n of the
day. His face was oval, with a pointed mustache; long ringlets fell
round his head; and his bearing was haughty and majestic. He rose from
his chair and advanced a step toward them.

"Do I understand," he said, "that you are bearers of dispatches from his
gracious majesty?"

"We are, sir," Harry said. "The king was pleased to commit to me various
documents intended for your eye. We left him at Oxford, and have
journeyed north with as little delay as might be in these times. The
dispatches, I believe, will speak for themselves, I have no oral
instructions committed to me."

So saying, Harry delivered the various documents with which they were
charged. The earl instructed the officer to see that they were well
lodged and cared for, and at once proceeded to his private cabinet to
examine the instructions sent him by the king. These were in effect
that, so soon as the army of the convention moved south from Dundee, he
should endeavor to make a great raid with his followers upon the south,
specially attacking the country of Argyll, so as to create a diversion,
and, if possible, cause the recall of the Scotch army to defend their
own capital.

For some weeks the lads stopped with Montrose. They had been furnished
with garments suitable to their condition, and Harry was treated by the
earl with the greatest kindness and courtesy. He often conversed with
him as to the state of politics and of military affairs in England, and
expressed himself as sanguine that he should be able to restore the
authority of the king in Scotland.

"These sour men of the conventicles have ever been stiff-necked and
rebellious," he said, "and have enforced their will upon our monarchs. I
have not forgotten," he went on, striking the hilt of his sword angrily,
"the insults which were put upon Queen Mary when she was preached to and
lectured publicly by the sour fanatic Knox, and was treated, forsooth,
as if she had been some trader's daughter who had ventured to laugh on a
Sunday. Her son, too, was kept under the control of these men until he
was summoned to England. It is time that Scotland were rid of the
domination of these knaves, and if I live I will sweep them from the
land. In courage my wild men are more than a match for the Lowlanders.
It is true that in the old days the clans could never carry their forays
southward, for, unaccustomed to discipline and unprovided with horses or
even with firearms, they fared but badly when opp