y bloodhounds, and have his sister carried off by
Fash-na-Cairn! Blue-Beard was a joke to him; fifteen wives, and only
five-and-twenty!--more than three per annum since he came of age! I
will put my brother on his guard the moment we arrive. This is truly a
barbarous country, and inhabited by nobody but murderers and
cannibals. Hobbins and Huxtable will be amazed to hear of their
partner's fate--and my brother never was partial to dogs!"

CHAPTER III.

The castle of Ben-na-Groich was an old square building, situated in a
wild ravine of the North Highlands. It consisted of little more than a
high tower, of the rough stone of the country, at one corner of a low
mass of building, in many parts fallen into decay, and presenting an
appearance of strength and massiveness, on which any attempt at beauty
would have been thrown away. One side of the square had something more
of a habitable look than the remaining portions, from the circumstance
of its chimneys being newly rebuilt and tastefully whitewashed; the
roof also was repaired, and the windows fitted with glass--a luxury
which was considered useless by the inhabitants of the remaining three
sides--the said inhabitants consisting of two or three cows, half a
score of dogs, and one or two old representatives of Fingal, who clung
to their ancient habitation with a local attachment that would have
done honour to a cat.

On the evening of the 10th of August, the parlour (for it was nothing
more, though bearing the nobler designation of the hall) was occupied
by a solitary gentleman of somewhat solid dimensions, who cheered his
loneliness by an occasional stir of the fire, and a frequent sip at a
tumbler of whisky-toddy. From time to time he went to the window and
listened. The cataract that rushed down the ravine would have drowned
any other external sound, even if such had existed; and with an
expression of increased ill humour after every visit to the window,
the gentleman renewed his former occupation of sipping the toddy and
stirring the fire.

"Some folly or other of sister Alice," at last he grunted, "putting
off her time in Edinburgh. They ought to have been here by two
o'clock, and here it is eight, and not a sound of their wheels. That
cursed rivulet, to be sure, drowns everything else; 'tis worse than
our hundred-horse engine. I wish they were here, for being a Highland
chieftain is lonely work after all--no coffee-house--no club--no
newspaper. Hobbins was rig