quite
well--I am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good
friend, by Sir Arthur and the young lady."

"Dell be in my feet then," answered the bedesman sturdily; "if ye gang,
I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us, we'll hae mair than wark
eneugh to get to the tap o' the heugh."

"No, no--stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour--you see Sir Arthur is
quite exhausted."

"Stay yoursell then, and I'll gae," said the old man;--"let death spare
the green corn and take the ripe."

"Stay both of you, I charge you," said Isabella, faintly; "I am well,
and can spend the night very well here--I feel quite refreshed." So
saying, her voice failed her--she sunk down, and would have fallen from
the crag, had she not been supported by Lovel and Ochiltree, who placed
her in a posture half sitting, half reclining, beside her father,
who, exhausted by fatigue of body and mind so extreme and unusual, had
already sat down on a stone in a sort of stupor.

"It is impossible to leave them," said Lovel--"What is to be done?--Hark!
hark!--did I not hear a halloo?"

"The skreigh of a Tammie Norie," answered Ochiltree--"I ken the skirl
weel."

"No, by Heaven!" replied Lovel, "it was a human voice."

A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the
various elemental noises, and the clang of the sea-mews by which they
were surrounded. The mendicant and Lovel exerted their voices in a loud
halloo, the former waving Miss Wardour's handkerchief on the end of
his staff to make them conspicuous from above. Though the shouts were
repeated, it was some time before they were in exact response to
their own, leaving the unfortunate sufferers uncertain whether, in the
darkening twilight and increasing storm, they had made the persons who
apparently were traversing the verge of the precipice to bring them
assistance, sensible of the place in which they had found refuge. At
length their halloo was regularly and distinctly answered, and their
courage confirmed, by the assurance that they were within hearing, if
not within reach, of friendly assistance.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully on the confined deep;
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear.
King Lear.

The shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and