the market-place, strung up by the head like
rizzer'd haddocks, claimed some interest in you?"

There was a brief pause ere the Highlander replied, in a tone of strong
emotion,--"They were my sons, stranger--they were my sons!--blood of my
blood--bone of my bone!--fleet of foot--unerring in aim--unvanquished by
foemen till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers! Why do I wish
to survive them? The old trunk will less feel the rending up of its
roots, than it has felt the lopping off of its graceful boughs. But
Kenneth must be trained to revenge--the young eagle must learn from the
old how to stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and
my freedom, by discovering my secret to the Knight of Ardenvohr."

"You may attain your end more easily," said a third voice, mingling in
the conference, "by entrusting it to me."

All Highlanders are superstitious. "The Enemy of Mankind is among us!"
said Ranald MacEagh, springing to his feet. His chains clattered as he
rose, while he drew himself as far as they permitted from the
quarter whence the voice appeared to proceed. His fear in some degree
communicated itself to Captain Dalgetty, who began to repeat, in a sort
of polyglot gibberish, all the exorcisms he had ever heard of, without
being able to remember more than a word or two of each.

"IN NOMINE DOMINI, as we said at Mareschal-College--SANTISSMA MADRE DI
DIOS, as the Spaniard has it--ALLE GUTEN GEISTER LOBEN DEN HERRN, saith
the blessed Psalmist, in Dr. Luther's translation--"

"A truce with your exorcisms," said the voice they had heard before;
"though I come strangely among you, I am mortal like yourselves, and my
assistance may avail you in your present streight, if you are not too
proud to be counselled."

While the stranger thus spoke, he withdrew the shade of a dark lantern,
by whose feeble light Dalgetty could only discern that the speaker who
had thus mysteriously united himself to their company, and mixed in
their conversation, was a tall man, dressed in a livery cloak of the
Marquis. His first glance was to his feet, but he saw neither the cloven
foot which Scottish legends assign to the foul fiend, nor the horse's
hoof by which he is distinguished in Germany. His first enquiry was, how
the stranger had come among them?

"For," said he, "the creak of these rusty bars would have been heard had
the door been made patent; and if you passed through the keyhole, truly,
sir, put what face you wil