Philip Rollo; or, the Scottish Musketeers, Vol. 1 (of 2)

On the following day it was announced that Sir Donald was to leave us for Scotland, where he meant to recruit for the battalion among his own clan, and others that were friendly...

In my dreams she danced again before me, and her voice was lingering in my ear. I could still see that fairy figure, with the star beaming on her brow, the robe of muslin, the g...

After breakfasting on toast and tankard, like the English, and being rallied by Ian on my abstraction and silence; after the morning exercise with pike and musket was past, when...

For us, a mere "handful," opposed to a column so powerful, there could be no rest; thus, while one half of our slender force remained under arms, the others worked hard at the r...

Notwithstanding the rampant Calvinism of the duchy, the Lords of Holstein--for the province has a nobility of its own, and a most important, bulbous-looking nobility they are--h...

The Imperialists were rapidly penetrating into Holstein, and every where the troops of King Christian were falling back before them; the Lords Nithsdale and Spynie with their Sc...

Having completed my studies at the King's College, I left it in the June of 1626, and returned to my father's house, from which I had been so long absent, and as I felt with bit...

Next morning, the moment my guard was relieved by M'Coll of that Ilk and a new party, I hurried to my quarters, and found that both Ian and M'Alpine were at exercise in the Plac...

I had lost the path, and knew not which way to turn; yet the necessity for action made me walk hastily forward in the line which seemed parallel with the road I wished to pursue...

Major-General Slammersdorf had once been one of the happiest old fellows in the Danish service; but having had the misfortune to distinguish himself at Carelia, in the Swedish w...

The day was dark and stormy; a grey sky spread its cold background beyond the picturesque gables and wooden fronts of the old houses of Assens. The solemn storks had all disappe...

The hours stole slowly on, and as they wore away, and the hour of escape drew nigh, my anxiety increased, more perhaps than the whole occasion merited; but the wound on my head...

The pale dawn was glimmering on the misty waters of the Elbe, and the storks were flapping their dewy wings on the steep gables and fantastic chimney-tops, when our pipers in th...

"Ah, my friend and countryman! I have again the honour to salute you," said he, seating himself by my bedside. "A thousand cannonades! how well you are looking this morning; you...

From the place where I parted with Father Ignatius, Lauenburg, was about three miles distant, and the Elbe about one. The dusky evening was giving place to duskier night. At a l...

On the day immediately after the review, Sir Donald, with seven companies of the regiment, was ordered to cross the Elbe, leave two companies at Stade, and march towards the Wes...

The poultry gleaned up by our foragers from the houses we had passed (_deserted_ houses, remember), and the beef provided by our _Fourrier de Campement_ before leaving the good...

Here again, as at Boitzenburg and elsewhere, the desperate duty of keeping Tilly in check until Duke Bernard's Danish forces were re-embarked, was reserved for the Highlanders o...

Two days' nursing at the hands of these charming girls made me almost well, and fit for service. The contusion on my head no longer gave me any pain; the scar closed, and grew h...

I secretly resolved that, whether I was shot or whether I escaped, a pretty loud alarm should be given; Dandy Dreghorn was of the same opinion, for, notwithstanding his strong p...

Without firing another shot, we reached Heilinghafen, and found the town in a state of unparalleled uproar. Terrified by the noise of the cannon and musketry at Oldenburg, and s...

I was born in the year after King James VI. acquired the dominion of England, at my father's tower of Craigrollo, which overlooks the great bay of Cromartie. The youngest of fou...

Passing through Bleckede, a small town which is overlooked by a baronial castle, and through Radegast, both of which were plundered by the advanced guard of Croatian uskokes, we...

As I ascended to the upper deck my heart was full of joy, at the thought that Ernestine, whom I had considered all but lost to me for ever, was so suddenly restored; that her fa...

The sun, as it shone upon my eyes next morning, awoke me. I started, gazed around, and sunk again, for I struggled with a dreamy sense of pain and oppression. I was not in a biv...

"I have, señor generalissimo," replied the stranger, in a voice which I recognised, and which made me start, for it was either that of the Hausmeister or the devil (a personage...

I lay long insensible, concealed by a mound of rubbish which the explosion of the bridge had thrown up between me and the sconce, where the fierce Croats and savage Spaniards ha...

The horsemen came up rapidly. We challenged, and they proved to be the baron's troop of pistoliers retiring from the front with a dozen of prisoners, whom they had taken somewha...

His Danish majesty, the gallant King Christian IV., whom we were about to reinforce, was at this time waging with the vast forces of the empire, an unequal warfare in the same c...

From an eminent armourer in the Castlegate of the Brave Town of Aberdeen, I had purchased a suit of plain but well-tempered armour, such as a gentleman might wear, and such as n...

"This was four years ago; or else they have fled to Copenhagen, to escape the chances and mischances of war--the troubles (as the Hausmeister calls them) which always attend the...

Retaining ten thousand men under his own command, Count Tilly immediately despatched the Counts of Carlstein and Merodé, with the remainder of his force, along the banks of the...

On the 6th day after our landing, Ian and his sergeant, Phadrig Mhor, with sixty of our pikemen, were on guard in the great tower at the harbour mouth. After spending the foreno...

It may be easily supposed that neither Dandy Dreghorn nor I slept much for the short remainder of that eventful morning. Poor Dandy's lamentations for the plight into which his...

I wandered long among the fields and green hedges by the margin of the river, musing on the sudden success of my love affair, marvelling how or where it was all to end, and unab...

The moon shone palely through a thin white haze that floated over the Elbe; the level shore lay all sunk in dark shadow, and its reflection in the water was darker still. The ri...

As we had secured, sunk, or destroyed, all the boats and other craft on the Elbe, the Imperialists had no other means of crossing but passing, at push of pike, the long stone br...

The culverins of the _Unicorn_ and _Crown Royal_ fired a salute to the chief of Strathnaver as we embarked, on the first day of October, though contrary winds delayed us till th...

The next day's sun rose bright and radiant; the birds sang in the green poplars; the storks screamed on the red gable-tops; the great frogs were croaking hoarsely among the bron...

Though this retreat was necessary for our safety, and plenty of provisions were sent to us, to the great contentment of Dandy Dreghorn, and though we had the full liberty of tra...

Though the majority of the inhabitants of Glückstadt had retired to adjacent villages or elsewhere, on the town being occupied by foreign troops, a considerable crowd surrounded...

By this stroke of misfortune, forty stand of Danish colours, even those of Karl's pistoliers (_gules_ with the nettle-leaf of Holstein), became the trophies of Count Tilly; and...

"Come, master Rollo," thought I, as gayer ideas suggested themselves; "you must not deem these Jesuits such bad fellows after all! Indeed this one seems remarkably amiable. Reve...