"Since the King, my master, had the honour to experience your hospitality, I cannot wonder that it is extended to those that serve him, and whose principal merit is doing it with fidelity. And yet I have a nearer relation to his Majesty than this coarse red coat would seem to indicate."

"Indeed, sir? Probably," said Lady Margaret, "you have belonged to his household?"

"Not exactly, madam, to his household, but rather to his house; a connexion through which I may claim kindred with most of the best families in Scotland, not, I believe, exclusive of that of Tillietudlem."

"Sir!" said the old lady, drawing herself up with dignity at hearing what she conceived an impertinent jest; "I do not understand you."

"It's but a foolish subject for one in my situation to talk of, madam," answered the trooper; " but you must have heard of the history and misfortunes of my grandfather Francis Stewart, to whom James I., his cousin-german, gave the title of Bothwell, as my comrades give me the nickname. It was not, in the long run, more advantageous to him than it is to me.'

"Indeed!" said Lady Margaret, with much sympathy and surprise; "I have indeed always understood that the grandson of the last Earl was in necessitous circumstances, but I should never have expected to see him so low in the service. With such connexions, what ill fortune could have reduced you"

66

Nothing much out of the ordinary course, I believe, madam," said Bothwell, interrupting and anticipating the question. "I have had my moments of good luck like my neighbours-have drunk my bottle with Rochester, thrown a merry main with Buckingham, and fought at Tangiers side by side with Sheffield. But my luck never lasted; I could not make useful friends out of my jolly companions-Perhaps I was not sufficiently aware," he continued, with some bitterness, "how much the descendant of the Scottish Stewarts was honoured by being admitted into the convivialities of Wilmot and Villiers."

"But your Scottish friends, Mr Stewart-your relations here, so numerous and so powerful?"

"Why, ay, my lady," replied the sergeant; "I believe some of them might have made me their gamekeeper, for I am a tolerable shot-some of them would have entertained me as their bravo, for I can use my sword well- and here and there was one, who, when better company was not to be had, would have made me his companion, since I can drink my three bottles of wine. But I don't know how it is-between service and service among my kinsmen, I prefer that of my cousin Charles as the most creditable of them all, although the pay is but poor, and the livery far from splendid."

"It is a shame! it is a burning scandal !" said Lady Margaret. "Why do you not apply to his most sacred Majesty? he cannot but be surprised to hear that a scion of his august family"

"I beg your pardon, madam," interrupted the sergeant; "I am but a blunt soldier, and I trust you will excuse me when I say, his most sacred Majesty is more busy in grafting scions of his own, than with nourishing those which were planted by his grandfather's grandfather."

"Well, Mr Stewart," said Lady Margaret, "one thing you must promise me-remain at Tillietudlem to-night; to-morrow I expect your commanding-officer, the gallant Claverhouse, to whom king and country are so much obliged for his exertions against those who would turn the world upside down. I will speak to him on the subject of your speedy promotion; and I am certain he feels too much, both what is due to the blood which is in your veins, and to the request of a lady so highly distinguished as myself by his most sacred Majesty, not to make better provision for you than you have yet received."

"I am much obliged to your ladyship, and I certainly will remain here with my prisoner, since you request it, especially as it will be the earliest way of presenting him to Colonel Grahame, and obtaining his ultimate orders about the young spark."

"Who is your prisoner, pray you?" said Lady Margaret. "A young fellow of rather the better class in this neighbourhood, who has been so incautious as to give countenance to one of the murderers of the primate, and to facilitate the dog's escape."

66 O, fie upon him!" said Lady Margaret. "I am but too apt to forgive the injuries I have received at the hands of these rogues, though some of them, Mr Stewart, are of a kind not like to be forgotten; but those who would abet the perpetrators of so cruel and deliberate a homicide on a single man, an old man, and a man of the Archbishop's sacred profession-O fie upon him! If you wish to make him secure, with little trouble to your people, I will cause Harrison, or Gudyill, look for the key of our pit, or principal dungeon. It has not been open since the week after the victory of Kilsythe, when my poor Sir Arthur Bellenden put twenty whigs into it; but it is not more than two stories beneath ground, so it cannot be unwholesome, especially as I rather believe there is somewhere an opening to the outer air."

"I beg your pardon, madam," answered the sergeant; "I dare say the dungeon is a most admirable one; but I have promised to be civil to the lad, and I will take care he is watched so as to render escape impossible. I'll set those to look after him shall keep him as fast as if his legs were in the boots, or his fingers in the thumbikins."

"Well, Mr Stewart," rejoined the lady, "you best know your own duty. I heartily wish you good-evening, and commit you to the care of my steward, Harrison. I would ask you to keep ourselves company, but a-a-a

دو

"O, madam, it requires no apology; I am sensible the coarse red coat of King Charles II. does and ought to annihilate the privileges of the red blood of King James V."

"Not with me, I do assure you, Mr Stewart; you do me injustice if you think so. I will speak to your officer to-morrow; and I trust you shall soon find yourself in a rank where there shall be no anomalies to be reconciled."

"I believe, madam," said Bothwell, "your goodness will find itself deceived; but I am obliged to you for your intention, and, at all events, I will have a merry night with Mr Harrison."

Lady Margaret took a ceremonious leave, with all the respect which she owed to royal blood, even when flowing in the veins of a sergeant of the Life-Guards; again assuring Mr Stewart, that whatever was in the Tower of Tillietudlem was heartily at his service and that of his attendants.

Sergeant Bothwell did not fail to take the lady at her word, and readily forgot the height from which his family had descended, in a joyous carousal, during which Mr Harrison exerted himself to produce the best wine in the cellar, and to excite his guest to be merry, by that seducing example which, in matters of conviviality, goes farther than precept. Old Gudyill associated himself with a party so much to his taste, pretty much as Davy, in the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, mingles in the revels of his master, Justice Shallow. He ran down to the cellar at the risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb, known, as he boasted, only to himself, and which never either had, or should, during his superintendence, render forth a bottle of its contents to any one but a real king's friend.

"When the Duke dined here," said the butler, seating himself at a distance from the table, being somewhat overawed by Bothwell's genealogy, but yet hitching his seat half a yard nearer at every clause of his speech, "my leddy was importunate to have a bottle of that Burgundy,' (here he advanced his seat a little;) "but I dinna ken how it was, Mr Stewart, I misdoubted him. Í jaloused him, sir, no to be the friend to government he pretends: the family are not to lippen to. That auld Duke James lost his heart before he lost his head; and the Worcester man was but wersh parritch, neither gude to fry, boil, nor sup cauld." (With this witty observation, he completed his first parallel, and commenced a zigzag, after the manner of an experienced engineer, in order to continue his approaches to the table.) "Sae, sir, the faster my leddy cried Burgundy to his Grace-the auld Burgundy—the choice Burgundy-the Burgundy that came ower in the thirty-nine'-the mair did I say to mysell, Deil a drap gangs down his hause unless I was mair sensible o' his principles; sack and claret may serve him. Na, na, gentlemen, as lang as I hae the trust o' butler in this house o' Tillietudlem, I'll tak it upon me to see that nae disloyal or doubtfu' person is the better o' our binns. But when I can find a true friend to the king and his cause, and a moderate episcopacy-when I find a man, as I say, that will stand by church and crown as I did mysell in my master's life, and all through Montrose's time, I think there's naething in the cellar ower gude to be spared on him."

By this time he had completed a lodgment in the body of the place, or, in other words, advanced his seat close to the table.

"And now, Mr Francis Stewart of Bothwell, I have the honour to drink your gude health, and a commission t'ye, and much luck may ye have in raking this country clear o' whigs and roundheads, fanatics and Covenanters."

Bothwell, who, it may well be believed, had long ceased to be very scrupulous in point of society, which he regulated more by his convenience and station in life than his ancestry, readily answered the butler's pledge, acknowledging, at the same time, the excellence of the wine; and Mr Gudyill, thus adopted a regular member of the company, continued to furnish them with the means of mirth until an early hour in the next morning.

CHAPTER X,

Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer sea,

And would forsake the skiff and make the shore

When the winds whistle and the tempests roar? PRIOR.

WHILE Lady Margaret held, with the high-descended sergeant of dragoons, the conference which we have detailed in the preceding pages, her grand-daughter, partaking in a less degree her ladyship's enthusiasm for all who were sprung of the blood-royal, did not honour Sergeant Bothwell with more attention than a single glance, which showed her a tall powerful person, and a set of hardy weather-beaten features, to which pride and dissipation had given an air where discontent mingled with the reckless gaiety of desperation. The other soldiers offered still less to detach her consideration; but from the prisoner, muffled and disguised as he was, she found it impossible to withdraw her eyes. Yet she blamed herself for indulging a curiosity which seemed obviously to give pain to him who was its object.

"I wish," she said to Jenny Dennison, who was the immediate attendant on her person, "I wish we knew who that poor fellow

is."

"I was just thinking sae mysell, Miss Edith," said the waitingwoman; "but it canna be Cuddie Headrigg, because he's taller and no sae stout."

"Yet," continued Miss Bellenden, " it may be some poor neighbour, for whom we might have cause to interest ourselves."

"I can sune learn wha he is," said the enterprising Jenny, "if the sodgers were anes settled and at leisure, for I ken ane o' them very weel-the best-looking and the youngest o' them."

"I think you know all the idle young fellows about the country," answered her mistress.

66

"Na, Miss Edith, I am no sae free o' my acquaintance as that,"

answered the fille-de-chambre. "To be sure, folk canna help kenning the folk by head-mark that they see aye glowering and looking at them at kirk and market; but I ken few lads to speak to unless it be them o' the family, and the three Steinsons, and Tam Rand, and the young miller, and the five Howisons in Nethersheils, and lang Tam Gilry, and"

"Pray cut short a list of exceptions which threatens to be a long one, and tell me how you come to know this young soldier," said Miss Bellenden.

"Lord, Miss Edith, it's Tam Halliday-Trooper Tam, as they ca' him, that was wounded by the hill-folk at the conventicle at Outer-side Muir, and lay here while he was under cure. I can ask him onything, and Tam will no refuse to answer me, I'll be caution for him.'

"Try, then," said Miss Edith, "if you can find an opportunity to ask him the name of his prisoner, and come to my room and tell me what he says."

Jenny Dennison proceeded on her errand, but soon returned with such a face of surprise and dismay as evinced a deep interest in the fate of the prisoner.

"What is the matter?" said Edith, anxiously; "does it prove to be Cuddie, after all, poor fellow?"

"Cuddie, Miss Edith? Na! na! it's nae Cuddie," blubbered out the faithful fille-de-chambre, sensible of the pain which her news were about to inflict on her young mistress. "O dear, Miss Edith, it's young Milnwood himsell!"

"Young Milnwood!" exclaimed Edith, aghast in her turn; "it is impossible-totally impossible! His uncle attends the clergyman indulged by law, and has no connexion whatever with the refractory people; and he himself has never interfered in this unhappy dissension ;- he must be totally innocent, unless he has been standing up for some invaded right."

"O, my dear Miss Edith," said her attendant, "these are not days to ask what's right or what's wrang; if he were as innocent as the new-born infant, they would find some way of making him guilty, if they liked; but Tam Halliday says it will touch his life, for he has been resetting ane o' the Fife gentlemen that killed that auld carle of an Archbishop."

"His life!" exclaimed Edith, starting hastily up, and speaking with a hurried and tremulous accent;-" they cannot-they shall not-I will speak for him—they shall not hurt him!"

"O, my dear young leddy! think on your grandmother-think on the danger and the difficulty," added Jenny; "for he's kept under close confinement till Claverhouse comes up in the morn"ing, and if he doesna gie him full satisfaction, Tam Halliday says there will be brief wark wi' him- Kneel down-mak readypresent-fire-just as they did wi' auld deaf John Macbriar, that never understood a single question they pat till him, and sae lost his life for lack o' hearing."