"He is permitting some false Whig to sing his last psalm under the convenient branch where he is doomed to feed the corbies. Dundee is very kind in that way sometimes."
Recrossing the stream called the Leith, they rode towards a knoll that rose amid the marshy ground near the castle loch of Corstorphine. There a dozen of the cavalier troopers were dismounted, and leaning on their swords or carbines, were holding their bridles in a cluster round Dundee, who was still on horseback, and in the act of addressing a disarmed prisoner, in whom with surprise and sorrow they recognized the young Laird of Holsterlee.
Cool and collected, with folded arms he firmly encountered the large dark eyes of Dundee, which were fixed with stern scrutiny upon him. The group of his comrades surveyed him with glances of mingled scorn and pity.
"Holsterlee!" said the Viscount, who held in one hand a long Scots pistol, in the other a letter; "how little could I once have suspected that you, the best cavalier of the king's life guard, and one in whose loyalty and high spirit I trusted so much, would stoop to this dishonour! The attempt simply of deserting to take service with this vile usurper, though bad enough in itself, is as nothing compared to the treachery which this stray letter has revealed. Fool and villain! thou knowest that I am the last hope of the king's cause in Scotland, and that if I fall it will be buried in my grave; and yet thou art in league with this accursed Convention to destroy me! A thousand English guineas for my head, thou villanous scape-the-gallows and companion of grooms and horseboys, who hast squandered away a fair repute and noble patrimony among rakehelly gamesters and women of pleasure, dost thou value the head of a Scottish peer at a sum so trifling? hah!" He uttered a bitter laugh. "What," he resumed, "hast thou to urge, that I should not hang thee from the branch of this beech tree?"
"That I am a gentleman," replied Holsterlee boldly; "a lesser baron of blood and coat-armour by twelve descents, and should not die the death of a peasant churl or faulty hound."
"Right!" exclaimed Dundee, whose dark and terrible eyes began to fill with their dusky fire. "A gentleman should die by the hand of another, for every punishment is disgraceful. DEATH is the only relief from the consciousness of crime. Thou shalt have the honour of perishing by the hand of the first cavalier in Scotland. Thus shalt thou die—now God receive thy soul!" and pointing upward with his bridle hand, he levelled the pistol and fired. The ball passed through the brain of Holsterlee, and flattened against the plastered wail of a neighbouring cottage. The body sank prostrate on the turf, quivered for a moment, and then lay still and stiffening, with upturned eyes and relaxed jaws.
This act, which was the most terrible episode in the life of the stern Dundee, threw a chill on the hearts of his comrades; but he did not permit them to remain gazing on the lifeless remains of one who had ridden so long in their ranks, and who was the gayest fellow that ever cracked a jest, shuffled a card, or handed a coquette through the stately cotillion or joyous couranto.
"Our nags are somewhat breathed after the hot chase he gave us, gentlemen," said Dundee, deliberately reloading his pistol, and endeavouring under an aspect of external composure to conceal the immediate sorrow, remorse, and anger that too surely preyed upon his heart. "To horse! sling carbines—forward—trot!" and away they rode in silence leaving the cold remains of the dead man lying on the grassy sward, with his blood-dabbled locks waving in the morning wind, while the gleds and ravens wheeled and croaked around him with impatience.
But he felt not the one, and heard not the other.
He was stripped by the cottagers, and as his dress was remarkably rich, to prevent further inquiry they interred him where he lay between the bare beech tree and the old cottage wall*.