“You will then do nothing for your liberty,” said the Campbell.

“Anything—­but call myself the friend of your tribe,” answered MacEagh.

“We scorn the friendship of banditti and caterans,” retorted Murdoch, “and would not stoop to accept it.—­What I demand to know from you, in exchange for your liberty, is, where the daughter and heiress of the Knight of Ardenvohr is now to be found?”

“That you may wed her to some beggarly kinsman of your great master,” said Ranald, “after the fashion of the Children of Diarmid!  Does not the valley of Glenorquhy, to this very hour, cry shame on the violence offered to a helpless infant whom her kinsmen were conveying to the court of the Sovereign?  Were not her escort compelled to hide her beneath a cauldron, round which they fought till not one remained to tell the tale? and was not the girl brought to this fatal castle, and afterwards wedded to the brother of M’Callum More, and all for the sake of her broad lands?” [Such a story is told of the heiress of the clan of Calder, who was made prisoner in the manner described, and afterwards wedded to Sir Duncan Campbell, from which union the Campbells of Cawdor have their descent.]

“And if the tale be true,” said Murdoch, “she had a preferment beyond what the King of Scots would have conferred on her.  But this is far from the purpose.  The daughter of Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr is of our own blood, not a stranger; and who has so good a right to know her fate as M’Callum More, the chief of her clan?”

“It is on his part, then, that you demand it!” said the outlaw.  The domestic of the Marquis assented.

“And you will practise no evil against the maiden?—­I have done her wrong enough already.”

“No evil, upon the word of a Christian man,” replied Murdoch.

“And my guerdon is to be life and liberty?” said the Child of the Mist.

“Such is our paction,” replied the Campbell.

“Then know, that the child whom I saved our of compassion at the spoiling of her father’s tower of strength, was bred as an adopted daughter of our tribe, until we were worsted at the pass of Ballenduthil, by the fiend incarnate and mortal enemy of our tribe, Allan M’Aulay of the Bloody hand, and by the horsemen of Lennox, under the heir of Menteith.”

“Fell she into the power of Allan of the Bloody hand,” said Murdoch, “and she a reputed daughter of thy tribe?  Then her blood has gilded the dirk, and thou hast said nothing to rescue thine own forfeited life.”

“If my life rest on hers,” answered the outlaw, “it is secure, for she still survives; but it has a more insecure reliance—­the frail promise of a son of Diarmid.”

“That promise shall not fail you,” said the Campbell, “if you can assure me that she survives, and where she is to be found.”

“In the Castle of Darlinvarach,” said Ranald MacEagh, “under the name of Annot Lyle.  I have often heard of her from my kinsmen, who have again approached their native woods, and it is not long since mine old eyes beheld her.”