'Que Dieu m'en garde!' cried Megret laughing. 'Your eyes are accustomed to hitting and wounding men's hearts, and you would have a manifest advantage over me. A blow from so beauteous a hand can as little inflict dishonor as the knight-creating stroke of a king's sword upon a victorious battle-field.' 'You have more luck than understanding,' remarked the governor, at the same time causing himself to be conveyed to the table. For the future, however, I shall expect that you will not forget the treatment which is due to thy father's worthy guests.' The maiden submissively kissed her father's hand and took her place on his left; Megret seated himself on his right, and Christine nodded to Arwed to sit by her; but he went round the table and seated himself by Megret. Christine observed this movement with great surprise. 'I love free conversation at the table,' whispered he smilingly to her, 'and have no helmet to protect me.' 'Insufferable!' murmured she, and in her anger at his unsparing irony, filled her father's goblet so full, that the good old burgundy overflowed and colored the exquisite damask table cloth. Her father was again reproving her for this new impropriety, when the servant announced sir Mac Donalbain, and Christine started with a look of mingled joy and alarm. 'He is heartily welcome!' cried the governor, and a tall, well built man, about thirty years old, entered the hall. He wore a short, green overcoat with copper buttons. At his broad leather girdle, in which two pistols were inserted, hung a broad sabre, and in his hand he carried a double-barrelled gun. His sunburnt face was not regularly handsome, but the spirit and boldness which characterized it, rendered it interesting. The wild black eyes, however, which peered from under his dark brows, and a few wrinkles on his forehead and about his mouth, gave him a grim and disagreeable expression. Arwed, who glanced now at him and now at the polished Frenchman, compared the two, and came to the conclusion that he was not in the very best of company. 'Whence do you come so late, sir Mac Donalbain?' kindly asked the governor. 'I have been hunting in the Asele Lappmark,' answered the guest, laying aside his weapons and boldly seating himself near Christine. 'I had got belated, and the light of your hospitable castle shone so invitingly that I concluded to ask of you entertainment for the night.' 'This worthy Scot is in a certain sense a brother sufferer of yours, dear major, in so far as the death of our king has destroyed his prosperity as well as yours. He had the assurance of an advantageous post in our army, made a long journey to come here, found his hopes annihilated by the death of the king, and for the present lives upon his income, at Hernoesand, awaiting better times.'