'But,' said he, drying them,'that cannot be. You cannot be to them Vich Ian Vohr; and these three magic words,' said he, half smiling, 'are the only Open Sesame to their feelings and sympathies, and poor Evan must attend his foster-brother in death, as he has done through his whole life.'
'And I am sure,' said Maccombich, raising himself from the floor, on which, for fear of interrupting their conversation, he had lain so still that, in the obscurity of the apartment, Edward was not aware of his presence—'I am sure Evan never desired or deserved a better end than just to die with his Chieftain.'
'And now,' said Fergus, 'while we are upon the subject of clanship—what think you now of the prediction of the Bodach Glas?' Then, before Edward could answer, 'I saw him again last night: he stood in the slip of moonshine which fell from that high and narrow window towards my bed. "Why should I fear him?" I thought; "to-morrow, long ere this time, I shall be as immaterial as he." "False spirit," I said, "art thou come to close thy walks on earth and to enjoy thy triumph in the fall of the last descendant of thine enemy?" The spectre seemed to beckon and to smile as he faded from my sight. What do you think of it? I asked the same question of the priest, who is a good and sensible man; he admitted that the church allowed that such apparitions were possible, but urged me not to permit my mind to dwell upon it, as imagination plays us such strange tricks. What do you think of it?'
'Much as your confessor,' said Waverley, willing to avoid dispute upon such a point at such a moment. A tap at the door now announced that good man, and Edward retired while he administered to both prisoners the last rites of religion, in the mode which the Church of Rome prescribes.
In about an hour he was re-admitted; soon after, a file of soldiers entered with a blacksmith, who struck the fetters from the legs of the prisoners.
'You see the compliment they pay to our Highland strength and courage; we have lain chained here like wild beasts, till our legs are cramped into palsy, and when they free us they send six soldiers with loaded muskets to prevent our taking the castle by storm!'
Edward afterwards learned that these severe precautions had been taken in consequence of a desperate attempt of the prisoners to escape, in which they had very nearly succeeded.
Shortly afterwards the drums of the garrison beat to arms. 'This is the last turn-out,' said Fergus, 'that I shall hear and obey. And now, my dear, dear Edward, ere we part let us speak of Flora—a subject which awakes the tenderest feeling that yet thrills within me'
'We part not here!' said Waverley.
'O yes, we do; you must come no farther. Not that I fear what is to follow for myself,' he said proudly. 'Nature has her tortures as well as art, and how happy should we think the man who escapes from the throes of a mortal and painful disorder in the space of a short half hour? And this matter, spin it out as they will, cannot last longer. But what a dying man can suffer firmly may kill a living friend to look upon. This same law of high treason,' he continued, with astonishing firmness and composure, 'is one of the blessings, Edward, with which your free country has accommodated poor old Scotland; her own jurisprudence, as I have heard, was much milder. But I suppose one day or other—when there are no longer any wild Highlanders to benefit by its tender mercies—they will blot it from their records as levelling them with a nation of cannibals. The mummery, too, of exposing the senseless head—they have not the wit to grace mine with a paper coronet; there would be some satire in that, Edward. I hope they will set it on the Scotch gate though, that I may look, even after death, to the blue hills of my own country, which I love so dearly. The Baron would have added,