ing with the terror which the sudden apparition naturally
excited.

"It is the blood of his minion," answered M'Aulay--"It is the blood
which I was predestined to shed, though I would rather have spilt my
own."

Having thus spoken, he turned and left the castle, and from that moment
nothing certain is known of his fate. As the boy Kenneth, with three of
the Children of the Mist, were seen soon afterwards to cross Lochfine,
it is supposed they dogged his course, and that he perished by their
hand in some obscure wilderness. Another opinion maintains, that Allan
M'Aulay went abroad and died a monk of the Carthusian order. But nothing
beyond bare presumption could ever be brought in support of either
opinion.

His vengeance was much less complete than he probably fancied; for
Menteith, though so severely wounded as to remain long in a dangerous
state, was, by having adopted Major Dalgetty's fortunate recommendation
of a cuirass as a bridal-garment, happily secured from the worst
consequences of the blow. But his services were lost to Montrose; and it
was thought best, that he should be conveyed with his intended
countess, now truly a mourning bride, and should accompany his wounded
father-in-law to the castle of Sir Duncan at Ardenvohr. Dalgetty
followed them to the water's edge, reminding Menteith of the necessity
of erecting a sconce on Drumsnab to cover his lady's newly-acquired
inheritance.

They performed their voyage in safety, and Menteith was in a few weeks
so well in health, as to be united to Annot in the castle of her father.

The Highlanders were somewhat puzzled to reconcile Menteith's recovery
with the visions of the second sight, and the more experienced Seers
were displeased with him for not having died. But others thought the
credit of the vision sufficiently fulfilled, by the wound inflicted by
the hand, and with the weapon, foretold; and all were of opinion, that
the incident of the ring, with the death's head, related to the death
of the bride's father, who did not survive her marriage many months.
The incredulous held, that all this was idle dreaming, and that Allan's
supposed vision was but a consequence of the private suggestions of his
own passion, which, having long seen in Menteith a rival more beloved
than himself, struggled with his better nature, and impressed upon him,
as it were involuntarily, the idea of killing his competitor.

Menteith did not recover sufficiently to join Montrose d