since her brother’s death.  By living in this manner, the boy had gotten a timid, wild, startled look, loved to seek out solitary places in the woods, and was never so much terrified, as by the approach of children of the same age.  I remember, although some years younger, being brought up here by my father upon a visit, nor can I forget the astonishment with which I saw this infant-hermit shun every attempt I made to engage him in the sports natural to our age.  I can remember his father bewailing his disposition to mine, and alleging, at the same time, that it was impossible for him to take from his wife the company of the boy, as he seemed to be the only consolation that remained to her in this world, and as the amusement which Allan’s society afforded her seemed to prevent the recurrence, at least in its full force, of that fearful malady by which she had been visited.  But, after the death of his mother, the habits and manners of the boy seemed at once to change.  It is true he remained as thoughtful and serious as before; and long fits of silence and abstraction showed plainly that his disposition, in this respect, was in no degree altered.  But at other times, he sought out the rendezvous of the youth of the clan, which he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid.  He took share in all their exercises; and, from his very extraordinary personal strength, soon excelled his brother and other youths, whose age considerably exceeded his own.  They who had hitherto held him in contempt, now feared, if they did not love him; and, instead of Allan’s being esteemed a dreaming, womanish, and feeble-minded boy, those who encountered him in sports or military exercise, now complained that, when heated by the strife, he was too apt to turn game into earnest, and to forget that he was only engaged in a friendly trial of strength.—­But I speak to regardless ears,” said Lord Menteith, interrupting himself, for the Captain’s nose now gave the most indisputable signs that he was fast locked in the arms of oblivion.

“If you mean the ears of that snorting swine, my lord,” said Anderson, “they are, indeed, shut to anything that you can say; nevertheless, this place being unfit for more private conference, I hope you will have the goodness to proceed, for Sibbald’s benefit and for mine.  The history of this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it.”

“You must know, then,” proceeded Lord Menteith, “that Allan continued to increase in strength and activity, till his fifteenth year, about which time he assumed a total independence of character, and impatience of control, which much alarmed his surviving parent.  He was absent in the woods for whole days and nights, under pretence of hunting, though he did not always bring home game.  His father was the more alarmed, because several of the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing troubles of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did he think it altogether safe to renew any attack upon them.  The risk of Allan, in his wanderings, sustaining injury from these vindictive freebooters, was a perpetual source of apprehension.