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 colors are flying,

The Inds that seek honor 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 butt 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 hands. Els 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 pres

ence.

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 anteroom was filled with lacqueys, arrayed in brown and yellow, the colors 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, back ammon, 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 shewed him attended by a levee which marked his high importance.

The

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 woodwork, the extreme projections of the beams being richly carved and gilded. 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 batona, 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 magnifi cent 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 color, 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 nick-name 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 be. came his high rank. Something there was coll 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 famillarity. 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 opinlon 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 camarado 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 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; Be30 a usted ios 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 honorable gentleman the labor of investigation," continued the Captain. "I am Dugald Dalgetty, of Drumthwacket, that should be, late Rittmaster 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 Oxensteirn, to the warlike Duke of SaxeWeimar, 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 honorable 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 honorable 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 honorable cavaliers and your lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an envoy who cometh on matter of truce or parley, 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 honor 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;" a proverbial expression of the tribe, meaning that their ancient hereditary

domains lay beyond the reach of an invading encmy. "But, gentlemen," farther 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 honorable 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 honor 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, shewed impatience and vexation.

"Does Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr pledge his honor 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 unsavoriness of your comparison; and also remit to the gentleman in the red bonnet, the disparag ing 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-sollier by the great Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and other choice commandcrs, 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 thercanent, when lic comes hither to-morrow."

"If Sir Duncan be scon 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 well-nigh 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 color, 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 sidedoor 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 drew 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 équilib rium. 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 stonepaved 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 honorable 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 armor 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 well-nigh 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 savory; 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 honor 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-Ronald MacEagh is my namethat is Ranald Son of the Mist."

"Son of the Mist!" ejaculated Dalgetty. "Son of utter dakness, 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 Ardenvolır?" "I do know that honorable 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, stocped on his tower of strength and the pledges he had left there-I am the hunter that found out the wolf's den on the rock, and destroyed his offspring-I am the leader of the band which surprised Ardenvolir 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 favor, 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,

"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'Anlays, 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 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, Panald, a living soldier would have been the better, Ranald, for that crust of bred, 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 thoroughbred 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. Oh, 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."

"You may attain your end more easily," said a third voice, mingling in the conference, "by intrusting it to me." "The

Ail Highlanders are superstitious. Enemy of Mankind is among us!" said Raxald 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 be gan 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,-santissima madre di Dios, as the Spaniard has it,-alle guten geister loben den Hernn, 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 strait. if you are not to 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 inquiry 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."