of any effectual use according to the
+modern system of warfare.
+
+The eastern sun, rising behind the old tower, flung its shadow
+far on the lake, darkening the deck of the galley, on which
+Captain Dalgetty now walked, waiting with some impatience the
+signal to land.  Sir Duncan Campbell, as he was informed by his
+attendants, was already within the walls of the castle; but no
+one encouraged the Captain's proposal of following him ashore,
+until, as they stated, they should receive the direct permission
+or order of the Knight of Ardenvohr.
+
+In a short time afterwards the mandate arrived, while a boat,
+with a piper in the bow, bearing the Knight of Ardenvohr's crest
+in silver upon his left arm, and playing with all his might the
+family march, entitled "The Campbells are coming," approached to
+conduct the envoy of Montrose to the castle of Ardenvohr.  The
+distance between the galley and the beach was so short as scarce
+to require the assistance of the eight sturdy rowers, in bonnets,
+short coats, and trews, whose efforts sent the boat to the little
+creek in which they usually landed, before one could have
+conceived that it had left the side of the birling.  Two of the
+boatmen, in spite of Dalgetty's resistance, horsed the Captain on
+the back of a third Highlander, and, wading through the surf with
+him, landed him high and dry upon the beach beneath the castle
+rock.  In the face of this rock there appeared something like the
+entrance of a low-browed cavern, towards which the assistants
+were preparing to hurry our friend Dalgetty, when, shaking
+himself loose from them with some difficulty, he insisted upon
+seeing Gustavus safely landed before he proceeded one step
+farther. The Highlanders could not comprehend what he meant,
+until one who had picked up a little English, or rather Lowland
+Scotch, exclaimed, "Houts!  it's a' about her horse, ta useless
+baste."  Farther remonstrance on the part of Captain Dalgetty was
+interrupted by the appearance of Sir Duncan Campbell himself,
+from the mouth of the cavern which we have described, for the
+purpose of inviting Captain Dalgetty to accept of the hospitality
+of Ardenvohr, pledging his honour, at the same time, that
+Gustavus should be treated as became the hero from whom he
+derived his name, not to mention the important person to whom he
+now belonged.  Notwithstanding this satisfactory guarantee,
+Captain Dalgetty would still have hesitated, such was his anxiety
+to witness the fate of his companion Gustavus, had not two
+Highlanders seized him by the arms, two more pushed him on
+behind, while a fifth exclaimed, "Hout awa wi' the daft
+Sassenach!  does she no hear the Laird bidding her up to her ain
+castle, wi' her special voice, and isna that very mickle honour
+for the like o' her?"
+
+Thus impelled, Captain Dalgetty could only for a short space keep
+a reverted eye towards the galley in which he had left the
+partner of his military toils.  In a few minutes afterwards he
+found himself involved in the total darkness of a staircase,
+which, entering from the low-browed cavern we have mentioned,
+winded upwards through the entrails of the living rock.
+
+"The cursed Highland salvages!"  muttered the Captain, half
+aloud; "what is to become of me, if Gustavus, the namesake of the
+invincible Lion of the Protestant League, should be lamed among
+their untenty hands!"
+
+"Have no fear of that," said the voice of Sir Duncan, who was
+nearer to him than he imagined; "my men are accustomed to handle
+horses, both in embarking and dressing them, and you will soon
+see Gustavus as safe as when you last dismounted from his back,"
+
+Captain Dalgetty knew the world too well to offer any farther
+remonstrance, whatever uneasiness he might suppress within his
+own bosom.  A step or two higher up the stair showed light and a
+door, and an iron-grated wicket led him out upon a gallery cut in
+the open face of the rock, extending a space of about six or
+eight yards, until he reached a second door, where the path
+re-entered the rock, and which was also defended by an iron
+portcullis.  "An admirable traverse," observed the Captain; "and
+if commanded by a field-piece, or even a few muskets, quite
+sufficient to ensure the place against a storming party."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell made no answer at the time; but, the moment
+afterwards, when they had entered the second cavern, he struck
+with the stick which he had in his hand, first on the one side,
+and then on the other of the wicket, and the sullen ringing sound
+which replied to the blows, made Captain Dalgetty sensible that
+there was a gun placed on each side, for the purpose of raking
+the gallery through which they had passed, although the
+embrasures, through which they might be fired on occasion, were
+masked on the outside with sods and loose stones.  Having
+ascended the second staircase, they found themselves again on an
+open platform and gallery, exposed to a fire both of musketry and
+wall-guns, if, being come with hostile intent, they had ventured
+farther.  A third flight of steps, cut in the rock like the
+former, but not caverned over, led them finally into the battery
+at the foot of the tower. This last stair also was narrow and
+steep, and, not to mention the fire which might be directed on it
+from above, one or two resolute men, with pikes and battle-axes,
+could have made the pass good against hundreds; for the staircase
+would not admit two persons abreast, and was not secured by any
+sort of balustrade, or railing, from the sheer and abrupt
+precipice, on the foot of which the tide now rolled with a voice
+of thunder. So that, under the jealous precautions used to secure
+this ancient Celtic fortress, a person of weak nerves, and a
+brain liable to become dizzy, might have found it something
+difficult to have achieved the entrance to the castle, even
+supposing no resistance had been offered.
+
+Captain Dalgetty, too old a soldier to feel such tremors, had no
+sooner arrived in the court-yard, than he protested to God, the
+defences of Sir Duncan's castle reminded him more of the notable
+fortress of Spandau, situated in the March of Brandenburg, than
+of any place whilk it had been his fortune to defend in the
+course of his travels.  Nevertheless, he criticised considerably
+the mode of placing the guns on the battery we have noticed,
+observing, that "where cannon were perched, like to scarts or
+sea-gulls on the top of a rock, he had ever observed that they
+astonished more by their noise than they dismayed by the skaith
+or damage which they occasioned."
+
+Sir Duncan, without replying, conducted the soldier into the
+tower; the defences of which were a portcullis and ironclenched
+oaken door, the thickness of the wall being the space between
+them.  He had no sooner arrived in a hall hung with tapestry,
+than the Captain prosecuted his military criticism.  It was
+indeed suspended by the sight of an excellent breakfast, of which
+he partook with great avidity; but no sooner had he secured this
+meal, than he made the tour of the apartment, examining the
+ground around the Castle very carefully from each window in the
+room.  He then returned to his chair, and throwing himself back
+into it at his length, stretched out one manly leg, and tapping
+his jack-boot with the riding-rod which he carried in his hand,
+after the manner of a half-bred man who affects ease in the
+society of his betters, he delivered his unasked opinion as
+follows:--"This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan, is a very pretty
+defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such as a
+cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by
+holding out for many days.  For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to
+notice, your house is overcrowed, and slighted, or commanded, as
+we military men say, by yonder round hillock to the landward,
+whereon an enemy might stell such a battery of cannon as would
+make ye glad to beat a chamade within forty-eight hours, unless
+it pleased the Lord extraordinarily to show mercy."
+
+"There is no road," replied Sir Duncan, somewhat shortly, "by
+which cannon can be brought against Ardenvohr.  The swamps and
+morasses around my house would scarce carry your horse and
+yourself, excepting by such paths as could be rendered impassable
+within a few hours."
+
+"Sir Duncan," said the Captain, "it is your pleasure to suppose
+so; and yet we martial men say, that where there is a sea-coast
+there is always a naked side, seeing that cannon and munition,
+where they cannot be transported by land, may be right easily
+brought by sea near to the place where they are to be put in
+action.  Neither is a castle, however secure in its situation, to
+be accounted altogether invincible, or, as they say, impregnable;
+for I protest t'ye, Sir Duncan, that I have known twenty-five
+men, by the mere surprise and audacity of the attack, win, at
+point of pike, as strong a hold as this of Ardenvohr, and put to
+the sword, captivate, or hold to the ransom, the defenders, being
+ten times their own number."
+
+Notwithstanding Sir Duncan Campbell's knowledge of the world, and
+his power of concealing his internal emotion, he appeared piqued
+and hurt at these reflections, which the Captain made with the
+most unconscious gravity, having merely selected the subject of
+conversation as one upon which he thought himself capable of
+shining, and, as they say, of laying down the law, without
+exactly recollecting that the topic might not be equally
+agreeable to his landlord.
+
+"To cut this matter short," said Sir Duncan, with an expression
+of voice and countenance somewhat agitated, "it is unnecessary
+for you to tell me, Captain Dalgetty, that a castle may be
+stormed if it is not valorously defended, or surprised if it is
+not heedfully watched.  I trust this poor house of mine will not
+be found in any of these predicaments, should even Captain
+Dalgetty himself choose to beleaguer it."
+
+"For all that, Sir Duncan," answered the persevering commander,
+"I would premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce upon
+that round hill, with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be
+easily accomplished by compelling the labour of the boors in the
+vicinity; it being the custom of the valorous Gustavus Adolphus
+to fight as much by the spade and shovel, as by sword, pike, and
+musket.  Also, I would advise you to fortify the said sconce, not
+only by a foussie, or graffe, but also by certain stackets, or
+palisades."--(Here Sir Duncan, becoming impatient, left the
+apartment, the Captain following him to the door, and raising his
+voice as he retreated, until he was fairly out of hearing.)--"The
+whilk stackets, or palisades, should be artificially framed with
+re-entering angles and loop-holes, or crenelles, for musketry,
+whereof it shall arise that the foeman--The Highland brute!  the
+old Highland brute!  They are as proud as peacocks, and as
+obstinate as tups--and here he has missed an opportunity of
+making his house as pretty an irregular fortification as an
+invading army ever broke their teeth upon.--But I see," he
+continued, looking own from the window upon the bottom of the
+precipice, "they have got Gustavus safe ashore--Proper fellow!  I
+would know that toss of his head among a whole squadron.  I must
+go to see what they are to make of him."
+
+He had no sooner reached, however, the court to the seaward, and
+put himself in the act of descending the staircase, than two
+Highland sentinels, advancing their Lochaber axes, gave him to
+understand that this was a service of danger.
+
+"Diavolo!"  said the soldier, "and I have got no pass-word. I
+could not speak a syllable of their salvage gibberish, an it were
+to save me from the provost-marshal."
+
+"I will be your surety, Captain Dalgetty," said Sir Duncan, who
+had again approached him without his observing from whence; "and
+we will go together, and see how your favourite charger is
+accommodated."
+
+He conducted him accordingly down the staircase to the beach, and
+from thence by a short turn behind a large rock, which concealed
+the stables and other offices belonging to the castle, Captain
+Dalgetty became sensible, at the same time, that the side of the
+castle to the land was rendered totally inaccessible by a ravine,
+partly natural and partly scarped with great care and labour, so
+as to be only passed by a drawbridge.  Still, however, the
+Captain insisted, not withstanding the triumphant air with which
+Sir Duncan pointed out his defences, that a sconce should be
+erected on Drumsnab, the round eminence to the east of the
+castle, in respect the house might be annoyed from thence by
+burning bullets full of fire, shot out of cannon, according to
+the curious invention of Stephen Bathian, King of Poland, whereby
+that prince utterly ruined the great Muscovite city of Moscow.
+This invention, Captain Dalgetty owned, he had not yet witnessed,
+but observed, "that it would give him particular delectation to
+witness the same put to the proof against Ardenvohr, or any other
+castle of similar strength;" observing, "that so curious an
+experiment could not but afford the greatest delight to all
+admirers of the military art."
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell diverted this conversation by carrying the
+soldier into his stables, and suffering him to arrange Gustavus
+according to his own will and pleasure.  After this duty had been
+carefully performed, Captain Dalgetty proposed to return to the
+castle, observing, it was his intention to spend the time betwixt
+this and dinner, which, he presumed, would come upon the parade
+about noon, in burnishing his armour, which having sustained some
+injury from the sea-air, might, he was afraid, seem discreditable
+in the eyes of M'Callum More.  Yet, while they were returning to
+the castle, he failed not to warn Sir Duncan Campbell against the
+great injury he might sustain by any sudden onfall of an enemy,
+whereby his horses, cattle, and granaries, might be cut off and
+consumed, to his great prejudice; wherefore he again strongly
+conjured him to construct a sconce upon the round hill called
+Drumsnab, and offered his own friendly services in lining out the
+same.  To this disinterested advice Sir Duncan only replied by
+ushering his guest to his apartment, and informing him that the
+tolling of the castle bell would make him aware when dinner was
+ready.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Is this thy castle, Baldwin?  Melancholy
+Displays her sable banner from the donjon,
+Darkening the foam of the whole surge beneath.
+Were I a habitant, to see this gloom
+Pollute the face of nature, and to hear
+The ceaseless sound of wave, and seabird's scream,
+I'd wish me in the hut that poorest peasant
+E'er framed, to give him temporary shelter.      BROWN.
+
+The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed his leisure
+in studying the exterior of Sir Duncan's castle, and verifying
+his own military ideas upon the nature of its defences.  But a
+stout sentinel, who mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door
+of his apartment, gave him to understand, by very significant
+signs, that he was in a sort of honourable captivity.
+
+It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself, how well these
+salvages understand the rules and practique of war.  Who should
+have pre-supposed their acquaintance with the maxim of the great
+and godlike Gustavus Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be
+half a messenger half a spy?--And, having finished burnishing his
+arms, he sate down patiently to compute how much half a dollar
+per diem would amount to at the end of a six-months' campaign;
+and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded to the more
+abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of two
+thousand men on the principle of extracting the square root.
+
+From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound of the dinner
+bell, on which the Highlander, lately his guard, became his
+gentleman-usher, and marshalled him to the hall, where a table
+with four covers bore ample proofs of Highland hospitality.  Sir
+Duncan entered, conducting his lady, a tall, faded, melancholy
+female, dressed in deep mourning.  They were followed by a
+Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and wearing a black
+silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that it could
+scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an undue
+predominance in the general aspect.  This ungraceful fashion was
+universal at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of
+roundheads, prick-eared curs, and so forth, which the insolence
+of the cavaliers liberally bestowed on their political enemies.
+
+Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received
+his technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in
+which it could scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had
+the greater share.  The churchman, to whom he was next presented,
+eyed him with a glance of mingled dislike and curiosity.
+
+The Captain, well accustomed to worse looks from more dangerous
+persons, cared very little either for those of the lady or of the
+divine, but bent his whole soul upon assaulting a huge piece of
+beef, which smoked at the nether end of the table.  But the
+onslaught, as he would have termed it, was delayed, until the
+conclusion of a very long grace, betwixt every section of which
+Dalgetty handled his knife and fork, as he might have done his
+musket or pike when going upon action, and as often resigned them
+unwillingly when the prolix chaplain commenced another clause of
+his benediction.  Sir Duncan listened with decency, though he was
+supposed rather to have joined the Covenanters out of devotion to
+his chief, than real respect for the cause either of liberty or
+of Presbytery. His lady alone attended to the blessing, with
+symptoms of deep acquiescence.
+
+The meal was performed almost in Carthusian silence; for it was
+none of Captain Dalgetty's habits to employ his mouth in talking,
+while it could be more profitably occupied.  Sir Duncan was
+absolutely silent, and the lady and churchman only occasionally
+exchanged a few words, spoken low, and indistinctly.
+
+But, when the dishes were removed, and their place supplied by
+liquors of various sorts, Captain Dalgetty no longer had,
+himself, the same weighty reasons for silence, and began to tire
+of that of the rest of the company.  He commenced a new attack
+upon his landlord, upon the former ground.
+
+"Touching that round monticle, or hill, or eminence, termed
+Drumsnab, I would be proud to hold some dialogue with you, Sir
+Duncan, on the nature of the sconce to be there constructed; and
+whether the angles thereof should be acute or obtuse--anent whilk
+I have heard the great Velt-Mareschal Bannier hold a learned
+argument with General Tiefenbach during a still-stand of arms."
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," answered Sir Duncan very dryly, "it is not
+our Highland usage to debate military points with strangers.
+This castle is like to hold out against a stronger enemy than any
+force which the unfortunate gentlemen we left at Darnlinvarach
+are able to bring against it."
+
+A deep sigh from the lady accompanied the conclusion of her
+husband's speech, which seemed to remind her of some painful
+circumstance.
+
+"He who gave," said the clergyman, addressing her in a solemn
+tone, "hath taken away.  May you, honourable lady, be long
+enabled to say, Blessed be his name!"
+
+To this exhortation, which seemed intended for her sole behoof,
+the lady answered by an inclination of her head, more humble than
+Captain Dalgetty had yet observed her make. Supposing he should
+now find her in a more conversible humour, he proceeded to accost
+her.
+
+"It is indubitably very natural that your ladyship should be
+downcast at the mention of military preparations, whilk I have
+observed to spread perturbation among women of all nations, and
+almost all conditions.  Nevertheless, Penthesilea, in ancient
+times, and also Joan of Arc, and others, were of a different
+kidney.  And, as I have learned while I served the Spaniard, the
+Duke of Alva in former times had the leaguer-lasses who followed
+his camp marshalled into TERTIAS (whilk me call regiments), and
+officered and commanded by those of their own feminine gender,
+and regulated by a commander-in chief, called in German
+Hureweibler, or, as we would say vernacularly, Captain of the
+Queans.  True it is, they were persons not to be named as
+parallel to your ladyship, being such QUAE QUAESTUM CORPORIBUS
+FACIEBANT, as we said of Jean Drochiels at Mareschal-College; the
+same whom the French term CURTISANNES, and we in Scottish--"
+
+"The lady will spare you the trouble of further exposition,
+Captain Dalgetty," said his host, somewhat sternly; to which the
+clergyman added, "that such discourse better befitted a watch-
+tower guarded by profane soldiery than the board of an honourable
+person, and the presence of a lady of quality."
+
+"Craving your pardon, Dominie, or Doctor, AUT QUOCUNQUE ALIO
+NOMINE GAUDES, for I would have you to know I have studied polite
+letters," said the unabashed envoy, filling a great cup of wine,
+"I see no ground for your reproof, seeing I did not speak of
+those TURPES PERSONAE, as if their occupation or character was a
+proper subject of conversation for this lady's presence, but
+simply PAR ACCIDENS, as illustrating the matter in hand, namely,
+their natural courage and audacity, much enhanced, doubtless, by
+the desperate circumstances of their condition."
+
+"Captain Dalgetty," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "to break short
+this discourse, I must acquaint you, that I have some business to
+dispatch to-night, in order to enable me to ride with you to-
+morrow towards Inverary; and therefore--"
+
+"To ride with this person to-morrow!"  exclaimed his lady; "such
+cannot be your purpose, Sir Duncan, unless you have forgotten
+that the morrow is a sad anniversary, and dedicated to as sad a
+solemnity."
+
+"I had not forgotten," answered Sir Duncan; "how is it possible I
+can ever forget?  but the necessity of the times requires I
+should send this officer onward to Inverary, without loss of
+time."
+
+"Yet, surely, not that you should accompany him in person?"
+enquired the lady.
+
+"It were better I did," said Sir Duncan; "yet I can write to the
+Marquis, and follow on the subsequent day.--Captain Dalgetty, I
+will dispatch a letter for you, explaining to the Marquis of
+Argyle your character and commission, with which you will please
+to prepare to travel to Inverary early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Sir Duncan Campbell," said Dalgetty, "I am doubtless at your
+discretionary disposal in this matter; not the less, I pray you
+to remember the blot which will fall upon your own escutcheon, if
+you do in any way suffer me, being a commissionate flag of truce,
+to be circumvented in this matter, whether CLAM, VI, VEL
+PRECARIO; I do not say by your assent to any wrong done to me,
+but even through absence of any due care on your part to prevent
+the same."
+
+"You are under the safeguard of my honour, sir," answered Sir
+Duncan Campbell, "and that is more than a sufficient security.
+And now," continued he, rising, "I must set the example of
+retiring."
+
+Dalgetty saw himself under the necessity of following the hint,
+though the hour was early; but, like a skilful general, he
+availed himself of every instant of delay which circumstances
+permitted.  "Trusting to your honourable parole," said he,
+filling his cup, "I drink to you, Sir Duncan, and to the
+continuance of your honourable-house."  A sigh from Sir Duncan
+was the only reply.  "Also, madam," said the soldier,
+replenishing the quaigh with all possible dispatch, "I drink to
+your honourable health, and fulfilment of all your virtuous
+desires--and, reverend sir" (not forgetting to fit the action to
+the words), "I fill this cup to the drowning of all unkindness
+betwixt you and Captain Dalgetty--I should say Major--and, in
+respect the flagon contains but one cup more, I drink to the
+health of all honourable cavaliers and brave soldados--and, the
+flask being empty, I am ready, Sir Duncan, to attend your
+functionary or sentinel to my place of private repose."
+
+He received a formal permission to retire, and an assurance, that
+as the wine seemed to be to his taste, another measure of the
+same vintage should attend him presently, in order to soothe the
+hours of his solitude.
+
+No sooner had the Captain reached the apartment than this promise
+was fulfilled; and, in a short time afterwards, the added
+comforts of a pasty of red-deer venison rendered him very
+tolerant both of confinement and want of society.  The same
+domestic, a sort of chamberlain, who placed this good cheer in
+his apartment, delivered to Dalgetty a packet, sealed and tied up
+with a silken thread, according to the custom of the time,
+addressed with many forms of respect to the High and Mighty
+Prince, Archibald, Marquis of Argyle, Lord of Lorne, and so
+forth.  The chamberlain at the same time apprized the Ritt-
+master, that he must take horse at an early hour for Inverary,
+where the packet of Sir Duncan would be at once his introduction
+and his passport.  Not forgetting that it was his object to
+collect information as well as to act as an envoy, and desirous,
+for his own sake, to ascertain Sir Duncan's reasons for sending
+him onward without his personal attendance, the Ritt-master
+enquired the domestic, with all the precaution that his
+experience suggested, what were the reasons which detained Sir
+Duncan at home on the succeeding day.  The man, who was from the
+Lowlands, replied, "that it was the habit of Sir Duncan and his
+lady to observe as a day of solemn fast and humiliation the
+anniversary on which their castle had been taken by surprise, and
+their children, to the number of four, destroyed cruelly by a
+band of Highland freebooters during Sir Duncan's absence upon an
+expedition which the Marquis of Argyle had undertaken against the
+Macleans of the Isle of Mull."
+
+"Truly," said the soldier, "your lord and lady have some cause
+for fast and humiliation.  Nevertheless, I will venture to
+pronounce, that if he had taken the advice of any experienced
+soldier, having skill in the practiques of defending places of
+advantage, he would have built a sconce upon the small hill which
+is to the left of the draw-brigg.  And this I can easily prove to
+you, mine honest friend; for, holding that pasty to be the
+castle--What's your name, friend?"
+
+"Lorimer, sir," replied the man.
+
+"Here is to your health, honest Lorimer.--I say, Lorimer
+--holding that pasty to be the main body or citadel of the place
+to be defended, and taking the marrow-bone for the sconce to be
+erected--"
+
+"I am sorry, sir," said Lorimer, interrupting him, "that I cannot
+stay to hear the rest of your demonstration; but the bell will
+presently ring.  As worthy Mr. Graneangowl, the Marquis's own
+chaplain, does family worship, and only seven of our household
+out of sixty persons understand the Scottish tongue, it would
+misbecome any one of them to be absent, and greatly prejudice me
+in the opinion of my lady.  There are pipes and tobacco, sir, if
+you please to drink a whiff of smoke, and if you want anything
+else, it shall be forthcoming two hours hence, when prayers are
+over."  So saying, he left the apartment.
+
+No sooner was he gone, than the heavy toll of the castle-bell
+summoned its inhabitants together; and was answered by the shrill
+clamour of the females, mixed with the deeper tones of the men,
+as, talking Earse at the top of their throats, they hurried from
+different quarters by a long but narrow gallery, which served as
+a communication to many rooms, and, among others, to that in
+which Captain Dalgetty was stationed.  There they go as if they
+were beating to the roll-call, thought the soldier to himself; if
+they all attend the parade, I will look out, take a mouthful of
+fresh air, and make mine own observations on the practicabilities
+of this place.
+
+Accordingly, when all was quiet, he opened his chamber door, and
+prepared to leave it, when he saw his friend with the axe
+advancing towards him from the distant end of the gallery, half
+whistling, a Gaelic tune.  To have shown any want of confidence,
+would have been at once impolitic, and unbecoming his military
+character; so the Captain, putting the best face upon his
+situation he could, whistled a Swedish retreat, in a tone still
+louder than the notes of his sentinel; and retreating pace by
+pace, with an air of indifference, as if his only purpose had
+been to breathe a little fresh air, he shut the door in the face
+of his guard, when the fellow had approached within a few paces
+of him.
+
+It is very well, thought the Ritt-master to himself; he annuls my
+parole by putting guards upon me, for, as we used to say at
+Mareschal-College, FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA [See Note I];
+and if he does not trust my word, I do not see how I am bound to
+keep it, if any motive should occur for my desiring to depart
+from it.  Surely the moral obligation of the parole is relaxed,
+in as far as physical force is substituted instead thereof.
+
+Thus comforting himself in the metaphysical immunities which he
+deduced from the vigilance of his sentinel, Ritt-master Dalgetty
+retired to his apartment, where, amid the theoretical
+calculations of tactics, and the occasional more practical
+attacks on the flask and pasty, he consumed the evening until it
+was time to go to repose.  He was summoned by Lorimer at break of
+day, who gave him to understand, that, when he had broken his
+fast, for which he produced ample materials, his guide and horse
+were in attendance for his journey to Inverary.  After complying
+with the hospitable hint of the chamberlain, the soldier
+proceeded to take horse. In passing through the apartments, he
+observed that domestics were busily employed in hanging the great
+hall with black cloth, a ceremony which, he said, he had seen
+practised when the immortal Gustavus Adolphus lay in state in the
+Castle of Wolgast, and which, therefore, he opined, was a
+testimonial of the strictest and deepest mourning.
+
+When Dalgetty mounted his steed, he found himself attended, or
+perhaps guarded, by five or six Campbells, well armed, commanded
+by one, who, from the target at his shoulder, and the short
+cock's feather in his bonnet, as well as from the state which he
+took upon himself, claimed the rank of a Dunniewassel, or
+clansman of superior rank; and indeed, from his dignity of
+deportment, could not stand in a more distant degree of
+relationship to Sir Duncan, than that of tenth or twelfth cousin
+at farthest.  But it was impossible to extract positive
+information on this or any other subject, inasmuch as neither
+this commander nor any of his party spoke English.  The Captain
+rode, and his military attendants walked; but such was their
+activity, and so numerous the impediments which the nature of the
+road presented to the equestrian mode of travelling, that far
+from being retarded by the slowness of their pace, his difficulty
+was rather in keeping up with his guides.  He observed that they
+occasionally watched him with a sharp eye, as if they were
+jealous of some effort to escape; and once, as he lingered behind
+at crossing a brook, one of the gillies began to blow the match
+of his piece, giving him to understand that he would run some
+risk in case of an attempt to part company.  Dalgetty did not
+augur much good from the close watch thus maintained upon his
+person; but there was no remedy, for an attempt to escape from
+his attendants in an impervious and unknown country, would have
+been little short of insanity.  He therefore plodded patiently on
+through a waste and savage wilderness, treading paths which were
+only known to the shepherds and cattle-drivers, and passing with
+much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those sublime
+combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from
+every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland
+grandeur, and mortify their palates upon Highland fare.
+
+At length they arrived on the southern verge of that noble lake
+upon which Inverary is situated; and a bugle, which the
+Dunniewassel winded till rock and greenwood rang, served as a
+signal to a well-manned galley, which, starting from a creek
+where it lay concealed, received the party on board, including
+Gustavus; which sagacious quadruped, an experienced traveller
+both by water and land, walked in and out of the boat with the
+discretion of a Christian.
+
+Embarked on the bosom of Loch Fine, Captain Dalgetty might have
+admired one of the grandest scenes which nature affords.  He
+might have noticed the rival rivers Aray and Shiray, which pay
+tribute to the lake, each issuing from its own dark and wooded
+retreat.  He might have marked, on the soft and gentle slope that
+ascends from the shores, the noble old Gothic castle, with its
+varied outline, embattled walls, towers, and outer and inner
+courts, which, so far as the picturesque is concerned, presented
+an aspect much more striking than the present massive and uniform
+mansion.  He might have admired those dark woods which for many a
+mile surrounded this strong and princely dwelling, and his eye
+might have dwelt on the picturesque peak of Duniquoich, starting
+abruptly from the lake, and raising its scathed brow into the
+mists of middle sky, while a solitary watch-tower, perched on its
+top like an eagle's nest, gave dignity to the scene by awakening
+a sense of possible danger.  All these, and every other
+accompaniment of this noble scene, Captain Dalgetty might have
+marked, if he had been so minded.  But, to confess the truth, the
+gallant Captain, who had eaten nothing since daybreak, was
+chiefly interested by the smoke which ascended from the castle
+chimneys, and the expectations which this seemed to warrant of
+his encountering an abundant stock of provant, as he was wont to
+call supplies of this nature.
+
+The boat soon approached the rugged pier, which abutted into the
+loch from the little town of Inverary, then a rude assemblage of
+huts, with a very few stone mansions interspersed, stretching
+upwards from the banks of Loch Fine to the principal gate of the
+castle, before which a scene presented itself that might easily
+have quelled a less stout heart, and turned a more delicate
+stomach, than those of Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty, titular of
+Drumthwacket.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
+Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
+Restless, unfix'd in principle and place,
+In power unpleased, impatient in disgrace.
+                                       ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
+
+The village of Inverary, now a neat country town, then partook of
+the rudeness of the seventeenth century, in the miserable
+appearance of the houses, and the irregularity of the unpaved
+street.  But a stronger and more terrible characteristic of the
+period appeared in the market-place, which was a space of
+irregular width, half way betwixt the harbour, or pier, and the
+frowning castle-gate, which terminated with its gloomy archway,
+portcullis, and flankers, the upper end of the vista.  Midway
+this space was erected a rude gibbet, on which hung five dead
+bodies, two of which from their dress seemed to have been
+Lowlanders, and the other three corpses were muffled in their
+Highland plaids. Two or three women sate under the gallows, who
+seemed to be mourning, and singing the coronach of the deceased
+in a low voice.  But the spectacle was apparently of too ordinary
+occurrence to have much interest for the inhabitants at large,
+who, while they thronged to look at the military figure, the
+horse of an unusual size, and the burnished panoply of Captain
+Dalgetty, seemed to bestow no attention whatever on the piteous
+spectacle which their own market-place afforded.
+
+The envoy of Montrose was not quite so indifferent; and, hearing
+a word or two of English escape from a Highlander of decent
+appearance, he immediately halted Gustavus and addressed him,
+"The Provost-Marshal has been busy here, my friend.  May I crave
+of you what these delinquents have been justified for?"
+
+He looked towards the gibbet as he spoke; and the Gael,
+comprehending his meaning rather by his action than his words,
+immediately replied, "Three gentlemen caterans,--God sain them"
+(crossing himself)--"twa Sassenach bits o' bodies, that wadna do
+something that M'Callum More bade them;" and turning from
+Dalgetty with an air of indifference, away he walked, staying no
+farther question.
+
+Dalgetty shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, for Sir Duncan
+Campbell's tenth or twelfth cousin had already shown some signs
+of impatience.
+
+At the gate of the castle another terrible spectacle of feudal
+power awaited him.  Within a stockade or palisade, which seemed
+lately to have been added to the defences of the gate, and which
+was protected by two pieces of light artillery, was a small
+enclosure, where stood a huge block, on which lay an axe.  Both
+were smeared with recent blood, and a quantity of saw-dust
+strewed around, partly retained and partly obliterated the marks
+of a very late execution.
+
+As Dalgetty looked on this new object of terror, his principal
+guide suddenly twitched him by the skirt of his jerkin, and
+having thus attracted his attention, winked and pointed with his
+finger to a pole fixed on the stockade, which supported a human
+head, being that, doubtless, of the late sufferer.  There was a
+leer on the Highlander's face, as he pointed to this ghastly
+spectacle, which seemed to his fellow-traveller ominous of
+nothing good.
+
+Dalgetty dismounted from his horse at the gateway, and Gustavus
+was taken from him without his being permitted to attend him to
+the stable, according to his custom.
+
+This gave the soldier a pang which the apparatus of death had not
+conveyed.--"Poor Gustavus!"  said he to himself, "if anything but
+good happens to me, I had better have left him at Darnlinvarach
+than brought him here among these Highland salvages, who scarce
+know the head of a horse from his tail.  But duty must part a man
+from his nearest and dearest--
+
+"When the cannons are roaring, lads, and the colours are flying,
+ The lads that seek honour must never fear dying;
+ Then, stout cavaliers, let us toil our brave trade in,
+ And fight for the Gospel and the bold King of Sweden."
+
+Thus silencing his apprehensions with the but-end of a military
+ballad, he followed his guide into a sort of guard-room filled
+with armed Highlanders.  It was intimated to him that he must
+remain here until his arrival was communicated to the Marquis.
+To make this communication the more intelligible, the doughty
+Captain gave to the Dunniewassel Sir Duncan Campbell's packet,
+desiring, as well as he could, by signs, that it should be
+delivered into the Marquis's own hand.  His guide nodded, and
+withdrew.
+
+The Captain was left about half an hour in this place, to endure
+with indifference, or return with scorn, the inquisitive, and, at
+the same time, the inimical glances of the armed Gael, to whom
+his exterior and equipage were as much subject of curiosity, as
+his person and country seemed matter of dislike.  All this he
+bore with military nonchalance, until, at the expiration of the
+above period, a person dressed in black velvet, and wearing a
+gold chain like a modern magistrate of Edinburgh, but who was, in
+fact, steward of the household to the Marquis of Argyle, entered
+the apartment, and invited, with solemn gravity, the Captain to
+follow him to his master's presence.
+
+The suite of apartments through which he passed, were filled with
+attendants or visitors of various descriptions, disposed,
+perhaps, with some ostentation, in order to impress the envoy of
+Montrose with an idea of the superior power and magnificence
+belonging to the rival house of Argyle.  One ante-room was filled
+with lacqueys, arrayed in brown and yellow, the colours of the
+family, who, ranged in double file, gazed in silence upon Captain
+Dalgetty as he passed betwixt their ranks.  Another was occupied
+by Highland gentlemen and chiefs of small branches, who were
+amusing themselves with chess, backgammon, and other games, which
+they scarce intermitted to gaze with curiosity upon the stranger.
+A third was filled with Lowland gentlemen and officers, who
+seemed also in attendance; and, lastly, the presence-chamber of
+the Marquis himself showed him attended by a levee which marked
+his high importance.
+
+This apartment, the folding doors of which were opened for the
+reception of Captain Dalgetty, was a long gallery, decorated with
+tapestry and family portraits, and having a vaulted ceiling of
+open wood-work, the extreme projections of the beams being richly
+carved and gilded.  The gallery was lighted by long lanceolated
+Gothic casements, divided by heavy shafts, and filled with
+painted glass, where the sunbeams glimmered dimly through boars'-
+heads, and galleys, and batons, and swords, armorial bearings of
+the powerful house of Argyle, and emblems of the high hereditary
+offices of Justiciary of Scotland, and Master of the Royal
+Household, which they long enjoyed.  At the upper end of this
+magnificent gallery stood the Marquis himself, the centre of a
+splendid circle of Highland and Lowland gentlemen, all richly
+dressed, among whom were two or three of the clergy, called in,
+perhaps, to be witnesses of his lordship's zeal for the Covenant.
+
+The Marquis himself was dressed in the fashion of the period,
+which Vandyke has so often painted, but his habit was sober and
+uniform in colour, and rather rich than gay.  His dark
+complexion, furrowed forehead, and downcast look, gave him the
+appearance of one frequently engaged in the consideration of
+important affairs, and who has acquired, by long habit, an air of
+gravity and mystery, which he cannot shake off even where there
+is nothing to be concealed.  The cast with his eyes, which had
+procured him in the Highlands the nickname of Gillespie Grumach
+(or the grim), was less perceptible when he looked downward,
+which perhaps was one cause of his having adopted that habit.
+In person, he was tall and thin, but not without that dignity of
+deportment and manners, which became his high rank.  Something
+there was cold in his address, and sinister in his look, although
+he spoke and behaved with the usual grace of a man of such
+quality.  He was adored by his own clan, whose advancement he had
+greatly studied, although he was in proportion disliked by the
+Highlanders of other septs, some of whom he had already stripped
+of their possessions, while others conceived themselves in danger
+from his future schemes, and all dreaded the height to which he
+was elevated.
+
+We have already noticed, that in displaying himself amidst his
+councillors, his officers of the household, and his train of
+vassals, allies, and dependents, the Marquis of Argyle probably
+wished to make an impression on the nervous system of Captain
+Dugald Dalgetty.  But that doughty person had fought his way, in
+one department or another, through the greater part of the Thirty
+Years' War in Germany, a period when a brave and successful
+soldier was a companion for princes.  The King of Sweden, and,
+after his example, even the haughty Princes of the Empire, had
+found themselves fain, frequently to compound with their dignity,
+and silence, when they could not satisfy the pecuniary claims of
+their soldiers, by admitting them to unusual privileges and
+familiarity.  Captain Dugald Dalgetty had it to boast, that he
+had sate with princes at feasts made for monarchs, and therefore
+was not a person to be brow-beat even by the dignity which
+surrounded M'Callum More.  Indeed, he was naturally by no means
+the most modest man in the world, but, on the contrary, had so
+good an opinion of himself, that into whatever company he chanced
+to be thrown, he was always proportionally elevated in his own
+conceit; so that he felt as much at ease in the most exalted
+society as among his own ordinary companions.  In this high
+opinion of his own rank, he was greatly fortified by his ideas of
+the military profession, which, in his phrase, made a valiant
+cavalier a camarade to an emperor.
+
+When introduced, therefore, into the Marquis's presence-chamber,
+he advanced to the upper end with an air of more confidence than
+grace, and would have gone close up to Argyle's person before
+speaking, had not the latter waved his hand, as a signal to him
+to stop short.  Captain Dalgetty did so accordingly, and having
+made his military congee with easy confidence, he thus accosted
+the Marquis:  "Give you good morrow, my lord--or rather I should
+say, good even; BESO A USTED LOS MANOS, as the Spaniard says."
+
+"Who are you, sir, and what is your business?"  demanded the
+Marquis, in a tone which was intended to interrupt the offensive
+familiarity of the soldier.
+
+"That is a fair interrogative, my lord," answered Dalgetty,
+"which I shall forthwith answer as becomes a cavalier, and that
+PEREMPTORIE, as we used to say at Mareschal-College."
+
+"See who or what he is, Neal," said the Marquis sternly, to a
+gentleman who stood near him.
+
+"I will save the honourable gentleman the labour of
+investigation," continued the Captain.  "I am Dugald Dalgetty, of
+Drumthwacket, that should be, late Ritt-master in various
+services, and now Major of I know not what or whose regiment of
+Irishes; and I am come with a flag of truce from a high and
+powerful lord, James Earl of Montrose, and other noble persons
+now in arms for his Majesty.  And so, God save King Charles!"
+
+"Do you know where you are, and the danger of dallying with us,
+sir," again demanded the Marquis, "that you reply to me as if I
+were a child or a fool?  The Earl of Montrose is with the English
+malignants; and I suspect you are one of those Irish runagates,
+who are come into this country to burn and slay, as they did
+under Sir Phelim O'Neale."
+
+"My lord," replied Captain Dalgetty, "I am no renegade, though a
+Major of Irishes, for which I might refer your lordship to the
+invincible Gustavus Adolphus the Lion of the North, to Bannier,
+to Oxenstiern, to the warlike Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Tilly,
+Wallenstein, Piccolomini, and other great captains, both dead and
+living; and touching the noble Earl of Montrose, I pray your
+lordship to peruse these my full powers for treating with you in
+the name of that right honourable commander."
+
+The Marquis looked slightingly at the signed and sealed paper
+which Captain Dalgetty handed to him, and, throwing it with
+contempt upon a table, asked those around him what he deserved
+who came as the avowed envoy and agent of malignant traitors, in
+arms against the state?
+
+"A high gallows and a short shrift," was the ready answer of one
+of the bystanders.
+
+"I will crave of that honourable cavalier who hath last spoken,"
+said Dalgetty, "to be less hasty in forming his conclusions, and
+also of your lordship to be cautelous in adopting the same, in
+respect such threats are to be held out only to base bisognos,
+and not to men of spirit and action, who are bound to peril
+themselves as freely in services of this nature, as upon sieges,
+battles, or onslaughts of any sort. And albeit I have not with me
+a trumpet, or a white flag, in respect our army is not yet
+equipped with its full appointments, yet the honourable cavaliers
+and your lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an
+envoy who cometh on matter of truth or parle, consisteth not in
+the fanfare of a trumpet, whilk is but a sound, or in the flap of
+a white flag, whilk is but an old rag in itself, but in the
+confidence reposed by the party sending, and the party sent, in
+the honour of those to whom the message is to be carried, and
+their full reliance that they will respect the JUS GENTIUM, as
+weel as the law of arms, in the person of the commissionate."
+
+"You are not come hither to lecture us upon the law of arms,
+sir," said the Marquis, "which neither does nor can apply to
+rebels and insurgents; but to suffer the penalty of your
+insolence and folly for bringing a traitorous message to the Lord
+Justice General of Scotland, whose duty calls upon him to punish
+such an offence with death."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Captain, who began much to dislike the turn
+which his mission seemed about to take, "I pray you to remember,
+that the Earl of Montrose will hold you and your possessions
+liable for whatever injury my person, or my horse, shall sustain
+by these unseemly proceedings, and that he will be justified in
+executing retributive vengeance on your persons and possessions."
+
+This menace was received with a scornful laugh, while one of the
+Campbells replied, "It is a far cry to Lochow;" proverbial
+expression of the tribe, meaning that their ancient hereditary
+domains lay beyond the reach of an invading enemy.  "But,
+gentlemen," further urged the unfortunate Captain, who was
+unwilling to be condemned, without at least the benefit of a full
+hearing, "although it is not for me to say how far it may be to
+Lochow, in respect I am a stranger to these parts, yet, what is
+more to the purpose, I trust you will admit that I have the
+guarantee of an honourable gentleman of your own name, Sir Duncan
+Campbell of Ardenvohr, for my safety on this mission; and I pray
+you to observe, that in breaking the truce towards me, you will
+highly prejudicate his honour and fair fame."
+
+This seemed to be new information to many of the gentlemen, for
+they spoke aside with each other, and the Marquis's face,
+notwithstanding his power of suppressing all external signs of
+his passions, showed impatience and vexation.
+
+"Does Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr pledge his honour for this person's
+safety, my lord?"  said one of the company, addressing the
+Marquis.
+
+"I do not believe it," answered the Marquis; "but I have not yet
+had time to read his letter."
+
+"We will pray your lordship to do so," said another of the
+Campbells; "our name must not suffer discredit through the means
+of such a fellow as this."
+
+"A dead fly," said a clergyman, "maketh the ointment of the
+apothecary to stink."
+
+"Reverend sir," said Captain Dalgetty, "in respect of the use to
+be derived, I forgive you the unsavouriness of your comparison;
+and also remit to the gentleman in the red bonnet, the
+disparaging epithet of FELLOW, which he has discourteously
+applied to me, who am no way to be distinguished by the same,
+unless in so far as I have been called fellow-soldier by the
+great Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and other choice
+commanders, both in Germany and the Low Countries.  But, touching
+Sir Duncan Campbell's guarantee of my safety, I will gage my life
+upon his making my words good thereanent, when he comes hither
+to-morrow."
+
+"If Sir Duncan be soon expected, my Lord," said one of the
+intercessors, "it would be a pity to anticipate matters with this
+poor man."
+
+"Besides that," said another, "your lordship--I speak with
+reverence--should, at least, consult the Knight of Ardenvohr's
+letter, and learn the terms on which this Major Dalgetty, as he
+calls himself, has been sent hither by him."
+
+They closed around the Marquis, and conversed together in a low
+tone, both in Gaelic and English.  The patriarchal power of the
+Chiefs was very great, and that of the Marquis of Argyle, armed
+with all his grants of hereditary jurisdiction, was particularly
+absolute.  But there interferes some check of one kind or other
+even in the most despotic government.  That which mitigated the
+power of the Celtic Chiefs, was the necessity which they lay
+under of conciliating the kinsmen who, under them, led out the
+lower orders to battle, and who formed a sort of council of the
+tribe in time of peace.  The Marquis on this occasion thought
+himself under the necessity of attending to the remonstrances of
+this senate, or more properly COUROULTAI, of the name of
+Campbell, and, slipping out of the circle, gave orders for the
+prisoner to be removed to a place of security.
+
+"Prisoner!"  exclaimed Dalgetty, exerting himself with such force
+as wellnigh to shake off two Highlanders, who for some minutes
+past had waited the signal to seize him, and kept for that
+purpose close at his back.  Indeed the soldier had so nearly
+attained his liberty, that the Marquis of Argyle changed colour,
+and stepped back two paces, laying, however, his hand on his
+sword, while several of his clan, with ready devotion, threw
+themselves betwixt him and the apprehended vengeance of the
+prisoner.  But the Highland guards were too strong to be shaken
+off, and the unlucky Captain, after having had his offensive
+weapons taken from him, was dragged off and conducted through
+several gloomy passages to a small side-door grated with iron,
+within which was another of wood.  These were opened by a grim
+old Highlander with a long white beard, and displayed a very
+steep and narrow flight of steps leading downward.  The Captain's
+guards pushed him down two or three steps, then, unloosing his
+arms, left him to grope his way to the bottom as he could; a task
+which became difficult and even dangerous, when the two doors
+being successively locked left the prisoner in total darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ Whatever stranger visits here,
+ We pity his sad case,
+ Unless to worship he draw near
+ The King of Kings--his Grace.
+                BURNS'S  EPIGRAM ON A VISIT TO INVERARY.
+
+The Captain, finding himself deprived of light in the manner we
+have described, and placed in a very uncertain situation,
+proceeded to descend the narrow and broken stair with all the
+caution in his power, hoping that he might find at the bottom
+some place to repose himself.  But with all his care he could not
+finally avoid making a false step, which brought him down the
+four or five last steps too hastily to preserve his equilibrium.
+At the bottom he stumbled over a bundle of something soft, which
+stirred and uttered a groan, so deranging the Captain's descent,
+that he floundered forward, and finally fell upon his hands and
+knees on the floor of a damp and stone-paved dungeon.
+
+When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over
+whom he had stumbled.
+
+"He was a man a month since," answered a hollow and broken voice.
+
+"And what is he now, then," said Dalgetty, "that he thinks it
+fitting to lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew'd up
+like a hurchin, that honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in
+trouble, may break their noses over him?"
+
+"What is he now?"  replied the same voice; "he is a wretched
+trunk, from which the boughs have one by one been lopped away,
+and which cares little how soon it is torn up and hewed into
+billets for the furnace."
+
+"Friend," said Dalgetty, "I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as
+the Spaniard says.  If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you
+call yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands
+and knees."
+
+"You are a soldier," replied his fellow-prisoner; "do you
+complain on account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan
+himself?"
+
+"A soldier?" said the Captain; "and how do you know, in this
+cursed dark cavern, that I am a soldier?"
+
+"I heard your armour clash as you fell," replied the prisoner,
+"and now I see it glimmer.  When you have remained as long as I
+in this darkness, your eyes will distinguish the smallest eft
+that crawls on the floor."
+
+"I had rather the devil picked them out!"  said Dalgetty; "if
+this be the case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a
+soldier's prayer, and a leap from a ladder.  But what sort of
+provant have you got here--what food, I mean, brother in
+affliction?"
+
+"Bread and water once a day," replied the voice.
+
+"Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf," said Dalgetty; "I hope
+we shall play good comrades while we dwell together in this
+abominable pit."
+
+"The loaf and jar of water," answered the other prisoner, "stand
+in the corner, two steps to your right hand.  Take them, and
+welcome.  With earthly food I have wellnigh done."
+
+Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out
+the provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with
+as much heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better
+viands.
+
+"This bread," he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same
+time), "is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse
+than that which we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the
+valorous Gustavus foiled all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly,
+that terrible old hero, who had driven two kings out of the
+field--namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia and Christian of Denmark.
+And anent this water, which is none of the most sweet, I drink in
+the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade, not forgetting mine
+own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or humming Lubeck
+beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge."
+
+While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his
+tongue, and he speedily finished the provisions which the
+benevolence or indifference of his companion in misfortune had
+abandoned to his voracity.  When this task was accomplished, he
+wrapped himself in his cloak, and seating himself in a corner of
+the dungeon in which he could obtain a support on each side (for
+he had always been an admirer of elbow-chairs, he remarked, even
+from his youth upward), he began to question his fellow-captive.
+
+"Mine honest friend," said he, "you and I, being comrades at bed
+and board, should be better acquainted.  I am Dugald Dalgetty of
+Drumthwacket, and so forth, Major in a regiment of loyal Irishes,
+and Envoy Extraordinary of a High and Mighty Lord, James Earl of
+Montrose.--Pray, what may your name be?"
+
+"It will avail you little to know," replied his more taciturn
+companion.
+
+"Let me judge of that matter," answered the soldier.
+
+ "Well, then--Ranald MacEagh is my name--that is, Ranald Son of
+the Mist."
+
+"Son of the Mist!" ejaculated Dalgetty. "Son of utter darkness,
+say I.  But, Ranald, since that is your name, how came you in
+possession of the provost's court of guard?  what the devil
+brought you here, that is to say?"
+
+"My misfortunes and my crimes," answered Ranald. "Know ye the
+Knight of Ardenvohr?"
+
+"I do know that honourable person," replied Dalgetty.
+
+"But know ye where he now is?"  replied Ranald.
+
+"Fasting this day at Ardenvohr," answered the Envoy, "that he may
+feast to-morrow at Inverary; in which last purpose if he chance
+to fail, my lease of human service will be something precarious."
+
+"Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst
+foe and his best friend," answered Ranald.
+
+"Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message,"
+answered Dalgetty, "Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading
+riddles with."
+
+"Craven Saxon," said the prisoner, "tell him I am the raven that,
+fifteen years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the
+pledges he had left there--I am the hunter that found out the
+wolfs den on the rock, and destroyed his offspring--I am the
+leader of the band which surprised Ardenvohr yesterday was
+fifteen years, and gave his four children to the sword."
+
+"Truly, my honest friend," said Dalgetty, "if that is your best
+recommendation to Sir Duncan's favour, I would pretermit my
+pleading thereupon, in respect I have observed that even the
+animal creation are incensed against those who intromit with
+their offspring forcibly, much more any rational and Christian
+creatures, who have had violence done upon their small family.
+But I pray you in courtesy to tell me, whether you assailed the
+castle from the hillock called Drumsnab, whilk I uphold to be the
+true point of attack, unless it were to be protected by a
+sconce."
+
+"We ascended the cliff by ladders of withies or saplings," said
+the prisoner, "drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had
+served six months in the castle to enjoy that one night of
+unlimited vengeance.  The owl whooped around us as we hung
+betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared against the foot of the
+rock, and dashed asunder our skiff. yet no man's heart failed
+him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there had
+been peace and joy at the sunset."
+
+"It was a pretty camisade, I doubt not, Ranald MacEagh, a very
+sufficient onslaught, and not unworthily discharged.
+Nevertheless, I would have pressed the house from that little
+hillock called Drumsnab.  But yours is a pretty irregular
+Scythian fashion of warfare, Ranald, much resembling that of
+Turks, Tartars, and other Asiatic people.--But the reason, my
+friend, the cause of this war--the TETERRIMA CAUSA, as I may say?
+Deliver me that, Ranald."
+
+"We had been pushed at by the M'Aulays, and other western
+tribes," said Ranald, "till our possessions became unsafe for
+us."
+
+"Ah ha!" said Dalgetty; "I have faint remembrance of having heard
+of that matter.  Did you not put bread and cheese into a man's
+mouth, when he had never a stomach whereunto to transmit the
+same?"
+
+"You have heard, then," said Ranald, "the tale of our revenge on
+the haughty forester?"
+
+"I bethink me that I have," said Dalgetty, "and that not of an
+old date.  It was a merry jest that, of cramming the bread into
+the dead man's mouth, but somewhat too wild and salvage for
+civilized acceptation, besides wasting the good victuals.  I have
+seen when at a siege or a leaguer, Ranald, a living soldier would
+have been the better, Ranald, for that crust of bread, whilk you
+threw away on a dead pow."
+
+"We were attacked by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my
+brother was slain--his head was withering on the battlements
+which we scaled--I vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never
+broken."
+
+"It may be so," said Dalgetty; "and every thorough-bred soldier
+will confess that revenge is a sweet morsel; but in what manner
+this story will interest Sir Duncan in your justification, unless
+it should move him to intercede with the Marquis to change the
+manner thereof from hanging, or simple suspension, to breaking
+your limbs on the roue or wheel, with the coulter of a plough, or
+otherwise putting you to death by torture, surpasses my
+comprehension.  Were I you, Ranald, I would be for miskenning Sir
+Duncan, keeping my own secret, and departing quietly by
+suffocation, like your ancestors before you."
+
+"Yet hearken, stranger," said the Highlander. "Sir Duncan of
+Ardenvohr had four children. Three died under our dirks, but the
+fourth survives; and more would he give to dandle on his knee the
+fourth child which remains, than to rack these old bones, which
+care little for the utmost indulgence of his wrath.  One word, if
+I list to speak it, could turn his day of humiliation and fasting
+into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing, and breaking of bread.
+O, I know it by my own heart?  Dearer to me is the child Kenneth,
+who chaseth the butterfly on the banks of the Aven, than ten sons
+who are mouldering in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of the
+air."
+
+"I presume, Ranald," continued Dalgetty, "that the three pretty
+fellows whom I saw yonder in the market-place, strung up by the
+head like rizzer'd haddocks, claimed some interest in you?"
+
+There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of
+strong emotion,--"They were my sons, stranger--they were my
+sons!--blood of my blood--bone of my bone!--fleet of foot--
+unerring in aim--unvanquished by foemen till the sons of Diarmid
+overcame them by numbers!  Why do I wish to survive them?  The
+old trunk will less feel the rending up of its roots, than it has
+felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs. But Kenneth must be
+trained to revenge--the young eagle must learn from the old how
+to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and my
+freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr."
+
+"You may attain your end more easily," said a third voice,
+mingling in the conference, "by entrusting it to me."
+
+All Highlanders are superstitious.  "The Enemy of Mankind is
+among us!"  said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His
+chains clattered as he rose, while he drew himself as far as they
+permitted from the quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed.
+His fear in some degree communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty,
+who began to repeat, in a sort of polyglot gibberish, all the
+exorcisms he had ever heard of, without being able to remember
+more than a word or two of each.
+
+"IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College--SANTISSMA
+MADRE DI DIOS, as the Spaniard has it--ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN
+DEN HERRN, saith the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther's
+translation--"
+
+"A truce with your exorcisms," said the voice they had heard
+before; "though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like
+yourselves, and my assistance may avail you in your present
+streight, if you are not too proud to be counselled."
+
+While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark
+lantern, by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that
+the speaker who had thus mysteriously united himself to their
+company, and mixed in their conversation, was a tall man, dressed
+in a livery cloak of the Marquis.  His first glance was to his
+feet, but he saw neither the cloven foot which Scottish legends
+assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse's hoof by which he is
+distinguished in Germany.  His first enquiry was, how the
+stranger had come among them?
+
+"For," said he, "the creak of these rusty bars would have been
+heard had the door been made patent; and if you passed through
+the keyhole, truly, sir, put what face you will on it, you are
+not fit to be enrolled in a regiment of living men."
+
+"I reserve my secret," answered the stranger, "until you shall
+merit the discovery by communicating to me some of yours.  It may
+be that I shall be moved to let you out where I myself came in."
+
+"It cannot be through the keyhole, then," said Captain Dalgetty,
+"for my corslet would stick in the passage, were it possible that
+my head-piece could get through.  As for secrets, I have none of
+my own, and but few appertaining to others.  But impart to us
+what secrets you desire to know; or, as Professor Snufflegreek
+used to say at the Mareschal-College, Aberdeen, speak that I may
+know thee."
+
+"It is not with you I have first to do," replied the stranger,
+turning his light full on the mild and wasted features, and the
+large limbs of the Highlander, Ranald MacEagh, who, close drawn
+up against the walls of the dungeon, seemed yet uncertain whether
+his guest was a living being.
+
+"I have brought you something, my friend," said the stranger, in
+a more soothing tone, "to mend your fare; if you are to die to-
+morrow, it is no reason wherefore you should not live to-night."
+
+"None at all--no reason in the creation," replied the ready
+Captain Dalgetty, who forthwith began to unpack the contents of a
+small basket which the stranger had brought under his cloak,
+while the Highlander, either in suspicion or disdain, paid no
+attention to the good cheer.
+
+"Here's to thee, my friend," said the Captain, who, having
+already dispatched a huge piece of roasted kid, was now taking a
+pull at the wine-flask. "What is thy name, my good friend?"
+
+"Murdoch Campbell, sir," answered the servant, "a lackey of the
+Marquis of Argyle, and occasionally acting as under-warden."
+
+"Then here is to thee once more, Murdoch," said Dalgetty,
+"drinking to you by your proper name for the better luck sake.
+This wine I take to be Calcavella.  Well, honest Murdoch, I take
+it on me to say, thou deservest to be upper-warden, since thou
+showest thyself twenty times better acquainted with the way of
+victualling honest gentlemen that are under misfortune, than thy
+principal.  Bread and water?  out upon him!  It was enough,
+Murdoch, to destroy the credit of the Marquis's dungeon.  But I
+see you would converse with my friend, Ranald MacEagh here. Never
+mind my presence; I'll get me into this corner with the basket,
+and I will warrant my jaws make noise enough to prevent my ears
+from hearing you."
+
+Notwithstanding this promise, however, the veteran listened with
+all the attention he could to gather their discourse, or, as he
+described it himself, "laid his ears back in his neck, like
+Gustavus, when he heard the key turn in the girnell-kist."  He
+could, therefore, owing to the narrowness of the dungeon, easily
+overhear the following dialogue.
+
+"Are you aware, Son of the Mist," said the Campbell, "that you
+will never leave this place excepting for the gibbet?"
+
+"Those who are dearest to me," answered MacEagh, "have trode that
+path before me."
+
+"Then you would do nothing," asked the visitor, "to shun
+following them?"
+
+The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an
+answer.
+
+"I would do much," at length he said; "not for my own life, but
+for the sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven."
+
+"And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?"
+again demanded Murdoch; "I care not for what cause ye mean to
+shun it."
+
+"I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man."
+
+"Do you call yourself a man," said the interrogator, "who have
+done the deeds of a wolf?"
+
+"I do," answered the outlaw; "I am a man like my forefathers--
+while wrapt in the mantle of peace, we were lambs--it was rent
+from us, and ye now call us wolves.  Give us the huts ye have
+burned, our children whom ye have murdered, our widows whom ye
+have starved--collect from the gibbet and the pole the mangled
+carcasses, and whitened skulls of our kinsmen--bid them live and
+bless us, and we will be your vassals and brothers--till then,
+let death, and blood, and mutual wrong, draw a dark veil of
+division between us."
+
+"You will then do nothing for your liberty," said the Campbell.
+
+"Anything--but call myself the friend of your tribe," answered
+MacEagh.
+
+"We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans," retorted
+Murdoch, "and would not stoop to accept it.--What I demand to
+know from you, in exchange for your liberty, is, where the
+daughter and heiress of the Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be
+found?"
+
+"That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great
+master," said Ranald, "after the fashion of the Children of
+Diarmid!  Does not the valley of Glenorquhy, to this very hour,
+cry shame on the violence offered to a helpless infant whom her
+kinsmen were conveying to the court of the Sovereign?  Were not
+her escort compelled to hide her beneath a cauldron, round which
+they fought till not one remained to tell the tale?  and was not
+the girl brought to this fatal castle, and afterwards wedded to
+the brother of M'Callum More, and all for the sake of her broad
+lands?"  [Such a story is told of the heiress of the clan of
+Calder, who was made prisoner in the manner described, and
+afterwards wedded to Sir Duncan Campbell, from which union the
+Campbells of Cawdor have their descent.]
+
+"And if the tale be true," said Murdoch, "she had a preferment
+beyond what the King of Scots would have conferred on her.  But
+this is far from the purpose.  The daughter of Sir Duncan of
+Ardenvohr is of our own blood, not a stranger; and who has so
+good a right to know her fate as M'Callum More, the chief of her
+clan?"
+
+"It is on his part, then, that you demand it!"  said the outlaw.
+The domestic of the Marquis assented.
+
+"And you will practise no evil against the maiden?--I have done
+her wrong enough already."
+
+"No evil, upon the word of a Christian man," replied Murdoch.
+
+"And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?"  said the Child of
+the Mist.
+
+"Such is our paction," replied the Campbell.
+
+"Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the
+spoiling of her father's tower of strength, was bred as an
+adopted daughter of our tribe, until we were worsted at the pass
+of Ballenduthil, by the fiend incarnate and mortal enemy of our
+tribe, Allan M'Aulay of the Bloody hand, and by the horsemen of
+Lennox, under the heir of Menteith."
+
+"Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand," said
+Murdoch, "and she a reputed daughter of thy tribe?  Then her
+blood has gilded the dirk, and thou hast said nothing to rescue
+thine own forfeited life."
+
+"If my life rest on hers," answered the outlaw, "it is secure,
+for she still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance--the
+frail promise of a son of Diarmid."
+
+"That promise shall not fail you," said the Campbell, "if you can
+assure me that she survives, and where she is to be found."
+
+"In the Castle of Darlinvarach," said Ranald MacEagh, "under the
+name of Annot Lyle.  I have often heard of her from my kinsmen,
+who have again approached their native woods, and it is not long
+since mine old eyes beheld her."
+
+"You!" said Murdoch, in astonishment, "you, a chief among the
+Children of the Mist, and ventured so near your mortal foe?"
+
+"Son of Diarmid, I did more," replied the outlaw; "I was in the
+hall of the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of
+Skianach.  My purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of
+the M'Aulay with the Bloody hand, before whom our race trembles,
+and to have taken thereafter what fate God should send me.  But I
+saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand was on the hilt of my dagger.
+She touched her clairshach [Harp] to a song of the Children of
+the Mist, which she had learned when her dwelling was amongst us.
+The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly, rustled their green
+leaves in the song, and our streams were there with the sound of
+all their waters.  My hand forsook the dagger; the fountains of
+mine eyes were opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.--And
+now, Son of Diarmid, have I not paid the ransom of my head?"
+
+"Ay," replied Murdoch, "if your tale be true; but what proof can
+you assign for it?"
+
+"Bear witness, heaven and earth," exclaimed the outlaw, "he
+already looks how he may step over his word!"
+
+"Not so," replied Murdoch; "every promise shall be kept to you
+when I am assured you have told me the truth.--But I must speak a
+few words with your companion in captivity."
+
+"Fair and false--ever fair and false," muttered the prisoner, as
+he threw himself once more on the floor of his dungeon.
+
+Meanwhile, Captain Dalgetty, who had attended to every word of
+this dialogue, was making his own remarks on it in private.
+"What the HENKER can this sly fellow have to say to me?  I have
+no child, either of my own, so far as I know, or of any other
+person, to tell him a tale about.  But let him come on--he will
+have some manoeuvring ere he turn the flank of the old soldier."
+
+Accordingly, as if he had stood pike in hand to defend a breach,
+he waited with caution, but without fear, the commencement of the
+attack.
+
+"You are a citizen of the world, Captain Dalgetty," said Murdoch
+Campbell, "and cannot be ignorant of our old Scotch proverb, GIF-
+GAF, [In old English, KA ME KA THEE, i.e. mutually serving each
+other.]  which goes through all nations and all services."
+
+"Then I should know something of it," said Dalgetty; "for, except
+the Turks, there are few powers in Europe whom I have not served;
+and I have sometimes thought of taking a turn either with Bethlem
+Gabor, or with the Janizaries."
+
+"A man of your experience and unprejudiced ideas, then, will
+understand me at once," said Murdoch, "when I say, I mean that
+your freedom shall depend on your true and up right answer to a
+few trifling questions respecting the gentlemen you have left;
+their state of preparation; the number of their men, and nature
+of their appointments; and as much as you chance to know about
+their plan of operations."
+
+"Just to satisfy your curiosity," said Dalgetty, "and without any
+farther purpose?"
+
+"None in the world," replied Murdoch; "what interest should a
+poor devil like me take in their operations?"
+
+"Make your interrogations, then," said the Captain, "and I will
+answer them PREREMTORIE."
+
+"How many Irish may be on their march to join James Graham the
+delinquent?"
+
+"Probably ten thousand," said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+"Ten thousand!" replied Murdoch angrily; "we know that scarce two
+thousand landed at Ardnamurchan."
+
+"Then you know more about them than I do," answered Captain
+Dalgetty, with great composure.  "I never saw them mustered yet,
+or even under arms."
+
+"And how many men of the clans may be expected?"  demanded
+Murdoch.
+
+"As many as they can make," replied the Captain.
+
+"You are answering from the purpose, sir," said Murdoch "speak
+plainly, will there be five thousand men?"
+
+"There and thereabouts," answered Dalgetty.
+
+"You are playing with your life, sir, if you trifle with me,"
+replied the catechist; "one whistle of mine, and in less than ten
+minutes your head hangs on the drawbridge."
+
+"But to speak candidly, Mr. Murdoch," replied the Captain "do you
+think it is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our
+army, and I engaged to serve for the whole campaign?  If I taught
+you how to defeat Montrose, what becomes of my pay, arrears, and
+chance of booty?"
+
+"I tell you," said Campbell, "that if you be stubborn, your
+campaign shall begin and end in a march to the block at the
+castle-gate, which stands ready for such land-laufers; but if you
+answer my questions faithfully, I will receive you into my--into
+the service of M'Callum More."
+
+"Does the service afford good pay?"  said Captain Dalgetty.
+
+"He will double yours, if you will return to Montrose and act
+under his direction."
+
+"I wish I had seen you, sir, before taking on with him," said
+Dalgetty, appearing to meditate.
+
+"On the contrary, I can afford you more advantageous terms now,"
+said the Campbell; "always supposing that you are faithful."
+
+"Faithful, that is, to you, and a traitor to Montrose," answered
+the Captain.
+
+"Faithful to the cause of religion and good order," answered
+Murdoch, "which sanctifies any deception you may employ to serve
+it."
+
+"And the Marquis of Argyle--should I incline to enter his
+service, is he a kind master?"  demanded Dalgetty.
+
+"Never man kinder," quoth Campbell.
+
+"And bountiful to his officers?"  pursued the Captain.
+
+"The most open hand in Scotland," replied Murdoch.
+
+"True and faithful to his engagements?"  continued Dalgetty.
+
+"As honourable a nobleman as breathes," said the clansman.
+
+"I never heard so much good of him before," said Dalgetty; "you
+must know the Marquis well,--or rather you must be the Marquis
+himself!--Lord of Argyle," he added, throwing himself suddenly on
+the disguised nobleman, "I arrest you in the name of King
+Charles, as a traitor.  If you venture to call for assistance, I
+will wrench round your neck."
+
+The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle's person was so sudden
+and unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the
+dungeon, and held him down with one hand, while his right,
+grasping the Marquis's throat, was ready to strangle him on the
+slightest attempt to call for assistance.
+
+"Lord of Argyle," he said, "it is now my turn to lay down the
+terms of capitulation.  If you list to show me the private way by
+which you entered the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of
+being my LOCUM TENENS, as we said at the Mareschal-College, until
+your warder visits his prisoners.  But if not, I will first
+strangle you--I learned the art from a Polonian heyduck, who had
+been a slave in the Ottoman seraglio--and then seek out a mode of
+retreat."
+
+"Villain!  you would not murder me for my kindness," murmured
+Argyle.
+
+"Not for your kindness, my lord," replied Dalgetty: "but first,
+to teach your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come
+to you under safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the
+danger of proposing dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in
+order to tempt him to become false to his standard during the
+term of his service."
+
+"Spare my life," said Argyle, "and I will do as you require."
+
+Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis's throat,
+compressing it a little while he asked questions, and relaxing it
+so far as to give him the power of answering them.
+
+"Where is the secret door into the dungeon?"  he demanded.
+
+"Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will
+discern the iron which covers the spring," replied the Marquis.
+
+"So far so good.--Where does the passage lead to?"
+
+"To my private apartment behind the tapestry," answered the
+prostrate nobleman.
+
+"From thence how shall I reach the gateway?"
+
+"Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys' waiting
+hall, the grand guardroom--"
+
+"All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?--that
+will never do for me, my lord;--have you no secret passage to the
+gate, as you have to your dungeons?  I have seen such in
+Germany."
+
+"There is a passage through the chapel," said the Marquis,
+"opening from my apartment."
+
+"And what is the pass-word at the gate?"
+
+"The sword of Levi," replied the Marquis; "but if you will
+receive my pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you
+through every guard, and set you at full liberty with a
+passport."
+
+"I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black
+with the grasp of my fingers--as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED,
+as the Spaniard says.  Yet you may grant me a passport;--are
+there writing materials in your apartment?"
+
+"Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed.  I will attend
+you there," said the Marquis, "instantly."
+
+"It were too much honour for the like of me," said Dalgetty;
+"your lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend
+Ranald MacEagh; therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach
+of his chain.--Honest Ranald, you see how matters stand with us.
+I shall find the means, I doubt not, of setting you at freedom.
+Meantime, do as you see me do; clap your hand thus on the weasand
+of this high and mighty prince, under his ruff, and if he offer
+to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy Ranald, to squeeze
+doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that is, till he
+swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your gullet
+and mine to still harder usage."
+
+"If he offer at speech or struggle," said Ranald, "he dies by my
+hand."
+
+"That is right, Ranald--very spirited:--A thorough-going friend
+that understands a hint is worth a million!"
+
+Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate,
+Dalgetty pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open,
+though so well were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made
+not the slightest noise in revolving.  The opposite side of the
+door was secured by very strong bolts and bars, beside which hung
+one or two keys, designed apparently to undo fetterlocks.  A
+narrow staircase, ascending up through the thickness of the
+castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had truly informed him,
+behind the tapestry of his private apartment.  Such
+communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave
+the lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of
+hearing the conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of
+visiting them in disguise, an experiment which had terminated so
+unpleasantly on the present occasion for Gillespie Grumach.
+Having examined previously whether there was any one in the
+apartment, and finding the coast clear, the Captain entered, and
+hastily possessing himself of a blank passport, several of which
+lay on the table, and of writing materials, securing, at the same
+time, the Marquis's dagger, and a silk cord from the hangings, he
+again descended into the cavern, where, listening a moment at the
+door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of the Marquis making
+great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer him to
+give an alarm.
+
+"Not for a forest of deer--not for a thousand head of cattle,"
+answered the freebooter; "not for all the lands that ever called
+a son of Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted
+to him of the iron-garment!"
+
+"He of the iron-garment," said Dalgetty, entering, "is bounden
+unto you, MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but
+first he must fill up this passport with the names of Major
+Dugald Dalgetty and his guide, or he is like to have a passport
+to another world."
+
+The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark
+lantern, as the soldier prescribed to him.
+
+"And now, Ranald," said Dalgetty, "strip thy upper garment--thy
+plaid I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M'Callum More,
+and make of him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;--Nay, I must
+bring it over your head, my lord, so as to secure us against your
+mistimed clamour.--So, now he is sufficiently muffled;--hold down
+your hands, or, by Heaven, I will stab you to the heart with your
+own dagger!--nay, you shall be bound with nothing less than silk,
+as your quality deserves.--So, now he is secure till some one
+comes to relieve him.  If he ordered us a late dinner, Ranald, he
+is like to be the sufferer;--at what hour, my good Ranald, did
+the jailor usually appear?"
+
+"Never till the sun was beneath the western wave," said MacEagh.
+"Then, my friend, we shall have three hours good," said the
+cautious Captain.  "In the meantime, let us labour for your
+liberation."
+
+To examine Ranald's chain was the next occupation.  It was undone
+by means of one of the keys which hung behind the private door,
+probably deposited there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased,
+dismiss a prisoner, or remove him elsewhere without the necessity
+of summoning the warden.  The outlaw stretched his benumbed arms,
+and bounded from the floor of the dungeon in all the ecstasy of
+recovered freedom.
+
+"Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner," said Captain
+Dalgetty; "put it on, and follow close at my heels."
+
+The outlaw obeyed.  They ascended the private stair, having first
+secured the door behind them, and thus safely reached the
+apartment of the Marquis.
+
+[The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great
+deal of espionage into their castles.  Sir Robert Carey mentions
+his having put on the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a
+confession from the mouth of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom
+be caused presently to be hanged in return for the frankness of
+his communication.  The fine old Border castle of Naworth
+contains a private stair from the apartment of the Lord William
+Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is alleged in the
+preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis of
+Argyle.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ This was the entry then, these stairs--but whither after?
+ Yet he that's sure to perish on the land
+ May quit the nicety of card and compass,
+ And trust the open sea without a pilot.   TRAGEDY OF BENNOVALT.
+
+"Look out for the private way through the chapel, Ranald," said
+the Captain, "while I give a hasty regard to these matters."
+
+Thus speaking, he seized with one hand a bundle of Argyle's most
+private papers, and with the other a purse of gold, both of which
+lay in a drawer of a rich cabinet, which stood invitingly open.
+Neither did he neglect to possess himself of a sword and pistols,
+with powder-flask and balls, which hung in the apartment.
+"Intelligence and booty," said the veteran, as he pouched the
+spoils, "each honourable cavalier should look to, the one on his
+general's behalf, and the other on his own.  This sword is an
+Andrew Ferrara, and the pistols better than mine own.  But a fair
+exchange is no robbery.  Soldados are not to be endangered, and
+endangered gratuitously, my Lord of Argyle.--But soft, soft,
+Ranald; wise Man of the Mist, whither art thou bound?"
+
+It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh's proceedings; for, not
+finding the private passage readily, and impatient, it would
+seem, of farther delay, he had caught down a sword and target,
+and was about to enter the great gallery, with the purpose,
+doubtless, of fighting his way through all opposition.
+
+"Hold, while you live," whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him.
+"We must be perdue, if possible.  So bar we this door, that it
+may be thought M'Callum More would be private--and now let me
+make a reconnaissance for the private passage."
+
+By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at
+length discovered a private door, and behind that a winding
+passage, terminated by another door, which doubtless entered the
+chapel.  But what was his disagreeable surprise to hear, on the
+other side of this second door, the sonorous voice of a divine in
+the act of preaching.
+
+"This made the villain," he said, "recommend this to us as a
+private passage.  I am strongly tempted to return and cut his
+throat."
+
+He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed
+gallery used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were
+drawn, perhaps with the purpose of having it supposed that he was
+engaged in attendance upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was
+absent upon his secular affairs.  There was no other person in
+the seat; for the family of the Marquis,--such was the high state
+maintained in those days,--sate during service in another
+gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the great man
+himself.  This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to
+ensconce himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured
+the door.
+
+Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon
+listened to with more impatience, and less edification, on the
+part of one, at least, of the audience.  The Captain heard
+SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY and TO CONCLUDE, with a
+sort of feeling like protracted despair.  But no man can lecture
+(for the service was called a lecture) for ever; and the
+discourse was at length closed, the clergyman not failing to make
+a profound bow towards the latticed gallery, little suspecting
+whom he honoured by that reverence.  To judge from the haste with
+which they dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis were scarce
+more pleased with their late occupation than the anxious Captain
+Dalgetty; indeed, many of them being Highlandmen, had the excuse
+of not understanding a single word which the clergyman spoke,
+although they gave their attendance on his doctrine by the
+special order of M'Callum More, and would have done so had the
+preacher been a Turkish Imaum.
+
+But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine
+remained behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its
+Gothic precincts, seemed either to be meditating on what he had
+just been delivering, or preparing a fresh discourse for the next
+opportunity.  Bold as he was, Dalgetty hesitated what he ought to
+do.  Time, however, pressed, and every moment increased the
+chance of their escape being discovered by the jailor visiting
+the dungeon perhaps before his wonted time, and discovering the
+exchange which had been made there.  At length, whispering
+Ranald, who watched all his motions, to follow him and preserve
+his countenance, Captain Dalgetty, with a very composed air,
+descended a flight of steps which led from the gallery into the
+body of the chapel.  A less experienced adventurer would have
+endeavoured to pass the worthy clergyman rapidly, in hopes to
+escape unnoticed.  But the Captain, who foresaw the manifest
+danger of failing in such an attempt, walked gravely to meet the
+divine upon his walk in the midst of the chancel, and, pulling
+off his cap, was about to pass him after a formal reverence.  But
+what was his surprise to view in the preacher the very same
+person with whom he had dined in the castle of Ardenvohr!  Yet he
+speedily recovered his composure; and ere the clergyman could
+speak, was the first to address him.  "I could not," he said,
+"leave this mansion without bequeathing to you, my very reverend
+sir, my humble thanks for the homily with which you have this
+evening favoured us."
+
+"I did not observe, sir," said the clergyman, "that you were in
+the chapel."
+
+"It pleased the honourable Marquis," said Dalgetty, modestly, "to
+grace me with a seat in his own gallery."  The divine bowed low
+at this intimation, knowing that such an honour was only
+vouchsafed to persons of very high rank.  "It has been my fate,
+sir," said the Captain, "in the sort of wandering life which I
+have led, to have heard different preachers of different
+religions--as for example, Lutheran, Evangelical, Reformed,
+Calvinistical, and so forth, but never have I listened to such a
+homily as yours."
+
+"Call it a lecture, worthy sir," said the divine, "such is the
+phrase of our church."
+
+"Lecture or homily," said Dalgetty, "it was, as the High Germans
+say, GANZ FORTRE FLICH; and I could not leave this place without
+testifying unto you what inward emotions I have undergone during
+your edifying prelection; and how I am touched to the quick, that
+I should yesterday, during the refection, have seemed to infringe
+on the respect due to such a person as yourself."
+
+"Alas!  my worthy sir," said the clergyman, "we meet in this
+world as in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not knowing
+against whom we may chance to encounter.  In truth, it is no
+matter of marvel, if we sometimes jostle those, to whom, if
+known, we would yield all respect.  Surely, sir, I would rather
+have taken you for a profane malignant than for such a devout
+person as you prove, who reverences the great Master even in the
+meanest of his servants."
+
+"It is always my custom to do so, learned sir," answered
+Dalgetty; "for in the service of the immortal Gustavus--but I
+detain you from your meditations,"--his desire to speak of the
+King of Sweden being for once overpowered by the necessity of his
+circumstances.
+
+"By no means, my worthy sir," said the clergyman. "What was, I
+pray you, the order of that great Prince, whose memory is so dear
+to every Protestant bosom?"
+
+"Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly
+as for parade; and if a soldier passed without saluting the
+chaplain, he had an hour's ride on the wooden mare for his pains.
+Sir, I wish you a very good evening--I am obliged to depart the
+castle under M'Callum More's passport."
+
+"Stay one instant, sir," said the preacher; "is there nothing I
+can do to testify my respect for the pupil of the great Gustavus,
+and so admirable a judge of preaching?"
+
+"Nothing, sir," said the Captain, "but to shew me the nearest way
+to the gate--and if you would have the kindness," he added, with
+great effrontery, "to let a servant bring my horse with him, the
+dark grey gelding--call him Gustavus, and he will prick up his
+ears--for I know not where the castle-stables are situated, and
+my guide," he added, looking at Ranald, "speaks no English."
+
+"I hasten to accommodate you," said the clergyman; "your way lies
+through that cloistered passage."
+
+"Now, Heaven's blessing upon your vanity!"  said the Captain to
+himself.  "I was afraid I would have had to march off without
+Gustavus."
+
+In fact, so effectually did the chaplain exert himself in behalf
+of so excellent a judge of composition, that while Dalgetty was
+parleying with the sentinels at the drawbridge, showing his
+passport, and giving the watchword, a servant brought him his
+horse, ready saddled for the journey.  In another place, the
+Captain's sudden appearance at large after having been publicly
+sent to prison, might have excited suspicion and enquiry; but the
+officers and domestics of the Marquis were accustomed to the
+mysterious policy of their master, and never supposed aught else
+than that he had been liberated and intrusted with some private
+commission by their master.  In this belief, and having received
+the parole, they gave him free passage.
+
+Dalgetty rode slowly through the town of Inverary, the outlaw
+attending upon him like a foot-page at his horse's shoulder.  As
+they passed the gibbet, the old man looked on the bodies and
+wrung his hands.  The look and gesture was momentary, but
+expressive of indescribable anguish.  Instantly recovering
+himself, Ranald, in passing, whispered somewhat to one of the
+females, who, like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, seemed engaged in
+watching and mourning the victims of feudal injustice and
+cruelty.  The woman started at his voice, but immediately
+collected herself and returned for answer a slight inclination of
+the head.
+
+Dalgetty continued his way out of the town, uncertain whether he
+should try to seize or hire a boat and cross the lake, or plunge
+into the woods, and there conceal himself from pursuit.  In the
+former event he was liable to be instantly pursued by the galleys
+of the Marquis, which lay ready for sailing, their long yard-arms
+pointing to the wind, and what hope could he have in an ordinary
+Highland fishing-boat to escape from them?  If he made the latter
+choice, his chance either of supporting or concealing himself in
+those waste and unknown wildernesses, was in the highest degree
+precarious.  The town lay now behind him, yet what hand to turn
+to for safety he was unable to determine, and began to be
+sensible, that in escaping from the dungeon at Inverary,
+desperate as the matter seemed, he had only accomplished the
+easiest part of a difficult task.  If retaken, his fate was now
+certain; for the personal injury he had offered to a man so
+powerful and so vindictive, could be atoned for only by instant
+death.  While he pondered these distressing reflections, and
+looked around with a countenance which plainly expressed
+indecision, Ranald MacEagh suddenly asked him, "which way he
+intended to journey?"
+
+"And that, honest comrade," answered Dalgetty, "is precisely the
+question which I cannot answer you.  Truly I begin to hold the
+opinion, Ranald, that we had better have stuck by the brown loaf
+and water-pitcher until Sir Duncan arrived, who, for his own
+honour, must have made some fight for me."
+
+"Saxon," answered MacEagh, "do not regret having exchanged the
+foul breath of yonder dungeon for the free air of heaven.  Above
+all, repent not that you have served a Son of the Mist.  Put
+yourself under my guidance, and I will warrant your safety with
+my head."
+
+"Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the
+army of Montrose?"  said Dalgetty.
+
+"I can," answered MacEagh; "there lives not a man to whom the
+mountain passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the
+corries are known, as they are to the Children of the Mist.
+While others crawl on the level ground, by the sides of lakes and
+streams, ours are the steep hollows of the inaccessible
+mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs.  Not all the
+bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I
+can guide you."
+
+"Say'st thou so, honest Ranald?" replied Dalgetty; "then have on
+with thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own
+pilotage."
+
+The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the
+castle is surrounded for several miles, walking with so much
+dispatch as kept Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a
+number of cross cuts and turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily
+lost all idea where he might be, and all knowledge of the points
+of the compass.  At length, the path, which had gradually become
+more difficult, altogether ended among thickets and underwood.
+The roaring of a torrent was heard in the neighbourhood, the
+ground became in some places broken, in others boggy, and
+everywhere unfit for riding.
+
+"What the foul fiend," said Dalgetty, "is to be done here? I must
+part with Gustavus, I fear."
+
+"Take no care for your horse," said the outlaw; "he shall soon be
+restored to you."
+
+As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed
+in tartan, half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with
+a thong of leather, to protect his head and face from sun and
+weather, lean, and half-starved in aspect, his wild grey eyes
+appearing to fill up ten times the proportion usually allotted to
+them in the human face, crept out, as a wild beast might have
+done, from a thicket of brambles and briars.
+
+"Give your horse to the gillie," said Ranald MacEagh; "your life
+depends upon it."
+
+"Och!   och!"  exclaimed the despairing veteran; "Eheu!  as we
+used to say at Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such
+grooming!"
+
+"Are you frantic, to lose time thus!"  said his guide; "do we
+stand on friends' ground, that you should part with your horse as
+if he were your brother?  I tell you, you shall have him again;
+but if you never saw the animal, is not life better than the best
+colt ever mare foaled?"
+
+"And that is true too, mine honest friend," sighed Dalgetty; "yet
+if you knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have
+done and suffered together--See, he turns back to look at me!--Be
+kind to him, my good breechless friend, and I will requite you
+well."  So saying, and withal sniffling a little to swallow his
+grief, he turned from the heart-rending spectacle in order to
+follow his guide.
+
+To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more
+agility than Captain Dalgetty could master.  The very first
+plunge after he had parted from his charger, carried him, with
+little assistance from a few overhanging boughs, or projecting
+roots of trees, eight foot sheer down into the course of a
+torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.  Huge stones,
+over which they scrambled,--thickets of them and brambles,
+through which they had to drag themselves,--rocks which were to
+be climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the
+purpose of an equally precarious descent upon the other; all
+these, and many such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-
+footed and half-naked mountaineer with an ease and velocity which
+excited the surprise and envy of Captain Dalgetty, who,
+encumbered by his head-piece, corslet, and other armour, not to
+mention his ponderous jack-boots, found himself at length so much
+exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of the road, that he
+sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath, while he
+explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
+EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were
+understood at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen.  The sole answer of
+the mountaineer was to lay his hand on the soldier's arm, and
+point backward in the direction of the wind.  Dalgetty could spy
+nothing, for evening was closing fast, and they were at the
+bottom of a dark ravine.  But at length he could distinctly hear
+at a distance the sullen toll of a large bell.
+
+"That," said he, "must be the alarm--the storm-clock, as the
+Germans call it."
+
+"It strikes the hour of your death," answered Ranald, "unless you
+can accompany me a little farther.  For every toll of that bell a
+brave man has yielded up his soul."
+
+"Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend," said Dalgetty, "I will not
+deny that the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen
+(being, as I explained to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been
+EXPEDITUS, I mind not pedestrian exercise the flourish of a
+fife), that I think I had better ensconce myself in one of these
+bushes, and even lie quiet there to abide what fortune God shall
+send me.  I entreat you, mine honest friend Ranald, to shift for
+yourself, and leave me to my fortune, as the Lion of the North,
+the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, my never-to-be-forgotten master
+(whom you must surely have heard of, Ranald, though you may have
+heard of no one else), said to Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-
+Lauenburgh, when he was mortally wounded on the plains of Lutzen.
+Neither despair altogether of my safety, Ranald, seeing I have
+been in as great pinches as this in Germany--more especially, I
+remember me, that at the fatal battle of Nerlingen--after which I
+changed service--"
+
+"If you would save your father's son's breath to help his child
+out of trouble, instead of wasting it upon the tales of
+Seannachies," said Ranald, who now grew impatient of the
+Captain's loquacity, "or if your feet could travel as fast as
+your tongue, you might yet lay your head on an unbloody pillow
+to-night."
+
+"Something there is like military skill in that," replied the
+Captain, "although wantonly and irreverently spoken to an officer
+of rank.  But I hold it good to pardon such freedoms on a march,
+in respect of the Saturnalian license indulged in such cases to
+the troops of all nations.  And now, resume thine office, friend
+Ranald, in respect I am well-breathed; or, to be more plain, I
+PRAE, SEQUAR, as we used to say at Mareschal-College."
+
+Comprehending his meaning rather from his motions than his
+language, the Son of the Mist again led the way, with an unerring
+precision that looked like instinct, through a variety of ground
+the most difficult and broken that could well be imagined.
+Dragging along his ponderous boots, encumbered with thigh-pieces,
+gauntlets, corslet, and back-piece, not to mention the buff
+jerkin which he wore under all these arms, talking of his former
+exploits the whole way, though Ranald paid not the slightest
+attention to him, Captain Dalgetty contrived to follow his guide
+a considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a
+hound was heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent
+of its prey.
+
+"Black hound," said Ranald, "whose throat never boded good to a
+Child of the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee!  hast
+thou already found our trace?  But thou art too late, swart hound
+of darkness, and the deer has gained the herd."
+
+So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone
+equally low from the top of a pass, up which they had for some
+time been ascending.  Mending their pace, they reached the top,
+where the moon, which had now risen bright and clear, showed to
+Dalgetty a party of ten or twelve Highlanders, and about as many
+women and children, by whom Ranald MacEagh was received with such
+transports of joy, as made his companion easily sensible that
+those by whom he was surrounded, must of course be Children of
+the Mist.  The place which they occupied well suited their name
+and habits.  It was a beetling crag, round which winded a very
+narrow and broken footpath, commanded in various places by the
+position which they held.
+
+Ranald spoke anxiously and hastily to the children of his tribe,
+and the men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while
+the women, clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss
+even the hem of his garment.  "They plight their faith to you,"
+said Ranald MacEagh, "for requital of the good deed you have done
+to the tribe this day."
+
+"Enough said, Ranald," answered the soldier, "enough said--tell
+them I love not this shaking of hands--it confuses ranks and
+degrees in military service; and as to kissing of gauntlets,
+puldrons, and the like, I remember that the immortal Gustavus, as
+he rode through the streets of Nuremberg, being thus worshipped
+by the poulace (being doubtless far more worthy of it than a poor
+though honourable cavalier like myself), did say unto them, in
+the way of rebuke, 'If you idolize me thus like a god, who shall
+assure you that the vengeance of Heaven will not soon prove me to
+be a mortal?'--And so here, I suppose you intend to make a stand
+against your followers, Ranald--VOTO A DIOS, as the Spaniard
+says?--a very pretty position--as pretty a position for a small
+peloton of men as I have seen in my service--no enemy can come
+towards it by the road without being at the mercy of cannon and
+musket.--But then, Ranald, my trusty comrade, you have no cannon,
+I dare to aver, and I do not see that any of these fellows have
+muskets either.  So with what artillery you propose making good
+the pass, before you come to hand blows, truly, Ranald, it
+passeth my apprehension."
+
+"With the weapons and with the courage of our fathers," said
+MacEagh; and made the Captain observe, that the men of his party
+were armed with bows and arrows.
+
+"Bows and arrows!"  exclaimed Dalgetty; "ha!  ha!  ha! have we
+Robin Hood and Little John back again?  Bows and arrows!  why,
+the sight has not been seen in civilized war for a hundred years.
+Bows and arrows!  and why not weavers' beams, as in the days of
+Goliah?  Ah!  that Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, should live
+to see men fight with bows and arrows!--The immortal Gustavus
+would never have believed it--nor Wallenstein--nor Butler--nor
+old Tilly,--Well, Ranald, a cat can have but its claws--since
+bows and arrows are the word, e'en let us make the best of it.
+Only, as I do not understand the scope and range of such old-
+fashioned artillery, you must make the best disposition you can
+out of your own head for MY taking the command, whilk I would
+have gladly done had you been to fight with any Christian
+weapons, is out of the question, when you are to combat like
+quivered Numidians.  I will, however, play my part with my
+pistols in the approaching melley, in respect my carabine
+unhappily remains at Gustavus's saddle.--My service and thanks to
+you," he continued, addressing a mountaineer who offered him a
+bow; "Dugald Dalgetty may say of himself, as he learned at
+Mareschal-College,
+
+ "Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu,
+  Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
+       Fusce, pharetra;
+
+whilk is to say--"
+
+Ranald MacEagh a second time imposed silence on the talkative
+commander as before, by pulling his sleeve, and pointing down the
+pass.  The bay of the bloodhound was now approaching nearer and
+nearer, and they could hear the voices of several persons who
+accompanied the animal, and hallooed to each other as they
+dispersed occasionally, either in the hurry of their advance, or
+in order to search more accurately the thickets as they came
+along.  They were obviously drawing nearer and nearer every
+moment.  MacEagh, in the meantime, proposed to Captain Dalgetty
+to disencumber himself of his armour, and gave him to understand
+that the women should transport it to a place of safety.
+
+"I crave your pardon, sir," said Dalgetty, "such is not the rule
+of our foreign service in respect I remember the regiment of
+Finland cuirassiers reprimanded, and their kettle-drums taken
+from them, by the immortal Gustavus, because they had assumed the
+permission to march without their corslets, and to leave them
+with the baggage.  Neither did they strike kettle-drums again at
+the head of that famous regiment until they behaved themselves so
+notably at the field of Leipsic; a lesson whilk is not to be
+forgotten, any more than that exclamation of the immortal
+Gustavus, 'Now shall I know if my officers love me, by their
+putting on their armour; since, if my officers are slain, who
+shall lead my soldiers into victory?' Nevertheless, friend
+Ranald, this is without prejudice to my being rid of these
+somewhat heavy boots, providing I can obtain any other
+succedaneum; for I presume not to say that my bare soles are
+fortified so as to endure the flints and thorns, as seems to be
+the case with your followers."
+
+To rid the Captain of his cumbrous greaves, and case his feet in
+a pair of brogues made out of deerskin, which a Highlander
+stripped off for his accommodation, was the work of a minute, and
+Dalgetty found himself much lightened by the exchange.  He was in
+the act of recommending to Ranald MacEagh, to send two or three
+of his followers a little lower to reconnoitre the pass, and, at
+the same time, somewhat to extend his front, placing two detached
+archers at each flank by way of posts of observation, when the
+near cry of the hound apprised them that the pursuers were at the
+bottom of the pass.  All was then dead silence; for, loquacious
+as he was on other occasions, Captain Dalgetty knew well the
+necessity of an ambush keeping itself under covert.
+
+The moon gleamed on the broken pathway, and on the projecting
+cliffs of rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here
+and there by the branches of bushes and dwarf-trees, which,
+finding nourishment in the crevices of the rocks, in some places
+overshadowed the brow and ledge of the precipice.  Below, a thick
+copse-wood lay in deep and dark shadow, somewhat resembling the
+billows of a half-seen ocean.  From the bosom of that darkness,
+and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was heard at
+intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the
+echoes of the woods and rocks around.  At intervals, these sunk
+into deep silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a
+small runnel of water, which partly fell from the rock, partly
+found a more silent passage to the bottom along its projecting
+surface.  Voices of men were also heard in stifled converse
+below; it seemed as if the pursuers had not discovered the narrow
+path which led to the top of the rock, or that, having discovered
+it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the imperfect light, and
+the uncertainty whether it might not be defended, made them
+hesitate to attempt it.
+
+At length a shadowy figure was seen, which raised itself up from
+the abyss of darkness below, and, emerging into the pale
+moonlight, began cautiously and slowly to ascend the rocky path.
+The outline was so distinctly marked, that Captain Dalgetty could
+discover not only the person of a Highlander, but the long gun
+which he carried in his hand, and the plume of feathers which
+decorated his bonnet. "TAUSEND TEIFLEN!  that I should say so,
+and so like to be near my latter end!"  ejaculated the Captain,
+but under his breath, "what will become of us, now they have
+brought musketry to encounter our archers?"
+
+But just as the pursuer had attained a projecting piece of rock
+about half way up the ascent, and, pausing, made a signal for
+those who were still at the bottom to follow him, an arrow
+whistled from the bow of one of the Children of the Mist, and
+transfixed him with so fatal a wound, that, without a single
+effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and fell headlong
+from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below.  The
+crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of
+his fall from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of
+horror and surprise, which burst from his followers.  The
+Children of the Mist, encouraged in proportion to the alarm this
+first success had caused among the pursuers, echoed back the
+clamour with a loud and shrill yell of exultation, and, showing
+themselves on the brow of the precipice, with wild cries and
+vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their enemies a
+sense at once of their courage, their numbers, and their state of
+defence.  Even Captain Dalgetty's military prudence did not
+prevent his rising up, and calling out to Ranald, more loud than
+prudence warranted, "CAROCCO, comrade, as the Spaniard says!  The
+long-bow for ever!  In my poor apprehension now, were you to
+order a file to advance and take position--"
+
+"The Sassenach!"  cried a voice from beneath, "mark the Sassenach
+sidier!  I see the glitter of his breastplate."  At the same time
+three muskets were discharged; and while one ball rattled against
+the corslet of proof, to the strength of which our valiant
+Captain had been more than once indebted for his life, another
+penetrated the armour which covered the front of his left thigh,
+and stretched him on the ground. Ranald instantly seized him in
+his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the precipice, while
+he dolefully ejaculated, "I always told the immortal Gustavus,
+Wallenstein, Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my poor
+mind, taslets ought to be made musket-proof."
+
+With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the
+wounded man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of
+his little party, and was then about to return to the contest.
+But Dalgetty detained him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.--"I
+know not how this matter may end--but I request you will inform
+Montrose, that I died like a follower of the immortal Gustavus
+--and I pray you, take heed how you quit your present strength,
+even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy, if you gain any
+advantage--and--and--"
+
+Here Dalgetty's breath and eyesight began to fail him through
+loss of blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this
+circumstance, extricated from his grasp the end of his own
+mantle, and substituted that of a female, by which the Captain
+held stoutly, thereby securing, as he conceived, the outlaw's
+attention to the military instructions which he continued to pour
+forth while he had any breath to utter them, though they became
+gradually more and more incoherent--"And, comrade, you will be
+sure to keep your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes,
+Lochaber-axes, and two-handed swords--Stand fast, dragoons, on
+the left flank!--where was I?--Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded
+to retreat, leave some lighted matches burning on the branches of
+the trees--it shows as if they were lined with shot--But I forget
+--ye have no match-locks nor habergeons--only bows and arrows
+--bows and arrows!  ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether
+unable to resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern
+man-at-arms, he connected with the idea of these ancient weapons
+of war.  It was a long time ere he recovered his senses; and, in
+the meantime, we leave him in the care of the Daughters of the
+Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in reality, as they were wild
+and uncouth in outward appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+But if no faithless action stain
+Thy true and constant word,
+I'll make thee famous by my pen,
+And glorious by my sword.
+
+I'll serve thee in such noble ways
+As ne'er were known before;
+I'll deck and crown thy head with bays,
+And love thee more and more.            MONTROSE'S LINES.
+
+We must now leave, with whatever regret, the valiant Captain
+Dalgetty, to recover of his wounds or otherwise as fate shall
+determine, in order briefly to trace the military operations of
+Montrose, worthy as they are of a more important page, and a
+better historian.  By the assistance of the chieftains whom we
+have commemorated, and more especially by the junction of the
+Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were
+peculiarly zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army
+of two or three thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully
+united the Irish under Colkitto.  This last leader, who, to the
+great embarrassment of Milton's commentators, is commemorated in
+one of that great poet's sonnets, was properly named Alister, or
+Alexander M'Donnell, by birth a Scottish islesman, and related to
+the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage he owed the command
+assigned him in the Irish troops.  In many respects he merited
+this distinction.  He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to
+insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely
+master of his weapons, and always ready to show the example in
+the extremity of danger.  To counterbalance these good qualities,
+it must be recorded, that he was inexperienced in military
+tactics, and of a jealous and presumptuous disposition, which
+often lost to Montrose the fruits of Colkitto's gallantry.  Yet
+such is the predominance of outward personal qualities in the
+eyes of a mild people, that the feats of strength and courage
+shown by this champion, seem to have made a stronger impression
+upon the minds of the Highlanders, than the military skill and
+chivalrous spirit of the great Marquis of Montrose.  Numerous
+traditions are still preserved in the Highland glens concerning
+Alister M'Donnell, though the name of Montrose is rarely
+mentioned among them.
+
+[Milton's book, entitled TETRACHORDON, had
+been ridiculed, it would seem, by the divines assembled at
+Westminster, and others, on account of the hardness of the title;
+and Milton in his sonnet retaliates upon the barbarous Scottish
+names which the Civil War had made familiar to English ears:--
+
+-- why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
+COLKITTO or M'Donald, or Gallasp?
+These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
+That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp.
+
+"We may suppose," says Bishop Newton, "that these were persons of
+note among the Scotch ministers, who were for pressing and
+enforcing the Covenant;"  whereas Milton only intends to ridicule
+the barbarism of Scottish names in general, and quotes,
+indiscriminately, that of Gillespie, one of the Apostles of the
+Covenant, and those of Colkitto and M'Donnell (both belonging to
+one person), one of its bitterest enemies.]
+
+The point upon which Montrose finally assembled his little army,
+was in Strathearn, on the verge of the Highlands of Perthshire,
+so as to menace the principal town of that county.
+
+His enemies were not unprepared for his reception. Argyle, at the
+head of his Highlanders, was dogging the steps of the Irish from
+the west to the east, and by force, fear, or influence, had
+collected an army nearly sufficient to have given battle to that
+under Montrose.  The Lowlands were also prepared, for reasons
+which we assigned at the beginning of this tale.  A body of six
+thousand infantry, and six or seven thousand cavalry, which
+profanely assumed the title of God's army, had been hastily
+assembled from the shires of Fife, Angus, Perth, Stirling, and
+the neighbouring counties. A much less force in former times,
+nay, even in the preceding reign, would have been sufficient to
+have secured the Lowlands against a more formidable descent of
+Highlanders, than those united under Montrose; but times had
+changed strangely within the last half century.  Before that
+period, the Lowlanders were as constantly engaged in war as the
+mountaineers, and were incomparably better disciplined and armed.
+The favourite Scottish order of battle somewhat resembled the
+Macedonian phalanx.  Their infantry formed a compact body, armed
+with long spears, impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the
+age, though well mounted, and arrayed in complete proof.  It may
+easily be conceived, therefore, that their ranks could not be
+broken by the disorderly charge of Highland infantry armed for
+close combat only, with swords, and ill furnished with missile
+weapons, and having no artillery whatever.
+
+This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the
+introduction of muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which,
+not being as yet combined with the bayonet, was a formidable
+weapon at a distance, but gave no assurance against the enemy who
+rushed on to close quarters.  The pike, indeed, was not wholly
+disused in the Scottish army; but it was no longer the favourite
+weapon, nor was it relied upon as formerly by those in whose
+hands it was placed; insomuch that Daniel Lupton, a tactician of
+the day, has written a book expressly upon the superiority of the
+musket. This change commenced as early as the wars of Gustavus
+Adolphus, whose marches were made with such rapidity, that the
+pike was very soon thrown aside in his army, and exchanged for
+fire-arms.  A circumstance which necessarily accompanied this
+change, as well as the establishment of standing armies, whereby
+war became a trade, was the introduction of a laborious and
+complicated system of discipline, combining a variety of words of
+command with corresponding operations and manoeuvres, the neglect
+of any one of which was sure to throw the whole into confusion.
+War therefore, as practised among most nations of Europe, had
+assumed much more than formerly the character of a profession or
+mystery, to which previous practice and experience were
+indispensable requisites.  Such was the natural consequence of
+standing armies, which had almost everywhere, and particularly in
+the long German wars, superseded what may be called the natural
+discipline of the feudal militia.
+
+The Scottish Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double
+disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders.  They were divested of
+the spear, a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had
+so often repelled the impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and
+they were subjected to a new and complicated species of
+discipline, well adapted, perhaps, to the use of regular troops,
+who could be rendered completely masters of it, but tending only
+to confuse the ranks of citizen soldiers, by whom it was rarely
+practised, and imperfectly understood.  So much has been done in
+our own time in bringing back tactics to their first principles,
+and in getting rid of the pedantry of war, that it is easy for us
+to estimate the disadvantages under which a half-trained militia
+laboured, who were taught to consider success as depending upon
+their exercising with precision a system of tactics, which they
+probably only so far comprehended as to find out when they were
+wrong, but without the power of getting right again.  Neither can
+it be denied, that, in the material points of military habits and
+warlike spirit, the Lowlanders of the seventeenth century had
+sunk far beneath their Highland countrymen.
+
+From the earliest period down to the union of the crowns, the
+whole kingdom of Scotland, Lowlands as well as Highlands, had
+been the constant scene of war, foreign and domestic; and there
+was probably scarce one of its hardy inhabitants, between the age
+of sixteen and sixty, who was not as willing in point of fact as
+he was literally bound in law, to assume arms at the first call
+of his liege lord, or of a royal proclamation.  The law remained
+the same in sixteen hundred and forty-five as a hundred years
+before, but the race of those subjected to it had been bred up
+under very different feelings.  They had sat in quiet under their
+vine and under their fig-tree, and a call to battle involved a
+change of life as new as it was disagreeable.  Such of them,
+also, who lived near unto the Highlands, were in continual and
+disadvantageous contact with the restless inhabitants of those
+mountains, by whom their cattle were driven off, their dwellings
+plundered, and their persons insulted, and who had acquired over
+them that sort of superiority arising from a constant system of
+aggression.  The Lowlanders, who lay more remote, and out of
+reach of these depredations, were influenced by the exaggerated
+reports circulated concerning the Highlanders, whom, as totally
+differing in laws, language, and dress, they were induced to
+regard as a nation of savages, equally void of fear and of
+humanity.  These various prepossessions, joined to the less
+warlike habits of the Lowlanders, and their imperfect knowledge
+of the new and complicated system of discipline for which they
+had exchanged their natural mode of fighting, placed them at
+great disadvantage when opposed to the Highlander in the field of
+battle.  The mountaineers, on the contrary, with the arms and
+courage of their fathers, possessed also their simple and natural
+system of tactics, and bore down with the fullest confidence upon
+an enemy, to whom anything they had been taught of discipline
+was, like Saul's armour upon David, a hinderance rather than a
+help, "because they had not proved it."
+
+It was with such disadvantages on the one side, and such
+advantages on the other, to counterbalance the difference of
+superior numbers and the presence of artillery and cavalry, that
+Montrose encountered the army of Lord Elcho upon the field of
+Tippermuir.  The Presbyterian clergy had not been wanting in
+their efforts to rouse the spirit of their followers, and one of
+them, who harangued the troops on the very day of battle,
+hesitated not to say, that if ever God spoke by his mouth, he
+promised them, in His name, that day, a great and assured
+victory.  The cavalry and artillery were also reckoned sure
+warrants of success, as the novelty of their attack had upon
+former occasions been very discouraging to the Highlanders.  The
+place of meeting was an open heath, and the ground afforded
+little advantage to either party, except that it allowed the
+horse of the Covenanters to act with effect.
+
+A battle upon which so much depended, was never more easily
+decided.  The Lowland cavalry made a show of charging; but,
+whether thrown into disorder by the fire of musketry, or deterred
+by a disaffection to the service said to have prevailed among the
+gentlemen, they made no impression on the Highlanders whatever,
+and recoiled in disorder from ranks which had neither bayonets
+nor pikes to protect them.  Montrose saw, and instantly availed
+himself of this advantage.  He ordered his whole army to charge,
+which they performed with the wild and desperate valour peculiar
+to mountaineers.  One officer of the Covenanters alone, trained
+in the Italian wars, made a desperate defence upon the right
+wing.  In every other point their line was penetrated at the
+first onset; and this advantage once obtained, the Lowlanders
+were utterly unable to contend at close quarters with their more
+agile and athletic enemies.  Many were slain on the held, and
+such a number in the pursuit, that above one-third of the
+Covenanters were reported to have fallen; in which number,
+however, must be computed a great many fat burgesses who broke
+their wind in the flight, and thus died without stroke of sword.
+[We choose to quote our authority for a fact so singular:--"A
+great many burgesses were killed--twenty-five householders in St.
+Andrews--many were bursten in the flight, and died without
+stroke."--See Baillie's Letters, vol. ii. page 92.]
+
+The victors obtained possession of Perth, and obtained
+considerable sums of money, as well as ample supplies of arms and
+ammunition.  But those advantages were to be balanced against an
+almost insurmountable inconvenience that uniformly attended a
+Highland army.  The clans could be in no respect induced to
+consider themselves as regular soldiers, or to act as such.  Even
+so late as the year 1745-6, when the Chevalier Charles Edward, by
+way of making an example, caused a soldier to be shot for
+desertion, the Highlanders, who composed his army, were affected
+as much by indignation as by fear.  They could not conceive any
+principle of justice upon which a man's life could be taken, for
+merely going home when it did not suit him to remain longer with
+the army.  Such had been the uniform practice of their fathers.
+When a battle was over, the campaign was, in their opinion,
+ended; if it was lost, they sought safety in their mountains--if
+won, they returned there to secure their booty.  At other times
+they had their cattle to look after, and their harvests to sow or
+reap, without which their families would have perished for want.
+In either case, there was an end of their services for the time;
+and though they were easily enough recalled by the prospect of
+fresh adventures and more plunder, yet the opportunity of success
+was, in the meantime, lost, and could not afterwards be
+recovered.  This circumstance serves to show, even if history had
+not made us acquainted with the same fact, that the Highlanders
+had never been accustomed to make war with the view of permanent
+conquest, but only with the hope of deriving temporary advantage,
+or deciding some immediate quarrel.  It also explains the reason
+why Montrose, with all his splendid successes, never obtained any
+secure or permanent footing in the Lowlands, and why even those
+Lowland noblemen and gentlemen, who were inclined to the royal
+cause, showed diffidence and reluctance to join an army of a
+character so desultory and irregular, as might lead them at all
+times to apprehend that the Highlanders securing themselves by a
+retreat to their mountains, would leave whatever Lowlanders might
+have joined them to the mercy of an offended and predominant
+enemy.  The same consideration will also serve to account for the
+sudden marches which Montrose was obliged to undertake, in order
+to recruit his army in the mountains, and for the rapid changes
+of fortune, by which we often find him obliged to retreat from
+before those enemies over whom he had recently been victorious.
+If there should be any who read these tales for any further
+purpose than that of immediate amusement, they will find these
+remarks not unworthy of their recollection.
+
+It was owing to such causes, the slackness of the Lowland
+loyalists and the temporary desertion of his Highland followers,
+that Montrose found himself, even after the decisive victory of
+Tippermuir, in no condition to face the second army with which
+Argyle advanced upon him from the westward.  In this emergency,
+supplying by velocity the want of strength, he moved suddenly
+from Perth to Dundee, and being refused admission into that town,
+fell northward upon Aberdeen, where he expected to be joined by
+the Gordons and other loyalists.  But the zeal of these gentlemen
+was, for the time, effectually bridled by a large body of
+Covenanters, commanded by the Lord Burleigh, and supposed to
+amount to three thousand men.  These Montrose boldly attacked
+with half their number.  The battle was fought under the walls Of
+the city, and the resolute valour of Montrose's followers was
+again successful against every disadvantage.
+
+But it was the fate of this great commander, always to gain the
+glory, but seldom to reap the fruits of victory.  He had scarcely
+time to repose his small army in Aberdeen, ere he found, on the
+one hand, that the Gordons were likely to be deterred from
+joining him, by the reasons we have mentioned, with some others
+peculiar to their chief, the Marquis of Huntly; on the other
+hand, Argyle, whose forces had been augmented by those of several
+Lowland noblemen, advanced towards Montrose at the head of an
+army much larger than he had yet had to cope with.  These troops
+moved, indeed, with slowness, corresponding to the cautious
+character of their commander; but even that caution rendered
+Argyle's approach formidable, since his very advance implied,
+that he was at the head of an army irresistibly superior
+
+There remained one mode of retreat open to Montrose, and he
+adopted it.  He threw himself into the Highlands, where he could
+set pursuit at defiance, and where he was sure, in every glen, to
+recover those recruits who had left his standard to deposit their
+booty in their native fastnesses.  It was thus that the singular
+character of the army which Montrose commanded, while, on the one
+hand, it rendered his victory in some degree nugatory, enabled
+him, on the other, under the most disadvantageous circumstances,
+to secure his retreat, recruit his forces, and render himself
+more formidable than ever to the enemy, before whom he had lately
+been unable to make a stand.
+
+On the present occasion he threw himself into Badenoch, and
+rapidly traversing that district, as well as the neighbouring
+country of Athole, he alarmed the Covenanters by successive
+attacks upon various unexpected points, and spread such general
+dismay, that repeated orders were dispatched by the Parliament to
+Argyle, their commander, to engage, and disperse Montrose at all
+rates.
+
+These commands from his superiors neither suited the haughty
+spirit, nor the temporizing and cautious policy, of the nobleman
+to whom they were addressed.  He paid, accordingly, no regard to
+them, but limited his efforts to intrigues among Montrose's few
+Lowland followers, many of whom had become disgusted with the
+prospect of a Highland campaign, which exposed their persons to
+intolerable fatigue, and left their estates at the Covenanters'
+mercy.  Accordingly, several of them left Montrose's camp at this
+period.  He was joined, however, by a body of forces of more
+congenial spirit, and far better adapted to the situation in
+which he found himself. This reinforcement consisted of a large
+body of Highlanders, whom Colkitto, dispatched for that purpose,
+had levied in Argyleshire.  Among the most distinguished was John
+of Moidart, called the Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts
+of Appin, the Clan Gregor, the Clan M'Nab, and other tribes of
+inferior distinction.  By these means, Montrose's army was so
+formidably increased, that Argyle cared no longer to remain in
+the command of that opposed to him, but returned to Edinburgh,
+and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his army
+was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner
+in which they ought to have been.  From thence the Marquis
+returned to Inverary, there, in full security, to govern his
+feudal vassals, and patriarchal followers, and to repose himself
+in safety on the faith of the Clan proverb already quoted--"It is
+a far cry to Lochow."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ Such mountains steep, such craggy hills,
+ His army on one side enclose:
+ The other side, great griesly gills
+ Did fence with fenny mire and moss.
+
+ Which when the Earl understood,
+ He council craved of captains all,
+ Who bade set forth with mournful mood,
+ And take such fortune as would fall.
+                           FLODDEN FIELD, AN ANCIENT POEM.
+
+Montrose had now a splendid career in his view, provided he could
+obtain the consent of his gallant, but desultory troops, and
+their independent chieftains.  The Lowlands lay open before him
+without an army adequate to check his career; for Argyle's
+followers had left the Covenanters' host when their master threw
+up his commission, and many other troops, tired of the war, had
+taken the same opportunity to disband themselves.  By descending
+Strath-Tay, therefore, one of the most convenient passes from the
+Highlands, Montrose had only to present himself in the Lowlands,
+in order to rouse the slumbering spirit of chivalry and of
+loyalty which animated the gentlemen to the north of the Forth.
+The possession of these districts, with or without a victory,
+would give him the command of a wealthy and fertile part of the
+kingdom, and would enable him, by regular pay, to place his army
+on a permanent footing, to penetrate as far as the capital,
+perhaps from thence to the Border, where he deemed it possible to
+communicate with the yet unsubdued forces of King Charles.
+
+Such was the plan of operations by which the truest glory was to
+be acquired, and the most important success insured for the royal
+cause.  Accordingly it did not escape the ambitious and daring
+spirit of him whose services had already acquired him the title
+of the Great Marquis.  But other motives actuated many of his
+followers, and perhaps were not without their secret and
+unacknowledged influence upon his own feelings.
+
+The Western Chiefs in Montrose's army, almost to a man, regarded
+the Marquis of Argyle as the most direct and proper object of
+hostilities.  Almost all of them had felt his power; almost all,
+in withdrawing their fencible men from their own glens, left
+their families and property exposed to his vengeance; all,
+without exception, were desirous of diminishing his sovereignty;
+and most of them lay so near his territories, that they might
+reasonably hope to be gratified by a share of his spoil.  To
+these Chiefs the possession of Inverary and its castle was an
+event infinitely more important and desirable than the capture of
+Edinburgh.  The latter event could only afford their clansmen a
+little transitory pay or plunder; the former insured to the
+Chiefs themselves indemnity for the past, and security for the
+future.  Besides these personal reasons, the leaders, who
+favoured this opinion, plausibly urged, that though, at his first
+descent into the Lowlands, Montrose might be superior to the
+enemy, yet every day's march he made from the hills must diminish
+his own forces, and expose him to the accumulated superiority of
+any army which the Covenanters could collect from the Lowland
+levies and garrisons.  On the other hand, by crushing Argyle
+effectually, he would not only permit his present western friends
+to bring out that proportion of their forces which they must
+otherwise leave at home for protection of their families; but
+farther, he would draw to his standard several tribes already
+friendly to his cause, but who were prevented from joining him by
+fear of M'Callum More.
+
+These arguments, as we have already hinted, found something
+responsive in Montrose's own bosom, not quite consonant with the
+general heroism of his character.  The houses of Argyle and
+Montrose had been in former times, repeatedly opposed to each
+other in war and in politics, and the superior advantages
+acquired by the former, had made them the subject of envy and
+dislike to the neighbouring family, who, conscious of equal
+desert, had not been so richly rewarded.  This was not all.  The
+existing heads of these rival families had stood in the most
+marked opposition to each other since the commencement of the
+present troubles.
+
+Montrose, conscious of the superiority of his talents, and of
+having rendered great service to the Covenanters at the beginning
+of the war, had expected from that party the supereminence of
+council and command, which they judged it safer to intrust to the
+more limited faculties, and more extensive power, of his rival
+Argyle.  The having awarded this preference, was an injury which
+Montrose never forgave the Covenanters; and he was still less
+likely to extend his pardon to Argyle, to whom he had been
+postponed.  He was therefore stimulated by every feeling of
+hatred which could animate a fiery temper in a fierce age, to
+seek for revenge upon the enemy of his house and person; and it
+is probable that these private motives operated not a little upon
+his mind, when he found the principal part of his followers
+determined rather to undertake an expedition against the
+territories of Argyle, than to take the far more decisive step of
+descending at once into the Lowlands.
+
+Yet whatever temptation Montrose found to carry into effect his
+attack upon Argyleshire, he could not easily bring himself to
+renounce the splendid achievement of a descent upon the Lowlands.
+He held more than one council with the principal Chiefs,
+combating, perhaps, his own secret inclination as well as theirs.
+He laid before them the extreme difficulty of marching even a
+Highland army from the eastward into Argyleshire, through passes
+scarcely practicable for shepherds and deer-stalkers, and over
+mountains, with which even the clans lying nearest to them did
+not pretend to be thoroughly acquainted.  These difficulties were
+greatly enhanced by the season of the year, which was now
+advancing towards December, when the mountain-passes, in
+themselves so difficult, might be expected to be rendered utterly
+impassable by snowstorms.  These objections neither satisfied nor
+silenced the Chiefs, who insisted upon their ancient mode of
+making war, by driving the cattle, which, according to the Gaelic
+phrase, "fed upon the grass of their enemy."  The council was
+dismissed late at night, and without coming to any decision,
+excepting that the Chiefs, who supported the opinion that Argyle
+should be invaded, promised to seek out among their followers
+those who might be most capable of undertaking the office of
+guides upon the expedition.
+
+Montrose had retired to the cabin which served him for a tent,
+and stretched himself upon a bed of dry fern, the only place of
+repose which it afforded.  But he courted sleep in vain, for the
+visions of ambition excluded those of Morpheus. In one moment he
+imagined himself displaying the royal banner from the reconquered
+Castle of Edinburgh, detaching assistance to a monarch whose
+crown depended upon his success, and receiving in requital all
+the advantages and preferments which could be heaped upon him
+whom a king delighteth to honour.  At another time this dream,
+splendid as it was, faded before the vision of gratified
+vengeance, and personal triumph over a personal enemy.  To
+surprise Argyle in his stronghold of Inverary--to crush in him at
+once the rival of his own house and the chief support of the
+Presbyterians--to show the Covenanters the difference between the
+preferred Argyle and the postponed Montrose, was a picture too
+flattering to feudal vengeance to be easily relinquished.
+
+While he lay thus busied with contradictory thoughts and
+feelings, the soldier who stood sentinel upon his quarters
+announced to the Marquis that two persons desired to speak with
+his Excellency.
+
+"Their names?"  answered Montrose, "and the cause of their
+urgency at such a late hour?"
+
+On these points, the sentinel, who was one of Colkitto's
+Irishmen, could afford his General little information; so that
+Montrose, who at such a period durst refuse access to no one,
+lest he might have been neglecting some important intelligence,
+gave directions, as a necessary precaution, to put the guard
+under arms, and then prepared to receive his untimely visitors.
+His groom of the chambers had scarce lighted a pair of torches,
+and Montrose himself had scarce risen from his couch, when two
+men entered, one wearing a Lowland dress, of shamoy leather worn
+almost to tatters; the other a tall upright old Highlander, of a
+complexion which might be termed iron-grey, wasted and worn by
+frost and tempest.
+
+"What may be your commands with me, my friends?" said the
+Marquis, his hand almost unconsciously seeking the but of one of
+his pistols; for the period, as well as the time of night,
+warranted suspicions which the good mien of his visitors was not
+by any means calculated to remove.
+
+"I pray leave to congratulate you," said the Lowlander, "my most
+noble General, and right honourable lord, upon the great battles
+which you have achieved since I had the fortune to be detached
+from you, It was a pretty affair that tuilzie at Tippermuir;
+nevertheless, if I might be permitted to counsel--"
+
+"Before doing so," said the Marquis, "will you be pleased to let
+me know who is so kind as to favour me with his opinion?"
+
+"Truly, my lord," replied the man, "I should have hoped that was
+unnecessary, seeing it is not so long since I took on in your
+service, under promise of a commission as Major, with half a
+dollar of daily pay and half a dollar of arrears; and I am to
+trust your lordship has nut forgotten my pay as well as my
+person?"
+
+"My good friend, Major Dalgetty," said Montrose, who by this time
+perfectly recollected his man, "you must consider what important
+things have happened to put my friends' faces out of my memory,
+besides this imperfect light; but all conditions shall be kept.
+--And what news from Argyleshire, my good Major?  We have long
+given you up for lost, and I was now preparing to take the most
+signal vengeance upon the old fox who infringed the law of arms
+in your person."
+
+"Truly, my noble lord," said Dalgetty, "I have no desire that my
+return should put any stop to so proper and becoming an
+intention; verily it is in no shape in the Earl of Argyle's
+favour or mercy that I now stand before you, and I shall be no
+intercessor for him.  But my escape is, under Heaven, and the
+excellent dexterity which, as an old and accomplished cavalier, I
+displayed in effecting the same,--I say, under these, it is owing
+to the assistance of this old Highlander, whom I venture to
+recommend to your lordship's special favour, as the instrument of
+saving your lordship's to command, Dugald Dalgetty of
+Drumthwacket."
+
+"A thankworthy service," said the Marquis, gravely, "which shall
+certainly be requited in the manner it deserves."
+
+"Kneel down, Ranald," said Major Dalgetty (as we must now call
+him), "kneel down, and kiss his Excellency's hand."
+
+The prescribed form of acknowledgment not being according to the
+custom of Ranald's country, he contented himself with folding his
+arms on his bosom, and making a low inclination of his head.
+
+"This poor man, my lord," said Major Dalgetty, continuing his
+speech with a dignified air of protection towards Ranald M'Eagh,
+"has strained all his slender means to defend my person from mine
+enemies, although having no better weapons of a missile sort than
+bows and arrows, whilk your lordship will hardly believe."
+
+"You will see a great many such weapons in my camp," said
+Montrose, "and we find them serviceable."  [In fact, for the
+admirers of archery it may be stated, not only that many of the
+Highlanders in Montrose's army used these antique missiles, but
+even in England the bow and quiver, once the glory of the bold
+yeomen of that land, were occasionally used during the great
+civil wars.]
+
+"Serviceable, my lord!"  said Dalgetty; "I trust your lordship
+will permit me to be surprised--bows and arrows!--I trust you
+will forgive my recommending the substitution of muskets, the
+first convenient opportunity.  But besides defending me, this
+honest Highlander also was at the pains of curing me, in respect
+that I had got a touch of the wars in my retreat, which merits my
+best requital in this special introduction of him to your
+lordship's notice and protection."
+
+"What is your name, my friend?"  said Montrose, turning to the
+Highlander.
+
+"It may not be spoken," answered the mountaineer.
+
+"That is to say," interpreted Major Dalgetty, "he desires to have
+his name concealed, in respect he hath in former days taken a
+castle, slain certain children, and done other things, whilk, as
+your good lordship knows, are often practised in war time, but
+excite no benevolence towards the perpetrator in the friends of
+those who sustain injury.  I have known, in my military
+experience, many brave cavaliers put to death by the boors,
+simply for having used military license upon the country."
+
+"I understand," said Montrose:  "This person is at feud with some
+of our followers.  Let him retire to the court of guard, and we
+will think of the best mode of protecting him."
+
+"You hear, Ranald," said Major Dalgetty, with an air of
+superiority, "his Excellency wishes to hold privy council with
+me, you must go to the court of guard.--He does not know where
+that is, poor fellow!--he is a young soldier for so old a man; I
+will put him under the charge of a sentinel, and return to your
+lordship incontinent."  He did so, and returned accordingly.
+
+Montrose's first enquiry respected the embassy to Inverary; and
+he listened with attention to Dalgetty's reply, notwithstanding
+the prolixity of the Major's narrative.  It required an effort
+from the Marquis to maintain his attention; but no one better
+knew, that where information is to be derived from the report of
+such agents as Dalgetty, it can only be obtained by suffering
+them to tell their story in their own way.  Accordingly the
+Marquis's patience was at length rewarded.  Among other spoils
+which the Captain thought himself at liberty to take, was a
+packet of Argyle's private papers.  These he consigned to the
+hands of his General; a humour of accounting, however, which went
+no farther, for I do not understand that he made any mention of
+the purse of gold which he had appropriated at the same time that
+he made seizure of the papers aforesaid.  Snatching a torch from
+the wall, Montrose was in an instant deeply engaged in the
+perusal of these documents, in which it is probable he found
+something to animate his personal resentment against his rival
+Argyle.
+
+"Does he not fear me?"  said he; "then he shall feel me.  Will he
+fire my castle of Murdoch?--Inverary shall raise the first
+smoke.--O for a guide through the skirts of Strath-Fillan!"
+
+Whatever might be Dalgetty's personal conceit, he understood his
+business sufficiently to guess at Montrose's meaning.  He
+instantly interrupted his own prolix narration of the skirmish
+which had taken place, and the wound he had received in his
+retreat, and began to speak to the point which he saw interested
+his General.
+
+"If," said he, "your Excellency wishes to make an infall into
+Argyleshire, this poor man, Ranald, of whom I told you, together
+with his children and companions, know every pass into that land,
+both leading from the east and from the north."
+
+"Indeed!"  said Montrose; "what reason have you to believe their
+knowledge so extensive?"
+
+"So please your Excellency," answered Dalgetty, "during the weeks
+that I remained with them for cure of my wound, they were
+repeatedly obliged to shift their quarters, in respect of
+Argyle's repeated attempts to repossess himself of the person of
+an officer who was honoured with Your Excellency's confidence; so
+that I had occasion to admire the singular dexterity and
+knowledge of the face of the country with which they alternately
+achieved their retreat and their advance; and when, at length, I
+was able to repair to your Excellency's standard, this honest
+simple creature, Ranald MacEagh, guided me by paths which my
+steed Gustavus (which your lordship may remember) trode with
+perfect safety, so that I said to myself, that where guides,
+spies, or intelligencers, were required in a Highland campaign in
+that western country, more expert persons than he and his
+attendants could not possibly be desired."
+
+"And can you answer for this man's fidelity?"  said Montrose;
+"what is his name and condition?"
+
+"He is an outlaw and robber by profession, something also of a
+homicide or murderer," answered Dalgetty; "and by name, called
+Ranald MacEagh; whilk signifies, Ranald, the Son of the Mist."
+
+"I should remember something of that name," said Montrose,
+pausing:  "Did not these Children of the Mist perpetrate some act
+of cruelty upon the M'Aulays?"
+
+Major Dalgetty mentioned the circumstance of the murder of the
+forester, and Montrose's active memory at once recalled all the
+circumstances of the feud.
+
+"It is most unlucky," said Montrose, "this inexpiable quarrel
+between these men and the M'Aulays.  Allan has borne himself
+bravely in these wars, and possesses, by the wild mystery of his
+behaviour and language, so much influence over the minds of his
+countrymen, that the consequences of disobliging him might be
+serious.  At the same time, these men being so capable of
+rendering useful service, and being as you say, Major Dalgetty,
+perfectly trustworthy--"
+
+"I will pledge my pay and arrears, my horse and arms, my head and
+neck, upon their fidelity," said the Major; "and your Excellency
+knows, that a soldado could say no more for his own father."
+
+"True," said Montrose; "but as this is a matter of particular
+moment, I would willingly know the grounds of so positive an
+assurance."
+
+"Concisely then, my lord," said the Major, "not only did they
+disdain to profit by a handsome reward which Argyle did me the
+honour to place upon this poor head of mine, and not only did
+they abstain from pillaging my personal property, whilk was to an
+amount that would have tempted regular soldiers in any service of
+Europe; and not only did they restore me my horse, whilk your
+Excellency knows to be of value, but I could not prevail on them
+to accept one stiver, doit, or maravedi, for the trouble and
+expenses of my sick bed.  They actually refused my coined money
+when freely offered,--a tale seldom to be told in a Christian
+land."
+
+"I admit," said Montrose, after a moment's reflection, "that
+their conduct towards you is good evidence of their fidelity; but
+how to secure against the breaking out of this feud?"  He paused,
+and then suddenly added, "I had forgot I have supped, while you,
+Major, have been travelling by moonlight."
+
+He called to his attendants to fetch a stoup of wine and some
+refreshments.  Major Dalgetty, who had the appetite of a
+convalescent returned from Highland quarters, needed not any
+pressing to partake of what was set before him, but proceeded to
+dispatch his food with such alacrity, that the Marquis, filling a
+cup of wine, and drinking to his health, could not help
+remarking, that coarse as the provisions of his camp were, he was
+afraid Major Dalgetty had fared much worse during his excursion
+into Argyleshire.
+
+"Your Excellency may take your corporal oath upon that," said the
+worthy Major, speaking with his mouth full; "for Argyle's bread
+and water are yet stale and mouldy in my recollection, and though
+they did their best, yet the viands that the Children of the Mist
+procured for me, poor helpless creatures as they were, were so
+unrefreshful to my body, that when enclosed in my armour, whilk I
+was fain to leave behind me for expedition's sake, I rattled
+therein like the shrivelled kernel in a nut that hath been kept
+on to a second Hallowe'en."
+
+"You must take the due means to repair these losses, Major
+Dalgetty."
+
+"In troth," answered the soldier, "I shall hardly be able to
+compass that, unless my arrears are to be exchanged for present
+pay; for I protest to your Excellency, that the three stone
+weight which I have lost were simply raised upon the regular
+accountings of the States of Holland."
+
+"In that case," said the Marquis, "you are only reduced to good
+marching order.  As for the pay, let us once have victory--
+victory, Major, and your wishes, and all our wishes, shall be
+amply fulfilled.  Meantime, help yourself to another cup of
+wine."
+
+"To your Excellency's health," said the Major, filling a cup to
+the brim, to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, "and
+victory over all our enemies, and particularly over Argyle!  I
+hope to twitch another handful from his board myself--I have had
+one pluck at it already."
+
+"Very true," answered Montrose; "but to return to those men of
+the Mist.  You understand, Dalgetty, that their presence here,
+and the purpose for which we employ them, is a secret between you
+and me?"
+
+Delighted, as Montrose had anticipated, with this mark of his
+General's confidence, the Major laid his hand upon his nose, and
+nodded intelligence.
+
+"How many may there be of Ranald's followers?" continued the
+Marquis.
+
+"They are reduced, so far as I know, to some eight or ten men,"
+answered Major Dalgetty, "and a few women and children."
+
+"Where are they now?"  demanded Montrose.
+
+"In a valley, at three miles' distance," answered the soldier,
+"awaiting your Excellency's command; I judged it not fit to bring
+them to your leaguer without your Excellency's orders."
+
+"You judged very well," said Montrose; "it would be proper that
+they remain where they are, or seek some more distant place of
+refuge.  I will send them money, though it is a scarce article
+with me at present."
+
+"It is quite unnecessary," said Major Dalgetty; "your Excellency
+has only to hint that the M'Aulays are going in that direction,
+and my friends of the Mist will instantly make volte-face, and go
+to the right about."
+
+"That were scarce courteous," said the Marquis.  "Better send
+them a few dollars to purchase them some cattle for the support
+of the women and children."
+
+"They know how to come by their cattle at a far cheaper rate,"
+said the Major; "but let it be as your Excellency wills."
+
+"Let Ranald MacEagh," said Montrose, "select one or two of his
+followers, men whom he can trust, and who are capable of keeping
+their own secret and ours; these, with their chief for scout-
+master-general, shall serve for our guides.  Let them be at my
+tent to-morrow at daybreak, and see, if possible, that they
+neither guess my purpose, nor hold any communication with each
+other in private.--This old man, has he any children?"
+
+"They have been killed or hanged," answered the Major, "to the
+number of a round dozen, as I believe--but he hath left one
+grand-child, a smart and hopeful youth, whom I have noted to be
+never without a pebble in his plaid-nook, to fling at whatsoever
+might come in his way; being a symbol, that, like David, who was
+accustomed to sling smooth stones taken from the brook, he may
+afterwards prove an adventurous warrior."
+
+"That boy, Major Dalgetty," said the Marquis, "I will have to
+attend upon my own person.  I presume he will have sense enough
+to keep his name secret?"
+
+"Your Excellency need not fear that," answered Dalgetty; "these
+Highland imps, from the moment they chip the shell--"
+
+"Well," interrupted Montrose, "that boy shall be pledge for the
+fidelity of his parent, and if he prove faithful, the child's
+preferment shall be his reward.--And now, Major Dalgetty, I will
+license your departure for the night; tomorrow you will introduce
+this MacEagh, under any name or character he may please to
+assume.  I presume his profession has rendered him sufficiently
+expert in all sort of disguises; or we may admit John of Moidart
+into our schemes, who has sense, practicability, and
+intelligence, and will probably allow this man for a time to be
+disguised as one of his followers.  For you, Major, my groom of
+the chambers will be your quarter-master for this evening."
+
+Major Dalgetty took his leave with a joyful heart greatly elated
+with the reception he had met with, and much pleased with the
+personal manners of his new General, which, as he explained at
+great length to Ranald MacEagh, reminded him in many respects of
+the demeanour of the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the
+North, and Bulwark of the Protestant Faith.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+The march begins in military state,
+And nations on his eyes suspended wait;
+Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
+And winter barricades the realms of frost.
+He comes,--nor want, nor cold, his course delay.
+                                       VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.
+
+By break of day Montrose received in his cabin old MacEagh, and
+questioned him long and particularly as to the means of
+approaching the country of Argyle.  He made a note of his
+answers, which he compared with those of two of his followers,
+whom he introduced as the most prudent and experienced. He found
+them to correspond in all respects; but, still unsatisfied where
+precaution was so necessary, the Marquis compared the information
+he had received with that he was able to collect from the Chiefs
+who lay most near to the destined scene of invasion, and being in
+all respects satisfied of its accuracy, he resolved to proceed in
+full reliance upon it.
+
+In one point Montrose changed his mind.  Having judged it unfit
+to take the boy Kenneth into his own service, lest, in case of
+his birth being discovered, it should be resented as an offence
+by the numerous clans who entertained a feudal enmity to this
+devoted family, he requested the Major to take him in attendance
+upon himself; and as he accompanied this request with a handsome
+DOUCEUR, under pretence of clothing and equipping the lad, this
+change was agreeable to all parties.
+
+It was about breakfast-time, when Major Dalgetty, being dismissed
+by Montrose, went in quest of his old acquaintances, Lord
+Menteith and the M'Aulays, to whom he longed to communicate his
+own adventures, as well as to learn from them the particulars of
+the campaign.  It may be imagined he was received with great glee
+by men to whom the late uniformity of their military life had
+rendered any change of society an interesting novelty.  Allan
+M'Aulay alone seemed to recoil from his former acquaintance,
+although, when challenged by his brother, he could render no
+other reason than a reluctance to be familiar with one who had
+been so lately in the company of Argyle, and other enemies.
+Major Dalgetty was a little alarmed by this sort of instinctive
+consciousness which Allan seemed to entertain respecting the
+society he had been lately keeping; he was soon satisfied,
+however, that the perceptions of the seer in this particular were
+not infallible.
+
+As Ranald MacEagh was to be placed under Major Dalgetty's
+protection and superintendence, it was necessary he should
+present him to those persons with whom he was most likely to
+associate.  The dress of the old man had, in the meantime, been
+changed from the tartan of his clan to a sort of clothing
+peculiar to the men of the distant Isles, resembling a waistcoat
+with sleeves, and a petticoat, all made in one piece.  This dress
+was laced from top to bottom in front, and bore some resemblance
+to that called Polonaise, still worn by children in Scotland of
+the lower rank.  The tartan hose and bonnet completed the dress,
+which old men of the last century remembered well to have seen
+worn by the distant Islesmen who came to the Earl of Mar's
+standard in the year 1715.
+
+Major Dalgetty, keeping his eye on Allan as he spoke, introduced
+Ranald MacEagh under the fictitious name of Ranald MacGillihuron
+in Benbecula, who had escaped with him out of Argyle's prison.
+He recommended him as a person skilful in the arts of the harper
+and the senachie, and by no means contemptible in the quality of
+a second-sighted person or seer.  While making this exposition,
+Major Dalgetty stammered and hesitated in a way so unlike the
+usual glib forwardness of his manner, that he could not have
+failed to have given suspicion to Allan M'Aulay, had not that
+person's whole attention been engaged in steadily perusing the
+features of the person thus introduced to him.  This steady gaze
+so much embarrassed Ranald MacEagh, that his hand was beginning
+to sink down towards his dagger, in expectation of a hostile
+assault, when Allan, suddenly crossing the floor of the hut,
+extended his hand to him in the way of friendly greeting.  They
+sat down side by side, and conversed in a low mysterious tone of
+voice.  Menteith and Angus M'Aulay were not surprised at this,
+for there prevailed among the Highlanders who pretended to the
+second-sight, a sort of Freemasonry, which generally induced
+them, upon meeting, to hold communication with each other on the
+nature and extent of their visionary experiences.
+
+"Does the sight come gloomy upon your spirits?"  said Allan to
+his new acquaintance.
+
+"As dark as the shadow upon the moon," replied Ranald, "when she
+is darkened in her mid-course in heaven, and prophets foretell of
+evil times."
+
+"Come hither," said Allan, "come more this way, I would converse
+with you apart; for men say that in your distant islands the
+sight is poured forth with more clearness and power than upon us,
+who dwell near the Sassenach."
+
+While they were plunged into their mystic conference, the two
+English cavaliers entered the cabin in the highest possible
+spirits, and announced to Angus M'Aulay that orders had been
+issued that all should hold themselves in readiness for an
+immediate march to the westward.  Having delivered themselves of
+their news with much glee, they paid their compliments to their
+old acquaintance Major Dalgetty, whom they instantly recognised,
+and enquired after the health of his charger, Gustavus.
+
+"I humbly thank you, gentlemen," answered the soldier, "Gustavas
+is well, though, like his master, somewhat barer on the ribs than
+when you offered to relieve me of him at Darnlinvarach; and let
+me assure you, that before you have made one or two of those
+marches which you seem to contemplate with so much satisfaction
+in prospect, you will leave, my good knights, some of your
+English beef, and probably an English horse or two, behind you."
+
+Both exclaimed that they cared very little what they found or
+what they left, provided the scene changed from dogging up and
+down Angus and Aberdeenshire, in pursuit of an enemy who would
+neither fight nor run away.
+
+"If such be the case," said Angus M'Aulay, "I must give orders to
+my followers, and make provision too for the safe conveyance of
+Annot Lyle; for an advance into M'Callum More's country will be a
+farther and fouler road than these pinks of Cumbrian knighthood
+are aware of."  So saying, he left the cabin.
+
+"Annot Lyle!"  repeated Dalgetty, "is she following the
+campaign?"
+
+"Surely," replied Sir Giles Musgrave, his eye glancing slightly
+from Lord Menteith to Allan M'Aulay; "we could neither march nor
+fight, advance nor retreat, without the influence of the Princess
+of Harps."
+
+"The Princess of Broadswords and Targets, I say," answered his
+companion; "for the Lady of Montrose herself could not be more
+courteously waited upon; she has four Highland maidens, and as
+many bare-legged gillies, to wait upon her orders."
+
+"And what would you have, gentlemen?"  said Allan, turning
+suddenly from the Highlander with whom he was in conversation;
+"would you yourselves have left an innocent female, the companion
+of your infancy, to die by violence, or perish by famine?  There
+is not, by this time, a roof upon the habitation of my fathers--
+our crops have been destroyed, and our cattle have been driven--
+and you, gentlemen, have to bless God, that, coming from a milder
+and more civilized country, you expose only your own lives in
+this remorseless war, without apprehension that your enemies will
+visit with their vengeance the defenceless pledges you may have
+left behind you."
+
+The Englishmen cordially agreed that they had the superiority in
+this respect; and the company, now dispersing, went each to his
+several charge or occupation.
+
+Allan lingered a moment behind, still questioning the reluctant
+Ranald MacEagh upon a point in his supposed visions, by which he
+was greatly perplexed.  "Repeatedly," he said, "have I had the
+sight of a Gael, who seemed to plunge his weapon into the body of
+Menteith,--of that young nobleman in the scarlet laced cloak, who
+has just now left the bothy.  But by no effort, though I have
+gazed till my eyes were almost fixed in the sockets, can I
+discover the face of this Highlander, or even conjecture who he
+may be, although his person and air seem familiar to me."  [See
+Note II.--Wraiths.]
+
+"Have you reversed your own plaid," said Ranald, "according to
+the rule of the experienced Seers in such case?"
+
+"I have," answered Allan, speaking low, and shuddering as if with
+internal agony.
+
+"And in what guise did the phantom then appear to you?"  said
+Ranald.
+
+"With his plaid also reversed," answered Allan, in the same low
+and convulsed tone.
+
+"Then be assured," said Ranald, "that your own hand, and none
+other, will do the deed of which you have witnessed the shadow."
+
+"So has my anxious soul a hundred times surmised," replied Allan.
+"But it is impossible!  Were I to read the record in the eternal
+book of fate, I would declare it impossible--we are bound by the
+ties of blood, and by a hundred ties more intimate--we have stood
+side by side in battle, and our swords have reeked with the blood
+of the same enemies--it is IMPOSSIBLE I should harm him!"
+
+"That you WILL do so," answered Ranald, "is certain, though the
+cause be hid in the darkness of futurity.  You say," he
+continued, suppressing his own emotions with difficulty, "that
+side by side you have pursued your prey like bloodhounds--have
+you never seen bloodhounds turn their fangs against each other,
+and fight over the body of a throttled deer?"
+
+"It is false!"  said M'Aulay, starting up, "these are not the
+forebodings of fate, but the temptation of some evil spirit from
+the bottomless pit!"  So saying, he strode out of the cabin.
+
+"Thou hast it!"  said the Son of the Mist, looking after him with
+an air of exultation; "the barbed arrow is in thy side!  Spirits
+of the slaughtered, rejoice!  soon shall your murderers' swords
+be dyed in each other's blood."
+
+On the succeeding morning all was prepared, and Montrose advanced
+by rapid marches up the river Tay, and poured his desultory
+forces into the romantic vale around the lake of the same name,
+which lies at the head of that river.  The inhabitants were
+Campbells, not indeed the vassals of Argyle, but of the allied
+and kindred house of Glenorchy, which now bears the name of
+Breadalbane.  Being taken by surprise, they were totally
+unprepared for resistance, and were compelled to be passive
+witnesses of the ravages which took place among their flocks and
+herds.  Advancing in this manner to the vale of Loch Dochart, and
+laying waste the country around him, Montrose reached the most
+difficult point of his enterprise.
+
+To a modern army, even with the assistance of the good military
+road which now leads up by Teinedrum to the head of Loch Awe, the
+passage of these extensive wilds would seem a task of some
+difficulty.  But at this period, and for long afterwards, there
+was no road or path whatsoever; and to add to the difficulty, the
+mountains were already covered with snow.  It was a sublime scene
+to look up to them, piled in great masses, one upon another, the
+front rank of dazzling whiteness, while those which arose behind
+them caught a rosy tint from the setting of a clear wintry sun.
+Ben Cruachan, superior in magnitude, and seeming the very citadel
+of the Genius of the Region, rose high above the others, showing
+his glimmering and scathed peak to the distance of many miles.
+
+The followers of Montrose were men not to be daunted by the
+sublime, yet terrible prospect before them.  Many of them were of
+that ancient race of Highlanders, who not only willingly made
+their couch in the snow, but considered it as effeminate luxury
+to use a snowball for a pillow.  Plunder and revenge lay beyond
+the frozen mountains which they beheld, and they did not permit
+themselves to be daunted by the difficulty of traversing them.
+Montrose did not allow their spirits time to subside.  He ordered
+the pipes to play in the van the ancient pibroch entitled,
+"HOGGIL NAM BO," etc. (that is, We come through snow-drift to
+drive the prey), the shrilling sounds of which had often struck
+the vales of the Lennox with terror.  [It is the family-march of
+the M'Farlanes, a warlike and predatory clan, who inhabited the
+western banks of Loch-Lomond.  See WAVERLY, Note XV.] The troops
+advanced with the nimble alacrity of mountaineers, and were soon
+involved in the dangerous pass, through which Ranald acted as
+their guide, going before them with a select party, to track out
+the way.
+
+The power of man at no time appears more contemptible than when
+it is placed in contrast with scenes of natural terror and
+dignity.  The victorious army of Montrose, whose exploits had
+struck terror into all Scotland, when ascending up this terrific
+pass, seemed a contemptible handful of stragglers, in the act of
+being devoured by the jaws of the mountain, which appeared ready
+to close upon them.  Even Montrose half repented the boldness of
+his attempt, as he looked down from the summit of the first
+eminence which he attained, upon the scattered condition of his
+small army.  The difficulty of getting forward was so great, that
+considerable gaps began to occur in the line of march, and the
+distance between the van, centre, and rear, was each moment
+increased in a degree equally incommodious and dangerous.  It was
+with great apprehension that Montrose looked upon every point of
+advantage which the hill afforded, in dread it might be found
+occupied by an enemy prepared for defence; and he often
+afterwards was heard to express his conviction, that had the
+passes of Strath-Fillan been defended by two hundred resolute
+men, not only would his progress have been effectually stopped,
+but his army must have been in danger of being totally cut off.
+Security, however, the bane of many a strong country and many a
+fortress, betrayed, on this occasion, the district of Argyle to
+his enemies.  The invaders had only to contend with the natural
+difficulties of the path, and with the snow, which, fortunately,
+had not fallen in any great quantity. The army no sooner reached
+the summit of the ridge of hills dividing Argyleshire from the
+district of Breadalbane, than they rushed down upon the devoted
+vales beneath them with a fury sufficiently expressive of the
+motives which had dictated a movement so difficult and hazardous.
+
+Montrose divided his army into three bodies, in order to produce
+a wider and more extensive terror, one of which was commanded by
+the Captain of Clan Ranald, one intrusted to the leading of
+Colkitto, and the third remained under his own direction.  He was
+thus enabled to penetrate the country of Argyle at three
+different points.  Resistance there was none.  The flight of the
+shepherds from the hills had first announced in the peopled
+districts this formidable irruption, and wherever the clansmen
+were summoned out, they were killed, disarmed, and dispersed, by
+an enemy who had anticipated their motions.  Major Dalgetty, who
+had been sent forward against Inverary with the few horse of the
+army that were fit for service, managed his matters so well, that
+he had very nearly surprised Argyle, as he expressed it, INTER
+POCULA; and it was only a rapid flight by water which saved that
+chief from death or captivity.  But the punishment which Argyle
+himself escaped fell heavily upon his country and clan, and the
+ravages committed by Montrose on that devoted land, although too
+consistent with the genius of the country and times, have been
+repeatedly and justly quoted as a blot on his actions and
+character.
+
+Argyle in the meantime had fled to Edinburgh, to lay his
+complaints before the Convention of Estates.  To meet the
+exigence of the moment, a considerable army was raised under
+General Baillie, a Presbyterian officer of skill and fidelity,
+with whom was joined in command the celebrated Sir John Urrie, a
+soldier of fortune like Dalgetty, who had already changed sides
+twice during the Civil War, and was destined to turn his coat a
+third time before it was ended.  Argyle also, burning with
+indignation, proceeded to levy his own numerous forces, in order
+to avenge himself of his feudal enemy.  He established his head-
+quarters at Dunbarton, where he was soon joined by a considerable
+force, consisting chiefly of his own clansmen and dependants.
+Being there joined by Baillie and Urrie, with a very considerable
+army of regular forces, he prepared to march into Argyleshire,
+and chastise the invader of his paternal territories.
+
+But Montrose, while these two formidable armies were forming a
+junction, had been recalled from that ravaged country by the
+approach of a third, collected in the north under the Earl of
+Seaforth, who, after some hesitation, having embraced the side of
+the Covenanters, had now, with the assistance of the veteran
+garrison of Inverness, formed a considerable army, with which he
+threatened Montrose from Inverness-shire.  Enclosed in a wasted
+and unfriendly country, and menaced on each side by advancing
+enemies of superior force, it might have been supposed that
+Montrose's destruction was certain.  But these were precisely the
+circumstances under which the active and enterprising genius of
+the Great Marquis was calculated to excite the wonder and
+admiration of his friends, the astonishment and terror of his
+enemies.  As if by magic, he collected his scattered forces from
+the wasteful occupation in which they had been engaged; and
+scarce were they again united, ere Argyle and his associate
+generals were informed, that the royalists, having suddenly
+disappeared from Argyleshire, had retreated northwards among the
+dusky and impenetrable mountains of Lochaber.
+
+The sagacity of the generals opposed to Montrose immediately
+conjectured, that it was the purpose of their active antagonist
+to fight with, and, if possible, to destroy Seaforth, ere they
+could come to his assistance.  This occasioned a corresponding
+change in their operations.  Leaving this chieftain to make the
+best defence he could, Urrie and Baillie again separated their
+forces from those of Argyle; and, having chiefly horse and
+Lowland troops under their command, they kept the southern side
+of the Grampian ridge, moving along eastward into the county of
+Angus, resolving from thence to proceed into Aberdeenshire, in
+order to intercept Montrose, if he should attempt to escape in
+that direction.
+
+Argyle, with his own levies and other troops, undertook to follow
+Montrose's march; so that, in case he should come to action
+either with Seaforth, or with Baillie and Urrie, he might be
+placed between two fires by this third army, which, at a secure
+distance, was to hang upon his rear.
+
+For this purpose, Argyle once more moved towards Inverary, having
+an opportunity, at every step, to deplore the severities which
+the hostile clans had exercised on his dependants and country.
+Whatever noble qualities the Highlanders possessed, and they had
+many, clemency in treating a hostile country was not of the
+number; but even the ravages of hostile troops combined to swell
+the number of Argyle's followers.  It is still a Highland
+proverb, He whose house is burnt must become a soldier; and
+hundreds of the inhabitants of these unfortunate valleys had now
+no means of maintenance, save by exercising upon others the
+severities they had themselves sustained, and no future prospect
+of happiness, excepting in the gratification of revenge.  His
+bands were, therefore, augmented by the very circumstances which
+had desolated his country, and Argyle soon found himself at the
+head of three thousand determined men, distinguished for activity
+and courage, and commanded by gentlemen of his own name, who
+yielded to none in those qualities.  Under himself, he conferred
+the principal command upon Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, and
+another Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchenbreck, [This last character
+is historical] an experienced and veteran soldier, whom he had
+recalled from the wars of Ireland for this purpose.  The cold
+spirit of Argyle himself, however, clogged the military councils
+of his more intrepid assistants; and it was resolved,
+notwithstanding their increased force, to observe the same plan
+of operations, and to follow Montrose cautiously, in whatever
+direction he should march, avoiding an engagement until an
+opportunity should occur of falling upon his rear, while he
+should be engaged with another enemy in front.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ Piobracht au Donuil-dhu,
+ Piobrachet au Donuil,
+ Piobrachet agus S'breittach
+ Feacht an Innerlochy.
+
+ The war-tune of Donald the Black,
+ The war-tune of Black Donald,
+ The pipes and the banner
+ Are up in the rendezvous of Inverlochy.
+
+The military road connecting the chains of forts, as it is
+called, and running in the general line of the present Caledonian
+Canal, has now completely opened the great glen, or chasm,
+extending almost across the whole island, once doubtless filled
+by the sea, and still affording basins for that long line of
+lakes, by means of which modern art has united the German and
+Atlantic Oceans.  The paths or tracks by which the natives
+traversed this extensive valley, were, in 1645-6, in the same
+situation as when they awaked the strain of an Irish engineer
+officer, who had been employed in converting them into
+practicable military roads, and whose eulogium begins, and, for
+aught I know, ends, as follows:
+
+Had you seen but these roads before they were made, You would
+have held up your hands and bless'd General Wade.
+
+But, bad as the ordinary paths were, Montrose avoided them, and
+led his army, like a herd of wild deer, from mountain to
+mountain, and from forest to forest, where his enemies could
+learn nothing of his motions, while he acquired the most perfect
+knowledge respecting theirs from the friendly clans of Cameron
+and M'Donnell, whose mountainous districts he now traversed.
+Strict orders had been given that Argyle's advance should be
+watched, and that all intelligence respecting his motions should
+be communicated instantly to the General himself.
+
+It was a moonlight night, and Montrose, worn out by the fatigues
+of the day, was laid down to sleep in a miserable shieling.  He
+had only slumbered two hours, when some one touched his shoulder.
+He looked up, and, by the stately form and deep voice, easily
+recognised the Chief of the Camerons.
+
+"I have news for you," said that leader, "which is worth while to
+arise and listen to."
+
+"M'Ilduy [Mhich-Connel Dhu, the descendant of Black Donald.]  can
+bring no other," said Montrose, addressing the Chief by his
+patronymic title--"are they good or bad?"
+
+"As you may take them," said the Chieftain.
+
+"Are they certain?"  demanded Montrose.
+
+"Yes," answered M'Ilduy, "or another messenger should have
+brought them.  Know that, tired with the task imposed upon me of
+accompanying that unhappy Dalgetty and his handful of horse, who
+detained me for hours on the march at the pace of a crippled
+badger, I made a stretch of four miles with six of my people in
+the direction of Inverlochy, and there met with Ian of Glenroy,
+who had been out for intelligence.  Argyle is moving upon
+Inverlochy with three thousand chosen men, commanded by the
+flower of the sons of Diarmid.--These are my news--they are
+certain--it is for you to construe their purport."
+
+"Their purport must be good," answered Montrose, readily and
+cheerfully; "the voice of M'Ilduy is ever pleasant in the ears of
+Montrose, and most pleasant when it speaks of some brave
+enterprise at hand--What are our musters?"
+
+He then called for light, and easily ascertained that a great
+part of his followers having, as usual, dispersed to secure their
+booty, he had not with him above twelve or fourteen hundred men.
+
+"Not much above a third," said Montrose, pausing, "of Argyle's
+force, and Highlanders opposed to Highlanders.--With the blessing
+of God upon the royal cause, I would not hesitate were the odds
+but one to two."
+
+"Then do not hesitate," said Cameron; "for when your trumpets
+shall sound to attack M'Callum More, not a man of these glens
+will remain deaf to the summons.  Glengarry--Keppoch--I myself--
+would destroy, with fire and sword, the wretch who should remain
+behind under any pretence whatsoever.  To-morrow, or the next
+day, shall be a day of battle to all who bear the name of
+M'Donnell or Cameron, whatever be the event."
+
+"It is gallantly said, my noble friend," said Montrose, grasping
+his hand, "and I were worse than a coward did I not do justice to
+such followers, by entertaining the most indubitable hopes of
+success.  We will turn back on this M'Callum More, who follows us
+like a raven to devour the relics of our army, should we meet
+braver men who may be able to break its strength!  Let the Chiefs
+and leaders be called together as quickly as possible; and you,
+who have brought us the first news of this joyful event,--for
+such it shall be,--you, M'Ilduy, shall bring it to a joyful
+issue, by guiding us the best and nearest road against our
+enemy."
+
+"That will I willingly do," said M'Ilduy; "if I have shown you
+paths by which to retreat through these dusky wilds, with far
+more readiness will I teach you how to advance against your foe."
+
+A general bustle now prevailed, and the leaders were everywhere
+startled from the rude couches on which they had sought temporary
+repose.
+
+"I never thought," said Major Dalgetty, when summoned up from a
+handful of rugged heather roots, "to have parted from a bed as
+hard as a stable-broom with such bad will; but, indubitably,
+having but one man of military experience in his army, his
+Excellency the Marquis may be vindicated in putting him upon hard
+duty."
+
+So saying, he repaired to the council, where, notwithstanding his
+pedantry, Montrose seemed always to listen to him with
+considerable attention; partly because the Major really possessed
+military knowledge and experience, and often made suggestions
+which were found of advantage, and partly because it relieved the
+General from the necessity of deferring entirely to the opinion
+of the Highland Chiefs, and gave him additional ground for
+disputing it when it was not agreeable to his own.  On the
+present occasion, Dalgetty joyfully acquiesced in the proposal of
+marching back and confronting Argyle, which he compared to the
+valiant resolution of the great Gustavus, who moved against the
+Duke of Bavaria, and enriched his troops by the plunder of that
+fertile country, although menaced from the northward by the large
+army which Wallenstein had assembled in Bohemia.
+
+The Chiefs of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Lochiel, whose clans, equal
+in courage and military fame to any in the Highlands, lay within
+the neighbourhood of the scene of action, dispatched the fiery
+cross through their vassals, to summon every one who could bear
+arms to meet the King's lieutenant, and to join the standards of
+their respective Chiefs, as they marched towards Inverlochy.  As
+the order was emphatically given, it was speedily and willingly
+obeyed.  Their natural love of war, their zeal for the royal
+cause,--for they viewed the King in the light of a chief whom his
+clansmen had deserted,--as well as their implicit obedience to
+their own patriarch, drew in to Montrose's army not only all in
+the neighbourhood who were able to bear arms, but some who, in
+age at least, might have been esteemed past the use of them.
+During the next day's march, which, being directed straight
+through the mountains of Lochaber, was unsuspected by the enemy,
+his forces were augmented by handfuls of men issuing from each
+glen, and ranging themselves under the banners of their
+respective Chiefs.  This was a circumstance highly inspiriting to
+the rest of the army, who, by the time they approached the enemy,
+found their strength increased considerably more than one-fourth,
+as had been prophesied by the valiant leader of the Camerons.
+
+While Montrose executed this counter-march, Argyle had, at the
+head of his gallant army, advanced up the southern side of Loch-
+Eil, and reached the river Lochy, which combines that lake with
+Loch-Lochy.  The ancient Castle of Inverlochy, once, as it is
+said, a royal fortress, and still, although dismantled, a place
+of some strength and consideration, offered convenient head-
+quarters, and there was ample room for Argyle's army to encamp
+around him in the valley, where the Lochy joins Loch-Eil.
+Several barges had attended, loaded with provisions, so that they
+were in every respect as well accommodated as such an army wished
+or expected to be.  Argyle, in council with Auchenbreck and
+Ardenvohr, expressed his full confidence that Montrose was now on
+the brink of destruction; that his troops must gradually diminish
+as he moved eastward through such uncouth paths; that if he went
+westward, he must encounter Urrie and Baillie; if northward, fall
+into the hands of Seaforth; or should he choose any halting-
+place, he would expose himself to be attacked by three armies at
+once.
+
+"I cannot rejoice in the prospect, my lord," said Auchebreck,
+"that James Grahame will be crushed with little assistance of
+ours.  He has left a heavy account in Argyleshire against him,
+and I long to reckon with him drop of blood for drop of blood.  I
+love not the payment of such debts by third hands."
+
+"You are too scrupulous," said Argyle; "what signifies it by
+whose hands the blood of the Grahames is spilt?  It is time that
+of the sons of Diarmid should cease to flow.--What say you,
+Ardenvohr?"
+
+"I say, my lord," replied Sir Duncan, "that I think Auchenbreck
+will be gratified, and will himself have a personal opportunity
+of settling accounts with Montrose for his depredations.  Reports
+have reached our outposts that the Camerons are assembling their
+full strength on the skirts of Ben-Nevis; this must be to join
+the advance of Montrose, and not to cover his retreat."
+
+"It must be some scheme of harassing and depredation," said
+Argyle, "devised by the inveterate malignity of M'Ilduy, which he
+terms loyalty.  They can intend no more than an attack on our
+outposts, or some annoyance to to-morrow's march."
+
+"I have sent out scouts," said Sir Duncan, "in every direction,
+to procure intelligence; and we must soon hear whether they
+really do assemble any force, upon what point, or with what
+purpose."
+
+It was late ere any tidings were received; but when the moon had
+arisen, a considerable bustle in the camp, and a noise
+immediately after heard in the castle, announced the arrival of
+important intelligence.  Of the scouts first dispersed by
+Ardenvohr, some had returned without being able to collect
+anything, save uncertain rumours concerning movements in the
+country of the Camerons.  It seemed as if the skirts of Ben-Nevis
+were sending forth those unaccountable and portentous sounds with
+which they sometimes announce the near approach of a storm.
+Others, whose zeal carried them farther upon their mission, were
+entrapped and slain, or made prisoners, by the inhabitants of the
+fastnesses into which they endeavoured to penetrate.  At length,
+on the rapid advance of Montrose's army, his advanced guard and
+the outposts of Argyle became aware of each other's presence, and
+after exchanging a few musket-shots and arrows, fell back to
+their respective main bodies, to convey intelligence and receive
+orders.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell, and Auchenbreck, instantly threw themselves
+on horseback, in order to visit the state of the outposts; and
+Argyle maintained his character of commander-in-chief with
+reputation, by making a respectable arrangement of his forces in
+the plain, as it was evident that they might now expect a night
+alarm, or an attack in the morning at farthest.  Montrose had kept
+his forces so cautiously within the defiles of the mountain, that
+no effort which Auchenbreck or Ardenvohr thought it prudent to
+attempt, could ascertain his probable strength.  They were aware,
+however, that, at the utmost computation, it must be inferior to
+their own, and they returned to Argyle to inform him of the
+amount of their observations; but that nobleman refused to
+believe that Montrose could be in presence himself.  He said, "It
+was a madness, of which even James Grahame, in his height of
+presumptuous frenzy, was incapable; and he doubted not that their
+march was only impeded by their ancient enemies, Glencoe,
+Keppoch, and Glengarry; and perhaps M'Vourigh, with his
+M'Phersons, might have assembled a force, which he knew must be
+greatly inferior in numbers to his own, and whom, therefore, he
+doubted not to disperse by force, or by terms of capitulation."
+
+The spirit of Argyle's followers was high, breathing vengeance
+for the disasters which their country had so lately undergone;
+and the night passed in anxious hopes that the morning might dawn
+upon their vengeance.  The outposts of either army kept a careful
+watch, and the soldiers of Argyle slept in the order of battle
+which they were next day to occupy.
+
+A pale dawn had scarce begun to tinge the tops of these immense
+mountains, when the leaders of both armies prepared for the
+business of the day.  It was the second of February, 1645-6.  The
+clansmen of Argyle were arranged in two lines, not far from the
+angle between the river and the lake, and made an appearance
+equally resolute and formidable.  Auchenbreck would willingly
+have commenced the battle by an attack on the outposts of the
+enemy, but Argyle, with more cautious policy, preferred receiving
+to making the onset.  Signals were soon heard, that they would
+not long wait for it in vain.  The Campbells could distinguish,
+in the gorge of the mountains, the war-tunes of various clans as
+they advanced to the onset.  That of the Camerons, which bears
+the ominous words, addressed to the wolves and ravens, "Come to
+me, and I will give you flesh," was loudly re-echoed from their
+native glens.  In the language of the Highland bards, the war
+voice of Glengarry was not silent; and the gathering tunes of
+other tribes could be plainly distinguished, as they successively
+came up to the extremity of the passes from which they were to
+descend into the plain.
+
+"You see," said Argyle to his kinsmen, "it is as I said, we have
+only to deal with our neighbours; James Grahame has not ventured
+to show us his banner."
+
+At this moment there resounded from the gorge of the pass a
+lively flourish of trumpets, in that note with which it was the
+ancient Scottish fashion to salute the royal standard.
+
+"You may hear, my lord, from yonder signal," said Sir Duncan
+Campbell, "that he who pretends to be the King's Lieutenant, must
+be in person among these men."
+
+"And has probably horse with him," said Auchenbreck, "which I
+could not have anticipated.  But shall we look pale for that, my
+lord, when we have foes to fight, and wrongs to revenge?"
+
+Argyle was silent, and looked upon his arm, which hung in a sash,
+owing to a fall which he had sustained in a preceding march.
+
+"It is true," interrupted Ardenvohr, eagerly, "my Lord of Argyle,
+you are disabled from using either sword or pistol; you must
+retire on board the galleys--your life is precious to us as a
+head--your hand cannot be useful to us as a soldier."
+
+"No," said Argyle, pride contending with irresolution, "it shall
+never be said that I fled before Montrose; if I cannot fight, I
+will at least die in the midst of my children."
+
+Several other principal Chiefs of the Campbells, with one voice,
+conjured and obtested their Chieftain to leave them for that day
+to the leading of Ardenvohr and Auchenbreck, and to behold the
+conflict from a distance and in safety.--We dare not stigmatize
+Argyle with poltroonery; for, though his life was marked by no
+action of bravery, yet he behaved with so much composure and
+dignity in the final and closing scene, that his conduct upon the
+present and similar occasions, should be rather imputed to
+indecision than to want of courage.  But when the small still
+voice within a man's own breast, which tells him that his life is
+of consequence to himself, is seconded by that of numbers around
+him, who assure him that it is of equal advantage to the public,
+history affords many examples of men more habitually daring than
+Argyle, who have consulted self-preservation when the temptations
+to it were so powerfully increased.
+
+"See him on board, if you will, Sir Duncan," said Auchenbreck to
+his kinsman; "It must be my duty to prevent this spirit from
+spreading farther among us."
+
+So saying, he threw himself among the ranks, entreating,
+commanding, and conjuring the soldiers, to remember their ancient
+fame and their present superiority; the wrongs they had to
+revenge, if successful, and the fate they had to dread, if
+vanquished; and imparting to every bosom a portion of the fire
+which glowed in his own.  Slowly, meanwhile, and apparently with
+reluctance, Argyle suffered himself to be forced by his officious
+kinsmen to the verge of the lake, and was transported on board of
+a galley, from the deck of which he surveyed with more safety
+than credit the scene which ensued.
+
+Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, notwithstanding the urgency of
+the occasion, stood with his eyes riveted on the boat which bore
+his Chieftain from the field of battle.  There were feelings in
+his bosom which could not be expressed; for the character of a
+Chief was that of a father, and the heart of a clansman durst not
+dwell upon his failings with critical severity as upon those of
+other men.  Argyle, too, harsh and severe to others, was generous
+and liberal among his kinsmen, and the noble heart of, Ardenvohr
+was wrung with bitter anguish, when he reflected to what
+interpretation his present conduct might subject him.
+
+"It is better it should be so," said he to himself, devouring his
+own emotion; "but--of his line of a hundred sires, I know not one
+who would have retired while the banner of Diarmid waved in the
+wind, in the face of its most inveterate foes!"
+
+A loud shout now compelled him to turn, and to hasten with all
+dispatch to his post, which was on the right flank of Argyle's
+little army.
+
+The retreat of Argyle had not passed unobserved by his watchful
+enemy, who, occupying the superior ground, could mark every
+circumstance which passed below.  The movement of three or four
+horsemen to the rear showed that those who retreated were men of
+rank.
+
+"They are going," said Dalgetty, "to put their horses out of
+danger, like prudent cavaliers.  Yonder goes Sir Duncan Campbell,
+riding a brown bay gelding, which I had marked for my own second
+charger."
+
+You are wrong, Major," said Montrose, with a bitter smile, "they
+are saving their precious Chief--Give the signal for assault
+instantly--send the word through the ranks.--Gentlemen, noble
+Chiefs, Glengarry, Keppoch, M'Vourigh, upon them instantly!--Ride
+to M'Ilduy, Major Dalgetty, and tell him to charge as he loves
+Lochaber--return and bring our handful of horse to my standard.
+They shall be placed with the Irish as a reserve."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Lochlin.
+                                                      OSSIAN.
+
+The trumpets and bagpipes, those clamorous harbingers of blood
+and death, at once united in the signal for onset, which was
+replied to by the cry of more than two thousand warriors, and the
+echoes of the mountain glens behind them.  Divided into three
+bodies, or columns, the Highland followers of Montrose poured
+from the defiles which had hitherto concealed them from their
+enemies, and rushed with the utmost determination upon the
+Campbells, who waited their charge with the greatest firmness.
+Behind these charging columns marched in line the Irish, under
+Colkitto, intended to form the reserve.  With them was the royal
+standard, and Montrose himself; and on the flanks were about
+fifty horse, under Dalgetty, which by wonderful exertions had
+been kept in some sort fit for service.
+
+The right column of Royalists was led by Glengarry, the left by
+Lochiel, and the centre by the Earl of Menteith, who preferred
+fighting on foot in a Highland dress to remaining with the
+cavalry.
+
+The Highlanders poured on with the proverbial fury of their
+country, firing their guns, and discharging their arrows, at a
+little distance from the enemy, who received the assault with the
+most determined gallantry.  Better provided with musketry than
+their enemies, stationary also, and therefore taking the more
+decisive aim, the fire of Argyle's followers was more destructive
+than that which they sustained.  The royal clans, perceiving
+this, rushed to close quarters, and succeeded on two points in
+throwing their enemies into disorder.  With regular troops this
+must have achieved a victory; but here Highlanders were opposed
+to Highlanders, and the nature of the weapons, as well as the
+agility of those who wielded them, was equal on both sides.
+
+Their strife was accordingly desperate; and the clash of the
+swords and axes, as they encountered each other, or rung upon the
+targets, was mingled with the short, wild, animating shrieks with
+which Highlanders accompany the battle, the dance, or indeed
+violent exertion of any kind.  Many of the foes opposed were
+personally acquainted, and sought to match themselves with each
+other from motives of hatred, or a more generous emulation of
+valour.  Neither party would retreat an inch, while the place of
+those who fell (and they fell fast on both sides) was eagerly
+supplied by others, who thronged to the front of danger.  A
+steam, like that which arises from a seething cauldron, rose into
+the thin, cold, frosty air, and hovered above the combatants.
+
+So stood the fight on the right and the centre, with no immediate
+consequence, except mutual wounds and death.
+
+On the right of the Campbells, the Knight of Ardenvohr obtained
+some advantage, through his military skill and by strength of
+numbers.  He had moved forward obliquely the extreme flank of his
+line at the instant the Royalists were about to close, so that
+they sustained a fire at once on front and in flank, and, despite
+the utmost efforts of their leader, were thrown into some
+confusion.  At this instant, Sir Duncan Campbell gave the word to
+charge, and thus unexpectedly made the attack at the very moment
+he seemed about to receive it.  Such a change of circumstances is
+always discouraging, and often fatal.  But the disorder was
+remedied by the advance of the Irish reserve, whose heavy and
+sustained fire compelled the Knight of Ardenvohr to forego his
+advantage, and content himself with repulsing the enemy.  The
+Marquis of Montrose, in the meanwhile, availing himself of some
+scattered birch trees, as well as of the smoke produced by the
+close fire of the Irish musketry, which concealed the operation,
+called upon Dalgetty to follow him with the horse, and wheeling
+round so as to gain the right flank and even the rear of the
+enemy, he commanded his six trumpets to sound the charge.  The
+clang of the cavalry trumpets, and the noise of the galloping of
+the horse, produced an effect upon Argyle's right wing which no
+other sounds could have impressed them with.  The mountaineers of
+that period had a superstitious dread of the war-horse, like that
+entertained by the Peruvians, and had many strange ideas
+respecting the manner in which that animal was trained to combat.
+When, therefore, they found their ranks unexpectedly broken, and
+that the objects of their greatest terror were suddenly in the
+midst of them, the panic, in spite of Sir Duncan's attempts to
+stop it, became universal.  Indeed, the figure of Major Dalgetty
+alone, sheathed in impenetrable armour, and making his horse
+caracole and bound, so as to give weight to every blow which he
+struck, would have been a novelty in itself sufficient to terrify
+those who had never seen anything more nearly resembling such a
+cavalier, than a SHELTY waddling under a Highlander far bigger
+than itself.  The repulsed Royalists returned to the charge; the
+Irish, keeping their ranks, maintained a fire equally close and
+destructive.  There was no sustaining the fight longer.  Argyle's
+followers began to break and fly, most towards the lake, the
+remainder in different directions.  The defeat of the right wing,
+of itself decisive, was rendered irreparable by the death of
+Auchenbreck, who fell while endeavouring to restore order.
+
+The Knight of Ardenvohr, with two or three hundred men, all
+gentlemen of descent and distinguished gallantry,--for the
+Campbells are supposed to have had more gentlemen in their ranks
+than any of the Highland clans, endeavoured, with unavailing
+heroism, to cover the tumultuary retreat of the common file.
+Their resolution only proved fatal to themselves, as they were
+charged again and again by fresh adversaries, and forced to
+separate from each other, until at length their aim seemed only
+to be to purchase an honourable death by resisting to the very
+last.
+
+"Good quarter, Sir Duncan," called out Major Dalgetty, when he
+discovered his late host, with one or two others, defending
+himself against several Highlanders; and, to enforce his offer,,
+he rode up to him with his sword uplifted. Sir Duncan's reply was
+the discharge of a reserved pistol, which took effect not on the
+person of the rider, but on that of his gallant horse, which,
+shot through the heart, fell dead under him.  Ranald MacEagh, who
+was one of those who had been pressing Sir Duncan hard, took the
+opportunity to cut him down with his broadsword, as he turned
+from him in the act of firing the pistol.
+
+Allan M'Aulay came up at this moment.  They were, excepting
+Ranald, followers of his brother who were engaged on that part of
+the field, "Villains!"  he said, "which of you has dared to do
+this, when it was my positive order that the Knight of Ardenvohr
+should be taken alive?"
+
+Half-a-dozen of busy hands, which were emulously employed in
+plundering the fallen knight, whose arms and accoutrements were
+of a magnificence befitting his quality, instantly forbore the
+occupation, and half the number of voices exculpated themselves,
+by laying the blame on the Skyeman, as they called Ranald
+MacEagh.
+
+"Dog of an Islander!"  said Allan, forgetting, in his wrath,
+their prophetic brotherhood, "follow the chase, and harm him no
+farther, unless you mean to die by my hand."  They were at this
+moment left almost alone; for Allan's threats had forced his own
+clan from the spot, and all around had pressed onwards toward the
+lake, carrying before them noise, terror, and confusion, and
+leaving behind only the dead and dying. The moment was tempting
+to MacEagh's vengeful spirit.--"That I should die by your hand,
+red as it is with the blood of my kindred," said he, answering
+the threat of Allan in a tone as menacing as his own, "is not
+more likely than that you should fall by mine."  With that, he
+struck at M'Aulay with such unexpected readiness, that he had
+scarce time to intercept the blow with his target.
+
+"Villain!"  said Allan, in astonishment, "what means this?"
+
+"I am Ranald of the Mist!"  answered the Islesman, repeating the
+blow; and with that word, they engaged in close and furious
+conflict.  It seemed to be decreed, that in Allan M'Aulay had
+arisen the avenger of his mother's wrongs upon this wild tribe,
+as was proved by the issue of the present, as well as of former
+combats.  After exchanging a few blows, Ranald MacEagh was
+prostrated by a deep wound on the skull; and M'Aulay, setting his
+foot on him, was about to pass the broadsword through his body,
+when the point of the weapon was struck up by a third party, who
+suddenly interposed.  This was no other than Major Dalgetty, who,
+stunned. by the fall, and encumbered by the dead body of his
+horse, had now recovered his legs and his understanding.  "Hold
+up your sword," said he to M'Aulay, "and prejudice this person no
+farther, in respect that he is here in my safeconduct, and in his
+Excellency's service; and in regard that no honourable cavalier
+is at liberty, by the law martial, to avenge his own private
+injuries, FLAGRANTE BELLO, MULTO MAJUS FLAGRANTE PRAELIO."
+
+"Fool!"  said Allan, "stand aside, and dare not to come between
+the tiger and his prey!"
+
+But, far from quitting his point, Dalgetty stept across the
+fallen body of MacEagh, and gave Allan to understand, that if he
+called himself a tiger, he was likely, at present, to find a lion
+in his path.  There required no more than the gesture and tone of
+defiance to turn the whole rage of the military Seer against the
+person who was opposing the course of his vengeance, and blows
+were instantly exchanged without farther ceremony.
+
+The strife betwixt Allan and MacEagh had been unnoticed by the
+stragglers around, for the person of the latter was known to few
+of Montrose's followers; but the scuffle betwixt Dalgetty and
+him, both so well known, attracted instant attention; and
+fortunately, among others, that of Montrose himself, who had come
+for the purpose of gathering together his small body of horse,
+and following the pursuit down Loch-Eil.  Aware of the fatal
+consequences of dissension in his little army, he pushed his
+horse up to the spot, and seeing MacEagh on the ground, and
+Dalgetty in the attitude of protecting him against M'Aulay, his
+quick apprehension instantly caught the cause of quarrel, and as
+instantly devised means to stop it.  "For shame," he said,
+"gentlemen cavaliers, brawling together in so glorious a field of
+victory!--Are you mad?  Or are you intoxicated with the glory
+which you have both this day gained?"
+
+"It is not my fault, so please your Excellency," said Dalgetty.
+"I have been known a BONUS SOCIUS, A BON CAMARADO, in all the
+services of Europe; but he that touches a man under my safeguard
+--"
+
+"And he," said Allan, speaking at the same time, "who dares to
+bar the course of my just vengeance--"
+
+"For shame, gentlemen!"  again repeated Montrose; "I have other
+business for you both,--business of deeper importance than any
+private quarrel, which you may easily find a more fitting time to
+settle.  For you, Major Dalgetty, kneel down."
+
+"Kneel!"  said Dalgetty; "I have not learned to obey that word of
+command, saving when it is given from the pulpit.  In the Swedish
+discipline, the front rank do indeed kneel, but only when the
+regiment is drawn up six file deep."
+
+"Nevertheless," repeated Montrose,--"kneel down, in the name of
+King Charles and of his representative."
+
+When Dalgetty reluctantly obeyed, Montrose struck him lightly on
+the neck with the flat of his sword, saying,--"In reward of the
+gallant service of this day, and in the name and authority of our
+Sovereign, King Charles, I dub thee knight; be brave, loyal, and
+fortunate.  And now, Sir Dugald Dalgetty, to your duty.  Collect
+what horsemen you can, and pursue such of the enemy as are flying
+down the side of the lake.  Do not disperse your force, nor
+venture too far; but take heed to prevent their rallying, which
+very little exertion may do.  Mount, then, Sir Dugald, and do
+your duty."
+
+"But what shall I mount?"  said the new-made chevalier. "Poor
+Gustavus sleeps in the bed of honour, like his immortal namesake!
+and I am made a knight, a rider, as the High Dutch have it, just
+when I have not a horse left to ride upon."  [In German, as in
+Latin, the original meaning of the word Ritter, corresponding to
+Eques, is merely a horseman.]
+
+"That shall not be said," answered Montrose, dismounting; "I make
+you a present of my own, which has been thought a good one; only,
+I pray you, resume the duty you discharge so well."
+
+With many acknowledgments, Sir Dugald mounted the steed so
+liberally bestowed upon him; and only beseeching his Excellency
+to remember that MacEagh was under his safe-conduct, immediately
+began to execute the orders assigned to him, with great zeal and
+alacrity.
+
+"And you, Allan M'Aulay," said Montrose, addressing the
+Highlander, who, leaning his sword-point on the ground, had
+regarded the ceremony of his antagonist's knighthood with a sneer
+of sullen scorn,--"you, who are superior to the ordinary men led
+by the paltry motives of plunder, and pay, and personal
+distinction,--you, whose deep knowledge renders you so valuable a
+counsellor,--is it YOU whom I find striving with a man like
+Dalgetty, for the privilege of trampling the remains of life out
+of so contemptible an enemy as lies there?  Come, my friend, I
+have other work for you.  This victory, skilfully improved, shall
+win Seaforth to our party.  It is not disloyalty, but despair of
+the good cause, that has induced him to take arms against us.
+These arms, in this moment of better augury, he may be brought to
+unite with ours.  I shall send my gallant friend, Colonel Hay, to
+him, from this very field of battle, but he must be united in
+commission with a Highland gentleman of rank, befitting that of
+Seaforth, and of talents and of influence such as may make an
+impression upon him.  You are not only in every respect the
+fittest for this most important mission, but, having no immediate
+command, your presence may be more easily spared than that of a
+Chief whose following is in the field.  You know every pass and
+glen in the Highlands, as well as the manners and customs of
+every tribe.  Go therefore to Hay, on the right wing; he has
+instructions, and expects you.  You will find him with
+Glenmorrison's men; be his guide, his interpreter, and his
+colleague."
+
+Allan M'Aulay bent on the Marquis a dark and penetrating glance,
+as if to ascertain whether this sudden mission was not conferred
+for some latent and unexplained purpose.  But Montrose, skilful
+in searching the motives of others, was an equal adept in
+concealing his own.  He considered it as of the last consequence,
+in this moment of enthusiasm and exalted passion, to remove Allan
+from the camp for a few days, that he might provide, as his
+honour required, for the safety of those who had acted as his
+guides, when he trusted the Seer's quarrel with Dalgetty might be
+easily made up.  Allan, at parting, only recommended to the
+Marquis the care of Sir Duncan Campbell, whom Montrose instantly
+directed to be conveyed to a place of safety.  He took the same
+precaution for MacEagh, committing the latter, however, to a
+party of the Irish, with directions that he should be taken care
+of, but that no Highlander, of any clan, should have access to
+him.
+
+The Marquis then mounted a led horse, which was held by one of
+his attendants, and rode on to view the scene of his victory,
+which was more decisive than even his ardent hopes had
+anticipated.  Of Argyle's gallant army of three thousand men,
+fully one-half fell in the battle, or in the flight. They had
+been chiefly driven back upon that part of the plain where the
+river forms an angle with the lake, so that there was no free
+opening either for retreat or escape.  Several hundreds were
+forced into the lake and drowned.  Of the survivors, about one-
+half escaped by swimming the river, or by an early flight along
+the left bank of the lake.  The remainder threw themselves into
+the old Castle of Inverlochy; but being without either provisions
+or hopes of relief, they were obliged to surrender, on condition
+of being suffered to return to their homes in peace.  Arms,
+ammunition, standards, and baggage, all became the prey of the
+conquerors.
+
+This was the greatest disaster that ever befell the race of
+Diarmid, as the Campbells were called in the Highlands; it being
+generally remarked that they were as fortunate in the issue of
+their undertakings, as they were sagacious in planning, and
+courageous in executing them.  Of the number slain, nearly five
+hundred were dunniwassels, or gentlemen claiming descent from
+known and respected houses.  And, in the opinion of many of the
+clan, even this heavy loss was exceeded by the disgrace arising
+from the inglorious conduct of their Chief, whose galley weighed
+anchor when the day was lost, and sailed down the lake with all
+the speed to which sails and oars could impel her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Faint the din of battle bray'd,
+Distant down the hollow wind;
+War and terror fled before,
+Wounds and death remain'd behind.    PENROSE.
+
+Montrose's splendid success over his powerful rival was not
+attained without some loss, though not amounting to the tenth of
+what he inflicted.  The obstinate valour of the Campbells cost
+the lives of many brave men of the opposite party; and more were
+wounded, the Chief of whom was the brave young Earl of Menteith,
+who had commanded the centre.  He was but slightly touched,
+however, and made rather a graceful than a terrible appearance
+when he presented to his general the standard of Argyle, which he
+had taken from the standard-bearer with his own hand, and slain
+him in single combat.  Montrose dearly loved his noble kinsman,
+in whom there was conspicuous a flash of the generous, romantic,
+disinterested chivalry of the old heroic times, entirely
+different from the sordid, calculating, and selfish character,
+which the practice of entertaining mercenary troops had
+introduced into most parts of Europe, and of which degeneracy
+Scotland, which furnished soldiers of fortune for the service of
+almost every nation, had been contaminated with a more than usual
+share.  Montrose, whose native spirit was congenial, although
+experience had taught him how to avail himself of the motives of
+others, used to Menteith neither the language of praise nor of
+promise, but clasped him to his bosom as he exclaimed, "My
+gallant kinsman!"  And by this burst of heartfelt applause was
+Menteith thrilled with a warmer glow of delight, than if his
+praises had been recorded in a report of the action sent directly
+to the throne of his sovereign.
+
+"Nothing," he said, "my lord, now seems to remain in which I can
+render any assistance; permit me to look after a duty of
+humanity--the Knight of Ardenvohr, as I am told, is our prisoner,
+and severely wounded."
+
+"And well he deserves to be so," said Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who
+came up to them at that moment with a prodigious addition of
+acquired importance, "since he shot my good horse at the time
+that I was offering him honourable quarter, which, I must needs
+say, was done more like an ignorant Highland cateran, who has not
+sense enough to erect a sconce for the protection of his old
+hurley-house of a castle, than like a soldier of worth and
+quality."
+
+"Are we to condole with you then," said Lord Menteith, "upon the
+loss of the famed Gustavus?"
+
+"Even so, my lord," answered the soldier, with a deep sigh, "DIEM
+CLAUSIT SUPREMUM, as we said at the Mareschal-College of
+Aberdeen.  Better so than be smothered like a cadger's pony in
+some flow-moss, or snow-wreath, which was like to be his fate if
+this winter campaign lasted longer.  But it has pleased his
+Excellency" (making an inclination to Montrose) "to supply his
+place by the gift of a noble steed, whom I have taken the freedom
+to name 'LOYALTY'S REWARD,' in memory of this celebrated
+occasion."
+
+"I hope," said the Marquis, "you'll find Loyalty's Reward, since
+you call him so, practised in all the duties of the field, --but
+I must just hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty
+is more frequently rewarded with a halter than with a horse."
+
+"Ahem!  your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty's
+Reward is as perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a
+far finer figure.  Marry!  his social qualities are less
+cultivated, in respect he has kept till now inferior company."
+
+"Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope," said Lord
+Menteith.  "For shame, Sir Dugald!"
+
+"My lord," answered the knight gravely, "I am incapable to mean
+anything so utterly unbecoming.  What I asseverate is, that his
+Excellency, having the same intercourse with his horse during his
+exercise, that he hath with his soldiers when training them, may
+form and break either to every feat of war which he chooses to
+practise, and accordingly that this noble charger is admirably
+managed.  But as it is the intercourse of private life that
+formeth the social character, so I do not apprehend that of the
+single soldier to be much polished by the conversation of the
+corporal or the sergeant, or that of Loyalty's Reward to have
+been much dulcified, or ameliorated, by the society of his
+Excellency's grooms, who bestow more oaths, and kicks, and
+thumps, than kindness or caresses, upon the animals intrusted to
+their charge; whereby many a generous quadruped, rendered as it
+were misanthropic, manifests during the rest of his life a
+greater desire to kick and bite his master, than to love and to
+honour him."
+
+"Spoken like an oracle," said Montrose.  "Were there an academy
+for the education of horses to be annexed to the Mareschal-
+College of Aberdeen, Sir Dugald Dalgetty alone should fill the
+chair."
+
+"Because, being an ass," said Menteith, aside to the General,
+"there would be some distant relation between the professor and
+the students."
+
+"And now, with your Excellency's permission," said the new-made
+knight, "I am going to pay my last visit to the remains of my old
+companion in arms."
+
+"Not with the purpose of going through the ceremonial of
+interment?"  said the Marquis, who did not know how far Sir
+Dugald's enthusiasm might lead him; "consider our brave fellows
+themselves will have but a hasty burial."
+
+"Your Excellency will pardon me," said Dalgetty; "my purpose is
+less romantic.  I go to divide poor Gustavus's legacy with the
+fowls of heaven, leaving the flesh to them, and reserving to
+myself his hide; which, in token of affectionate remembrance, I
+purpose to form into a cassock and trowsers, after the Tartar
+fashion, to be worn under my armour, in respect my nether
+garments are at present shamefully the worse of the wear.--Alas!
+poor Gustavus, why didst thou not live at least one hour more, to
+have borne the honoured weight of knighthood upon thy loins!"
+
+He was now turning away, when the Marquis called after him,--"As
+you are not likely to be anticipated in this act of kindness, Sir
+Dugald, to your old friend and companion, I trust," said the
+Marquis, "you will first assist me, and our principal friends, to
+discuss some of Argyle's good cheer, of which we have found
+abundance in the Castle."
+
+"Most willingly, please your Excellency," said Sir Dugald; "as
+meat and mass never hinder work.  Nor, indeed, am I afraid that
+the wolves or eagles will begin an onslaught on Gustavus to-
+night, in regard there is so much better cheer lying all around.
+But," added he, "as I am to meet two honourable knights of
+England, with others of the knightly degree in your lordship's
+army, I pray it may be explained to them, that now, and in
+future, I claim precedence over them all, in respect of my rank
+as a Banneret, dubbed in a field of stricken battle."
+
+"The devil confound him!"  said Montrose, speaking aside; "he has
+contrived to set the kiln on fire as fast as I put it out.
+--'This is a point, Sir Dugald," said he, gravely addressing him,
+"which I shall reserve for his Majesty's express consideration;
+in my camp, all must be upon equality, like the Knights of the
+Round Table; and take their places as soldiers should, upon the
+principle of,--first come, first served."
+
+"Then I shall take care," said Menteith, apart to the Marquis,
+"that Don Dugald is not first in place to-day.--Sir Dugald,"
+added he, raising his voice, "as you say your wardrobe is out of
+repair, had you not better go to the enemy's baggage yonder, over
+which there is a guard placed?  I saw them take out an excellent
+buff suit, embroidered in front in silk and silver."
+
+"VOTO A DIOS!  as the Spaniard says," exclaimed the Major, "and
+some beggarly gilly may get it while I stand prating here!"
+
+The prospect of booty having at once driven out of his head both
+Gustavus and the provant, he set spurs to Loyalty's Reward, and
+rode off through the field of battle.
+
+"There goes the hound," said Menteith, "breaking the face, and
+trampling on the body, of many a better man than himself; and as
+eager on his sordid spoil as a vulture that stoops upon carrion.
+Yet this man the world calls a soldier--and you, my lord, select
+him as worthy of the honours of chivalry, if such they can at
+this day be termed.  You have made the collar of knighthood the
+decoration of a mere bloodhound."
+
+"What could I do?"  said Montrose.  "I had no half-picked bones
+to give him, and bribed in some manner he must be,--I cannot
+follow the chase alone.  Besides, the dog has good qualities."
+
+"If nature has given him such," said Menteith, "habit has
+converted them into feelings of intense selfishness.  He may be
+punctilious concerning his reputation, and brave in the execution
+of his duty, but it is only because without these qualities he
+cannot rise in the service;--nay, his very benevolence is
+selfish; he may defend his companion while he can keep his feet,
+but the instant he is down, Sir Dugald will be as ready to ease
+him of his purse, as he is to convert the skin of Gustavus into a
+buff jerkin."
+
+"And yet, if all this were true, cousin," answered Montrose,
+"there is something convenient in commanding a soldier, upon
+whose motives and springs of action you can calculate to a
+mathematical certainty.  A fine spirit like yours, my cousin,
+alive to a thousand sensations to which this man's is as
+impervious as his corslet,--it is for such that thy friend must
+feel, while he gives his advice."  Then, suddenly changing his
+tone, he asked Menteith when he had seen Annot Lyle.
+
+The young Earl coloured deeply, and answered, "Not since last
+evening,--excepting," he added, with hesitation, "for one moment,
+about half an hour before the battle began."
+
+"My dear Menteith," said Montrose, very kindly, "were you one of
+the gay cavaliers of Whitehall, who are, in their way, as great
+self-seekers as our friend Dalgetty, should I need to plague you
+with enquiring into such an amourette as this?  it would be an
+intrigue only to be laughed at.  But this is the land of
+enchantment, where nets strong as steel are wrought out of
+ladies' tresses, and you are exactly the destined knight to be so
+fettered.  This poor girl is exquisitely beautiful, and has
+talents formed to captivate your romantic temper.  You cannot
+think of injuring her--you cannot think of marrying her?"
+
+"My lord," replied Menteith, "you have repeatedly urged this
+jest, for so I trust it is meant, somewhat beyond bounds. Annot
+Lyle is of unknown birth,--a captive,--the daughter, probably, of
+some obscure outlaw; a dependant on the hospitality of the
+M'Aulays."
+
+"Do not be angry, Menteith," said the Marquis, interrupting him;
+"you love the classics, though not educated at Mareschal-College;
+and you may remember how many gallant hearts captive beauty has
+subdued:--
+
+Movit Ajacem, Telamone natum,
+Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae.
+
+In a word, I am seriously anxious about this--I should not have
+time, perhaps," he added very gravely, "to trouble you with my
+lectures on the subject, were your feelings, and those of Annot,
+alone interested; but you have a dangerous rival in Allan
+M'Aulay; and there is no knowing to what extent he may carry his
+resentment.  It is my duty to tell you that the King's service
+may be much prejudiced by dissensions betwixt you."
+
+"My lord," said Menteith, "I know what you mean is kind and
+friendly; I hope you will be satisfied when I assure you, that
+Allan M'Aulay and I have discussed this circumstance; and that I
+have explained to him, that it is utterly remote from my
+character to entertain dishonourable views concerning this
+unprotected female; so, on the other hand, the obscurity of her
+birth prevents my thinking of her upon other terms.  I will not
+disguise from your lordship, what I have not disguised from
+M'Aulay,--that if Annot Lyle were born a lady, she should share
+my name and rank; as matters stand, it is impossible.  This
+explanation, I trust, will satisfy your lordship, as it has
+satisfied a less reasonable person."
+
+Montrose shrugged his shoulders.  "And, like true champions in
+romance," he said, "you have agreed, that you are both to worship
+the same mistress, as idolaters do the same image, and that
+neither shall extend his pretensions farther?"
+
+"I did not go so far, my lord," answered Menteith--"I only said
+in the present circumstances--and there is no prospect of their
+being changed,--I could, in duty to myself and family, stand in
+no relation to Annot Lyle, but as that of friend or brother--But
+your lordship must excuse me; I have," said he, looking at his
+arm, round which he had tied his handkerchief, "a slight hurt to
+attend to."
+
+"A wound?"  said Montrose, anxiously; "let me see it.--Alas!"  he
+said, "I should have heard nothing of this, had I not ventured to
+tent and sound another more secret and more rankling one,
+Menteith; I am sorry for you--I too have known--But what avails
+it to awake sorrows which have long slumbered!"
+
+So saying, he shook hands with his noble kinsman, and walked into
+the castle.
+
+Annot Lyle, as was not unusual for females in the Highlands, was
+possessed of a slight degree of medical and even surgical skill.
+It may readily be believed, that the profession of surgery, or
+medicine, as a separate art, was unknown; and the few rude rules
+which they observed were intrusted to women, or to the aged, whom
+constant casualties afforded too much opportunity of acquiring
+experience.  The care and attention, accordingly, of Annot Lyle,
+her attendants, and others acting under her direction, had made
+her services extremely useful during this wild campaign.  And
+most readily had these services been rendered to friend and foe,
+wherever they could be most useful.  She was now in an apartment
+of the castle, anxiously superintending the preparation of
+vulnerary herbs, to be applied to the wounded; receiving reports
+from different females respecting those under their separate
+charge, and distributing what means she had for their relief,
+when Allan M'Aulay suddenly entered the apartment.  She started,
+for she had heard that he had left the camp upon a distant
+mission; and, however accustomed she was to the gloom of his
+countenance, it seemed at present to have even a darker shade
+than usual.  He stood before her perfectly silent, and she felt
+the necessity of being the first to speak.
+
+"I thought," she said, with some effort, "you had already set
+out."
+
+"My companion awaits me," said Allan; "I go instantly."
+Yet still he stood before her, and held her by the arm, with a
+pressure which, though insufficient to give her pain, made her
+sensible of his great personal strength, his hand closing on her
+like the gripe of a manacle.
+
+"Shall I take the harp?"  she said, in a timid voice; "is--is
+the shadow falling upon you?"
+
+Instead of replying, he led her to the window of the apartment,
+which commanded a view of the field of the slain, with all its
+horrors.  It was thick spread with dead and wounded, and the
+spoilers were busy tearing the clothes from the victims of war
+and feudal ambition, with as much indifference as if they had not
+been of the same species, and themselves exposed, perhaps to-
+morrow, to the same fate.
+
+"Does the sight please you?"  said M'Aulay.
+
+"It is hideous!"  said Annot, covering her eyes with her hands;
+"how can you bid me look upon it?"
+
+"You must be inured to it," said he, "if you remain with this
+destined host--you will soon have to search such a field for my
+brother's corpse--for Menteith's--for mine---but that will be a
+more indifferent task--You do not love me!"
+
+"This is the first time you have taxed me with unkindness," said
+Annot, weeping.  "You are my brother--my preserver--my protector
+--and can I then BUT love you?--But your hour of darkness is
+approaching, let me fetch my harp--"
+
+"Remain," said Allan, still holding her fast; "be my visions from
+heaven or hell, or from the middle sphere of disembodied spirits
+--or be they, as the Saxons hold, but the delusions of an over-
+heated fancy, they do not now influence me; I speak the language
+of the natural, of the visible world.--You love not me, Annot--
+you love Menteith--by him you are beloved again, and Allan is no
+more to you than one of the corpses which encumber yonder heath."
+
+It cannot be supposed that this strange speech conveyed any new
+information to her who was thus addressed.  No woman ever lived
+who could not, in the same circumstances, have discerned long
+since the state of her lover's mind.  But by thus suddenly
+tearing off the veil, thin as it was, Allan prepared her to
+expect consequences violent in proportion to the enthusiasm of
+his character.  She made an effort to repel the charge he had
+stated.
+
+"You forget," she said, "your own worth and nobleness when you
+insult so very helpless a being, and one whom fate has thrown so
+totally into your power.  You know who and what I am, and how
+impossible it is that Menteith or you can use language of
+affection to me, beyond that of friendship.  You know from what
+unhappy race I have too probably derived my existence."
+
+"I will not believe it," said Allan, impetuously; "never flowed
+crystal drop from a polluted spring."
+
+"Yet the very doubt," pleaded Annot, "should make you forbear to
+use this language to me."
+
+"I know," said M'Aulay, "it places a bar between us--but I know
+also that it divides you not so inseparably from Menteith.--Hear
+me, my beloved Annot!--leave this scene of terrors and danger--go
+with me to Kintail--I will place you in the house of the noble
+Lady of Seaforth--or you shall be removed in safety to Icolmkill,
+where some women yet devote themselves to the worship of God,
+after the custom of our ancestors."
+
+"You consider not what you ask of me," replied Annot; "to
+undertake such a journey under your sole guardianship, were to
+show me less scrupulous than maiden ought.  I will remain here,
+Allan--here under the protection of the noble Montrose; and when
+his motions next approach the Lowlands, I will contrive some
+proper means to relieve you of one, who has, she knows not how,
+become an object of dislike to you."
+
+Allan stood as if uncertain whether to give way to sympathy with
+her distress, or to anger at her resistance.
+
+"Annot," he said, "you know too well how little your words apply
+to my feelings towards you--but you avail yourself of your power,
+and you rejoice in my departure, as removing a spy upon your
+intercourse with Menteith.  But beware both of you," he added, in
+a stern tone; "for when was it ever heard that an injury was
+offered to Allan M'Aulay, for which he exacted not tenfold
+vengeance?"
+
+So saying, he pressed her arm forcibly, pulled the bonnet over
+his brows, and strode out of the apartment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+--After you're gone,
+I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd,
+What stirr'd it so.--Alas!  I found it love.
+Yet far from lust, for could I but have lived
+In presence of you, I had had my end.         PHILASTER.
+
+Annot Lyle had now to contemplate the terrible gulf which Allan
+M'Aulay's declaration of love and jealousy had made to open
+around her.  It seemed as if she was tottering on the very brink
+of destruction, and was at once deprived of every refuge, and of
+all human assistance.  She had long been conscious that she loved
+Menteith dearer than a brother; indeed, how could it be
+otherwise, considering their early intimacy, the personal merit
+of the young nobleman, his assiduous attentions,--and his
+infinite superiority in gentleness of disposition, and grace of
+manners, over the race of rude warriors with whom she lived?  But
+her affection was of that quiet, timid, meditative character,
+which sought rather a reflected share in the happiness of the
+beloved object, than formed more presumptuous or daring hopes.  A
+little Gaelic song, in which she expressed her feelings, has been
+translated by the ingenious and unhappy Andrew M'Donald; and we
+willingly transcribe the lines:--
+
+Wert thou, like me, in life's low vale,
+ With thee how blest, that lot I'd share;
+With thee I'd fly wherever gale
+ Could waft, or bounding galley bear.
+But parted by severe decree,
+ Far different must our fortunes prove;
+May thine be joy--enough for me
+ To weep and pray for him I love.
+
+The pangs this foolish heart must feel,
+ When hope shall be forever flown,
+No sullen murmur shall reveal,
+ No selfish murmurs ever own.
+Nor will I through life's weary years,
+ Like a pale drooping mourner move,
+While I can think my secret tears
+ May wound the heart of him I love.
+
+The furious declaration of Allan had destroyed the romantic plan
+which she had formed, of nursing in secret her pensive
+tenderness, without seeking any other requital.  Long before
+this, she had dreaded Allan, as much as gratitude, and a sense
+that he softened towards her a temper so haughty and so violent,
+could permit her to do; but now she regarded him with unalloyed
+terror, which a perfect knowledge of his disposition, and of his
+preceding history, too well authorised her to entertain.
+Whatever was in other respects the nobleness of his disposition,
+he had never been known to resist the wilfulness of passion,--he
+walked in the house, and in the country of his fathers, like a
+tamed lion, whom no one dared to contradict, lest they should
+awaken his natural vehemence of passion.  So many years had
+elapsed since he had experienced contradiction, or even
+expostulation, that probably nothing but the strong good sense,
+which, on all points, his mysticism excepted, formed the ground
+of his character, prevented his proving an annoyance and terror
+to the whole neighbourhood.  But Annot had no time to dwell upon
+her fears, being interrupted by the entrance of Sir Dugald
+Dalgetty.
+
+It may well be supposed, that the scenes in which this person had
+passed his former life, had not much qualified him to shine in
+female society.  He himself felt a sort of consciousness that the
+language of the barrack, guard-room, and parade, was not proper
+to entertain ladies.  The only peaceful part of his life had been
+spent at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen; and he had forgot the
+little he had learned there, except the arts of darning his own
+hose, and dispatching his commons with unusual celerity, both
+which had since been kept in good exercise by the necessity of
+frequent practice.  Still it was from an imperfect recollection
+of what he had acquired during this pacific period, that he drew
+his sources of conversation when in company with women; in other
+words, his language became pedantic when it ceased to be
+military.
+
+"Mistress Annot Lyle," said he, upon the present occasion, "I am
+just now like the half-pike, or spontoon of Achilles, one end of
+which could wound and the other cure--a property belonging
+neither to Spanish pike, brown-bill, partizan, halberd, Lochaber-
+axe, or indeed any other modern staff-weapon whatever."
+This compliment he repeated twice; but as Annot scarce heard him
+the first time, and did not comprehend him the second, he was
+obliged to explain.
+
+"I mean," he said, "Mistress Annot Lyle, that having been the
+means of an honourable knight receiving a severe wound in this
+day's conflict,--he having pistolled, somewhat against the law of
+arms, my horse, which was named after the immortal King of
+Sweden,--I am desirous of procuring him such solacement as you,
+madam, can supply, you being like the heathen god Esculapius"
+(meaning possibly Apollo), "skilful not only in song and in
+music, but in the more noble art of chirurgery-OPIFERQUE PER
+ORBEM DICOR."
+
+"If you would have the goodness to explain," said Annot, too sick
+at heart to be amused by Sir Dugald's airs of pedantic gallantry.
+
+"That, madam," replied the Knight, "may not be so easy, as I am
+out of the habit of construing--but we shall try. DICOR, supply
+EGO--I am called,--OPIFER?  OPIFER?--I remember SIGNIFER and
+FURCIFER--but I believe OPIFER stands in this place for M.D.,
+that is, Doctor of Physic."
+
+"This is a busy day with us all," said Annot; "will you say at
+once what you want with me?"
+
+"Merely," replied Sir Dugald, "that you will visit my brother
+knight, and let your maiden bring some medicaments for his wound,
+which threatens to be what the learned call a DAMNUM FATALE."
+
+Annot Lyle never lingered in the cause of humanity.  She informed
+herself hastily of the nature of the injury, and interesting
+herself for the dignified old Chief whom she had seen at
+Darnlinvarach, and whose presence had so much struck her, she
+hastened to lose the sense of her own sorrow for a time, in the
+attempt to be useful to another.
+
+Sir Dugald with great form ushered Annot Lyle to the chamber of
+her patient, in which, to her surprise, she found Lord Menteith.
+She could not help blushing deeply at the meeting, but, to hide
+her confusion, proceeded instantly to examine the wound of the
+Knight of Ardenvohr, and easily satisfied herself that it was
+beyond her skill to cure it.  As for Sir Dugald, he returned to a
+large outhouse, on the floor of which, among other wounded men,
+was deposited the person of Ranald of the Mist.
+
+"Mine old friend," said the Knight, "as I told you before, I
+would willingly do anything to pleasure you, in return for the
+wound you have received while under my safe-conduct.  I have,
+therefore, according to your earnest request, sent Mrs. Annot
+Lyle to attend upon the wound of the knight of Ardenvohr, though
+wherein her doing so should benefit you, I cannot imagine.--I
+think you once spoke of some blood relationship between them; but
+a soldado, in command and charge like me, has other things to
+trouble his head with than Highland genealogies."
+
+And indeed, to do the worthy Major justice, he never enquired
+after, listened to, or recollected, the business of other people,
+unless it either related to the art military, or was somehow or
+other connected with his own interest, in either of which cases
+his memory was very tenacious.
+
+"And now, my good friend of the Mist," said he, "can you tell me
+what has become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him
+since he assisted me to disarm after the action, a negligence
+which deserveth the strapado?"
+
+"He is not far from hence," said the wounded outlaw--"lift not
+your hand upon him, for he is man enough to pay a yard of
+leathern scourge with a foot of tempered steel."
+
+"A most improper vaunt," said Sir Dugald; "but I owe you some
+favours, Ranald, and therefore shall let it pass."
+
+"And if you think you owe me anything," said the outlaw, "it is
+in your power to requite me by granting me a boon."
+
+"Friend Ranald," answered Dalgetty, "I have read of these boons
+in silly story-books, whereby simple knights were drawn into
+engagements to their great prejudice; wherefore, Ranald, the more
+prudent knights of this day never promise anything until they
+know that they may keep their word anent the premises, without
+any displeasure or incommodement to themselves.  It may be, you
+would have me engage the female chirurgeon to visit your wound;
+though you ought to consider, Ranald, that the uncleanness of the
+place where you are deposited may somewhat soil the gaiety of her
+garments, concerning the preservation of which, you may have
+observed, women are apt to be inordinately solicitous.  I lost
+the favour of the lady of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam, by
+touching with the sole of my boot the train of her black velvet
+gown, which I mistook for a foot-cloth, it being half the room
+distant from her person."
+
+"It is not to bring Annot Lyle hither," answered MacEagh, "but to
+transport me into the room where she is in attendance upon the
+Knight of Ardenvohr.  Somewhat I have to say of the last
+consequence to them both."
+
+"It is something out of the order of due precedence," said
+Dalgetty, "to carry a wounded outlaw into the presence of a
+knight; knighthood having been of yore, and being, in some
+respects, still, the highest military grade, independent always
+of commissioned officers, who rank according to their patents;
+nevertheless, as your boon, as you call it, is so slight, I shall
+not deny compliance with the same."  So saying, he ordered three
+files of men to transport MacEagh on their shoulders to Sir
+Duncan Campbell's apartment, and he himself hastened before to
+announce the cause of his being brought thither.  But such was
+the activity of the soldiers employed, that they followed him
+close at the heels, and, entering with their ghastly burden, laid
+MacEagh on the floor of the apartment.  His features, naturally
+wild, were now distorted by pain; his hands and scanty garments
+stained with his own blood, and those of others, which no kind
+hand had wiped away, although the wound in his side had been
+secured by a bandage.
+
+"Are you," he said, raising his head painfully towards the couch
+where lay stretched his late antagonist, "he whom men call the
+Knight of Ardenvohr?"
+
+"The same," answered Sir Duncan,--"what would you with one whose
+hours are now numbered?"
+
+"My hours are reduced to minutes," said the outlaw; "the more
+grace, if I bestow them in the service of one, whose hand has
+ever been against me, as mine has been raised higher against
+him."
+
+"Thine higher against me!--Crushed worm!"  said the Knight,
+looking down on his miserable adversary.
+
+"Yes," answered the outlaw, in a firm voice, "my arm hath been
+highest.  In the deadly contest betwixt us, the wounds I have
+dealt have been deepest, though thine have neither been idle nor
+unfelt.--I am Ranald MacEagh--I am Ranald of the Mist--the night
+that I gave thy castle to the winds in one huge blaze of fire, is
+now matched with the day in which you have fallen under the sword
+of my fathers.--Remember the injuries thou hast done our tribe
+--never were such inflicted, save by one, beside thee.  HE, they
+say, is fated and secure against our vengeance--a short time will
+show."
+
+"My Lord Menteith," said Sir Duncan, raising himself out of his
+bed, "this is a proclaimed villain, at once the enemy of King and
+Parliament, of God and man--one of the outlawed banditti of the
+Mist; alike the enemy of your house, of the M'Aulays, and of
+mine.  I trust you will not suffer moments, which are perhaps my
+last, to be embittered by his barbarous triumph."
+
+"He shall have the treatment he merits," said Menteith; "let him
+be instantly removed."
+
+Sir Dugald here interposed, and spoke of Ranald's services as a
+guide, and his own pledge for his safety; but the high harsh
+tones of the outlaw drowned his voice.
+
+"No," said he, "be rack and gibbet the word!  let me wither
+between heaven and earth, and gorge the hawks and eagles of Ben-
+Nevis; and so shall this haughty Knight, and this triumphant
+Thane, never learn the secret I alone can impart; a secret which
+would make Ardenvohr's heart leap with joy, were he in the death
+agony, and which the Earl of Menteith would purchase at the price
+of his broad earldom.--Come hither, Annot Lyle," he said, raising
+himself with unexpected strength; "fear not the sight of him to
+whom thou hast clung in infancy.  Tell these proud men, who
+disdain thee as the issue of mine ancient race, that thou art no
+blood of ours,--no daughter of the race of the Mist, but born in
+halls as lordly, and cradled on couch as soft, as ever soothed
+infancy in their proudest palaces."
+
+"In the name of God," said Menteith, trembling with emotion, "if
+you know aught of the birth of this lady, do thy conscience the
+justice to disburden it of the secret before departing from this
+world!"
+
+"And bless my enemies with my dying breath?"  said MacEagh,
+looking at him malignantly.--"Such are the maxims your priests
+preach--but when, or towards whom, do you practise them?  Let me
+know first the worth of my secret ere I part with it--What would
+you give, Knight of Ardenvohr, to know that your superstitious
+fasts have been vain, and that there still remains a descendant
+of your house?--I pause for an answer--without it, I speak not
+one word more.
+
+"I could," said Sir Duncan, his voice struggling between the
+emotions of doubt, hatred, and anxiety--"I could--but that I know
+thy race are like the Great Enemy, liars and murderers from the
+beginning--but could it be true thou tellest me, I could almost
+forgive thee the injuries thou hast done me."
+
+"Hear it!"  said Ranald; "he hath wagered deeply for a son of
+Diarmid--And you, gentle Thane--the report of the camp says, that
+you would purchase with life and lands the tidings that Annot
+Lyle was no daughter of proscription, but of a race noble in your
+estimation as your own--Well--It is for no love I tell you--The
+time has been that I would have exchanged this secret against
+liberty; I am now bartering it for what is dearer than liberty or
+life.--Annot Lyle is the youngest, the sole surviving child of
+the Knight of Ardenvohr, who alone was saved when all in his
+halls besides was given to blood and ashes."
+
+"Can this man speak truth?"  said Annot Lyle, scarce knowing what
+she said; "or is this some strange delusion?"
+
+"Maiden," replied Ranald, "hadst thou dwelt longer with us, thou
+wouldst have better learnt to know how to distinguish the accents
+of truth.  To that Saxon lord, and to the Knight of Ardenvohr, I
+will yield such proofs of what I have spoken, that incredulity
+shall stand convinced.  Meantime, withdraw--I loved thine
+infancy, I hate not thy youth--no eye hates the rose in its
+blossom, though it groweth upon a thorn, and for thee only do I
+something regret what is soon to follow.  But he that would
+avenge him of his foe must not reck though the guiltless be
+engaged in the ruin."
+
+"He advises well, Annot," said Lord Menteith; "in God's name
+retire!  if--if there be aught in this, your meeting with Sir
+Duncan must he more prepared for both your sakes."
+
+"I will not part from my father, if I have found one!"  said
+Annot--"I will not part from him under circumstances so
+terrible."
+
+"And a father you shall ever find in me," murmured Sir Duncan.
+
+"Then," said Menteith, "I will have MacEagh removed into an
+adjacent apartment, and will collect the evidence of his tale
+myself.  Sir Dugald Dalgetty will give me his attendance and
+assistance."
+
+"With pleasure, my lord," answered Sir Dugald.--"I will be your
+confessor, or assessor--either or both.  No one can be so fit,
+for I had heard the whole story a month ago at Inverary castle
+--but onslaughts like that of Ardenvohr confuse each other in my
+memory, which is besides occupied with matters of more
+importance."
+
+Upon hearing this frank declaration, which was made as they left
+the apartment with the wounded man, Lord Menteith darted upon
+Dalgetty a look of extreme anger and disdain, to which the self-
+conceit of the worthy commander rendered him totally insensible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+I am as free as nature first made man,
+Ere the base laws of servitude began,
+When wild in woods the noble savage ran.   CONQUEST OF GRANADA
+
+The Earl of Menteith, as he had undertaken, so he proceeded to
+investigate more closely the story told by Ranald of the Mist,
+which was corroborated by the examination of his two followers,
+who had assisted in the capacity of guides.  These declarations
+he carefully compared with such circumstances concerning the
+destruction of his castle and family as Sir Duncan Campbell was
+able to supply; and it may be supposed he had forgotten nothing
+relating to an event of such terrific importance.  It was of the
+last consequence to prove that this was no invention of the
+outlaw's, for the purpose of passing an impostor as the child and
+heiress of Ardenvohr.
+
+Perhaps Menteith, so much interested in believing the tale, was
+not altogether the fittest person to be intrusted with the
+investigation of its truth; but the examinations of the Children
+of the Mist were simple, accurate, and in all respects consistent
+with each other.  A personal mark was referred to, which was
+known to have been borne by the infant child of Sir Duncan, and
+which appeared upon the left shoulder of Annot Lyle.  It was also
+well remembered, that when the miserable relics of the other
+children had been collected, those of the infant had nowhere been
+found.  Other circumstances of evidence, which it is unnecessary
+to quote, brought the fullest conviction not only to Menteith,
+but to the unprejudiced mind of Montrose, that in Annot Lyle, an
+humble dependant, distinguished only by beauty and talent, they
+were in future to respect the heiress of Ardenvohr.
+
+While Menteith hastened to communicate the result of these
+enquiries to the persons most interested, the outlaw demanded to
+speak with his grandchild, whom he usually called his son.  "He
+would be found," he said, "in the outer apartment, in which he
+himself had been originally deposited."
+
+Accordingly, the young savage, after a close search, was found
+lurking in a corner, coiled up among some rotten straw, and
+brought to his grandsire.
+
+"Kenneth," said the old outlaw, "hear the last words of the sire
+of thy father.  A Saxon soldier, and Allan of the Red-hand, left
+this camp within these few hours, to travel to the country to
+Caberfae.  Pursue them as the bloodhound pursues the hurt deer
+--swim the lake-climb the mountain--thread the forest--tarry not
+until you join them;" and then the countenance of the lad
+darkened as his grandfather spoke, and he laid his hand upon a
+knife which stuck in the thong of leather that confined his
+scanty plaid.  "No!"  said the old man; "it is not by thy hand he
+must fall.  They will ask the news from the camp--say to them
+that Annot Lyle of the Harp is discovered to be the daughter of
+Duncan of Ardenvohr; that the Thane of Menteith is to wed her
+before the priest; and that you are sent to bid guests to the
+bridal.  Tarry not their answer, but vanish like the lightning
+when the black cloud swallows it.--And now depart, beloved son of
+my best beloved!  I shall never more see thy face, nor hear the
+light sound of thy footstep--yet tarry an instant and hear my
+last charge.  Remember the fate of our race, and quit not the
+ancient manners of the Children of the Mist.  We are now a
+straggling handful, driven from every vale by the sword of every
+clan, who rule in the possessions where their forefathers hewed
+the wood, and drew the water for ours.  But in the thicket of the
+wilderness, and in the mist of the mountain, Kenneth, son of
+Eracht, keep thou unsoiled the freedom which I leave thee as a
+birthright.  Barter it not neither for the rich garment, nor for
+the stone-roof, nor for the covered board, nor for the couch of
+down--on the rock or in the valley, in abundance or in famine--in
+the leafy summer, and in the days of the iron winter--Son of the
+Mist!  be free as thy forefathers.  Own no lord--receive no law
+--take no hire--give no stipend--build no hut--enclose no pasture
+--sow no grain;--let the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and
+herds--if these fail thee, prey upon the goods of our oppressors
+--of the Saxons, and of such Gael as are Saxons in their souls,
+valuing herds and flocks more than honour and freedom.  Well for
+us that they do so--it affords the broader scope for our revenge.
+Remember those who have done kindness to our race, and pay their
+services with thy blood, should the hour require it.  If a MacIan
+shall come to thee with the head of the king's son in his hand,
+shelter him, though the avenging army of the father were behind
+him; for in Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, we have dwelt in peace in
+the years that have gone by.  The sons of Diarmid--the race of
+Darnlinvarach--the riders of Menteith--my curse on thy head,
+Child of the Mist, if thou spare one of those names, when the
+time shall offer for cutting them off!  and it will come anon,
+for their own swords shall devour each other, and those who are
+scattered shall fly to the Mist, and perish by its Children.
+Once more, begone--shake the dust from thy feet against the
+habitations of men, whether banded together for peace or for war.
+Farewell, beloved!  and mayst thou die like thy forefathers, ere
+infirmity, disease, or age, shall break thy spirit--Begone!--
+begone!--live free--requite kindness--avenge the injuries of thy
+race!"
+
+The young savage stooped, and kissed the brow of his dying
+parent; but accustomed from infancy to suppress every exterior
+sign of emotion, he parted without tear or adieu, and was soon
+far beyond the limits of Montrose's camp.
+
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who was present during the latter part of
+this scene, was very little edified by the conduct of MacEagh
+upon the occasion.  "I cannot think, my friend Ranald," said he,
+"that you are in the best possible road for a dying man.  Storms,
+onslaughts, massacres, the burning of suburbs, are indeed a
+soldier's daily work, and are justified by the necessity of the
+case, seeing that they are done in the course of duty; for
+burning of suburbs, in particular, it may be said that they are
+traitors and cut-throats to all fortified towns.  Hence it is
+plain, that a soldier is a profession peculiarly favoured by
+Heaven, seeing that we may hope for salvation, although we daily
+commit actions of so great violence.  But then, Ranald, in all
+services of Europe, it is the custom of the dying soldier not to
+vaunt him of such doings, or to recommend them to his fellows;
+but, on the contrary, to express contrition for the same, and to
+repeat, or have repeated to him, some comfortable prayer; which,
+if you please, I will intercede with his Excellency's chaplain to
+prefer on your account.  It is otherwise no point of my duty to
+put you in mind of those things; only it may be for the ease of
+your conscience to depart more like a Christian, and less like a
+Turk, than you seem to be in a fair way of doing."
+
+The only answer of the dying man--(for as such Ranald MacEagh
+might now be considered)--was a request to be raised to such a
+position that he might obtain a view from the window of the
+Castle.  The deep frost mist, which had long settled upon the top
+of the mountains, was now rolling down each rugged glen and
+gully, where the craggy ridges showed their black and irregular
+outline, like desert islands rising above the ocean of vapour.
+"Spirit of the Mist!"  said Ranald MacEagh, "called by our race
+our father, and our preserver--receive into thy tabernacle of
+clouds, when this pang is over, him whom in life thou hast so
+often sheltered."  So saying, he sunk back into the arms of those
+who upheld him, spoke no further word, but turned his face to the
+wall for a short space.
+
+"I believe," said Dalgetty, "my friend Ranald will be found in
+his heart to be little better than a heathen."  And he renewed
+his proposal to procure him the assistance of Dr. Wisheart,
+Montrose's military chaplain; "a man," said Sir Dugald, "very
+clever in his exercise, and who will do execution on your sins in
+less time than I could smoke a pipe of tobacco."
+
+"Saxon," said the dying man, "speak to me no more of thy priest--
+I die contented.  Hadst thou ever an enemy against whom weapons
+were of no avail--whom the ball missed, and against whom the
+arrow shivered, and whose bare skin was as impenetrable to sword
+and dirk as thy steel garment--Heardst thou ever of such a foe?"
+
+"Very frequently, when I served in Germany," replied Sir Dugald.
+"There was such a fellow at Ingolstadt; he was proof both against
+lead and steel.  The soldiers killed him with the buts of their
+muskets."
+
+"This impassible foe," said Ranald, without regarding the Major's
+interruption, "who has the blood dearest to me upon his hands--to
+this man I have now bequeathed agony of mind, jealousy, despair,
+and sudden death,--or a life more miserable than death itself.
+Such shall be the lot of Allan of the Red-hand, when he learns
+that Annot weds Menteith and I ask no more than the certainty
+that it is so, to sweeten my own bloody end by his hand."
+
+"If that be the case," said the Major, "there's no more to be
+said; but I shall take care as few people see you as possible,
+for I cannot think your mode of departure can be at all
+creditable or exemplary to a Christian army."  So saying, he left
+the apartment, and the Son of the Mist soon after breathed his
+last.
+
+Menteith, in the meanwhile, leaving the new-found relations to
+their mutual feelings of mingled emotion, was eagerly discussing
+with Montrose the consequences of this discovery.  "I should now
+see," said the Marquis, "even had I not before observed it, that
+your interest in this discovery, my dear Menteith, has no small
+reference to your own happiness.  You love this new-found lady,--
+your affection is returned.  In point of birth, no exceptions can
+be made; in every other respect, her advantages are equal to
+those which you yourself possess--think, however, a moment.  Sir
+Duncan is a fanatic--Presbyterian, at least--in arms against the
+King; he is only with us in the quality of a prisoner, and we
+are, I fear, but at the commencement of a long civil war.  Is
+this a time, think you, Menteith, for you to make proposals for
+his heiress?  Or what chance is there that he will now listen to
+it ?"
+
+Passion, an ingenious, as well as an eloquent advocate, supplied
+the young nobleman with a thousand answers to these objections.
+He reminded Montrose that the Knight of Ardenvohr was neither a
+bigot in politics nor religion.  He urged his own known and
+proved zeal for the royal cause, and hinted that its influence
+might be extended and strengthened by his wedding the heiress of
+Ardenvohr.  He pleaded the dangerous state of Sir Duncan's wound,
+the risk which must be run by suffering the young lady to be
+carried into the country of the Campbells, where, in case of her
+father's death, or continued indisposition, she must necessarily
+be placed under the guardianship of Argyle, an event fatal to his
+(Menteith's) hopes, unless he could stoop to purchase his favour
+by abandoning the King's party.
+
+Montrose allowed the force of these arguments, and owned,
+although the matter was attended with difficulty, yet it seemed
+consistent with the King's service that it should be concluded as
+speedily as possible.
+
+"I could wish," said he, "that it were all settled in one way or
+another, and that this fair Briseis were removed from our camp
+before the return of our Highland Achilles, Allan M'Aulay.--I
+fear some fatal feud in that quarter, Menteith--and I believe it
+would be best that Sir Duncan be dismissed on his parole, and
+that you accompany him and his daughter as his escort.  The
+journey can be made chiefly by water, so will not greatly
+incommode his wound--and your own, my friend, will be an
+honourable excuse for the absence of some time from my camp."
+
+"Never!"  said Menteith.  "Were I to forfeit the very hope that
+has so lately dawned upon me, never will I leave your
+Excellency's camp while the royal standard is displayed.  I
+should deserve that this trifling scratch should gangrene and
+consume my sword-arm, were I capable of holding it as an excuse
+for absence at this crisis of the King's affairs."
+
+"On this, then, you are determined?"  said Montrose.
+
+"As fixed as Ben-Nevis," said the young nobleman.
+
+"You must, then," said Montrose, "lose no time in seeking an
+explanation with the Knight of Ardenvohr.  If this prove
+favourable, I will talk myself with the elder M'Aulay, and we
+will devise means to employ his brother at a distance from the
+army until he shall be reconciled to his present disappointment.
+Would to God some vision would descend upon his imagination fair
+enough to obliterate all traces of Annot Lyle!  That perhaps you
+think impossible, Menteith?--Well, each to his service; you to
+that of Cupid, and I to that of Mars."
+
+They parted, and in pursuance of the scheme arranged, Menteith,
+early on the ensuing morning, sought a private interview with the
+wounded Knight of Ardenvohr, and communicated to him his suit for
+the hand of his daughter.  Of their mutual attachment Sir Duncan
+was aware, but he was not prepared for so early a declaration on
+the part of Menteith.  He said, at first, that he had already,
+perhaps, indulged too much in feelings of personal happiness, at
+a time when his clan had sustained so great a loss and
+humiliation, and that he was unwilling, therefore, farther to
+consider the advancement of his own house at a period so
+calamitous.  On the more urgent suit of the noble lover, he
+requested a few hours to deliberate and consult with his
+daughter, upon a question so highly important.
+
+The result of this interview and deliberation was favourable to
+Menteith.  Sir Duncan Campbell became fully sensible that the
+happiness of his new-found daughter depended upon a union with
+her lover; and unless such were now formed, he saw that Argyle
+would throw a thousand obstacles in the way of a match in every
+respect acceptable to himself.  Menteith's private character was
+so excellent, and such was the rank and consideration due to his
+fortune and family, that they outbalanced, in Sir Duncan's
+opinion, the difference in their political opinions.  Nor could
+he have resolved, perhaps, had his own opinion of the match been
+less favourable, to decline an opportunity of indulging the new-
+found child of his hopes.  There was, besides, a feeling of pride
+which dictated his determination.  To produce the Heiress of
+Ardenvohr to the world as one who had been educated a poor
+dependant and musician in the family of Darnlinvarach, had
+something in it that was humiliating.  To introduce her as the
+betrothed bride, or wedded wife, of the Earl of Menteith, upon an
+attachment formed during her obscurity, was a warrant to the
+world that she had at all times been worthy of the rank to which
+she was elevated.
+
+It was under the influence of these considerations that Sir
+Duncan Campbell announced to the lovers his consent that they
+should be married in the chapel of the Castle, by Montrose's
+chaplain, and as privately as possible.  But when Montrose should
+break up from Inverlochy, for which orders were expected in the
+course of a very few days, it was agreed that the young Countess
+should depart with her father to his Castle, and remain there
+until the circumstances of the nation permitted Menteith to
+retire with honour from his present military employment.  His
+resolution being once taken, Sir Duncan Campbell would not permit
+the maidenly scruples of his daughter to delay its execution; and
+it was therefore resolved that the bridal should take place the
+next evening, being the second after the battle.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+My maid--my blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
+Due to the toils of many a bloody day.    ILLIAD.
+
+It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M'Aulay, so long
+the kind protector of Annot Lyle, should be made acquainted with
+the change in the fortunes of his late protege; and Montrose, as
+he had undertaken, communicated to him these remarkable events.
+With the careless and cheerful indifference of his character, he
+expressed much more joy than wonder at Annot's good fortune; had
+no doubt whatever she would merit it, and as she had always been
+bred in loyal principles, would convey the whole estate of her
+grim fanatical father to some honest fellow who loved the king.
+"I should have no objection that my brother Allan should try his
+chance," added he, "notwithstanding that Sir Duncan Campbell was
+the only man who ever charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality.
+Annot Lyle could always charm Allan out of the sullens, and who
+knows whether matrimony might not make him more a man of this
+world?"  Montrose hastened to interrupt the progress of his
+castle-building, by informing him that the lady was already wooed
+and won, and, with her father's approbation, was almost
+immediately to be wedded to his kinsman, the Earl of Menteith;
+and that in testimony of the high respect due to M'Aulay, so long
+the lady's protector, he was now to request his presence at the
+ceremony.  M'Aulay looked very grave at this intimation, and drew
+up his person with the air of one who thought that he had been
+neglected.
+
+"He contrived," he said, "that his uniform kind treatment of the
+young lady, while so many years under his roof, required
+something more upon such an occasion than a bare compliment of
+ceremony.  He might," he thought, "without arrogance, have
+expected to have been consulted.  He wished his kinsman of
+Menteith well, no man could wish him better; but he must say he
+thought he had been hasty in this matter.  Allan's sentiments
+towards the young lady had been pretty well understood, and he,
+for one, could not see why the superior pretensions which he had
+upon her gratitude should have been set aside, without at least
+undergoing some previous discussion."
+
+Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed, entreated
+M'Aulay to be reasonable, and to consider what probability there
+was that the Knight of Ardenvohr could be brought to confer the
+hand of his sole heiress upon Allan, whose undeniable excellent
+qualities were mingled with others, by which they were
+overclouded in a manner that made all tremble who approached him.
+
+"My lord," said Angus M'Aulay, "my brother Allan has, as God made
+us all, faults as well as merits; but he is the best and bravest
+man of your army, be the other who he may, and therefore ill
+deserved that his happiness should have been so little consulted
+by your Excellency--by his own near kinsman--and by a young
+person who owes all to him and to his family."
+
+Montrose in vain endeavoured to place the subject in a different
+view; this was the point in which Angus was determined to regard
+it, and he was a man of that calibre of understanding, who is
+incapable of being convinced when he has once adopted a
+prejudice.  Montrose now assumed a higher tone, and called upon
+Angus to take care how he nourished any sentiments which might be
+prejudicial to his Majesty's service.  He pointed out to him,
+that he was peculiarly desirous that Allan's efforts should not
+be interrupted in the course of his present mission; "a mission,"
+he said, "highly honourable for himself, and likely to prove most
+advantageous to the King's cause.  He expected his brother would
+hold no communication with him upon other subjects, nor stir up
+any cause of dissension, which might divert his mind from a
+matter of such importance."
+
+Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that "he was no makebate, or
+stirrer-up of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker.  His
+brother knew as well as most men how to resent his own quarrels
+--as for Allan's mode of receiving information, it was generally
+believed he had other sources than those of ordinary couriers.
+He should not be surprised if they saw him sooner than they
+expected."
+
+A promise that he would not interfere, was the farthest to which
+Montrose could bring this man, thoroughly good-tempered as he was
+on all occasions, save when his pride, interest, or prejudices,
+were interfered with.  And at this point the Marquis was fain to
+leave the matter for the present.
+
+A more willing guest at the bridal ceremony, certainly a more
+willing attendant at the marriage feast, was to be expected in
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty, whom Montrose resolved to invite, as having
+been a confidant to the circumstances which preceded it.  But
+even Sir Dugald hesitated, looked on the elbows of his doublet,
+and the knees of his leather breeches, and mumbled out a sort of
+reluctant acquiescence in the invitation, providing he should
+find it possible, after consulting with the noble bridegroom.
+Montrose was somewhat surprised, but scorning to testify
+displeasure, he left Sir Dugald to pursue his own course.
+
+This carried him instantly to the chamber of the bride-groom,
+who, amidst the scanty wardrobe which his camp-equipage afforded,
+was seeking for such articles as might appear to the best
+advantage upon the approaching occasion. Sir Dugald entered, and
+paid his compliments, with a very grave face, upon his
+approaching happiness, which, he said, "he was very sorry he was
+prevented from witnessing."
+
+"In plain truth," said he, "I should but disgrace the ceremony,
+seeing that I lack a bridal garment.  Rents, and open seams, and
+tatters at elbows in the apparel of the assistants, might presage
+a similar solution of continuity in your matrimonial happiness
+--and to say truth, my lord, you yourself must partly have the
+blame of this disappointment, in respect you sent me upon a
+fool's errand to get a buff-coat out of the booty taken by the
+Camerons, whereas you might as well have sent me to fetch a pound
+of fresh butter out of a black dog's throat.  I had no answer, my
+lord, but brandished dirks and broadswords, and a sort of
+growling and jabbering in what they call their language.  For my
+part, I believe these Highlanders to be no better than absolute
+pagans, and have been much scandalized by the manner in which my
+acquaintance, Ranald MacEagh, was pleased to beat his final
+march, a little while since."
+
+In Menteith's state of mind, disposed to be pleased with
+everything, and everybody, the grave complaint of Sir Dugald
+furnished additional amusement.  He requested his acceptance of a
+very handsome buff-dress which was lying on the floor.  "I had
+intended it," he said, "for my own bridal-garment, as being the
+least formidable of my warlike equipments, and I have here no
+peaceful dress."
+
+Sir Dugald made the necessary apologies--would not by any means
+deprive--and so forth, until it happily occurred to him that it
+was much more according to military rule that the Earl should be
+married in his back and breast pieces, which dress he had seen
+the bridegroom wear at the union of Prince Leo of Wittlesbach
+with the youngest daughter of old George Frederick, of Saxony,
+under the auspices of the gallant Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of
+the North, and so forth.  The good-natured young Earl laughed,
+and acquiesced; and thus having secured at least one merry face
+at his bridal, he put on a light and ornamented cuirass,
+concealed partly by a velvet coat, and partly by a broad blue
+silk scarf, which he wore over his shoulder, agreeably to his
+rank, and the fashion of the times.
+
+Everything was now arranged; and it had been settled that,
+according to the custom of the country, the bride and bridegroom
+should not again meet until they were before the altar.  The hour
+had already struck that summoned the bridegroom thither, and he
+only waited in a small anteroom adjacent to the chapel, for the
+Marquis, who condescended to act as bride's-man upon the
+occasion.  Business relating to the army having suddenly required
+the Marquis's instant attention, Menteith waited his return, it
+may be supposed, in some impatience; and when he heard the door
+of the apartment open, he said, laughing, "You are late upon
+parade."
+
+"You will find I am too early," said Allan M'Aulay, who burst
+into the apartment.  "Draw, Menteith, and defend yourself like a
+man, or die like a dog!"
+
+"You are mad, Allan!"  answered Menteith, astonished alike at his
+sudden appearance, and at the unutterable fury of his demeanour.
+His cheeks were livid--his eyes started from their sockets--his
+lips were covered with foam, and his gestures were those of a
+demoniac.
+
+"You lie, traitor!"  was his frantic reply--"you lie in that, as
+you lie in all you have said to me.  Your life is a lie!"
+
+"Did I not speak my thoughts when I called you mad," said
+Menteith, indignantly, "your own life were a brief one.  In what
+do you charge me with deceiving you?"
+
+"You told me," answered M'Aulay, "that you would not marry Annot
+Lyle!--False traitor!--she now waits you at the altar."
+
+"It is you who speak false," retorted Menteith.  "I told you the
+obscurity of her birth was the only bar to our union--that is now
+removed; and whom do you think yourself, that I should yield up
+my pretensions in your favour?"
+
+"Draw then," said M'Aulay; "we understand each other."
+
+"Not now," said Menteith, "and not here.  Allan, you know me
+well--wait till to-morrow, and you shall have fighting enough."
+
+"This hour--this instant--or never," answered M'Aulay.
+
+"Your triumph shall not go farther than the hour which is
+stricken.  Menteith, I entreat you by our relationship--by our
+joint conflicts and labours--draw your sword, and defend your
+life!"  As he spoke, he seized the Earl's hand, and wrung it with
+such frantic earnestness, that his grasp forced the blood to
+start under the nails.  Menteith threw him off with violence,
+exclaiming, "Begone, madman!"
+
+"Then, be the vision accomplished!"  said Allan; and, drawing his
+dirk, struck with his whole gigantic force at the Earl's bosom.
+The temper of the corslet threw the point of the weapon upwards,
+but a deep wound took place between the neck and shoulder; and
+the force of the blow prostrated the bridegroom on the floor.
+Montrose entered at one side of the anteroom.  The bridal
+company, alarmed at the noise, were in equal apprehension and
+surprise; but ere Montrose could almost see what had happened,
+Allan M'Aulay had rushed past him, and descended the castle
+stairs like lightning.  "Guards, shut the gate!"  exclaimed
+Montrose--"Seize him--kill him, if he resists!--He shall die, if
+he were my brother!"
+
+But Allan prostrated, with a second blow of his dagger, a
+sentinel who was upon duty---traversed the camp like a mountain-
+deer, though pursued by all who caught the alarm--threw himself
+into the river, and, swimming to the opposite side, was soon lost
+among the woods.  In the course of the same evening, his brother
+Angus and his followers left Montrose's camp, and, taking the
+road homeward, never again rejoined him.
+
+Of Allan himself it is said, that, in a wonderfully short space
+after the deed was committed, he burst into a room in the Castle
+of Inverary, where Argyle was sitting in council, and flung on
+the table his bloody dirk.
+
+"Is it the blood of James Grahame?"  said Argyle, a ghastly
+expression of hope mixing with the terror which the sudden
+apparition naturally excited.
+
+"It is the blood of his minion," answered M'Aulay--"It is the
+blood which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have
+spilt my own."
+
+Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from that
+moment nothing certain is known of his fate.  As the boy Kenneth,
+with three of the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards
+to cross Lochfine, it is supposed they dogged his course, and
+that he perished by their hand in some obscure wilderness.
+Another opinion maintains, that Allan M'Aulay went abroad and
+died a monk of the Carthusian order.  But nothing beyond bare
+presumption could ever be brought in support of either opinion.
+
+His vengeance was much less complete than he probably fancied;
+for Menteith, though so severely wounded as to remain long in a
+dangerous state, was, by having adopted Major Dalgetty's
+fortunate recommendation of a cuirass as a bridal-garment,
+happily secured from the worst consequences of the blow.  But his
+services were lost to Montrose; and it was thought best, that he
+should be conveyed with his intended countess, now truly a
+mourning bride, and should accompany his wounded father-in-law to
+the castle of Sir Duncan at Ardenvohr.  Dalgetty followed them to
+the water's edge, reminding Menteith of the necessity of erecting
+a sconce on Drumsnab to cover his lady's newly-acquired
+inheritance.
+
+They performed their voyage in safety, and Menteith was in a few
+weeks so well in health, as to be united to Annot in the castle
+of her father.
+
+The Highlanders were somewhat puzzled to reconcile Menteith's
+recovery with the visions of the second sight, and the more
+experienced Seers were displeased with him for not having died.
+But others thought the credit of the vision sufficiently
+fulfilled, by the wound inflicted by the hand, and with the
+weapon, foretold; and all were of opinion, that the incident of
+the ring, with the death's head, related to the death of the
+bride's father, who did not survive her marriage many months.
+The incredulous held, that all this was idle dreaming, and that
+Allan's supposed vision was but a consequence of the private
+suggestions of his own passion, which, having long seen in
+Menteith a rival more beloved than himself, struggled with his
+better nature, and impressed upon him, as it were involuntarily,
+the idea of killing his competitor.
+
+Menteith did not recover sufficiently to join Montrose during his
+brief and glorious career; and when that heroic general disbanded
+his army and retired from Scotland, Menteith resolved to adopt
+the life of privacy, which he led till the Restoration.  After
+that happy event, he occupied a situation in the land befitting
+his rank, lived long, happy alike in public regard and in
+domestic affection, and died at a good old age.
+
+Our DRAMATIS PERSONAE have been so limited, that, excepting
+Montrose, whose exploits and fate are the theme of history, we
+have only to mention Sir Dugald Dalgetty.  This gentleman
+continued, with the most rigorous punctuality, to discharge his
+duty, and to receive his pay, until he was made prisoner, among
+others, upon the field of Philiphaugh.  He was condemned to share
+the fate of his fellow-officers upon that occasion, who were
+doomed to death rather by denunciations from the pulpit, than the
+sentence either of civil or military tribunal; their blood being
+considered as a sort of sin-offering to take away the guilt of
+the land, and the fate imposed upon the Canaanites, under a
+special dispensation, being impiously and cruelly applied to
+them.
+
+Several Lowland officers, in the service of the Covenanters,
+interceded for Dalgetty on this occasion, representing him as a
+person whose skill would be useful in their army, and who would
+be readily induced to change his service.  But on this point they
+found Sir Dugald unexpectedly obstinate.  He had engaged with the
+King for a certain term, and, till that was expired, his
+principles would not permit any shadow of changing.  The
+Covenanters, again, understood no such nice distinction, and he
+was in the utmost danger of falling a martyr, not to this or that
+political principle, but merely to his own strict ideas of a
+military enlistment.  Fortunately, his friends discovered, by
+computation, that there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the
+engagement he had formed, and to which, though certain it was
+never to be renewed, no power on earth could make him false.
+With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short
+space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under
+any engagements they chose to dictate.  He entered the service of
+the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major
+in Gilbert Ker's corps, commonly called the Kirk's Own Regiment
+of Horse.  Of his farther history we know nothing, until we find
+him in possession of his paternal estate of Drumthwacket, which
+he acquired, not by the sword, but by a pacific intermarriage
+with Hannah Strachan, a matron somewhat stricken in years, the
+widow of the Aberdeenshire Covenanter.
+
+Sir Dugald is supposed to have survived the Revolution, as
+traditions of no very distant date represent him as cruising
+about in that country, very old, very deaf, and very full of
+interminable stories about the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, the
+Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the Protestant Faith.
+
+*
+
+READER!  THE TALES OF MY LANDLORD ARE NOW FINALLY CLOSED,
+closed, and it was my purpose to have addressed thee in the vein
+of Jedediah Cleishbotham; but, like Horam the son of Asmar, and
+all other imaginary story-tellers, Jedediah has melted into thin
+air.
+
+Mr. Cleishbotham bore the same resemblance to Ariel, as he at
+whose voice he rose doth to the sage Prospero; and yet, so fond
+are we of the fictions of our own fancy, that I part with him,
+and all his imaginary localities, with idle reluctance.  I am
+aware this is a feeling in which the reader will little
+sympathize; but he cannot be more sensible than I am, that
+sufficient varieties have now been exhibited of the Scottish
+character, to exhaust one individual's powers of observation, and
+that to persist would be useless and tedious. I have the vanity
+to suppose, that the popularity of these Novels has shown my
+countrymen, and their peculiarities, in lights which were new to
+the Southern reader; and that many, hitherto indifferent upon the
+subject, have been induced to read Scottish history, from the
+allusions to it in these works of fiction.
+
+I retire from the field, conscious that there remains behind not
+only a large harvest, but labourers capable of gathering it in.
+More than one writer has of late displayed talents of this
+description; and if the present author, himself a phantom, may be
+permitted to distinguish a brother, or perhaps a sister shadow,
+he would mention, in particular, the author of the very lively
+work entitled MARRIAGE.
+
+
+*
+
+
+IV.  APPENDIX.
+
+
+No. I
+
+The scarcity of my late friend's poem may be an excuse for adding
+the spirited conclusion of Clan Alpin's vow.  The Clan Gregor has
+met in the ancient church of Balquidder.  The head of Drummond-
+Ernoch is placed on the altar, covered for a time with the banner
+of the tribe.  The Chief of the tribe advances to the altar:
+
+And pausing, on the banner gazed;
+Then cried in scorn, his finger raised,
+"This was the boon of Scotland's king;"
+And, with a quick and angry fling,
+Tossing the pageant screen away,
+The dead man's head before him lay.
+Unmoved he scann'd the visage o'er,
+The clotted locks were dark with gore,
+The features with convulsion grim,
+The eyes contorted, sunk, and dim.
+But unappall'd, in angry mood,
+With lowering brow, unmoved he stood.
+Upon the head his bared right hand
+He laid, the other grasp'd his brand:
+Then kneeling, cried, "To Heaven I swear
+This deed of death I own, and share;
+As truly, fully mine, as though
+This my right hand had dealt the blow:
+Come then, our foeman, one, come all;
+If to revenge this caitiffs fall
+One blade is bared, one bow is drawn,
+Mine everlasting peace I pawn,
+To claim from them, or claim from him,
+In retribution, limb for limb.
+In sudden fray, or open strife,
+This steel shall render life for life."
+He ceased; and at his beckoning nod,
+The clansmen to the altar trod;
+And not a whisper breathed around,
+And nought was heard of mortal sound,
+Save from the clanking arms they bore,
+That rattled on the marble floor;
+And each, as he approach'd in haste,
+Upon the scalp his right hand placed;
+With livid lip, and gather'd brow,
+Each uttered, in his turn, the vow.
+Fierce Malcolm watch'd the passing scene,
+And search'd them through with glances keen;
+Then dash'd a tear-drop from his eye;
+Unhid it came--he knew not why.
+Exulting high, he towering stood:
+"Kinsmen," he cried, "of Alpin's blood,
+And worthy of Clan Alpin's name,
+Unstain'd by cowardice and shame,
+E'en do, spare nocht, in time of ill
+Shall be Clan Alpin's legend still!"
+
+
+No. II.
+
+It has been disputed whether the Children of the Mist were actual
+MacGregors, or whether they were not outlaws named MacDonald,
+belonging to Ardnamurchan.  The following act of the Privy
+Council seems to decide the question:--
+
+"Edinburgh, 4th February, 1589.
+
+The same day, the Lords of Secret Council being crediblie
+informed of ye cruel and mischievous proceeding of ye wicked
+Clangrigor, so lang continueing in blood, slaughters, herships,
+manifest reifts, and stouths committed upon his Hieness'
+peaceable and good subjects; inhabiting ye countries ewest ye
+brays of ye Highlands, thir money years bybgone; but specially
+heir after ye cruel murder of umqll Jo. Drummond of
+Drummoneyryuch, his Majesties proper tennant and ane of his
+fosters of Glenartney, committed upon ye day of last bypast, be
+certain of ye said clan, be ye council and determination of ye
+haill, avow and to defend ye authors yrof qoever wald persew for
+revenge of ye same, qll ye said Jo. was occupied in seeking of
+venison to his Hieness, at command of Pat. Lord Drummond, stewart
+of Stratharne, and principaI forrester of Clenartney; the Queen,
+his Majesties dearest spouse, being yn shortlie looked for to
+arrive in this realm.  Likeas, after ye murder committed, ye
+authors yrof cutted off ye said umqll Jo. Drummond's head, and
+carried the same to the Laird of M'Grigor, who, and the haill
+surname of M'Grigors, purposely conveined upon the Sunday
+yrafter, at the Kirk of Buchquhidder; qr they caused ye said
+umqll John's head to be pnted to ym, and yr avowing ye sd murder
+to have been committed by yr communion, council, and
+determination, laid yr hands upon the pow, and in eithnik, and
+barbarous manner, swear to defend ye authors of ye sd murder, in
+maist proud contempt of our sovrn Lord and his authoritie, and in
+evil example to others wicked limmaris to do ye like, give ys
+sall be suffered to remain unpunished."
+
+Then follows a commission to the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Athole,
+Montrose, Pat. Lord Drummond, Ja. Commendator of Incheffray, And.
+Campbel of Lochinnel, Duncan Campbel of Ardkinglas, Lauchlane
+M'Intosh of Dunnauchtane, Sir Jo. Murray of Tullibarden, knt.,
+Geo. Buchanan of that Ilk, and And. M'Farlane of Ariquocher, to
+search for and apprehend Alaster M'Grigor of Glenstre (and a
+number of others nominatim), "and all others of the said
+Clangrigor, or ye assistars, culpable of the said odious murther,
+or of thift, reset of thift, herships, and sornings, qrever they
+may be apprehended.  And if they refuse to he taken, or flees to
+strengths and houses, to pursue and assege them with fire and
+sword; and this commission to endure for the space of three
+years."
+
+Such was the system of police in 1589; and such the state of
+Scotland nearly thirty years after the Reformation.
+
+
+*
+
+
+V.  NOTES.
+
+
+Note I.--FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA.
+
+The military men of the times agreed upon dependencies of honour,
+as they called them, with all the metaphysical argumentation of
+civilians, or school divines.
+
+The English officer, to whom Sir James Turner was prisoner after
+the rout at Uttoxeter, demanded his parole of honour not to go
+beyond the wall of Hull without liberty.  "He brought me the
+message himself,--I told him I was ready to do so, provided he
+removed his guards from me, for FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA;
+and, if he took my word for my fidelity, he was obliged to trust
+it, otherwise, it was needless for him to seek it, either to give
+trust to my word, which I would not break, or his own guards, who
+I supposed would not deceive him.  In this manner I dealt with
+him, because I knew him to be a scholar."--TURNER'S MEMOIRS, p.
+80.   The English officer allowed the strength of the reasoning;
+but that concise reasoner, Cromwell, soon put an end to the
+dilemma:  "Sir James Turner must give his parole, or be laid in
+irons."
+
+
+Note II.--WRAITHS.
+
+A species of apparition, similar to what the Germans call a
+Double-Ganger, was believed in by the Celtic tribes, and is still
+considered as an emblem of misfortune or death.   Mr. Kirke (See
+Note to ROB ROY,), the minister of Aberfoil, who will no doubt be
+able to tell us more of the matter should he ever come back from
+Fairy-land, gives us the following:--
+
+"Some men of that exalted sight, either by art or nature, have
+told me they have seen at these meetings a double man, or the
+shape of some man in two places, that is, a superterranean and a
+subterranean inhabitant perfectly resembling one another in all
+points, whom he, notwithstanding, could easily distinguish one
+fro another by some secret tokens and operations, and so go speak
+to the man his neighbour and familiar, passing by the apparition
+or resemblance of him.  They avouch that every element and
+different state of being have animals resembling those of another
+element, as there be fishes at sea resembling Monks of late order
+in all their hoods and dresses, so as the Roman invention of good
+and bad daemons and guardian angels particularly assigned, is
+called by them ane ignorant mistake, springing only from this
+originall.  They call this reflex man a Co-Walker, every way like
+the man, as a twin-brother and companion haunting him as his
+shadow, as is that seen and known among men resembling the
+originall, both before and after the originall is dead, and was
+also often seen of old to enter a hous, by which the people knew
+that the person of that liknes was to visit them within a few
+days.  This copy, echo, or living picture, goes at last to his
+own herd.  It accompanied that person so long and frequently for
+ends best known to its selve, whether to guard him from the
+secret assaults of some of its own folks, or only as an sportfull
+ape to counterfeit all his actions."--KIRKE'S SECRET
+COMMOMWEALTH, p. 3.
+
+The two following apparitions, resembling the vision of Allan
+M'Aulay in the text, occur in Theophilus Insulanus (Rev. Mr.
+Fraser's Treatise on the Second Sight, Relations x. and xvii.):--
+
+"Barbara Macpherson, relict of the deceased Mr. Alexander
+MacLeod, late minister of St. Kilda, informed me the natives of
+that island had a particular kind of second sight, which is
+always a forerunner of their approaching end.  Some months before
+they sicken, they are haunted with an apparition, resembling
+themselves in all respects as to their person, features, or
+clothing.  This image, seemingly animated, walks with them in the
+field in broad daylight; and if they are employed in delving,
+harrowing, seed-sowing, or any other occupation, they are at the
+same time mimicked by this ghostly visitant.  My informer added
+further that having visited a sick person of the inhabitants, she
+had the curiosity to enquire of him, if at any time he had seen
+any resemblance of himself as above described; he answered in the
+affirmative, and told her, that to make farther trial, as he was
+going out of his house of a morning, he put on straw-rope garters
+instead of those he formerly used, and having gone to the fields,
+his other self appeared in such garters. The conclusion was, the
+sick man died of that ailment, and she no longer questioned the
+truth of those remarkable presages."
+
+"Margaret MacLeod, an honest woman advanced in years, informed
+me, that when she was a young woman in the family of Grishornish,
+a dairy-maid, who daily used to herd the calves in a park close
+to the house, observed, at different times, a woman resembling
+herself in shape and attire, walking solitarily at no great
+distance from her, and being surprised at the apparition, to make
+further trial, she put the back part of her upper garment
+foremost, and anon the phantom was dressed in the same manner,
+which made her uneasy, believing it portended some fatal
+consequence to herself.  In a short time thereafter she was
+seized with a fever, which brought her to her end, and before her
+sickness and on her deathbed, declared the second sight to
+several."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of A Legend of Montrose, by Walter Scott
+
diff --git a/old/old/mntrs10.zip b/old/old/mntrs10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e1f330
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/mntrs10.zip