that if it were not for one thing more than another, or, as John himself
would have expressed it, "for todder things more nor ones," he would
have brought his Lochaber axe and the turnkey's head into more intimate
contact.

In the meantime, Lady Rae having ascended several flights of dark and
narrow stairs, and traversed several passages of a similar description,
had arrived at a particular door, on either side of which stood a
grenadier, with shouldered musket and bayonet fixed. They were the
guards placed upon her husband, who occupied the apartment which they
sentinelled.

The soldiers, who had orders to admit her ladyship and attendant to the
prisoner at any time between the hours of nine in the morning and seven
at night, offered no hindrance to her approaching the door and rapping
for admittance. This she now did; and the "Who's there?" of the captive
was replied to in a powerfully Celtic accent by John M'Kay, with--"My
Letty Rae, my lort." The door instantly flew open, and its inmate came
forth, with a smiling and delighted countenance, to receive his
beautiful and faithful wife.

In the meantime, John M'Kay took his station on the outside of the
door--a more friendly guard over the inmates of the apartment to which
it conducted than those who stood on either side of him. Here the same
feeling which had dictated John's significant hint to the turnkey below,
suggested his general bearing and particular manner to the two soldiers
now beside him.

Maintaining a profound and contemptuous silence, he strutted up and down
the passage--without going, however, more than two or three yards either