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 classicphrase, VINO
CIBOQUE GRAVATUS."

By this time he was unshelled, and stood before the fire musing
with a face of drunkenwisdom 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 singularcharacter, 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