sant noise to join the river. As he came down from the
bare uplands at Dalnaspidal into the sheltered glen at Blair Castle,
the trees made an arch of the most delicate emerald over his head, for
the buds were beginning to open, and the wind blew gently upon his
face. The sight of habitations as he came nearer to the Lowlands, the
sound of the horses' feet upon the road, the gayety of his band of
troopers, the children playing before their humble cottages, the
exhilarating air, and the hope of the season when winter was gone,
told upon his heart and reenforced him. The despair of the night
before, when he tossed to and fro upon a wretched bed or paced up and
down before the farmhouse door, imagining everything that was
horrible, passed away as a nightmare. Was there ever such madness as
that he, John Graham, should be doubting his wife, Jean Cochrane, whom
he had won from the midst of his enemies, and who had left her mother
and her mother's house to be his bride? How brave she had been, how
self-sacrificing, how uncomplaining, how proud in heart and high in
spirit; she had given up the whole world for him; she was the bravest
and purest of ladies. That his wife of those years of storm and the
mother a few weeks ago of his child should forget her vows and her
love, and condescend to a base intrigue; that she should meet a lover
in the orchard where they often used to walk, where the blossom would
now be opening on the trees, that Livingstone, whom he knew and
counted in a sense a friend, though he held King William's commission
now, and had not stood by the right side, should take the opportunity
of his absence to seduce his wife! It was a hideous and incredible
idea, some mad mistake which could be easily explained. Dundee,
throwing off his black and brooding burden of thought, would touch his
horse with the spur and gallop for a mile in gayety of heart and then
ride on his way, singing some Cavalier song, till Grimond, who kept
away from his master those days and rode among the troopers, would
shake his head, and say to himself, "God grant he be not fey"
(possessed). Dundee would continue in high spirits till the evening
shadows began to fall, and then the other shadow would lengthen across
his soul. The night before he met his wife he spent in Glamis Castle,
and the grim, austere beauty of that ancient house affected his
imagination. Up its winding stairs with their bare, stern walls men
had gone in their armor, throug