"Gentlemen," said Dunbarton, looking around him with sparkling eyes, "the great, the terrible crisis to which our leaders and our statesmen have so long looked forward, has come at last; and to the hearts and swords of his faithful soldiers, King James can alone trust the fortunes of his House. I have received most urgent dispatches, written by himself, from Whitehall, and all our available force must, to-morrow, march for England; Hounslow is the rendezvous; Church and King our _cri de guerre_! The Privy Council meets secretly in the gallery at Holyrood; they will sit in ten minutes. Farewell, my good friends and gallant comrades," continued the Earl, bowing with a heaviness of heart that was apparent to all; "I will see you at daybreak, when the _générale_ beats. For the palace, ho! come Hosterlee." "Away, gallants, to your fair ladies and gay lemans," exclaimed the latter, with a tragi-comic air; "away, to dance a merry couranto, and have one last daffin with the belles of the Cap-and-Feather close; a last horn at Hugh Blair's; a last dish of oysters and a game at shovelboard in Bess Wynd; a last camisadoe with the students and city watch, for we march to-morrow, and when the Guards and the Royals go, well may our ladies rend their silken tresses, and exclaim 'Ichabod, Ichabod, Auld Reekie, for thy glory hath departed!'" In a few minutes the jovial party was completely broken up; many of them had taken leave, hurriedly, on those very missions Mr. Holster had enumerated; some to bid farewell to mothers, wives, and sweethearts; some to have a last horn of wine with old familiar friends; others to prepare for their sudden departure; while those happy spirits, who had neither preparations to make, nor friends to leave behind them, clustered round the appalled landlord, and pushed the wine-cup more briskly than ever. But Gibbie's spirit and vivacity had evaporated; he looked forward to blood and blows, trooping and free-billeting, with no small horror, and on the departure of his military patrons, beheld a gloomy perspective of fines, persecutions, and annoyance from the whig enemies of the Government, who would undoubtedly usurp place and power in absence of that armed force, on the presence of which the authority of James VII., in Scotland, alone depended. The moment the earl retired, Walter had thrown himself on horseback, and galloped away by the base of Saint John's Hill, and skirting the village of the Pleasance, dashed along the banks of the Burghloch, a place "then shaded by many venerable oaks," and reached the house of Bruntisfield just as the sun began to dip behind the wooded summit of Corstorphine. CHAPTER XI. THE BETROTHAL.