fellow want?"

A horseman rode up as he spoke, and gave a letter. Claverhouse glanced it
over, laughed scornfully, bade him tell his master to send his prisoners
to Edinburgh, for there was no answer; and, as the man turned back, said
contemptuously to Morton--"Here is an ally of yours deserted from you, or
rather, I should say, an ally of your good friend Burley--Hear how he
sets forth--'Dear Sir,' (I wonder when we were such intimates,) 'may it
please your Excellency to accept my humble congratulations on the
victory'--hum--hum--'blessed his Majesty's army. I pray you to understand
I have my people under arms to take and intercept all fugitives, and have
already several prisoners,' and so forth. Subscribed Basil Olifant--You
know the fellow by name, I suppose?"

"A relative of Lady Margaret Bellenden," replied Morton, "is he not?"

"Ay," replied Grahame, "and heir-male of her father's family, though a
distant one, and moreover a suitor to the fair Edith, though discarded as
an unworthy one; but, above all, a devoted admirer of the estate of
Tillietudlem, and all thereunto belonging."

"He takes an ill mode of recommending himself," said Morton, suppressing
his feelings, "to the family at Tillietudlem, by corresponding with our
unhappy party."

"O, this precious Basil will turn cat in pan with any man!" replied
Claverhouse. "He was displeased with the government, because they would
not overturn in his favour a settlement of the late Earl of Torwood, by
which his lordship gave his own estate to his own daughter; he was
displeased with Lady Margaret, because she avowed no desire for his
alliance, and with the pretty Edith, because she did not like his tall
ungainly person. So he held a close correspondence with Burley, and
raised his followers with the purpose of helping him, providing always he
needed no help, that is, if you had beat us yesterday. And now the rascal
pretends he was all the while proposing the King's service, and, for
aught I know, the council will receive his pretext for current coin, for
he knows how to make friends among them--and a dozen scores of poor
vagabond fanatics will be shot, or hanged, while this cunning scoundrel
lies hid under the double cloak of loyalty, well-lined with the fox-fur
of hypocrisy."

With conversation on this and other matters they beguiled the way,
Claverhouse all the while speaking with great frankness to Morton, and
treating him rather as a friend and companion th