第46章 A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.(39)

No sooner was he gone,than the heavy toll of the castle-bell summoned its inhabitants together;and was answered by the shrill clamour of the females,mixed with the deeper tones of the men,as,talking Earse at the top of their throats,they hurried from different quarters by a long but narrow gallery,which served as a communication to many rooms,and,among others,to that in which Captain Dalgetty was stationed.There they go as if they were beating to the roll-call,thought the soldier to himself;if they all attend the parade,I will look out,take a mouthful of fresh air,and make mine own observations on the practicabilities of this place.

Accordingly,when all was quiet,he opened his chamber door,and prepared to leave it,when he saw his friend with the axe advancing towards him from the distant end of the gallery,half whistling,a Gaelic tune.To have shown any want of confidence,would have been at once impolitic,and unbecoming his military character;so the Captain,putting the best face upon his situation he could,whistled a Swedish retreat,in a tone still louder than the notes of his sentinel;and retreating pace by pace,with an air of indifference,as if his only purpose had been to breathe a little fresh air,he shut the door in the face of his guard,when the fellow had approached within a few paces of him.

It is very well,thought the Ritt-master to himself;he annuls my parole by putting guards upon me,for,as we used to say at Mareschal-College,FIDES ET FIDUCIA SUNT RELATIVA [See Note I];

and if he does not trust my word,I do not see how I am bound to keep it,if any motive should occur for my desiring to depart from it.Surely the moral obligation of the parole is relaxed,in as far as physical force is substituted instead thereof.

Thus comforting himself in the metaphysical immunities which he deduced from the vigilance of his sentinel,Ritt-master Dalgetty retired to his apartment,where,amid the theoretical calculations of tactics,and the occasional more practical attacks on the flask and pasty,he consumed the evening until it was time to go to repose.He was summoned by Lorimer at break of day,who gave him to understand,that,when he had broken his fast,for which he produced ample materials,his guide and horse were in attendance for his journey to Inverary.After complying with the hospitable hint of the chamberlain,the soldier proceeded to take horse.In passing through the apartments,he observed that domestics were busily employed in hanging the great hall with black cloth,a ceremony which,he said,he had seen practised when the immortal Gustavus Adolphus lay in state in the Castle of Wolgast,and which,therefore,he opined,was a testimonial of the strictest and deepest mourning.

When Dalgetty mounted his steed,he found himself attended,or perhaps guarded,by five or six Campbells,well armed,commanded by one,who,from the target at his shoulder,and the short cock's feather in his bonnet,as well as from the state which he took upon himself,claimed the rank of a Dunniewassel,or clansman of superior rank;and indeed,from his dignity of deportment,could not stand in a more distant degree of relationship to Sir Duncan,than that of tenth or twelfth cousin at farthest.But it was impossible to extract positive information on this or any other subject,inasmuch as neither this commander nor any of his party spoke English.The Captain rode,and his military attendants walked;but such was their activity,and so numerous the impediments which the nature of the road presented to the equestrian mode of travelling,that far from being retarded by the slowness of their pace,his difficulty was rather in keeping up with his guides.He observed that they occasionally watched him with a sharp eye,as if they were jealous of some effort to escape;and once,as he lingered behind at crossing a brook,one of the gillies began to blow the match of his piece,giving him to understand that he would run some risk in case of an attempt to part company.Dalgetty did not augur much good from the close watch thus maintained upon his person;but there was no remedy,for an attempt to escape from his attendants in an impervious and unknown country,would have been little short of insanity.He therefore plodded patiently on through a waste and savage wilderness,treading paths which were only known to the shepherds and cattle-drivers,and passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from every corner of England,to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur,and mortify their palates upon Highland fare.

At length they arrived on the southern verge of that noble lake upon which Inverary is situated;and a bugle,which the Dunniewassel winded till rock and greenwood rang,served as a signal to a well-manned galley,which,starting from a creek where it lay concealed,received the party on board,including Gustavus;which sagacious quadruped,an experienced traveller both by water and land,walked in and out of the boat with the discretion of a Christian.