te proceedings? How does your head feel when you are engaged in
these dangerous conferences?"

"Not quite so secure on my shoulders," answered Mareschal, "as if I were
talking of hunting and hawking. I am not of so indifferent a mould as
my cousin Ellieslaw, who speaks treason as if it were a child's nursery
rhymes, and loses and recovers that sweet girl, his daughter, with a
good deal less emotion on both occasions, than would have affected me
had I lost and recovered a greyhound puppy. My temper is not quite so
inflexible, nor my hate against government so inveterate, as to blind me
to the full danger of the attempt."

"Then why involve yourself in it?" said Ratcliffe.

"Why, I love this poor exiled king with all my heart; and my father was
an old Killiecrankie man, and I long to see some amends on the Unionist
courtiers, that have bought and sold old Scotland, whose crown has been
so long independent."

"And for the sake of these shadows," said his monitor, "you are going to
involve your country in war and yourself in trouble?"

"I involve? No!--but, trouble for trouble, I had rather it came
to-morrow than a month hence. COME, I know it will; and, as your country
folks say, better soon than syne--it will never find me younger--and as
for hanging, as Sir John Falstaff says, I can become a gallows as well
as another. You know the end of the old ballad;

"Sae dauntonly, sae wantonly,
Sae rantingly gaed he,
He play'd a spring, and danced a round,
Beneath the gallows tree."

"Mr. Mareschal, I am sorry for you," said his grave adviser.

"I am obliged to you, Mr. Ratcliffe; but I would not have you judge of
our enterprise by my way of vindicating it; there are wiser heads than
mine at the work."

"Wiser heads than yours may lie as low," said Ratcliffe, in a warning
tone.

"Perhaps so; but no lighter heart shall; and, to prevent it being made
heavier by your remonstrances, I will bid you adieu, Mr. Ratcliffe, till
dinner-time, when you shall see that my apprehensions have not spoiled
my appetite."

CHAPTER XIII.

To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour, that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurlyburly innovation.--HENRY THE FOURTH, PART II.

There had been great preparations made at Ellieslaw Castle for the
entertainment on this important day, when not only the gentleme