u 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 Oxenstiern, to
the warlike Duke of Saxe-Weimar, 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 honourable 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 honourable 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 honourable cavaliers
and your lordship must concede unto me, that the sanctity of an envoy
who cometh on matter of truth or parle, 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 honour 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