wise to admit
him within the precincts which they designed to defend. At the same time
that the ambassador set forth, the group of horsemen, as if they had
anticipated the preparations of John Gudyill for their annoyance,
withdrew from the advanced station which they had occupied, and fell back
to the main body.

The envoy of the Covenanters, to judge by his mien and manner, seemed
fully imbued with that spiritual pride which distinguished his sect. His
features were drawn up to a contemptuous primness, and his half-shut eyes
seemed to scorn to look upon the terrestial objects around, while, at
every solemn stride, his toes were pointed outwards with an air that
appeared to despise the ground on which they trode. Lord Evandale could
not suppress a smile at this singular figure.

"Did you ever," said he to Major Bellenden, "see such an absurd
automaton? One would swear it moves upon springs--Can it speak, think
you?"

"O, ay," said the Major; "that seems to be one of my old acquaintance, a
genuine puritan of the right pharisaical leaven.--Stay--he coughs and
hems; he is about to summon the Castle with the but-end of a sermon,
instead of a parley on the trumpet."

The veteran, who in his day had had many an opportunity to become
acquainted with the manners of these religionists, was not far mistaken
in his conjecture; only that, instead of a prose exordium, the Laird of
Langcale--for it was no less a personage--uplifted, with a Stentorian
voice, a verse of the twenty-fourth Psalm:

"Ye gates lift up your heads! ye doors, Doors that do last for aye, Be
lifted up"--

"I told you so," said the Major to Evandale, and then presented himself
at the entrance of the barricade, demanding to know for what purpose or
intent he made that doleful noise, like a hog in a high wind, beneath the
gates of the Castle.

"I come," replied the ambassador, in a high and shrill voice, and without
any of the usual salutations or deferences,--"I come from the godly army
of the Solemn League and Covenant, to speak with two carnal malignants,
William Maxwell, called Lord Evandale, and Miles Bellenden of Charnwood."

"And what have you to say to Miles Bellenden and Lord Evandale?" answered
the Major.

"Are you the parties?" said the Laird of Langcale, in the same sharp,
conceited, disrespectful tone of voice.

"Even so, for fault of better," said the Major.

"Then there is the public summons," said the envoy, putting a paper into
Lord