nd affection for
his victims, and always spoke of them in kindly and affectionate terms.
They were his poor honest fellows, his pretty dears, his gossips, his
good old fathers, as their age or sex might be; and as Trois Eschelles
endeavoured to inspire them with a philosophical or religious regard to
futurity, Petit Andre seldom failed to refresh them with a jest or two,
as if to induce them to pass from life as something that was ludicrous,
contemptible, and not worthy of serious consideration.

I cannot tell why or wherefore it was, but these two excellent persons,
notwithstanding the variety of their talents, and the rare occurrence of
such among persons of their profession, were both more utterly detested
than perhaps any creatures of their kind, whether before or since; and
the only doubt of those who knew aught of them was, whether the grave
and pathetic Trois Eschelles or the frisky, comic, alert Petit Andre
was the object of the greatest fear, or of the deepest execration. It
is certain they bore the palm in both particulars over every hangman
in France, unless it were perhaps their master Tristan l'Hermite, the
renowned Provost Marshal, or his master, Louis XI.

It must not be supposed that these reflections were of Quentin Durward's
making. Life, death, time, and eternity were swimming before his eyes--a
stunning and overwhelming prospect, from which human nature recoiled in
its weakness, though human pride would fain have borne up. He addressed
himself to the God of his fathers; and when he did so, the little rude
and unroofed chapel, which now held almost all his race but himself,
rushed on his recollection.

"Our feudal enemies gave my kindred graves in our own land," he thought,
"but I must feed the ravens and kites of a foreign land, like an
excommunicated felon!"

The tears gushed involuntarily from his eyes. Trois Eschelles, touching
one shoulder, gravely congratulated him on his heavenly disposition
for death, and pathetically exclaiming, Beati qui in Domino moriuntur
[blessed are they who die in the Lord], remarked, the soul was happy
that left the body while the tear was in the eye. Petit Andre, slapping
the other shoulder, called out, "Courage, my fair son! since you must
begin the dance, let the ball open gaily, for all the rebecs are in
tune," twitching the halter at the same time, to give point to his joke.
As the youth turned his dismayed looks, first on one and then on the
other, they made