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Hazleby at a Consecration I should as soon think of asking Gillespie Grumach. 'It is for the Major's sake, of course, said Helen; 'he will like to come. 'Ay, but he is not coming, he cannot get leave, said Elizabeth; 'if he was, I should not mind it so much, but it is only Mrs. Hazleby and the girls, for she has the grace to bring Lucy, on Mamma's special invitation. But only think of Mrs.

Such communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave the lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of hearing the conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of visiting them in disguise, an experiment which had terminated so unpleasantly on the present occasion for Gillespie Grumach.

But was there a single man, who, on casting his eye round this hall, and recognising the power, the gallantry, and the dignity of the chiefs assembled, could entertain a moment's doubt of their success against the utmost force which Gillespie Grumach could collect against them?

Menteith, though merely outlined, is a good fellow, a gentleman, and not a stick; Allan escapes the merely melodramatic; 'Gillespie Grumach' is masterly in his brief appearances; and Montrose himself seems to me to be brought in with a skill which has too often escaped notice. For it would mar the story to deal with the tragedy of his end, and his earlier history is a little awkward to manage.

By-the-bye, I should have remembered that I called on my old friend, Lady Charlotte Campbell, and found her in her usual good-humour, though miffed a little I suspect at the history of Gillespie Grumach in the Legend of Montrose. I saw Haining also, looking thin and pale. These should have gone to the memorandum of yesterday. May 23.

Then I told him of the Great Rebellion, and how, amid the tumult of the next fifty years, the Grim Marquis Gillespie Grumach, as his squint caused him to be called Montrose's fatal foe, staked life and fortunes in the deadly game engaged in by the fierce spirits of that generation, and losing, paid the forfeit with his head, as calmly as became a brave and noble gentleman, leaving an example, which his son already twice rescued from the scaffold, once by a daughter of the ever-gallant house of Lindsay, again a prisoner, and a rebel, because four years too soon to be a patriot as nobly imitated; how, at last, the clouds of misfortune cleared away, and honours clustered where only merit had been before; the martyr's aureole, almost become hereditary, being replaced in the next generation by a ducal coronet, itself to be regilt in its turn with a less sinister lustre by him

Having thus duly indoctrinated Sigurdr with the Sagas of the family, as soon as we had crossed the lake I took him up to the Castle, and acted cicerone to its pictures and heirlooms, the gleaming stands of muskets, whose fire wrought such fatal ruin at Culloden; the portrait of the beautiful Irish girl, twice a Duchess, whom the cunning artist has painted with a sunflower that turns FROM the sun to look at her; Gillespie Grumach himself, as grim and sinister-looking as in life. the trumpets to carry the voice from the hall door to Dunnaquaich; the fair beech avenues, planted by the old Marquis, now looking with their smooth grey boles, and overhanging branches, like the cloisters of an abbey the vale of Esechasan, to which, on the evening before his execution, the Earl wrote such touching verses; the quaint old kitchen-garden; the ruins of the ancient Castle, where worthy Major Dalgetty is said to have passed such uncom- fortable moments; the Celtic cross from lone Iona: all and everything I showed off with as much pride and pleasure, I think, as if they had been my own possessions; and the more so as the Icelander himself evidently sympathised with such Scald-like gossip.