CHAPTER XI.

     Is this thy castle, Baldwin?  Melancholy
     Displays her sable banner from the donjon,
     Darkening the foam of the whole surge beneath. 
     Were I a habitant, to see this gloom
     Pollute the face of nature, and to hear
     The ceaseless sound of wave, and seabird’s scream,
     I’d wish me in the hut that poorest peasant
     E’er framed, to give him temporary shelter.—­Brown.

The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed his leisure in studying the exterior of Sir Duncan’s castle, and verifying his own military ideas upon the nature of its defences.  But a stout sentinel, who mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of his apartment, gave him to understand, by very significant signs, that he was in a sort of honourable captivity.

It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself, how well these salvages understand the rules and practique of war.  Who should have pre-supposed their acquaintance with the maxim of the great and godlike Gustavus Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half a spy?—­And, having finished burnishing his arms, he sate down patiently to compute how much half a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of a six-months’ campaign; and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded to the more abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of two thousand men on the principle of extracting the square root.

From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound of the dinner bell, on which the Highlander, lately his guard, became his gentleman-usher, and marshalled him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore ample proofs of Highland hospitality.  Sir Duncan entered, conducting his lady, a tall, faded, melancholy female, dressed in deep mourning.  They were followed by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and wearing a black silk skull-cap, covering his short hair so closely, that it could scarce be seen at all, so that the unrestricted ears had an undue predominance in the general aspect.  This ungraceful fashion was universal at the time, and partly led to the nicknames of roundheads, prick-eared curs, and so forth, which the insolence of the cavaliers liberally bestowed on their political enemies.

Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady, who received his technical salutation with a stiff and silent reverence, in which it could scarce be judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater share.  The churchman, to whom he was next presented, eyed him with a glance of mingled dislike and curiosity.