My maid—my
blue-eyed maid, he bore away,
Due to the toils of
many a bloody day.—ILLIAD.
It was necessary, for many reasons, that Angus M’Aulay,
so long the kind protector of Annot Lyle, should be
made acquainted with the change in the fortunes of
his late protege; and Montrose, as he had undertaken,
communicated to him these remarkable events. With
the careless and cheerful indifference of his character,
he expressed much more joy than wonder at Annot’s
good fortune; had no doubt whatever she would merit
it, and as she had always been bred in loyal principles,
would convey the whole estate of her grim fanatical
father to some honest fellow who loved the king.
“I should have no objection that my brother Allan
should try his chance,” added he, “notwithstanding
that Sir Duncan Campbell was the only man who ever
charged Darnlinvarach with inhospitality. Annot
Lyle could always charm Allan out of the sullens, and
who knows whether matrimony might not make him more
a man of this world?” Montrose hastened to interrupt
the progress of his castle-building, by informing
him that the lady was already wooed and won, and, with
her father’s approbation, was almost immediately
to be wedded to his kinsman, the Earl of Menteith;
and that in testimony of the high respect due to M’Aulay,
so long the lady’s protector, he was now to request
his presence at the ceremony. M’Aulay looked
very grave at this intimation, and drew up his person
with the air of one who thought that he had been neglected.
“He contrived,” he said, “that his
uniform kind treatment of the young lady, while so
many years under his roof, required something more
upon such an occasion than a bare compliment of ceremony.
He might,” he thought, “without arrogance,
have expected to have been consulted. He wished
his kinsman of Menteith well, no man could wish him
better; but he must say he thought he had been hasty
in this matter. Allan’s sentiments towards
the young lady had been pretty well understood, and
he, for one, could not see why the superior pretensions
which he had upon her gratitude should have been set
aside, without at least undergoing some previous discussion.”
Montrose, seeing too well where all this pointed,
entreated M’Aulay to be reasonable, and to consider
what probability there was that the Knight of Ardenvohr
could be brought to confer the hand of his sole heiress
upon Allan, whose undeniable excellent qualities were
mingled with others, by which they were overclouded
in a manner that made all tremble who approached him.
“My lord,” said Angus M’Aulay, “my
brother Allan has, as God made us all, faults as well
as merits; but he is the best and bravest man of your
army, be the other who he may, and therefore ill deserved
that his happiness should have been so little consulted
by your Excellency—by his own near kinsman—and
by a young person who owes all to him and to his family.”
