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.