In the midst of these preparations, Allan suddenly started up, and snatching a lamp from the hand of an attendant, held it close to Dalgetty’s face, while he perused his features with the most heedful and grave attention.

“By my honour,” said Dalgetty, half displeased, as, mysteriously shaking his head, Allan gave up the scrutiny—­“I trow that lad and I will ken each other when we meet again.”

Meanwhile Allan strode to the bottom of the table, and having, by the aid of his lamp, subjected Anderson and his companion to the same investigation, stood a moment as if in deep reflection; then, touching his forehead, suddenly seized Anderson by the arm, and before he could offer any effectual resistance, half led and half dragged him to the vacant seat at the upper end, and having made a mute intimation that he should there place himself, he hurried the soldado with the same unceremonious precipitation to the bottom of the table.  The Captain, exceedingly incensed at this freedom, endeavoured to shake Allan from him with violence; but, powerful as he was, he proved in the struggle inferior to the gigantic mountaineer, who threw him off with such violence, that after reeling a few paces, he fell at full length, and the vaulted hall rang with the clash of his armour.  When he arose, his first action was to draw his sword and to fly at Allan, who, with folded arms, seemed to await his onset with the most scornful indifference.  Lord Menteith and his attendants interposed to preserve peace, while the Highlanders, snatching weapons from the wall, seemed prompt to increase the broil.

“He is mad,” whispered Lord Menteith, “he is perfectly mad; there is no purpose in quarrelling with him.”

“If your lordship is assured that he is non Compos Mentis,” said Captain Dalgetty, “the whilk his breeding and behaviour seem to testify, the matter must end here, seeing that a madman can neither give an affront, nor render honourable satisfaction.  But, by my saul, if I had my provstnt and a bottle of Rhenish under my belt, I should hive stood otherways up to him.  And yet it’s a pity he should be sae weak in the intellectuals, being a strong proper man of body, fit to handle pike, morgenstern, or any other military implement whatsoever.” [This was a sort of club or mace, used in the earlier part of the seventeenth century in the defence of breaches and walls.  When the Germans insulted a Scotch regiment then besieged in Trailsund, saying they heard there was a ship come from Denmark to them laden with tobacco pipes, “One of our soldiers,” says Colonel Robert Munro, “showing them over the work a morgenstern, made of a large stock banded with iron, like the shaft of a halberd, with a round globe at the end with cross iron pikes, saith, ’Here is one of the tobacco pipes, wherewith we will beat out your brains when you intend to storm us.’”]