oming to any decision, excepting that the Chiefs, who supported the
opinion that Argyle should be invaded, promised to seek out among their
followers those who might be most capable of undertaking the office of
guides upon the expedition.

Montrose had retired to the cabin which served him for a tent, and
stretched himself upon a bed of dry fern, the only place of repose which
it afforded. But he courted sleep in vain, for the visions of ambition
excluded those of Morpheus. In one moment he imagined himself displaying
the royal banner from the reconquered Castle of Edinburgh, detaching
assistance to a monarch whose crown depended upon his success, and
receiving in requital all the advantages and preferments which could be
heaped upon him whom a king delighteth to honour. At another time
this dream, splendid as it was, faded before the vision of gratified
vengeance, and personal triumph over a personal enemy. To surprise
Argyle in his stronghold of Inverary--to crush in him at once the rival
of his own house and the chief support of the Presbyterians--to show
the Covenanters the difference between the preferred Argyle and the
postponed Montrose, was a picture too flattering to feudal vengeance to
be easily relinquished.

While he lay thus busied with contradictory thoughts and feelings, the
soldier who stood sentinel upon his quarters announced to the Marquis
that two persons desired to speak with his Excellency.

"Their names?" answered Montrose, "and the cause of their urgency at
such a late hour?"

On these points, the sentinel, who was one of Colkitto's Irishmen, could
afford his General little information; so that Montrose, who at such a
period durst refuse access to no one, lest he might have been neglecting
some important intelligence, gave directions, as a necessary precaution,
to put the guard under arms, and then prepared to receive his untimely
visitors. His groom of the chambers had scarce lighted a pair of
torches, and Montrose himself had scarce risen from his couch, when two
men entered, one wearing a Lowland dress, of shamoy leather worn almost
to tatters; the other a tall upright old Highlander, of a complexion
which might be termed iron-grey, wasted and worn by frost and tempest.

"What may be your commands with me, my friends?" said the Marquis, his
hand almost unconsciously seeking the but of one of his pistols; for
the period, as well as the time of night, warranted suspicions which the
good mie