Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series - 1819.djvu/256

246 mour of story-telling, the young nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his servants, without minding the slumbering veteran.

"Every baron in the country," said he, "now swore revenge for this dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and brother-in-law of the murdered person, and the Children of the Mist were hunted down, I believe, with as little mercy as they had themselves manifested. Seventeen heads, the bloody trophies of their vengeance, were distributed among the allies, and fed the crows upon the gates of their castles. The survivors sought out more distant wildernesses, to which they retreated."

"To your right hand, counter-march and retreat to your former ground," said Captain Dalgetty; the military phrase having produced the correspondent word of command; and then starting up, professed he had been profoundly attentive to every word that had been spoken.

"It is the custom in summer," said Lord