Sad, bitter, and solitary reflection—for a few hours was all that was left him now: and, though the sands of life were ebbing fast, one absorbing thought occupied his mind—that Lilian was false and his rival triumphant; that all his long cherished schemes and dreams of love and happiness, glory and ambition, were frustrated and blasted irredeemably and for ever.
He was to die!
The infliction of punishment immediately after trial was anciently practised in all criminal cases, and the victim was usually led from the presence of the judge to the scaffold.
Walter had been doomed to death as a traitor, a raiser of sedition, and a deserter from the Scottish forces: the last accusation, in support of which his signed oath of fealty to the Estates of Scotland, had been produced in council by General Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander-in-chief of the army, saved him the dishonour of dying on the gibbet.
The door of the Iron Room was opened stealthily, and the heavy bolts and swinging chains were again rattling into their places, when Walter slowly raised his head. His eye had become haggard, and his face was overspread with a deathly pallor. The tall spare form of the Reverend Mr. Ichabod Bummel stood before him, clad in his ample black coat with its enormous cuffs and pocket-flaps, his deep waistcoat, and voluminous grey breeches. He removed his broad hat, and smoothed down the long lank hair which was parted in a seam over the top of his cranium, and fell straight upon each shoulder. He did not advance, but continued to press his hat upon his breast with both hands, to turn up his eyes and groan mournfully.
"Poor youth!" he began, after two or three hems; "poor youth! now truly thou lookest like an owl in the desert, yea, verily, even as one overtaken in the Slough of Despond. Now thou seest how atrocious is the crime of rebellion, and how bitter its meed. Now thou seest how wicked is the attempt to overturn our pure and blessed Kirk as by law established, and to substitute anarchy and confusion for peace and brotherly love, and to involve the innocent with the guilty in one common destruction. Ewhow! O guilty madness—O miserable infatuation, that for the phanton of kingly and hereditary right, would ruthlessly hurl back the land into the dark abyss of Popery, restore the abomination of the mass, and substitute the vile and tyrannical James for that beloved prince of our own persuasion, now seated on Britain's triple throne, if not by that imaginary hereditary right, at least by the laws of the land, and the voice of those that are above it—yea, mark me, youth, above it—the ministers of the Gospel. The pious and glorious William hath been our Saviour from the devilish practices of Popery, and the machinations of all those spurious children of Luther and of Calvin, the Seekers, the Libertines and Independents, Brownists, Separatists and Familists, Antitrinitarians, Arians, Socinians, Anti-Scripturists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Arminians, and a myriad other teachers of heresy and preachers of schism—whilk, my brethren—my brother, I mean—may Beelzebub confound! Oh, youth, how wicked and ungracious it is in thee to reject the stately Fig-tree with its sweetness and good fruit, and raise up the ancient thorn and prickly bramble to reign over us!"
"My good sir," replied Walter, "it is but a poor specimen of Presbyterian charity this, to come hither to a dismal vault, to heap contumely on the head of the fallen, to humble one who is already humbled—to bruise the bruised. Good sir, is it kind or charitable to rail at and exult over me in this my great distress?"
At this unexpected accusation, tears started into the eyes of Ichabod Bummel, who was really a good man at heart, though his virtues were sadly obscured by the fanaticism of the times.
"Do not misunderstand me, good youth," he replied hurriedly; "and do me not this great injustice. I come in the most humble and Christian spirit, to cheer thy last hour in this gloomy hypogeum, and for that godly purpose have brought with me a copy of my Bombshell, a most sweet and savoury comforter to the afflicted mind."
He drew that celebrated quarto from his voluminous pocket, laid it on the table, and opening it at certain places, turned down the corners of the leaves. He then produced a thick little black-letter psalm-book, the board of which bore the very decided impression of a Bothwell-brig bullet; he adjusted a great pair of round horn spectacles on his long-hooked nose, and in a shrill voice began his favourite chant: