aming instruments, each playing his own
favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had lain
buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the dead to run
out of hearing.

The Chieftains meanwhile had assembled in close conclave in the
great hall of the castle. Among them were the persons of the greatest
consequence in the Highlands, some of them attracted by zeal for the
royal cause, and many by aversion to that severe and general domination
which the Marquis of Argyle, since his rising to such influence in
the state, had exercised over his Highland neighbours. That statesman,
indeed, though possessed of considerable abilities, and great power, had
failings, which rendered him unpopular among the Highland chiefs. The
devotion which he professed was of a morose and fanatical character; his
ambition appeared to be insatiable, and inferior chiefs complained
of his want of bounty and liberality. Add to this, that although a
Highlander, and of a family distinguished for valour before and since,
Gillespie Grumach [GRUMACH--ill-favored.] (which, from an obliquity in
his eyes, was the personal distinction he bore in the Highlands, where
titles of rank are unknown) was suspected of being a better man in the
cabinet than in the field. He and his tribe were particularly obnoxious
to the M'Donalds and the M'Leans, two numerous septs, who, though
disunited by ancient feuds, agreed in an intense dislike to the
Campbells, or, as they were called, the Children of Diarmid.

For some time the assembled Chiefs remained silent, until some one
should open the business of the meeting. At length one of the most
powerful of them commenced the diet by saying,--"We have been summoned
hither, M'Aulay, to consult of weighty matters concerning the King's
affairs, and those of the state; and we crave to know by whom they are
to be explained to us?"

M'Aulay, whose strength did not lie in oratory, intimated his wish
that Lord Menteith should open the business of the council. With great
modesty, and at the same time with spirit, that young lord said, "he
wished what he was about to propose had come from some person of better
known and more established character. Since, however, it lay with him
to be spokesman, he had to state to the Chiefs assembled, that those who
wished to throw off the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to
wreath round their necks, had not a moment to lose. 'The Covenanters,'"
he said, "after