Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 4 - 1819.djvu/335

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A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.
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Of Allan himself it is said, that, in a wonderfully short space after the deed was eommitted, he burst into a room in the Castle of Inverara, where Argyle was sitting in council, and flung on the table his bloody dirk.

"Is it the blood of James Graham?" said Argyle, a ghastly expression of hope mixing with the terror which the sudden apparition naturally excited.

"It is the blood of his minion," answered M'Aulay—"It is blood which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have spilt my own."

Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from this moment nothing certain is known of his fate. As the boy Kenneth, with three of the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards to cross Lochfine, it is supposed they dogged his course, and that he perished by their hand in some obscure wilderness. Another opinion maintains, that Allan