"Over all this empty house, which I vow is like a great castle, and is almost without furniture."
"Almost!" replied Ian; "why, my cousin, except this room, and that one occupied by the Hausmeister, it seems quite deserted. Its inhabitants have all died of the plague——"
"The plague!—pleasant that, for their successors."
"This was four years ago; or else they have fled to Copenhagen, to escape the chances and mischances of war—the troubles (as the Hausmeister calls them) which always attend the march of foreign troops."
"Troubles?" said I.
"Ay," replied our lieutenant, Angus Roy M'Alpine, who had been in the Low Countries and Germany before; "troubles—for so the Hausmeister was pleased to name free inquartering, and the occasional abduction of a pretty maid or a wine-cask, things that will now and then happen, where soldiers shake their feathers."
"He is an ill-looking dog, that Hausmeister," I observed, "and wears a devilish odd hat and pair of breeches—I hate the aspect of the varlet!"
"Hate no one, Philip," said M'Alpine, quietly; "for hatred and anger are sure to go together—and sorrow perchance may follow; but I instinctively dislike this person, too."
M'Alpine, a fine-looking soldier, and brave fellow, was somewhat of a gloomy and thoughtful cast. Having once slain a friend in a single combat (as we were informed)—the result of a sudden quarrel—he made a vow to wear crape on his left arm till the end of his days, and never to give another challenge, though he had often received them, and been compelled to fight more than once in defence of his honour and reputation.
"I am sorry you are averse to the Holsteiner," said Ian; "for I have invited him to dine with us."