o these restless
Singletons.

They called together every man of the name who could easily be found
between the Solway and the Tay. They hoisted the old family ensign on
the castle walls, and by way of mischief some of them displayed the
pennant of the Macfies--another rival clan--below it. They drove in
twelve head of oxen, regardless of proprietorship, wherewith to make
good cheer at table, and they decked the grand old banqueting-hall with
branches and heather, till it was more like a bower than a room.

These and many other things the Singletons did by way of showing honour
to the occasion, and when that evening thirty of them sat round the
festive board, with the young chief at the head, and with pyramids of
beef and mutton and bread before them, their satisfaction and enthusiasm
reached its highest pitch.

"Here's luck to the Singleton!" shouted they, "root and branch, laird
and clan."

And amid cheers, prolonged and deafening, the health was honoured and
the banquet proceeded.

"Was ever luck like ours?" growled one youth to his neighbour. "Here
have we been six weeks idle, with never a knock."

"And it'll be six weeks longer before we get one again, I'm thinking,
unless the king's party gather," said his comrade. "We don't get our
fair share of fighting, Tam, that's what it is."

"May be the young laird will change all that. But, I say, Donald, I
have my doubts of it."

"What, of the young laird?" exclaimed the others.

"Ay, he's been brought up in a queer school in England, they tell me,
where it's considered ill-breeding to molest your neighbour."

"Do you say so? The barbarians! That would never do for us, Tam. But
of course the young laird taught them better?"

"They say they taught him worse, and that-- Well, never mind. What is
auld Geordie saying?"

Auld Geordie was on his feet, announcing with great glee that a convoy
of treasure, bound for Edinburgh, was on its way at that moment from
Newcastle, so he had heard, and would pass within three miles of
Singleton Towers.

"And it'll be ours, boys," cried the old man, turning to his comrades;
"and the young laird shall win his spurs upon it! What do you say?"

A shout was the only answer. The proposal was one after the Singletons'
own heart. Every one looked towards the young laird.

Singleton was a dark, mild-looking youth, old for his years, and up till
the present time a stranger to his clan. For, as has already been
hinted,