“The Sassenach!” cried a voice from beneath, “mark the Sassenach sidier!  I see the glitter of his breastplate.”  At the same time three muskets were discharged; and while one ball rattled against the corslet of proof, to the strength of which our valiant Captain had been more than once indebted for his life, another penetrated the armour which covered the front of his left thigh, and stretched him on the ground.  Ranald instantly seized him in his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the precipice, while he dolefully ejaculated, “I always told the immortal Gustavus, Wallenstein, Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my poor mind, taslets ought to be made musket-proof.”

With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the wounded man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of his little party, and was then about to return to the contest.  But Dalgetty detained him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.—­“I know not how this matter may end—­but I request you will inform Montrose, that I died like a follower of the immortal Gustavus—­and I pray you, take heed how you quit your present strength, even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy, if you gain any advantage—­and—­and—­”

Here Dalgetty’s breath and eyesight began to fail him through loss of blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this circumstance, extricated from his grasp the end of his own mantle, and substituted that of a female, by which the Captain held stoutly, thereby securing, as he conceived, the outlaw’s attention to the military instructions which he continued to pour forth while he had any breath to utter them, though they became gradually more and more incoherent—­“And, comrade, you will be sure to keep your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes, Lochaber-axes, and two-handed swords—­Stand fast, dragoons, on the left flank!—­where was I?—­Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded to retreat, leave some lighted matches burning on the branches of the trees—­it shows as if they were lined with shot—­But I forget—­ye have no match-locks nor habergeons—­only bows and arrows—­bows and arrows! ha! ha! ha!”

Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable to resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war.  It was a long time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in reality, as they were wild and uncouth in outward appearance.

CHAPTER XV.

     But if no faithless action stain
     Thy true and constant word,
     I’ll make thee famous by my pen,
     And glorious by my sword.

     I’ll serve thee in such noble ways
     As ne’er were known before;
     I’ll deck and crown thy head with bays,
     And love thee more and more.—­Montrose’s lines.