lgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual his
charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching mission.

At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first
care,--he met Angus M'Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been looking
at his horse; and, after praising his points and carriage, both united
in strongly dissuading the Captain from taking an animal of such value
with him upon his present very fatiguing journey.

Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather
wild tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into
Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bothies where he would be
condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be procured for
his horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old heather. In short,
he pronounced it absolutely impossible, that, after undertaking such a
pilgrimage, the animal could be in any case for military service. The
Englishman strongly confirmed all that Angus had said, and gave himself,
body and soul, to the devil, if he thought it was not an act little
short of absolute murder to carry a horse worth a farthing into such a
waste and inhospitable desert. Captain Dalgetty for an instant looked
steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and next at the other, and then
asked them, as if in a state of indecision, what they would advise him
to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.

"By the hand of my father, my dear friend," answered M'Aulay, "if you
leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed and sorted
according to his worth and quality, and that upon your happy return, you
will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in butter."

"Or," said Sir Miles Musgrave, "if this worthy cavalier chooses to part
with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part of the silver
candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse, which I shall be very
willing to transfer to his."

"In brief, mine honourable friends," said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing
them both with an air of comic penetration, "I find it would not be
altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember
the old soldier by, in case it shall please M'Callum More to hang him
up at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small
satisfaction to me, in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier
like Sir Miles Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our
excellent landlord, should act as my exe