but then Milton was the laureate of the other side, and his view was not that of the Scots. Time passes on, and brings not merely the Restoration, but the Revolution; the Castle is true to the old cause under the Duke of Gordon, yet it gives in finally and becomes a hold for Jacobite prisoners, among whom was Lord Balcarres. On the night of the 27th of July 1689, a hand drew aside the curtains of the bed, and there was Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, gazing at his startled friend. Balcarres addressed the vision, but received no answer. The figure looked steadfastly upon the captive, moved towards the mantelpiece, and finally disappeared from the room, At that very hour, Dundee was lying dead at Killiecrankie, the most splendid and most useless of victories. The silver bullet had found its billet. The Covenanters were absolutely convinced that the persecutors were in direct league with Satan, who protected them to the utmost of his power. How else to explain their charmed lives, when so many hungered and thirsted after their death? How else to account for that reckless courage that provoked whilst it avoided the mortal stroke? What the object of those legends thought of them, we cannot tell, perhaps they were flattered. Dundee could turn his horse on the slope of a hill like a precipice, and his courage—but then courage was so cheap a commodity in old Scotland that only when it failed was there cause for wonder and contemptuous comment. However, the silver bullet was proof against enchantment, and Dundee ended as surely himself had wished. Legends gathered about a much grimmer figure, the very grimmest figure of all, Sir Thomas Dalzell of Binns. The long beard, the truculent, cruel visage, the martial figure, trained in the Muscovite service, well made up the man who never knew pity. Is it not told that he bent forward from his seat in the Privy Council, at a meeting in 1681, to strike with clenched fist the accused that was there for examination? “Is there none other hangman in the toun but yourself?” retorted the undaunted prisoner. Dalzell had the gift of devoted loyalty, no razor had touched his face since the death of Charles I. The legends about him are in character. At Rullion Green the Covenanters feeling their cause lost ere the battle was fought, noted with dismay that Dalzell was proof against all their shot. The bullets hopped back from his huge boots as hail from an iron wall. Ah, those terrible boots! if you filled them with water it seethed and boiled on the instant. Certain sceptics declare, by the way, he never wore boots at all! Did he spit on the ground, a hole was forthwith burnt in the earth. And yet, strange malice of fate, Sir Thomas died peaceably in his bed, even though his last hours were rumoured as anguished.