e with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me
the military salute--but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
corner of the churchyard.

The delight which I had in Sergeant M'Alpin's conversation, related
not only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the
course of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous
Highland traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his
parents, and of which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of
heresy to question the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars
of Montrose, in which some of the Sergeant's ancestry had, it seems,
taken a distinguished part. It has happened, that, although these civil
commotions reflect the highest honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed
the first occasion upon which they showed themselves superior, or even
equal to their Low-country neighbours in military encounters, they have
been less commemorated among them than any one would have expected,
judging from the abundance of traditions which they have preserved upon
less interesting subjects. It was, therefore, with great pleasure, that
I extracted from my military friend some curious particulars respecting
that time; they are mixed with that measure of the wild and wonderful
which belongs to the period and the narrator, but which I do not in the
least object to the reader's treating with disbelief, providing he
will be so good as to give implicit credit to the natural events of the
story, which, like all those which I have had the honour to put under
his notice, actually rest upon a basis of truth.

III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.

CHAPTER I.

Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun,
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks.--BUTLER.

It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which
agitated Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale has its
commencement. Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of
intestine war, although its inhabitants were much divided in political
opinions; and many of them, tired of the control of the Estates of
Parliament, and disapproving of the bold measure which they had
adopted, by sending into England a large army to the assistance of
the Parliament