His father's letter, although it contained many expressions of pride, praise, and exultation for Ronald's conduct at Almarez, was written much in the same style as his others usually were: every thing was looking gloomy at home; the flocks and hirsels were perishing on the mountains, and the tenants in the glen had failed in their rents. "But they are our people," continued the old gentleman, "and I cannot drive them forth from the sheilings where they were born, and from the glen where the purple heather blooms so bonnily above the graves of their fathers. I cannot savagely expatriate, as other proprietors are doing daily, the descendants of those true and loyal vassals, who stood by our ancestors in danger and death during many a soul-stirring time in the years that are gone. No! I have more honour, compassion, and generosity. Poverty is their misfortune, not their crime. Heaven knows how little a space of time remains for me to be over them, as all my affairs are inextricably involved, and in a few months that letter of cautionary, granted in an evil hour to protect that rascal Macquirk, becomes due. God alone knows where I can raise the money. £8,000 will scarcely pay it, and I believe I will have to lay it down every stiver, as Macquirk has retreated to the sanctuary of Holyrood-house for protection from his creditors. Last month I was down in Edinburgh, endeavouring to procure the needful on a bond,—but in vain. Lochisla is too deeply involved already. Curse on the hour in which an honourable Highland gentleman of birth and family has to sue at and succumb to a narrow-hearted and blood-sucking attorney! a wretch that will make a beggar of any man who is simple enough to trust him, or become entangled in the meshes of the profession, which, like a true old Highlander, I regard with proper hatred and contempt. D—n them all! I say, heartily; and all tax-gatherers, messengers at arms, and excisemen likewise! Some of the last kind of intruders carried off Alpin Oig's still from Coir nan Taischatrin, and a great noise was made in Perth about it. Three came up the glen with a warrant for his apprehension; but I hid him in the old dungeon under the hall, where I would advise them not to try and look for him, if they wish to keep their bones whole. It was a great insult to seize the still, but I am powerless now, and can only think with a sigh of the time when my father hung two of them on the dule tree at the tower gate,—and no man dared to say, What dost thou? It was the day before he marched for Glenfinnan, and the unfortunate gaugers were left to feed the eagles and corbies of Benmore. Scotland was Scotland then! Dirk and claymore! was the cry when a Highland gentleman was insulted. I saw, by the papers, that young Inchavon has been taken prisoner. Well, I dare say you will not miss him much. His sister's arts have completely failed to entrap the Earl of Hyndford. He took his departure suddenly for Edinburgh last month, leaving Miss Alice to fly her hawks at lesser game."
Ronald had scarcely finished the perusal of this disheartening letter, when Evan entered hastily. "Oh, sir," said he, "I have an unco' tale to tell ye aboot my comrade Angus,—puir cheild."
"How! has he been robbed by picaros,—slain by guerillas, or what?"
"O, waur than a' that."
"He deserted in the direction of the enemy; I was sorry to hear of it. He was always a favourite of mine and of Seaton's. Did he reach the French lines?"
"Eh, no, sir! Captain Blacier's riflemen fell in wi' him amang the hills, and there has been an unco' tulzie. But weel do I ken for what puir Angus deserted. It wasna the French he was awa to join; he was off for Almendralejo, sir."
"Almendralejo! Stay; I remember a story now. Surely it was not his attachment to some girl there which led him to commit so rash an act?"
"Just naething else. O Maister Ronald, ye ken weel what an unco' thing love is."
"I have seen the girl,—Maria Garcionados."
"Ay, sir,—a bonnie lassie, wi' een like slaes, cheeks redder than rowans, and skin like the drifted snaw; but she has been a dooms unlucky jo for Angus. I'll tell ye the haill story. Ye maun ken, sir, that mony months gane past, when we were quartered in Almendralejo, Angus fell over the lugs in love wi' this braw gilpie, whan we were billeted in her ain house. Ye heard frae Mr. Macdonald o' the toosle we had wi' her cuisins, and unco' auld Turk o' a faither. Hech! it was a teugh job, wi' sharp skenes and bayonets, and a' that. Weel, sir; syne the day Angus first tint sicht o' that lassie, he has never been the same rattling, roaring kind o' chield he was; but ay wae and dowie, soughing and sighing till it was gruesome to hear him. Yesterday, or the day before it, when coming ower the hills,—ye mind the bit clachan we stoppit at for a night's rest?"