“I must dissemble, then, as well as I can,” said Lord Menteith, “as I have hitherto done, upon your hint.  But I wish the fellow at the devil with all my heart.”

“Ay, but still you must remember, my lord,” resumed Anderson, “that to cure the bite of a scorpion, you must crush another scorpion on the wound—­But stop, we shall be overheard.”

From a side-door in the hall glided a Highlander into the apartment, whose lofty stature and complete equipment, as well as the eagle’s feather in his bonnet, and the confidence of his demeanour, announced to be a person of superior rank.  He walked slowly up to the table, and made no answer to Lord Menteith, who, addressing him by the name of Allan, asked him how he did.

“Ye manna speak to her e’en now,” whispered the old attendant.

The tall Highlander, sinking down upon the empty settle next the fire, fixed his eyes upon the red embers and the huge heap of turf, and seemed buried in profound abstraction.  His dark eyes, and wild and enthusiastic features, bore the air of one who, deeply impressed with his own subjects of meditation, pays little attention to exterior objects.  An air of gloomy severity, the fruit perhaps of ascetic and solitary habits, might, in a Lowlander, have been ascribed to religious fanaticism; but by that disease of the mind, then so common both in England and the Lowlands of Scotland, the Highlanders of this period were rarely infected.  They had, however, their own peculiar superstitions, which overclouded the mind with thick-coming fancies, as completely as the puritanism of their neighbours.

“His lordship’s honour,” said the Highland servant sideling up to Lord Menteith, and speaking in a very low tone, “his lordship manna speak to Allan even now, for the cloud is upon his mind.”

Lord Menteith nodded, and took no farther notice of the reserved mountaineer.

“Said I not,” asked the latter, suddenly raising his stately person upright, and looking at the domestic—­“said I not that four were to come, and here stand but three on the hall floor?”

“In troth did ye say sae, Allan,” said the old Highlander, “and here’s the fourth man coming clinking in at the yett e’en now from the stable, for he’s shelled like a partan, wi’ airn on back and breast, haunch and shanks.  And am I to set her chair up near the Menteith’s, or down wi’ the honest gentlemen at the foot of the table?”

Lord Menteith himself answered the enquiry, by pointing to a seat beside his own.

“And here she comes,” said Donald, as Captain Dalgetty entered the hall; “and I hope gentlemens will all take bread and cheese, as we say in the glens, until better meat be ready, until the Tiernach comes back frae the hill wi’ the southern gentlefolk, and then Dugald Cook will show himself wi’ his kid and hill venison.”

In the meantime, Captain Dalgetty had entered the apartment, and walking up to the seat placed next Lord Menteith, was leaning on the back of it with his arms folded.  Anderson and his companion waited at the bottom of the table, in a respectful attitude, until they should receive permission to seat themselves; while three or four Highlanders, under the direction of old Donald, ran hither and thither to bring additional articles of food, or stood still to give attendance upon the guests.