"LOVING COUSIN,--I have conferred with our kinsman, Mackay of Strathnaver, and he was proud to have the honour of appointing you to be an Ensign in my company of pikes. Our cousin M'Alpine is your lieutenant, so that it will be no dishonour to be commanded by one who shares our blood. Sir Donald will embark with the entire regiment for Denmark in two king's ships, which are to be waiting us in the Bay of Cromartie, immediately below your father's tower, about the end of this month; so that, against that time, I beg you will prepare your best coat-of-mail, consisting of back, breast, and pot, together with the _breacan fheile_ of the Mackay tartan. "I need scarcely remind you again of how many brave Scots, by their good swords, their true hearts, and indomitable valour, have raised themselves from humbler rank than ours, to the highest honours a subject can attain, in the courts and camps of that glorious arena on which we are about to enter! Loving cousin, the wide world is all before us, and we have our fathers' swords! If we live to return to the land of the Gael, I hope we shall do so covered with wounds (here the dominie shrugged his shoulders) and with honour; if we fall, we shall do so gloriously, fighting for the civil and religious liberties of Europe. We may die far from our homes; but, believe me, the dew of heaven, as it falls on our unburied faces, will not be the only tears shed over us, Philip. I have but one real regret--that we may find our last home, so far from the homes of our kindred; for the dying wish of the true Highlander is ever to be laid in the grave of his fathers, beneath the purple heather and the yellow broom. But away with such fears, for it matters little where a heart moulders, if that heart be true; and so, with the assurance that you will be in readiness to meet us on the day we march into Cromartie, I commit you, loving cousin, to the protection of God. "MACFARQUHAR. "_Post Scriptum_.--The bearer, my cousin and henchman, who is to be a sergeant in our said regiment of Strathnaver, will afford you all other information." CHAPTER III. SIR DONALD AND HIS REGIMENT.