"I shall fall young," he said, "if fall I must, my motives misconstrued, and my actions condemned, by those whose approbation is dearest to me. But the sword of liberty and patriotism is in my hand, and I will neither fall meanly nor unavenged. They may expose my body, and gibbet my limbs; but other days will come, when the sentence of infamy will recoil against those who may pronounce it. And that Heaven, whose name is so often profaned during this unnatural war, will bear witness to the purity of the motives by which I have been guided."
Upon approaching Milnwood, Henry's knock upon the gate no longer intimated the conscious timidity of a stripling who has been out of bounds, but the confidence of a man in full possession of his own rights, and master of his own actions,—bold, free, and decided. The door was cautiously opened by his old acquaintance, Mrs Alison Wilson, who started back when she saw the steel cap and nodding plume of the martial visitor.
"Where is my uncle, Alison?" said Morton, smiling at her alarm.
"Lordsake, Mr Harry! is this you?" returned the old lady. "In troth, ye garr'd my heart loup to my very mouth—But it canna be your ainsell, for ye look taller and mair manly-like than ye used to do."
"It is, however, my own self," said Henry, sighing and smiling at the same time; "I believe this dress may make me look taller, and these times, Ailie, make men out of boys."
"Sad times indeed!" echoed the old woman; "and O that you suld be endangered wi'them! but wha can help it?—ye were ill eneugh guided, and, as I tell your uncle, if ye tread on a worm it will turn."
"You were always my advocate, Ailie," said he, and the housekeeper no longer resented the familiar epithet, "and would let no one blame me but yourself, I am aware of that,—Where is my uncle?"
"In Edinburgh," replied Alison; "the honest man thought it was best to gang and sit by the chimley when the reek rase—a vex'd man he's been and a feared—but ye ken the Laird as weel as I do."
"I hope he has suffered nothing in health?" said Henry.
"Naething to speak of," answered the housekeeper, "nor in gudes neither—we fended as weel as we could; and, though the troopers of Tillietudlem took the red cow and auld Hackie, (ye'll mind them weel;) yet they sauld us a gude bargain o' four they were driving to the Castle."