,--what are your own views?'

'Oh,' answered Fergus, with a melancholy air, 'my fate is settled. Dead
or captive I must be before to-morrow.'

'What do you mean by that, my friend?' said Edward. 'The enemy is still
a day's march in our rear, and if he comes up, we are still strong
enough to keep him in check. Remember Gladsmuir.'

'What I tell you is true notwithstanding, so far as I am individually
concerned.'

'Upon what authority can you found so melancholy a prediction?' asked
Waverley.

'On one which never failed a person of my house. I have seen,' he said,
lowering his voice, 'I have seen the Bodach Glas.'

'Bodach Glas?'

'Yes: have you been so long at Glennaquoich, and never heard of the Grey
Spectre? though indeed there is a certain reluctance among us to mention
him.'

'No, never.'

'Ah! it would have been a tale for poor Flora to have told you. Or,
if that hill were Benmore, and that long blue lake, which you see just
winding towards yon mountainous country, were Loch Tay, or my own Loch
an Ri, the tale would be better suited with scenery. However, let us sit
down on this knell; even Saddleback and Ullswater will suit what I have
to say better than the English hedgerows, enclosures, and farm-houses.
You must know, then, that when my ancestor, Ian nan Chaistel, wasted
Northumberland, there was associated with him in the expedition a sort
of Southland Chief, or captain of a band of Low-landers, called Halbert
Hall. In their return through the Cheviots, they quarrelled about the
division of the great booty they had acquired, and came from words to
blows. The Lowlanders were cut off to a man, and their chief fell the
last, covered with wounds by the sword of my ancestor, Since that time,
his spirit has crossed the Vich Ian Vohr of the day when any great
disaster was impending, but especially before approaching death. My
father saw him twice; once before he was made prisoner at Sheriff-Muir;
another time, on the morning of the day on which he died.'

'How can you, my dear Fergus, tell such nonsense with a grave face?'

'I do not ask you to believe it; but I tell you the truth, ascertained
by three hundred years' experience at least, and last night by my own
eyes.'

'The particulars, for Heaven's sake!' said Waverley, with eagerness.

'I will, on condition you will not attempt a jest on the subject.--Since
this unhappy retreat commenced, I have scarce ever been able to sleep
for thinking of my clan