"Wet! what is wet? come, Macbean, come along."

66

Nay, don't go off so, Colin; do change your clothes; you'll get yourself ill of cold; and you are very much fatigued besides."

66

Aye, hantle o' fatigue," cried Macbean, "to be walking, and fochting, and crossing the seas, and drouket through an' through wi' rain, an' blinded wi' levin, an' maist deaf wi' thunder; but what's a' that to this news? The auld laird dead, and his gude wife, and the Lady Norah dead-Ohon! this is the warst morning o' a' poor Macbean's days. O my captain! my peur captain! gang, gang, let us be gaen to the manse; the guid man gae me his benison; and the Lady Ellen's there; dinna stop here; come, let us be gaen. "If you will go, Colin, then I'll accompany you ?"

"We'll do so, Louis."

On the road to the manse, Colin, whe

had preserved the firmest composure till now on the catastrophe of his sire, asked, "When did my father die?"

"In December of the year you left home, his body was found in Ambrisbeg loch."

"What! do ye mean to say my father, tired of existence, sought refuge from himself and his family in that loch ?"

"His body was found there; but there are strong reasons to suppose he was murdered first, and then thrown into the very deepest part of the loch, at the rocks where Michael Scott's stair is hewn out."

"Murdered! how? was it found out? by whom ?"

mys

"The whole is wrapped up in tery; we've never found out the murderer."

"But my mother! of what did she die?"

"From the time your father was missing, as I have been informed, she was never sensible, and died at last in a paroxysm of madness, occasioned, the doctor said, by the tragic end of uncle."

my

"O God, what do I hear ?"

"Out! come, dinna fa' now, cap'tain; 'come on,' ye said on Abraham's heights, 'on-charge, my lads of Innisgail!' ye've scaped frae muckle skaith; Ohon! Ohon! peur man! he canna haud up a wee bit langer; haud him! haud up his head, Mr. Louis, and I'll bring him again wi' a cheek-fu' o' this Ferntosh."

For Colin could hold out no longer; he hung on the shoulder of Louis, and shook throughout all his frame; and Macbean was officiously applying a flask of whisky to St. Clyde's mouth.

"I ken'd it wad do him guid; now he's coming to again: there's naething

like a drap o' raw whisky for a heartless man," quoth the trusty sergeant.

"My dear fellow, keep up Colin,we are not half a mile from the manse. Run, Macbean, and announce our arrival."

Hey-day, see! see! the chield's nae dead yet," exclaimed Macbean; "look, sirs, look! Maister Villejuive, is na' that the daft callan? Deil the like o' him e'er I ken'd; an' how muckle, an' crouse like, and cadgie he's grown." "What, is it Glass, Sergeant? Is it Glass, Louis ?"

"It is, Colin; he's going to the manse.'

"Holloo! holloo!" cried the sergeant. "Sauney! Sauney! Sauney Glass, come here, ye lang-legged, battie-bummel; come here, and see your auld friends.". "He'll be here in an instant, Colin; he hears the sergeant."

"Deil the like o' that e'er I seed;

VOL. III.

C

the lang legs o' the chield hardly touch the ground," came from the lips of Macbean, as he stretched out his neck and gazed at Glass running towards them.

"You feel better, Colin;" said Louis. "I do, I do, but you have not said what Norah died of. Tell me, tell me, when did she die?"-" An hour before your mother."-" And what was the matter with her, did she die through grief?

"Ohon! I'm a peur man; this is ware then the worst battle we e'er fought; dinna, dinna, dinna baith make yoursells like weans; ye're baith begruttin eneugh already," said the sergeant.

"And Norah's dead! and she died of grief! O, cruel fates! O God! why am I alive till this hour!" uttered Colin in the most bitter anguish.

"Aha! Sauney, my man," said Mac