ments was the business of his life.

My readers will understand that in embodying into one narrative many of
the anecdotes I derived from Old Mortality, I have endeavoured to
correct and verify them from the most authentic sources of tradition
afforded by the representatives of either party. Peace to their memory!

"Implacable resentment was their crime,
And grievous has the expiation been."

Under the reign of the last Stuarts, frequent musters of the people,
both for military exercise and for sports and pastimes, were appointed
by authority, and the Sheriff of Lanark was holding the wappen-schaw of
a wild district, on the day our narrative commences, May 5, 1679.

The lord-lieutenant of the country alone, who was of ducal rank,
pretended to the magnificence of a wheel-carriage, but near it might be
seen the erect form of Lady Margaret Bellenden on her sober palfrey, and
her granddaughter; the fair-haired Edith appeared beside her aged
relative like Spring, close to Winter.

Many civilities passed between her ladyship and the representatives of
sundry ancient royal families, and not a young man of rank passed by
them in the course of the muster, but carried himself more erect in the
saddle and displayed his horsemanship to the best advantage in the eyes
of Miss Edith Bellenden.

When the military evolutions were over, a loud shout announced that the
competitors were about to step forth for the shooting of the popinjay--
the figure of a bird suspended to a pole. When a slender young man,
dressed with great simplicity, yet with an air of elegance, his
dark-green cloak thrown back over his shoulder, approached the station
with his fusee in his hand, there was a murmur among the spectators.

"Ewhow, sirs, to see his father's son at the like o' thae fearless
follies!" said some of the more rigid, but the generality were content
to wish success to the son of a deceased Presbyterian leader. Their
wishes were gratified. The green adventurer made the first palpable hit
of the day, and two only of those who followed succeeded--the first, a
young man of low rank, who kept his face muffled in a grey cloak; and
the second, a gallant young cavalier, remarkably handsome, who had been
in close attendance on Lady Margaret and Miss Bellenden.

But the applause, even of those whose wishes had favoured Lord Evandale,
were at the third trial transferred to his triumphant rival, who was led
by four of the duke's friends to h