At length I arose, opened the window, and stood by it for some time in
the clear moonlight, receiving, in part at least, that refreshment and
dissipation of ideas from the clear and calm scene, without which they
had become beyond the command of my own volition. I resumed my place on
the couch--with a heart, Heaven knows, not lighter but firmer, and more
resolved for endurance. In a short time a slumber crept over my senses;
still, however, though my senses slumbered, my soul was awake to the
painful feelings of my situation, and my dreams were of mental anguish
and external objects of terror.

I remember a strange agony, under which I conceived myself and Diana in
the power of MacGregor's wife, and about to be precipitated from a rock
into the lake; the signal was to be the discharge of a cannon, fired by
Sir Frederick Vernon, who, in the dress of a Cardinal, officiated at the
ceremony. Nothing could be more lively than the impression which I
received of this imaginary scene. I could paint, even at this moment, the
mute and courageous submission expressed in Diana's features--the wild
and distorted faces of the executioners, who crowded around us with
"mopping and mowing;" grimaces ever changing, and each more hideous than
that which preceded. I saw the rigid and inflexible fanaticism painted in
the face of the father--I saw him lift the fatal match--the deadly signal
exploded--It was repeated again and again and again, in rival thunders,
by the echoes of the surrounding cliffs, and I awoke from fancied horror
to real apprehension.

The sounds in my dream were not ideal. They reverberated on my waking
ears, but it was two or three minutes ere I could collect myself so as
distinctly to understand that they proceeded from a violent knocking at
the gate. I leaped from my couch in great apprehension, took my sword
under my arm, and hastened to forbid the admission of any one. But my
route was necessarily circuitous, because the library looked not upon the
quadrangle, but into the gardens. When I had reached a staircase, the
windows of which opened upon the entrance court, I heard the feeble and
intimidated tones of Syddall expostulating with rough voices, which
demanded admittance, by the warrant of Justice Standish, and in the
King's name, and threatened the old domestic with the heaviest penal
consequences if he refused instant obedience. Ere they had ceased, I
heard, to my unspeakable provocation, the voice of Andrew