"Friends! what other friend than his sword does a brave fellow require? With a good buff belt to keep it at your thigh, it will go all over the world with you, and is the best knife I know of, with which to carve out a fair fortune; for it will never fail you, if you are but true to it. Now, Philip, when all the brave spirits of Scotland are flocking to the German wars, in tens of thousands, why should you stay behind? All the troops of the great Gustavus Adolphus are led by brave Duinewassals and Lowland cavaliers--yea, every company, regiment, and brigade of his Swedes and allies. All his cities and fortresses are governed by Scotsmen, and there are not less than fourteen thousand valiant Scots covering themselves with glory and honour in the war against the tyrants of the empire. Ten thousand other Scots are going to Denmark to fight the battles of King Christian against Ferdinand of Hapsburg; and my cousin, Sir Donald of Strathnaver, is now raising three thousand soldiers for that service. Under his banner, I am to lead a hundred of my father's men to the Lochlin of the bards of old." "For what?" "Dias Muire let! Can you ask? to seek honour for ourselves, and to add one ray to the martial glory which for ages has encircled the tribes of the Gael." Fired by the romantic energy of my stately Highland kinsman-- "Ian," I replied, "I am sorely tempted; for you open up the path I have so long wished to pursue. Here I have nothing left to care for, and, if you allow me, I will gladly trail a pike under your orders, and march to the wars of Low Germanie." "There spoke the M'Farquhar blood, and I was thinking you no better than a Lowlander!" said Ian, his eyes flashing as he clapped me on the shoulder; "but it shall never be said that a kinsman so near and so dear to Ian Dhu, trailed a pike as a private man under our banner, when so many Gunns, Grants, and Munroes, cock their bonnets as commissioned officers. I shall write to my kinsman, Sir Donald, and in a fortnight from this time you shall hear from me. Come, take new courage! together we will push our fortune in these foreign wars, and in the hour of battle and danger, my hundred steel hearts of your mother's tribe will be ever as a shirt of mail around you, Philip!" I gave my hand upon it to this high-spirited youth, whose energy--as he spoke in his native Gaëlic--I cannot infuse into this dialogue, which is written from memory. "I will leave this place, Ian, with sensations of bitterness rather than regret," said I, as we ascended to my father's tower; "the only being who would have wept for my departure we laid yesterday in yonder chapel, on which the morning sun now shines so redly. None seem to love me here----" "The more reason to march--eh?" "From my birth my father has hated me, because----" (I could not mention the ridiculous reason, for it always filled me with anger.) "Because--why?" "I was not a girl, whom you might have married."