deavoured to repress. The path in
which he found himself led him to the Mermaiden's Fountain, and to the
cottage of Alice; and the fatal influence which superstitious belief
attached to the former spot, as well as the admonitions which had
been in vain offered to him by the inhabitant of the latter, forced
themselves upon his memory. "Old saws speak truth," he said to himself,
"and the Mermaiden's Well has indeed witnessed the last act of rashness
of the heir of Ravenswood. Alice spoke well," he continued, "and I am
in the situation which she foretold; or rather, I am more deeply
dishonoured--not the dependant and ally of the destroyer of my father's
house, as the old sibyl presaged, but the degraded wretch who has
aspired to hold that subordinate character, and has been rejected with
disdain."

We are bound to tell the tale as we have received it; and, considering
the distance of the time, and propensity of those through whose mouths
it has passed to the marvellous, this could not be called a Scottish
story unless it manifested a tinge of Scottish superstition. As
Ravenswood approached the solitary fountain, he is said to have met with
the following singular adventure: His horse, which was moving slowly
forward, suddenly interrupted its steady and composed pace, snorted,
reared, and, though urged by the spur, refused to proceed, as if some
object of terror had suddenly presented itself. On looking to the
fountain, Ravenswood discerned a female figure, dressed in a white, or
rather greyish, mantle, placed on the very spot on which Lucy Ashton
had reclined while listening to the fatal tale of love. His immediate
impression was that she had conjectured by which path he would traverse
the park on his departure, and placed herself at this well-known and
sequestered place of rendezvous, to indulge her own sorrow and his
parting interview. In this belief he jumped from his horse, and,
making its bridle fast to a tree, walked hastily towards the
fountain, pronouncing eagerly, yet under his breath, the words, "Miss
Ashton!--Lucy!"

The figure turned as he addressed it, and displayed to his wondering
eyes the features, not of Lucy Ashton, but of old blind Alice. The
singularity of her dress, which rather resembled a shroud than the
garment of a living woman; the appearance of her person, larger, as
it struck him, than it usually seemed to be; above all, the strange
circumstance of a blind, infirm, and decrepit person being fou