from the highroad, he led the way downwards, directing and commanding the others to afford us, but particularly the Bailie, the assistance necessary to our descending with comparative ease and safety. It was, however, in vain that Andrew Fairservice employed his lungs in obsecrating a share of Dougal’s protection, or at least his interference, to procure restoration of his shoes.

“Na, na,” said Dougal in reply, “she’s nae gentle body, I trow; her petters hae ganged parefoot, or she’s muckle mista’en.” And, leaving Andrew to follow at his leisure, or rather at such leisure as the surrounding crowd were pleased to indulge him with, he hurried us down to the pathway in which the skirmish had been fought, and hastened to present us as additional captives to the female leader of his band.

We were dragged before her accordingly, Dougal fighting, struggling, screaming, as if he were the party most apprehensive of hurt, and repulsing, by threats and efforts, all those who attempted to take a nearer interest in our capture than he seemed to do himself. At length we were placed before the heroine of the day, whose appearance, as well as those of the savage, uncouth, yet martial figures who surrounded us, struck me, to own the truth, with considerable apprehension. I do not know if Helen MacGregor had personally mingled in the fray, and indeed I was afterwards given to understand the contrary; but the specks of blood on her brow, her hands, and naked arms, as well as on the blade of the sword which she continued to hold in her hand—her flushed countenance, and the disordered state of the raven locks which escaped from under the red bonnet and plume that formed her head-dress, seemed all to intimate that she had taken an immediate share in the conflict. Her keen black eyes and features expressed an imagination inflamed by the pride of gratified revenge, and the triumph of victory. Yet there was nothing positively sanguinary, or cruel, in her deportment; and she reminded me, when the immediate alarm of the interview was over, of some of the paintings I had seen of the inspired heroines in the catholic churches of France. She was not, indeed, sufficiently beautiful for a Judith, nor had she the inspired expression of features which painters have given to Deborah, or to the wife of Heber the Kenite, at whose feet the strong oppressor of Israel, who dwelled in Harosheth of the Gentiles, bowed down, fell, and lay a dead man. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm by which she was agitated, gave her countenance and deportment, wildly dignified in themselves, an air which made her approach nearly to the ideas of those wonderful artists, who gave to the eye the heroines of Scripture history.

I was uncertain in what terms to accost a personage so uncommon, when Mr. Jarvie, breaking the ice with a preparatory cough (for the speed with which he had been brought into her presence had again impeded his respiration), addressed her as follows:—“Uh! uh! &c. &c. I am very happy to have this joyful opportunity” (a quaver in his voice strongly belied the emphasis which he studiously laid on the word joyful)—“this joyful occasion,” he resumed, trying to give the adjective a more suitable accentuation, “to wish my kinsman Robin’s wife a very good morning—Uh! uh!—How’s a’ wi’ ye” (by this time he had talked himself into his usual jog-trot manner, which exhibited a mixture of familiarity and self-importance)—“How’s a’ wi’ ye this lang time?—Ye’ll hae forgotten me, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as your cousin—uh! uh!—but ye’ll mind my father, Deacon Nicol Jarvie, in the Saut-Market o’ Glasgow?—an honest man he was, and a sponsible, and respectit you and yours—Sae, as I said before, I am right glad to see you, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as my kinsman’s wife. I wad crave the liberty of a kinsman to salute you, but that your gillies keep such a dolefu’ fast haud o’ my arms; and, to speak Heaven’s truth and a magistrate’s, ye wadna be the waur of a cogfu’ o’ water before ye welcomed your friends.”

There was something in the familiarity of this introduction which ill suited the exalted state of temper of the person to whom it was addressed, then busied with distributing dooms of death, and warm from conquest in a perilous encounter.

“What fellow are you,” she said, “that dare to claim kindred with the MacGregor, and neither wear his dress nor speak his language?—What are you, that have the tongue and the habit of the hound, and yet seek to lie down with the deer?”

“I dinna ken,” said the undaunted Bailie, “if the kindred has ever been weel redd out to you yet, cousin—but it’s kend and can be proved. My mother, Elspeth MacFarlane, was the wife of my father, Deacon