atient 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 br

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