nt
not that you have served a Son of the Mist. Put yourself under my
guidance, and I will warrant your safety with my head."

"Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the army of
Montrose?" said Dalgetty.

"I can," answered MacEagh; "there lives not a man to whom the mountain
passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the corries are known,
as they are to the Children of the Mist. While others crawl on the level
ground, by the sides of lakes and streams, ours are the steep hollows of
the inaccessible mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs. Not
all the bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I
can guide you."

"Say'st thou so, honest Ranald?" replied Dalgetty; "then have on with
thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own pilotage."

The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the castle
is surrounded for several miles, walking with so much dispatch as kept
Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a number of cross cuts and
turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily lost all idea where he might be,
and all knowledge of the points of the compass. At length, the path,
which had gradually become more difficult, altogether ended among
thickets and underwood. The roaring of a torrent was heard in the
neighbourhood, the ground became in some places broken, in others boggy,
and everywhere unfit for riding.

"What the foul fiend," said Dalgetty, "is to be done here? I must part
with Gustavus, I fear."

"Take no care for your horse," said the outlaw; "he shall soon be
restored to you."

As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in
tartan, half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong
of leather, to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean,
and half-starved in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten
times the proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept
out, as a wild beast might have done, from a thicket of brambles and
briars.

"Give your horse to the gillie," said Ranald MacEagh; "your life depends
upon it."

"Och! och!" exclaimed the despairing veteran; "Eheu! as we used to say
at Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such grooming!"

"Are you frantic, to lose time thus!" said his guide; "do we stand on
friends' ground, that you should part with your horse as if he were your
brother? I tell you, you shall have him again; but if you never saw the
a