CHAPTER XXIII.

     My maid—­my blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
     Due to the toils of many a bloody day.—­ILLIAD.

It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M’Aulay, so long the kind protector of Annot Lyle, should be made acquainted with the change in the fortunes of his late protege; and Montrose, as he had undertaken, communicated to him these remarkable events.  With the careless and cheerful indifference of his character, he expressed much more joy than wonder at Annot’s good fortune; had no doubt whatever she would merit it, and as she had always been bred in loyal principles, would convey the whole estate of her grim fanatical father to some honest fellow who loved the king.  “I should have no objection that my brother Allan should try his chance,” added he, “notwithstanding that Sir Duncan Campbell was the only man who ever charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality.  Annot Lyle could always charm Allan out of the sullens, and who knows whether matrimony might not make him more a man of this world?” Montrose hastened to interrupt the progress of his castle-building, by informing him that the lady was already wooed and won, and, with her father’s approbation, was almost immediately to be wedded to his kinsman, the Earl of Menteith; and that in testimony of the high respect due to M’Aulay, so long the lady’s protector, he was now to request his presence at the ceremony.  M’Aulay looked very grave at this intimation, and drew up his person with the air of one who thought that he had been neglected.

“He contrived,” he said, “that his uniform kind treatment of the young lady, while so many years under his roof, required something more upon such an occasion than a bare compliment of ceremony.  He might,” he thought, “without arrogance, have expected to have been consulted.  He wished his kinsman of Menteith well, no man could wish him better; but he must say he thought he had been hasty in this matter.  Allan’s sentiments towards the young lady had been pretty well understood, and he, for one, could not see why the superior pretensions which he had upon her gratitude should have been set aside, without at least undergoing some previous discussion.”

Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed, entreated M’Aulay to be reasonable, and to consider what probability there was that the Knight of Ardenvohr could be brought to confer the hand of his sole heiress upon Allan, whose undeniable excellent qualities were mingled with others, by which they were overclouded in a manner that made all tremble who approached him.

“My lord,” said Angus M’Aulay, “my brother Allan has, as God made us all, faults as well as merits; but he is the best and bravest man of your army, be the other who he may, and therefore ill deserved that his happiness should have been so little consulted by your Excellency—­by his own near kinsman—­and by a young person who owes all to him and to his family.”