either by the passage of departing guests, or by the wrathful apparition of Dame Christie, who in her zeal for the maintenance of order due, and anxiety respecting the vagaries of her truant son, exercised in general so vigorous a police in the establishment as to have acquired a reputation for omniscience and ubiquity. The bare, smooth sides of the low, though spacious entry, afforded no aperture for concealment; it had neither recess nor closet; on the right-hand side a short passage and two or three steps led to the great oak parlour usually appropriated to the use of the higher class of frequenters; the room devoted to the reception of less aristocratic pleasure-seekers was on the left, and luckily (for Jock) had a separate communication with the kitchens and cellars. All this duly weighed, Master Jock strolled out afresh, and after mature reflection selected as his post a deep niche in the wall, about six feet from the ground, of which one existed on either side of the roughly-carved, low-browed door; for the house had been a convent in days of yore, and two guardian effigies of canonized abbots had been enshrined there, in the full pomp of mitre, crozier, and ecclesiastical array, until convents, monks, and saints in their sculptured semblances had been "dung down" and swept away by the Reformation. The niche was not difficult to reach by means of the window-sill and some rough projections of the wall, and in it Jock Maclean took up his position—a leal and willing ambassador, half for the admiration which, boy-like, he nourished towards the haughty, brilliant soldier-half for the sake of sweet Alice Scott, with whose charms and graces he was as desperately in love as young gentlemen of his mature age are often known to be. The station he had chosen, however perfect as a look-out, was not without its drawbacks, which threatened to increase, if, as the night wore on, the wind were to lull, and permit the heavy clouds to descend in rain; but Jock felt a magnificent contempt for elemental inclemencies, and snugly hidden, safe from prying eyes, in the black shades of the deep recess, regarded himself as little short of a Paladin, dispatched upon an errand of "derring do" by the high behest of the lady of his heart-enjoying at once the novelty of his employment, and the rather chimerical expectation of distinguishing himself by his zeal in the eyes of Viscount Dundee, to whom he did homage in his soul as his future general and leader. CHAPTER XL. THE COUNCIL. Away then, away, to the caves, to the rocks! WITHIN the substantial walls of the King's Head meanwhile, behind the spot where the trusty little sentinel had mounted guard, the turbulent conclave still held high debate, and was yet far from arriving at any conclusion of its discordant operations. The door, fast shut and "steekit," seemed as little likely as ever to unclose; the passions and interests gathered there still wrangled fierce and loud-and, to a disinterested spectator, these men, who had met avowedly for the furtherance of a single cause and under the guidance of a single principle, would not have appeared less unanimous if every one had aimed at a separate end and waged an unrelenting opposition against each and all of his fellow-partizans. For the curse of the Jacobites, the curse which attends all failing factions, was disunion. Every individual composing that council, which had assembled to stem with its broken forces the current of a nation's will, had his own opinion of the means indispensable to success, and, while ready at the first call of honour to lay down his life and fortune at his sovereign's feet, could hardly be brought to yield one iota of his own darling schemes, or bend his will to that of a single leader who might give coherence to the disorderly loyalty and irregular valour of the various members of this unfortunate party. In fact, to describe by one simile the peculiar dis-organization of the Jacobites, we might compare them to a heap of sand, which, when firmly held in the closed hand, assumes of necessity the mould of that hand; unclasp the fingers which gave it shape, and the grains fall to the earth in undistinguishable confusion. The touch of a man of genius transformed the incongruous atoms for a few months into the likeness of his own powerful mind; he fell-and each fragment sought its own place, and gradually disappeared amongst the common dust. But, ominous as the spectacle presented by this gathering must have been to the apprehension of one or two principal Jacobites, gifted with more self-abnegation and common sense than the rest, it would have been picturesque and animated enough in the eyes of a painter to have atoned for any deficiency in that gravity and order which befit such occasions. From forty to fifty gentlemen, mostly men in the prime of life, all elegantly, some splendidly, attired, filled the large and handsome old refectory; not seated in sedate discussion, but split into three or four divisions, of which the largest was composed of the younger and more hot-headed members present. In this, as may be imagined, the voices rose highest, the measures advocated were most impracticable, and the sentiments promulgated most extravagant. It contained few men of note or experience except the Earl of Linlithgow and our friend Captain Ludovic Crawford, who, although neither noble, chief, nor landholder, was not a person to be shelved when days of hard fighting and hard faring were at hand. He had joined the conference by Dundee's express desire, and had assumed his present post with the rather utopian though very praiseworthy view of moderating the boiling ardour of these impetuous partizans, whose projects all tended more or less to an immediate outbreak, a general massacre of the Whigs, and bombardment of the Parliament House, or even of the city itself, now that it had become a nest of vipers since the new "Whigamore's Raid." On all these moderate and feasible proposals, the veteran smiled ironical approval, while he demolished them one after another with a single sweep of his war-worn hand, and a few pithy sentences, or ingeniously constructed queries, involving a complete demonstration of their impossibility. Still he had but a limited sphere of influence, and began to long for the arrival of Lord Dundee, who, as we have had occasion to mention, was late. And his sense of the necessity for that nobleman's interference derived a great deal of its strength from certain whispers, and latterly more than whispers, circulating amongst another group which surrounded the Marquis of Athol. It consisted of such gentlemen as owned estates lying on or near what was termed the Highland line, a proximity which brought them under the influence of their powerful neighbour-mixed with a few of his |