It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh’s proceedings; for, not finding the private passage readily, and impatient, it would seem, of farther delay, he had caught down a sword and target, and was about to enter the great gallery, with the purpose, doubtless, of fighting his way through all opposition.

“Hold, while you live,” whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him.  “We must be perdue, if possible.  So bar we this door, that it may be thought M’Callum More would be private—­and now let me make a reconnaissance for the private passage.”

By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel.  But what was his disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door, the sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.

“This made the villain,” he said, “recommend this to us as a private passage.  I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat.”

He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular affairs.  There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the Marquis,—­such was the high state maintained in those days,—­sate during service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the great man himself.  This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to ensconce himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.

Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon listened to with more impatience, and less edification, on the part of one, at least, of the audience.  The Captain heard SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY and to conclude, with a sort of feeling like protracted despair.  But no man can lecture (for the service was called a lecture) for ever; and the discourse was at length closed, the clergyman not failing to make a profound bow towards the latticed gallery, little suspecting whom he honoured by that reverence.  To judge from the haste with which they dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis were scarce more pleased with their late occupation than the anxious Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of them being Highlandmen, had the excuse of not understanding a single word which the clergyman spoke, although they gave their attendance on his doctrine by the special order of M’Callum More, and would have done so had the preacher been a Turkish Imaum.