to
picturesque scenery.

The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one or both
of his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with them, probably
because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who
are made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions of the leading
men who inhabit this wild country, and the probability of their taking
part in the political convulsions that were soon expected, were the
subjects of their conversation.

They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young
gentleman was pointing to his attendants the spot where their intended
road turned northwards, and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a
ravine to the right hand, when they discovered a single horseman coming
down the shore, as if to meet them. The gleam of the sunbeams upon his
head-piece and corslet showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of
the other travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned.
"We must know who he is," said the young gentleman, "and whither he is
going." And putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the
rugged state of the road would permit, followed by his two attendants,
until he reached the point where the pass along the side of the lake
was intersected by that which descended from the ravine, securing thus
against the possibility of the stranger eluding them, by turning into
the latter road before they came up with him.

The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed the
three riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw them halt and
form a front, which completely occupied the path, he checked his
horse, and advanced with great deliberation; so that each party had an
opportunity to take a full survey of the other. The solitary stranger
was mounted upon an able horse, fit for military service, and for
the great weight which he had to carry, and his rider occupied his
demipique, or war-saddle, with an air that showed it was his familiar
seat. He had a bright burnished head-piece, with a plume of feathers,
together with a cuirass, thick enough to resist a musket-ball, and a
back-piece of lighter materials. These defensive arms he wore over a
buff jerkin, along with a pair of gauntlets, or steel gloves, the
tops of which reached up to his elbow, and which, like the rest of his
armour, were of bright steel. At the front of his military saddle hung
a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size, ne