"That shall I do, my lady, joyfully," replied the dominie, bowing very low; "and that you will be unto him all that the daughter of Pharosh was to the little waif she found in the ark of bulrushes, I doubt not." "Now, dominie," said the quartermaster, testily, "grog first--Exodus after." "I have the honour to wish your ladyship a very good night; and we shall drink to your health a glass for every letter of your name, like the Romans of old, as we find in Tibullus and Martial," said the solemn dominie, retiring and making three profound bows in reply to Lady Rohallion's stately courtesy. "Good night, dominie. You, Girvanmains, will tell me the last news in the morning." The old quartermaster made his most respectful military obeisance as he withdrew, on receiving this patronymic; for though he had begun life in the ranks of the 25th, or old Edinburgh regiment, like every Scot he had a pedigree, and claimed a descent from the Girvans of Girvanmains and Dalmorton, an old Ayrshire stock, who were always adherents of the Crawfords of Rohallion, either for good or for evil, especially in their feuds with the Kennedies of Colzean; and thus he was disposed to be more than usually suave, when the lady addressed him as "Girvanmains," or more kindly and simply as "John Girvan," a familiarity which won entirely the heart of the worthy old soldier, for he had followed her husband to many a battle and siege, and, under his eye and orders, had expended many a thousand round of John Bull's ball ammunition in the Seven Years' war and in the fruitless strife with our colonists in America. CHAPTER III. THE CASTLE OF ROHALLION. "Hast them seen that lordly castle, That castle by the sea? Golden and red above it, The clouds float gorgeously; And fain it would stoop downward, To the mirrored wave below, And fain it would soar upward, In the evening's crimson glow."--LONGFELLOW. The baronial fortalice in which our story has opened stands, as we have stated, upon a cliff, at least one hundred and fifty feet in height above the ocean, or where the estuary of the Clyde widens thereunto, on the Carrick shore; but since 1798 it has undergone many alterations, not perhaps for the better.