anship--what
think you now of the prediction of the Bodach Glas?' Then, before Edward
could answer, 'I saw him again last night: he stood in the slip of
moonshine which fell from that high and narrow window towards my bed.
"Why should I fear him?" I thought; "to-morrow, long ere this time, I
shall be as immaterial as he." "False spirit," I said, "art thou come to
close thy walks on earth and to enjoy thy triumph in the fall of the last
descendant of thine enemy?" The spectre seemed to beckon and to smile as
he faded from my sight. What do you think of it? I asked the same
question of the priest, who is a good and sensible man; he admitted that
the church allowed that such apparitions were possible, but urged me not
to permit my mind to dwell upon it, as imagination plays us such strange
tricks. What do you think of it?'

'Much as your confessor,' said Waverley, willing to avoid dispute upon
such a point at such a moment. A tap at the door now announced that good
man, and Edward retired while he administered to both prisoners the last
rites of religion, in the mode which the Church of Rome prescribes.

In about an hour he was re-admitted; soon after, a file of soldiers
entered with a blacksmith, who struck the fetters from the legs of the
prisoners.

'You see the compliment they pay to our Highland strength and courage; we
have lain chained here like wild beasts, till our legs are cramped into
palsy, and when they free us they send six soldiers with loaded muskets
to prevent our taking the castle by storm!'

Edward afterwards learned that these severe precautions had been taken in
consequence of a desperate attempt of the prisoners to escape, in which
they had very nearly succeeded.

Shortly afterwards the drums of the garrison beat to arms. 'This is the
last turn-out,' said Fergus, 'that I shall hear and obey. And now, my
dear, dear Edward, ere we part let us speak of Flora--a subject which
awakes the tenderest feeling that yet thrills within me.'

'We part not here!' said Waverley.

'O yes, we do; you must come no farther. Not that I fear what is to
follow for myself,' he said proudly. 'Nature has her tortures as well as
art, and how happy should we think the man who escapes from the throes of
a mortal and painful disorder in the space of a short half hour? And this
matter, spin it out as they will, cannot last longer. But what a dying
man can suffer firmly may kill a living friend to look upon. This same
law o