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The massive mantelpiece of the early Stuart times ascended to the ceiling. It was an exact copy of the famous one in Gowrie House at Perth, and over it in Gothic letters was the same remarkable and apposite legend borne by the former:—

"Truths long concealed at length emerge to light,

And controverted facts are rendered bright."

But Roland now perceived with genuine wonder, that the couplet had been chiselled completely away, and the stone frieze was now smooth and bare.

"By whose orders was this done, Runlet?" he asked with angry surprise.

"Those of the Laird, your father," replied the butler.

"When?"

"Just before his last illness."

"Why?"

"I cannot say, Mr. Roland, but he has done some queer things of late," he added with diffidence.

On that mantelpiece were cut the Ruthven arms, bars and lozenges, within a border flowered and counter-flowered, crested with a goat's head, and above them hung the tattered colours of Ruthven's battalion of the 1st Royal Scots—one of four—which had borne them in triumph from the plains of Corunna to the gates of Paris, covered with trophies, among which are still the cross of St. Andrew and the crowned thistle of James VI.