tty, laying hold on him. "We
must be perdue, if possible. So bar we this door, that it may be thought
M'Callum More would be private--and now let me make a reconnaissance for
the private passage."

By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length
discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated
by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel. But what was his
disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door,
the sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.

"This made the villain," he said, "recommend this to us as a private
passage. I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat."

He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery
used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps
with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance
upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular
affairs. There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the
Marquis,--such was the high state maintained in those days,--sate during
service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the great
man himself. This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to ensconce
himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.

Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon
listened to with more impatience, and less edification,
on the part of one, at least, of the audience. The Captain heard
SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY and TO CONCLUDE, with a sort of
feeling like protracted despair. But no man can lecture (for the service
was called a lecture) for ever; and the discourse was at length closed,
the clergyman not failing to make a profound bow towards the latticed
gallery, little suspecting whom he honoured by that reverence. To judge
from the haste with which they dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis
were scarce more pleased with their late occupation than the anxious
Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of them being Highlandmen, had the excuse
of not understanding a single word which the clergyman spoke, although
they gave their attendance on his doctrine by the special order of
M'Callum More, and would have done so had the preacher been a Turkish
Imaum.

But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine
remained behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its Gothic
precincts, seemed either to be meditating on what he