At last they reached the place where the earl was residing.  His castle differed in no way from those of the nobility of England.  It was surrounded by walls and towers, and had a moat and other means of defense.  The gate was guarded by men similar in appearance to their guides, but dressed in better material, and with some attempt at uniformity.  Large numbers of these were gathered in the courtyard, and among them were men-at-arms attired in southern fashion.  The guides, having performed their duty of conducting these strangers from the borders of their country, now handed them over to an officer, and he, upon learning their errand, at once conducted them to the earl.

Montrose was a noble figure, dressed in the height of the fashion of the day.  His face was oval, with a pointed mustache; long ringlets fell round his head; and his bearing was haughty and majestic.  He rose from his chair and advanced a step toward them.

“Do I understand,” he said, “that you are bearers of dispatches from his gracious majesty?”

“We are, sir,” Harry said.  “The king was pleased to commit to me various documents intended for your eye.  We left him at Oxford, and have journeyed north with as little delay as might be in these times.  The dispatches, I believe, will speak for themselves, I have no oral instructions committed to me.”

So saying, Harry delivered the various documents with which they were charged.  The earl instructed the officer to see that they were well lodged and cared for, and at once proceeded to his private cabinet to examine the instructions sent him by the king.  These were in effect that, so soon as the army of the convention moved south from Dundee, he should endeavor to make a great raid with his followers upon the south, specially attacking the country of Argyll, so as to create a diversion, and, if possible, cause the recall of the Scotch army to defend their own capital.

For some weeks the lads stopped with Montrose.  They had been furnished with garments suitable to their condition, and Harry was treated by the earl with the greatest kindness and courtesy.  He often conversed with him as to the state of politics and of military affairs in England, and expressed himself as sanguine that he should be able to restore the authority of the king in Scotland.

“These sour men of the conventicles have ever been stiff-necked and rebellious,” he said, “and have enforced their will upon our monarchs.  I have not forgotten,” he went on, striking the hilt of his sword angrily, “the insults which were put upon Queen Mary when she was preached to and lectured publicly by the sour fanatic Knox, and was treated, forsooth, as if she had been some trader’s daughter who had ventured to laugh on a Sunday.  Her son, too, was kept under the control of these men until he was summoned to England.  It is time that Scotland were rid of the domination of these knaves, and if I live I will sweep them from