when you first saw me, you thought me a St. Clair.'

'Yes--if my poor boy had survived, he would have been called St. Clair, for that is my family name. Besides, from your strong resemblance to my mother, Margaret St. Clair, I thought you might be one of the descendants of her kinsman, Bertram St. Clair. His children I have once seen; --for not satisfied with writing to Bertram St. Clair, I made my way, years ago, to Loch Broom, to seek for my son at the risk of my life,--for I narrowly escaped being executed as a spy. But alas! I found that no tidings of my poor boy, or of my mother, had ever reached her paternal home.'

'May I ask why you seized me last night, and left me shut up in the tower?' said Lindsay, who now clearly saw that he had no robber to deal with.

'I took you for one of the Gens D'Armes lurking here to arrest me, and I afterwards detained you by force, and seized you again to-night, in order to get you to do me a piece of service.'

6

A singular mode of persuasion however;' observed Lindsay, with a smile.

'My business with you is this;' continued the stranger, without noticing his remark. My only friend, Henri Choiseul, the brother of my wife, who was my companion in arms, and in captivity among the Moors, is now a prisoner to savages still more barbarous--to those Austrian Goths who are desolating Italy. By them he has been condemned to the galleys to degradation ten thousand times worse than death; and for no other crime, than that of serving the King he had sworn to defend-Murat.-Yes! him, whom the little narrow-minded tyrants of the world once owned as a legitimate

monarch-whom, but yesterday, it would have been treason to have opposed, because he was in prosperity,--but whom it was treason to be faithful to, in the day of his adversity. My brother had been attached to Murat through life-had fought under his command, enjoyed his confidence, and reaped his benefits in power;-and he was not base enough to desert his friend, his general, and his King, in the day of distress. He fled with him to Toulon, and afterwards to Corsica ; and he was one of the thirty faithful followers who accompanied him in his last desperate landing in Calabria, where his little party were immediately taken prisoners. He witnessed his heroic death, when, kneeling down with eyes uncovered, he bared his breast-and himself gave to the soldiers the fatal order to Fire!' which even his enemies could not pronounce! It was for his fidelity and adherence to this brave man, that he was tried and condemned to the galleys. But I will rescue him, or perish in the attempt and it is for this end I am now wandering amongst these mountains. He is to be marched from the prisons of Milan, which are overstocked with convicts, to labour on the roads over the Alps ;--and thus will he return to Switzerland-to his native country, to work in that land of freedom in chains, like a felon, and chained for life to felons! I have hovered upon the frontiers for many weeks, as my intelligence led me to expect the chain of convicts, of which he forms one, to be marched out of Italy, by one pass or another. Its latest destination has been

*

* Many officers of noble birth were condemned to the galleys for life, both when taken in arms with Murat, and subsequently in the ill-fated Neapolitan Rebellion of 1821.

up the Lake of Como, by Chiavenna; where it arrived two days ago; and I expected that he would have been able to effect his escape at the intended halting place last night, about three leagues from hence, by the assistance of one of my emissaries, who was to have brought him to this tower; and in this dungeon beneath it, he was to have remained concealed until the first pursuit was over. The signal you heard last night was from one of my scouts, who was on the watch; but the persons, of whose approach he gave warning, proved not to be the fugitives. To-night I must again watch the pass. But even should Choiseul effect his escape, and reach this spot in safety, there is but little chance of his ultimately getting out of this country without a passport. It is for this I crave your assistance. If, at any frontier town you will procure for him and myself-for I must accompany him-a passport,-as if for two servants of your own, whom you wish to send back into France or England, I have no doubt of safely effecting our escape. But you are at liberty to aid me or not, as you please. Had you not sought me I should have sought you. I felt that I could trust you. I disarmed you, that you might do no unnecessary mischief in the first moment of alarm; and I incarcerated you in this dungeon only that you might hear my story, and be safe from the intrusion of the meddling villagers, should they come in search of you. You may now go freely. I know you will not betray me.'

Lindsay instantly agreed to do what he wished, and finding that it was probable the fugitive would be hotly pursued by the guards of the prisoners, in which case a desperate and unequal combat must take place, before his rescue could be effect22*

VOL. III.

ed-he insisted on joining his new friend in this perilous enterprise; and actually spent the night with him in a watch, which however proved unavailing.

But before they left the tower, Lindsay learnt, what the reader has long since discovered, that this mysterious stranger was the unfortunate Lord Setoun. He had been left for dead at the taking of Corsica, 1796, but recovered by the care of his brother in law, Colonel Choiseul. In leaving the island afterwards, together, in a small vessel, they were taken, as Lord Setoun related, by an Algerine pirate, and remained for three years in slavery, when they embraced the Mahometan faith, in order to obtain liberty; and though at first strictly watched, they at length succeeded in effecting their escape in a boat, and landed in safety on the coast of France. Choiseul immediately followed the fortunes of his old commander Murat.

Some years afterwards, when Lord Setoun had finally abandoned his despairing search after his child, he joined his brother in law, then his sole surviving tie to earth, and also entered the service of Murat, who had just been proclaimed King of Naples.* He served with him through the dreadful campaign of Russia, until the final dispersion of the Neapolitan army in 1815.

On that last disastrous field, he was left almost alone, his troop of Neapolitan horse, with the rest of the army, having been completely routed. He however threw off his uniform, and escaped being made prisoner, by pretending that he was one of the many Englishmen who had been in the Austrian camp previous to the engagement, and that he

* 1808.

had been stripped and plundered by a fugitive party of the enemy. He was therefore suffered unmolested to pass the Austrians at that time; but being afterwards discovered in an attempt to aid the desperate plans of Murat for re-establishing his power, a fine was set upon his head as a traitor. He saved himself, however, by flight, which he accomplished chiefly by the fidelity and vigilance of his German Swiss attendant, who had adhered to him like a part of himself, ever since his return from Algiers. He took refuge in Switzerland, but anxiety for the fate of his friend and brother Choiseul brought him to the frontiers of Italy, from whence he received constant intelligence from Choiseul, chiefly by means of a man who had served in his regiment, and had been promoted by him ; and whose life he had saved by his intercession during the reign of Murat. This man was now an Italian Sbirri, in the Austrian service.

Lord Setoun was also in league with the bands of smugglers who carried on a hazardous but lucrative trade in smuggling over the mountain passes into Lombardy, the merchandize which the little nearsighted policy of the Austrian government prohibited, in order to force the consumption of their own clumsy German manufactures. The same interdiction had been enforced even more rigorously, but equally ineffectually, by Buonaparte, against the productions and manufactures of other countries, but more especially of England; and during his iron reign, smuggling-which was the only profitable trade carried on over the whole Continent -had every where arrived at a systemised organization, that enabled the bold and numerous bands of smugglers successfully to set at defiance the power of that tyrant at whose nod nations trembled,