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 blood-hounds 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 despatch 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; shall soon be restored to you."'

"he

As he spoke, he whistled in a low tone, and a lad, halfdressed 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 as

pect, 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.

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"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 friend's 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, be 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 feet 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 thorn 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 sat down upon a stone in order to recover his breath, while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling expe ditus 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 closng 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 stormclock, 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 foot-path, 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."

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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 populace, (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!

18 VOL. II.