is Irish still; but I'll wager the MacDonalds, the Stewarts, and
all the rest of that reiving crowd are off to their holds, like the
banditty they are, with their booty. A company of pikes on the rear of
him, as like as not, would settle his business."

The Marquis, besides his dishevelment, was looking very lean and pale. I
am wrong if I had not before me a man who had not slept a sound night's
sleep in his naked bed since the point of war beat under his castle
window.

"Your arm, my lord "--I said in a pause of his conversation with Mlver,
"is it a fashious injury? You look off your ordinary."

"I do," he said. "I daresay I do, and I wish to God it was only this
raxed arm that was the worst of my ailment."

His face burned up red in the candle-light, his nostrils swelled, and
he rose in his chair. A small table was between us. He put his uninjured
hand on it to steady himself, and leaned over to me to make his words
more weighty for my ear.

"Do you know," he added, "I'm Archibald, Marquis of Argile, and under
the cope and canopy of heaven this January night there's not a creature
of God's making more down in the heart and degraded than I? If the
humblest servant in my house pointed a scornful finger at me and cried
'Coward,' I would bow my head. Ay, ay! it's good of you, sir, to shake
a dissenting head; but I'm a chief discredited. I know it, man. I see
it in the faces about me. I saw it at Rosneath, when my very gardener
fumbled, and refused to touch his bonnet when I left. I saw it to-night
at my own table, when the company talked of what they should do, and
what my men should do, and said never a word of what was to be expected
of MacCailein Mor."

"I think, my lord," I cried "that you're exaggerating a very small
affair."

"Small affair!" he said (and he wetted his lips with his tongue before
the words came). "Small affair! Hell's flame! is there anything smaller
than the self-esteem of a man who by some infernal quirk of his nature
turns his back on his most manifest duty--leaves the blood of his
blood and the skin of his skin to perish for want of his guidance and
encouragement, and wakens at morning to find it no black nightmare but
the horrible fact? Answer me that, Elrigmore!"

"Tut, tut," said M'Iver, pouring his cousin a glass; "you're in the
vapours, and need a good night's sleep. There's no one in Argile dare
question your spirit, whatever they may think of your policy."

Argile relapsed into