disposition to become oblivious of the fatal operations of her husband,
though her tender nature forbade further efforts in a cause that seemed
hopeless. Resigning herself to the powers of fear, and the other
disquieting influences of the solemn hour of midnight, she lay quiet,
and submitted to the current of inauspicious thoughts that flowed
through her mind. A disturbed slumber fell over her, sufficient only to
make a slight division between the world of dreams and that of reality,
and to allow her waking thoughts to pass in new and changing forms
before the eye of the dreaming fancy, which again, in its turn, invested
them with attributes suitable to the complexion of her waking sorrows.
During this interval, Cockburn rose; and, dressing himself, went quietly
out of the chamber--his movements having only tended to give some new
impulse to her half-dreamy sensations, ineffectual as they were to
recall her to the cares of a night vigil. A loud crash was the first
sound that awoke her; and opening her eyes, and becoming collected, she
recognised, in the sharp sound, the grating fall of the portcullis. A
shrill horn now winded among the woods, though its sound was scarcely
distinguishable among the repressed bellowings of the night winds that
seemed to have risen considerably since she had been overcome by her
slumber. She was satisfied that the whole retinue, with her husband at
their head, were off to the beetling Castle of Tushielaw, from whose
heights so many a riever had been precipitated into the Ettrick.

This conviction, coming, as it did, on the back of a disturbed slumber,
in which her dreams had partaken of the dire nature of a nightmare,
increased her fears. She could rest no longer, and rising and dressing
herself, she sat down at the casement, and listened to ascertain if any
of the sounds of the cavalcade could be distinguished. She could satisfy
herself of enough to indicate the route they had taken--away over the
hills that separate the vales of Ettrick and Yarrow, and by the path
that has since got the name of the King's Road, leading directly to the
Tower of Tushielaw. But a quick and threatening change in the weather
soon attracted her attention. The booming of the wind seemed to cease,
and, shortly after, the clouds, through the openings of which the moon
had been seen labouring during the previous part of the night, appeared
to run rapidly together, so as to conceal the face of the night queen,
and