Here Captain Dalgetty endeavoured to rise, for the purpose of explaining
how many veteran officers, trained in the German wars, were, to his
certain knowledge, in the army of the Earl of Leven. But Allan M'Aulay
holding him down in his seat with one hand, pressed the fore-finger of
the other upon his own lips, and, though with some difficulty, prevented
his interference. Captain Dalgetty looked upon him with a very scornful
and indignant air, by which the other's gravity was in no way moved, and
Lord Menteith proceeded without farther interruption.

"The moment," he said, "was most favourable for all true-hearted and
loyal Scotchmen to show, that the reproach their country had lately
undergone arose from the selfish ambition of a few turbulent and
seditious men, joined to the absurd fanaticism which, disseminated from
five hundred pulpits, had spread like a land-flood over the Lowlands of
Scotland. He had letters from the Marquis of Huntly in the north, which
he should show to the Chiefs separately. That nobleman, equally loyal
and powerful was determined to exert his utmost energy in the common
cause, and the powerful Earl of Seaforth was prepared to join the same
standard. From the Earl of Airly, and the Ogilvies in Angusshire, he had
had communications equally decided; and there was no doubt that these,
who, with the Hays, Leiths, Burnets, and other loyal gentlemen, would be
soon on horseback, would form a body far more than sufficient to overawe
the northern Covenanters, who had already experienced their valour in
the well-known rout which was popularly termed the Trot of Turiff. South
of Forth and Tay," he said, "the King had many friends, who, oppressed
by enforced oaths, compulsatory levies, heavy taxes, unjustly imposed
and unequally levied, by the tyranny of the Committee of Estates, and
the inquisitorial insolence of the Presbyterian divines, waited but the
waving of the royal banner to take up arms. Douglas, Traquair, Roxburgh,