--this is too cruel, my leddy--as if it was not py special
express from his Grace's honourable agent and commissioner at Edinburgh,
with a warrant conform, that I was to seek for and apprehend Donacha dhu
na Dunaigh, and pring him pefore myself and Sir George Staunton, that he
may have his deserts, that is to say, the gallows, whilk he has doubtless
deserved, py peing the means of frightening your leddyship, as weel as
for something of less importance."

"Frightening me!" said her ladyship; "why, I never wrote to Sir George
about my alarm at the waterfall."

"Then he must have heard it otherwise; for what else can give him sic an
earnest tesire to see this rapscallion, that I maun ripe the haill mosses
and muirs in the country for him, as if I were to get something for
finding him, when the pest o't might pe a pall through my prains?"

"Can it be really true, that it is on Sir George's account that you have
been attempting to apprehend this fellow?"

"Py Cot, it is for no other cause that I know than his honour's pleasure;
for the creature might hae gone on in a decent quiet way for me, sae lang
as he respectit the Duke's pounds--put reason goot he suld be taen, and
hangit to poet, if it may pleasure ony honourable shentleman that is the
Duke's friend--Sae I got the express over night, and I caused warn half a
score of pretty lads, and was up in the morning pefore the sun, and I
garr'd the lads take their kilts and short coats."

"I wonder you did that, Captain," said Mrs. Butler, "when you know the
act of Parliament against wearing the Highland dress."

"Hout, tout, ne'er fash your thumb, Mrs. Putler. The law is put twa-three
years auld yet, and is ower young to hae come our length; and pesides,
how is the lads to climb the praes wi' thae tamn'd breekens on them? It
makes me sick to see them. Put ony how, I thought I kend Donacha's haunt
gey and weel, and I was at the place where he had rested yestreen; for I
saw the leaves the limmers had lain on, and the ashes of them; by the
same token, there was a pit greeshoch purning yet. I am thinking they got
some word oat o' the island what was intended--I sought every glen and
clench, as if I had been deer-stalking, but teil a want of his coat-tail
could I see--Cot tam!"

"He'll be away down the Firth to Cowal," said David; and Reuben, who had
been out early that morning a-nutting, observed, "That he had seen a boat
making for the Caird's Cove;" a place well known to th