time in
his life felt himself affected with a disposition to low spirits. 'I have
been in worse situations than this too,' he said; 'more dangerous, for
here is no danger; more dismal in prospect, for my present confinement
must necessarily be short; more intolerable for the time, for here, at
least, I have fire, food, and shelter. Yet, with reading these bloody
tales of crime and misery in a place so corresponding to the ideas which
they excite, and in listening to these sad sounds, I feel a stronger
disposition to melancholy than in my life I ever experienced. But I will
not give way to it. Begone, thou record of guilt and infamy!' he said,
flinging the book upon the spare bed; 'a Scottish jail shall not break,
on the very first day, the spirits which have resisted climate, and want,
and penury, and disease, and imprisonment in a foreign land. I have
fought many a hard battle with Dame Fortune, and she shall not beat me
now if I can help it.'

Then bending his mind to a strong effort, he endeavoured to view his
situation in the most favourable light. Delaserre must soon be in
Scotland; the certificates from his commanding officer must soon arrive;
nay, if Mannering were first applied to, who could say but the effect
might be a reconciliation between them? He had often observed, and now
remembered, that when his former colonel took the part of any one, it was
never by halves, and that he seemed to love those persons most who had
lain under obligation to him. In the present case a favour, which could
be asked with honour and granted with readiness, might be the means of
reconciling them to each other. From this his feelings naturally turned
towards Julia; and, without very nicely measuring the distance between a
soldier of fortune, who expected that her father's attestation would
deliver him from confinement, and the heiress of that father's wealth and
expectations, he was building the gayest castle in the clouds, and
varnishing it with all the tints of a summer-evening sky, when his labour
was interrupted by a loud knocking at the outer gate, answered by the
barking of the gaunt half-starved mastiff which was quartered in the
courtyard as an addition to the garrison. After much scrupulous
precaution the gate was opened and some person admitted. The house-door
was next unbarred, unlocked, and unchained, a dog's feet pattered
upstairs in great haste, and the animal was heard scratching and whining
at the door of the roo