Donald Gorm was a rough, rattling, outspoken, hot-headed, and warm-hearted highlander, of about two-and-thirty years of age. Bold as a lion, and strong as a rhinoceros, with great bodily activity, he feared nobody; and having all the irascibility of his race, would fight with anybody at a moment's notice. Possessing naturally a great flow of animal spirits and much ready wit, Donald was the life and soul of every merry-making in which he bore a part. In the dance, his joyous whoop and haloo might be heard a mile off; and the hilarious crack of his finger and thumb, nearly a third of that distance. Donald, in short, was one of those choice spirits that are always ready for anything, and who, by the force of their individual energies, can keep a whole country-side in a stir. As to his occupations, Donald's were various--sometimes farming, (assisting his father, with whom he lived,) sometimes herring fishing, and sometimes taking a turn at harvest work in the Lowlands--by which industry he had scraped a few pounds together; and, being unmarried, with no one to care for but himself, he was thus comparatively independent--a circumstance which kept Donald's head at its highest elevation, and his voice, when he spoke, at the top of its bent. The tenor of our story requires that we should now advert to another member of Donald's family. This is a brother of the latter's, who bore the euphonious and high-flavoured patronymic of Duncan Dhu M'Tavish Gorm, or, simply, Duncan Gorm, as he was, for shortness, called, although certainly baptized by the formidable list of names just given. This Duncan Gorm was a man of totally different character from his brother Donald. He was of a quiet and peaceable disposition and demeanour--steady, sober, and conscientious; qualities which were thought to adapt him well for the line of life in which he was placed. This was as a domestic servant in the family of an extensive highland proprietor, of the name of Grant. In this capacity Duncan had, about a year or so previous to the precise period when our story commences--which, by the way, we beg the reader to observe, is now some ninety years past--gone to the continent, as a personal attendant on the elder son of his master, whose physicians had recommended his going abroad for the benefit of his health. It was, then, about a year after the departure of Duncan and his master, that Donald's father received a letter from his son, intimating the death of his young master, which had taken place at Madrid, and, what was much more surprising intelligence, that the writer had determined on settling in the city just named, as keeper of a tavern or wine-house, in which calling he said he had no doubt he would do well. And he was not mistaken; in about six months after, his family received another letter from him, informing them that he was succeeding beyond his most sanguine expectations--and hereby hangs our tale.