There, the double drawing-room with its yellow damask curtains, high-backed chairs and couches, its old bandy-legged tabourettes, slender gueridon work-tables; its old-fashioned piano, with perhaps "H.R.H. the Duke of York's Grand March" on the music-frame; its Delft-lined fireplace and basket-grate set on a square block of stone, a spinning-wheel on one side, and cosy elbow-chair, brilliant with brass nails, on the other, was the beau-ideal of comfort, especially on a tempestuous night, such as the last we have described; nor was it destitute of splendour, for its lofty panelled walls exhibited some fine pictures. There were some gems by Greuze, of golden-haired boys and fair full-bosomed women in brilliant colours; one or two ruddily-tinted saints by Murillo; one or two dark Titians, and darker Vandykes representing Italian nobles of cut-throat aspect, in gilt armour, with trunk breeches and high ruffs. Then there were also some of the Scottish school; the Lord Rohallion (who opposed the surrender of Charles I. to the English) by Jameson; his son, a vehement opposer of the Union, attired in a huge wig and collarless red coat, by Aikman; and the father of the present lord, by Allan Ramsay, son of the poet.

This Lord in 1708 left his country in disgust, swearing that "she was only fit for the Presbyterian slaves who sold her;" and for several years he solaced himself at the head of a Muscovite regiment against the Turks on the banks of the Danube—as the Scots whigs had it, "learning to eat raw horse and forget God's kirk, among barbarians in red breeks."

Near the castle, and forming indeed a portion of it, was a platform, facing the little sandy bay, where the fishing boats were beached, and thereon were mounted twelve iron twenty-four pounders, part of the spoil of La Bonne Citoyenne, a French privateer, which was cast away on the Parian Craig; and there, as the old lord and representative peer (whose wife is awaiting him) still retained his military instincts, being a retired general officer, he had all the able-bodied men of his tenantry drilled to the use of sponge and rammer as artillerymen, for rumours of invasion were rife; gunboats were being built at Boulogne, and those who then looked across the Straits of Dover, could see the white tents of the Armée d'Angleterre, under the Irish soldier of fortune, Kilmaine, covering all the hostile shore of France. So all Britain was bristling with bayonets; from Cape Wrath to the Land's End in Cornwall, every man who could handle a musket was a volunteer, if not otherwise enrolled in the line, militia, or Fencibles.

On this battery the flag was hoisted and a salute loyally and joyously fired every 4th of June, in honour of His Majesty George III., by the Rohallion volunteers; and there with loud hurrahs they drank confusion to France and to his enemies, Tom Paine, the Pope, and the Devil, and very frequently in the best French brandy, which somehow found its way quite as often as our good Farintosh or Campbelton whisky, duty free, into the sea coves beneath the castle rock.

These twelve twenty-four pounders protected the approach to the bay on one side, and to the gate of the castle on the other—the haunted gate of Rohallion, as it was named, from the circumstance that there the old village dominie, Symon Skaill, when going home one morning (night he affirmed it to be) in midsummer, after topering with Mr. John Girvan, saw a very startling sight. Clearly defined in the calm still twilight of the morning, there stood by the gate the tall and handsome figure of John, Master of Rohallion, who was known to be then serving with the Foot Guards under Cornwallis, in America. He wore his scarlet regimentals, his brigadier wig, his long straight sword, and little three-cocked hat; but his face was pale, distorted by agony, and blood was flowing from a wound in his left temple.

Ere the affrighted dominie could speak, the figure—the wraith—melted into the twilight, and not a trace of it remained by the arched gate, where the birds were twittering about in the early morning. A note was made of this singular vision, and it was found that at that hour, the Master of Rohallion had been shot through the head, when leading on his company of the Guards at the attack on Long Island.

Such, in 1798, was the old Scottish mansion of Rohallion, the residence of Reynold, sixth Lord of that ilk, which, by the events of the last night's storm, has become the starting-place, or, as the quartermaster might phrase it, the point d'appui, of our story.

CHAPTER IV.
THE CHILD OF THE SEA.

"'Tis gone—the storm has past,
'Twas but a bitter hail shower, and the sun
Laughs out again within the tranquil blue.
Henceforth, Firmilian, thou art safe with me."
AYTOUN.