impression all his life that some mysterious fate awaited
him, which the correspondence of his dreams and day visions tended
to confirm. And though he gave himself wholly up to the sway of one
overpowering passion, it was not without some yearnings of soul,
manifestations of terror, and so much earthly shame, that he never
more mentioned his love, or his engagements, to any human being, not
even to his friend M'Murdie, whose company he forthwith shunned.

It is on this account that I am unable to relate what passed between
the lovers thenceforward. It is certain they met at the Birky Brow
that St. Lawrence's Eve, for they were seen in company together; but
of the engagements, vows, or dalliance that passed between them I can
say nothing; nor of all their future meetings, until the beginning of
August, 1781, when the Laird began decidedly to make preparations for
his approaching marriage; yet not as if he and his betrothed had been
to reside at Birkendelly, all his provisions rather bespeaking a
meditated journey.

On the morning of the 9th he wrote to his sister, and then arraying
himself in his new wedding suit, and putting the emerald ring on his
finger, he appeared all impatience, until toward evening, when he
sallied out on horseback to his appointment. It seems that his
mysterious inamorata had met him, for he was seen riding through the
big town before sunset, with a young lady behind him, dressed in white
and green, and the villagers affirmed that they were riding at the
rate of fifty miles an hour! They were seen to pass a cottage called
Mosskilt, ten miles farther on, where there was no highway, at the
same tremendous speed; and I could never hear that they were any more
seen, until the following morning, when Birkendelly's fine bay horse
was found lying dead at his own stable door; and shortly after his
master was likewise discovered lying, a blackened corpse, on the Birky
Brow at the very spot where the mysterious but lovely dame had always
appeared to him. There was neither wound, bruise, nor dislocation in
his whole frame; but his skin was of a livid color, and his features
terribly distorted.

This woful catastrophe struck the neighborhood with great
consternation, so that nothing else was talked of. Every ancient
tradition and modern incident were raked together, compared, and
combined; and certainly a most rare concatenation of misfortunes was
elicited. It was authenticated that his father had died o