he light of the red charcoal, seemed that of a fiend in the lurid
atmosphere of Pandemonium, and his gestures and words, as far as they
could be heard, seemed equally violent and irregular. All alone, and in a
place of almost unapproachable seclusion, his demeanour was that of
a man who strives for life and death with a mortal enemy. "Ha!
ha!--there--there!" he exclaimed, accompanying each word with a thrust,
urged with his whole force against the impassible and empty air, "Did I
not tell thee so?--I have resisted, and thou fleest from me!--Coward as
thou art, come in all thy terrors; come with mine own evil deeds, which
render thee most terrible of all,--there is enough betwixt the boards of
this book to rescue me!--What mutterest thou of grey hairs? It was well
done to slay him,--the more ripe the corn, the readier for the sickle.--
Art gone? Art gone?--I have ever known thee but a coward--ha! ha! ha!"

With these wild exclamations he sunk the point of his sword, and remained
standing still in the same posture, like a maniac whose fit is over.

"The dangerous time is by now," said the little girl who had followed;
"it seldom lasts beyond the time that the sun's ower the hill; ye may
gang in and speak wi' him now. I'll wait for you at the other side of the
linn; he canna bide to see twa folk at anes."

Slowly and cautiously, and keeping constantly upon his guard, Morton
presented himself to the view of his old associate in command.

"What! comest thou again when thine hour is over?" was his first
exclamation; and flourishing his sword aloft, his countenance assumed an
expression in which ghastly terror seemed mingled with the rage of a
demoniac.

"I am come, Mr. Balfour," said Morton, in a steady and composed tone,
"to renew an acquaintance which has been broken off since the fight of
Bothwell Bridge."

As soon as Burley became aware that Morton was before him in person,--an
idea which he caught with marvellous celerity,--he at once exerted that
mastership over his heated and enthusiastic imagination, the power of
enforcing which was a most striking part of his extraordinary character.
He sunk his sword-point at once, and as he stole it composedly into the
scabbard, he muttered something of the damp and cold which sent an old
soldier to his fencing exercise, to prevent his blood from chilling. This
done, he proceeded in the cold, determined manner which was peculiar to
his ordinary discourse:--

"Thou hast tarri