A company of Argyle's regiment--the perpetrators of the Glencoe atrocity--clad in coarse brick-coloured uniform of the Dutch fashion, were drawn up in double ranks facing inwards on each side of the doorway. They stood with their arms reversed, and each stooped his head on his hands, which rested on the butt of his musket. At the head of this lane were four drummers with their drums muffled and craped, and a plain deal coffin carried upon the shoulders of four soldiers. Walter, as he gazed steadily along these hostile ranks, saw only the sourest fanaticism visible in every face, and in none more so than that of their commander, a hard-featured and square-shouldered personage, with a black corslet under his ample red coat, and wearing a red feather in his broad hat. He introduced himself as-- "Major Duncannon, of the godly regiment of my noble lord Argyle." Walter bowed. "Duncannon!" he replied; "your name is familiar to me as being the man who issued the orders for the massacre of Glencoe." Duncannon gave Walter a steady frown in reply to his glance of undisguised hostility and contempt, and said-- "I obeyed the royal orders of King William III., to whom I say be long life--and, like thee, may all his enemies perish from Dan to Beersheba!" "I do not acknowledge him; he hath never been crowned among us, nor sworn the oath a Scottish king should swear. Shame on you, sir, to rank this false-hearted Dutchman with our brave King William the Lion. Shame be on you, sir, and all your faction," cried Walter, holding up his fettered hands, while his cheek flushed and his eyes kindled with energy. "Let our people recollect that the last man whose limbs were crushed to a jelly by the accursed steel boots and grinding thumbscrews, was subjected to their agonizing torture by the "merciful" William of Orange--by the same wise prince by whose express orders the bravest of the northern tribes was massacred in their sleep and in cold blood! Let our brave soldiers, when the lash that drips with their blood is flaying them alive, remember that, like scourging round the fleet and keelhauling the hapless mariner, it is an introduction of the same pious and magnanimous monarch who planned, signed, and countersigned the mandate for the ruthless atrocity of Glencoe! Oh, Scotland, Scotland! disloyal and untrue to the line of your ancient kings, how long will you waste your treasure and pour forth your gallant sons to the Dutch and German wars of a brutal tyrant, who at once fears and hates and dreads, though he dare not despise you! But the hour is coming," and he shook his clenched hand and clanked his fetters like a fierce prophet--"when war, oppression, exaction, and devastation, will be the meed of the actions of to-day!" "Silence, traitor!" exclaimed Duncannon, striking him with the hilt of his sword so severely that blood flowed from his mouth.