h its new, intimate and individual bearing, immediately Red
Murdo had disappeared.

"Jock," it opened, "ye was right not to come with the hundred men ye
sent up tonight, when I expected four times that number. It is a
pretty thing, when all the Highlands of Scotland are now rising upon
the King and the country's account, as I have accounts from them since
they were with me, and the gentlemen of the neighbouring homelands
expecting us down to join them, that my men should only be refractory.

"Is not this the thing we are about which they have been wishing these
twenty-six years? And now, when it is come, and the King and the
country's cause is at stake, will they for ever sit still and see all
perish? I have used gentle means too long and shall be forced to put
other means into execution.

"I have sent you, enclosed, an order for the Lordship of Kildrummy,
which you are immediately to intimate to all my vassals; if they give
ready obedience it will make some amends, and, if not, you may tell
them from me that it will not be in my power to save them--were I
willing?--from being treated as enemies by those who are ready soon to
join me; and they may depend on it that I will be the first to propose
and order their being so.

"Particularly let my own tenants in Kildrummy know that if they come
not forth with their best arms, that I will send a party immediately to
burn what they shall miss taking from them. And they may believe this
only a threat, but by all that's sacred, I'll put it into execution,
that it may be an example to others.

"You are to tell the gentlemen that I'll expect them in their best
accoutrements, on horseback, and no excuse to be accepted of. Go about
this with diligence, and come yourself and let me know your having done
so. All this is not only as ye will be answerable to me, but to your
King and country."

Straight writing enough! And that was why the Black Colonel had sent
me the historic epistle, laughing in his sleeve, I had no doubt, at the
slim originality of his method. He was for gentle means, if he could
so win his ends and Marget, but if they answered not, then, like my
Lord Mar with Jock Forbes of Inverernan, he would be "forced to put
other means into execution." While I was the immediate target for his
threat, I quite saw that the Black Colonel was aiming at a larger prize
behind me.

But what could he, a "broken man," a fugitive from justice, the justice
of the Hanover