Is this thy castle,
Baldwin? Melancholy
Displays her sable banner
from the donjon,
Darkening the foam of
the whole surge beneath.
Were I a habitant, to
see this gloom
Pollute the face of
nature, and to hear
The ceaseless sound
of wave, and seabird’s scream,
I’d wish me in
the hut that poorest peasant
E’er framed, to
give him temporary shelter.—Brown.
The gallant Ritt-master would willingly have employed
his leisure in studying the exterior of Sir Duncan’s
castle, and verifying his own military ideas upon
the nature of its defences. But a stout sentinel,
who mounted guard with a Lochaber-axe at the door of
his apartment, gave him to understand, by very significant
signs, that he was in a sort of honourable captivity.
It is strange, thought the Ritt-master to himself,
how well these salvages understand the rules and practique
of war. Who should have pre-supposed their acquaintance
with the maxim of the great and godlike Gustavus Adolphus,
that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half
a spy?—And, having finished burnishing his
arms, he sate down patiently to compute how much half
a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of a
six-months’ campaign; and, when he had settled
that problem, proceeded to the more abstruse calculations
necessary for drawing up a brigade of two thousand
men on the principle of extracting the square root.
From his musings, he was roused by the joyful sound
of the dinner bell, on which the Highlander, lately
his guard, became his gentleman-usher, and marshalled
him to the hall, where a table with four covers bore
ample proofs of Highland hospitality. Sir Duncan
entered, conducting his lady, a tall, faded, melancholy
female, dressed in deep mourning. They were followed
by a Presbyterian clergyman, in his Geneva cloak, and
wearing a black silk skull-cap, covering his short
hair so closely, that it could scarce be seen at all,
so that the unrestricted ears had an undue predominance
in the general aspect. This ungraceful fashion
was universal at the time, and partly led to the nicknames
of roundheads, prick-eared curs, and so forth, which
the insolence of the cavaliers liberally bestowed
on their political enemies.
Sir Duncan presented his military guest to his lady,
who received his technical salutation with a stiff
and silent reverence, in which it could scarce be
judged whether pride or melancholy had the greater
share. The churchman, to whom he was next presented,
eyed him with a glance of mingled dislike and curiosity.
