would say, 'Gentlemen, there is what you
please at your service; but I send you ale because I understand you like
ale.' Everybody was thus well pleased; and none were so ill bred as to
gainsay what had been reported to his Lordship.

"This introduction was followed by still further condescension on the
part of Lord Lovat. He looked at the veteran who had served in Lord
Orkney's regiment, under Marlborough, at Ramilies and Malplaquet, with
approbation.

"'I know,' said his Lordship, 'without your telling me, that you have
come to enlist in the Highland Watch; for a thousand men like you I
would give an estate.' Donald Macleod then, at Lovat's request, related
his history and pedigree,--that subject which most delights the heart of
a Highlander. Lord Lovat clasped him in his arms, and kissed him, and
then led him into an adjoining bedchamber, where Lady Lovat then lay, to
whom he introduced the Sergeant. Lady Lovat raised herself in her bed,
called for a bottle of brandy, and drank prosperity to Lord Lovat, to
the Highland Watch, and to Donald Macleod. 'It is superfluous to say,'
adds the Sergeant, 'that in this toast the lady was pledged by the
gentlemen.'"

In contradiction to this attractive account of Lord Lovat's splendour
and hospitality we must quote a very different description, given by the
astronomer Ferguson. Lord Lovat's abode, according to his account,
boasted, indeed, a numerous feudal retinue within its walls, but
presented little or no comfort. It was a rude tower with only four
apartments in it, and none of these spacious. Lord Lovat's own room
served at once as his place for constant residence, his room for
receiving company, and his bedchamber. Lady Lovat's bedchamber was
allotted to her for all these purposes also. The domestics and a herd of
retainers were lodged in the four lower rooms of the tower, a quantity
of straw constituting their bed-furniture. Sometimes above four hundred
persons were thus huddled together here; the power which their savage
and ungrateful chieftain exercised over them was despotic; and Ferguson
himself had occasionally the pleasurable sight of some half dozen of
them hung up by the heels for hours, on a few trees near the house.[213]

The pretended loyalty of the chief to the exiled family constituted a
strong bond of union between Lovat and his followers; and having them
once under his command, "that indefinable magic by which he all his life
swayed those who neither lo