h he trusted. But his faith did not
abandon him, though he lacked for a time the power of expressing it. 'Say
what you will,' was his answer to the Tempter; 'I know there is as much
betwixt the two boards of this Book as can ensure me forgiveness for my
transgressions and safety for my soul.' As he spoke, the clock, which
announced the lapse of the fatal hour, was heard to strike. The speech
and intellectual powers of the youth were instantly and fully restored;
he burst forth into prayer, and expressed in the most glowing terms his
reliance on the truth and on the Author of the Gospel. The Demon retired,
yelling and discomfited, and the old man, entering the apartment, with
tears congratulated his guest on his victory in the fated struggle.

The young man was afterwards married to the beautiful maiden, the first
sight of whom had made such an impression on him, and they were consigned
over at the close of the story to domestic happiness. So ended John
MacKinlay's legend.

The Author of Waverley had imagined a possibility of framing an
interesting, and perhaps not an unedifying, tale out of the incidents of
the life of a doomed individual, whose efforts at good and virtuous
conduct were to be for ever disappointed by the intervention, as it were,
of some malevolent being, and who was at last to come off victorious from
the fearful struggle. In short, something was meditated upon a plan
resembling the imaginative tale of Sintram and his Companions, by Mons.
le Baron de la Motte Fouque, although, if it then existed, the author had
not seen it.

The scheme projected may be traced in the three or four first chapters of
the work; but farther consideration induced the author to lay his purpose
aside. It appeared, on mature consideration, that astrology, though its
influence was once received and admitted by Bacon himself, does not now
retain influence over the general mind sufficient even to constitute the
mainspring of a romance. Besides, it occurred that to do justice to such
a subject would have required not only more talent than the Author could
be conscious of possessing, but also involved doctrines and discussions
of a nature too serious for his purpose and for the character of the
narrative. In changing his plan, however, which was done in the course of
printing, the early sheets retained the vestiges of the original tenor of
the story, although they now hang upon it as an unnecessary and unnatural
incumbrance. The c