to present a homogenous mass of dark vapour over all the heavens. A
flash of vivid lightning now flared in her eyes, and left her for a
moment in suspense whether she had not been blinded by the bright fluid;
then on came the peal of thunder, which reverberating among the
mountains like discharges of artillery, filled her with that peculiar
awe which the speaking clouds throw over the hearts of mortals. The rain
came down in torrents, and had scarcely begun to pour, when the
speat-rills of the high lands were heard dashing down like angry spirits
to swell the Henderland Burn and the Megget, and raise the fury of these
mountain streams. The sound of the thunder had awoke the children, who,
leaving in terror their beds, came running to their mother, to seek that
protection which could alone allay their fears. Circling round her
knees, they hid their heads among the folds of her clothes, or clambered
to her bosom, and twined their arms round her neck. It was in vain she
asked them to return to bed; they conceived themselves safer on the
breast of their mother, though she still sat at the casement, and the
lightning glanced in their eyes, than they could be in their beds,
muffled up in the bedclothes, and listening to the successive peals of
thunder. As she sat in this attitude, with the children cowering into
her bosom, like little chickens under the wing of their mother, she
observed that the thunder approached nearer and nearer, as the period
between the flash and the peal diminished gradually to a second; and a
sudden flash among the trees, accompanied with a crackling noise,
connected with some destructive operation of the bolt, indicated that
mischief had been done in that quarter of the wood. It was where the elm
stood, the subject of Merlin's rhyme; and this circumstance sent the
current of her thoughts in that direction, where there was so much
aliment for her excited fancy. She silently prayed that the tree might
be destroyed; and its towering top, above all others of the wood, held
out some hope that her strange wish might be realized.

The sound of a man's voice--that of Dick of the Muir, as he was
styled--the individual who kept the gate of the Tower--was heard
shouting to some one without, in reply to some request made by the
latter. It was now about two in the morning, and Marjory could not
conceive what could be the purpose of the stranger's visit at that
dreary hour.

"What want ye wi' my Leddie at this ti