be in nature, that is quite clear," said Mrs. Logan. "Yet
how it should be that I should think so--I who knew and nursed him from
his infancy--there lies the paradox. As you said once before, we have
nothing but our senses to depend on, and, if you and I believe that we
see a person, why, we do see him. Whose word, or whose reasoning can
convince us against our own senses? We will disguise ourselves as poor
women selling a few country wares, and we will go up to the Hall, and
see what is to see, and hear what we can hear, for this is a weighty
business in which we are engaged, namely, to turn the vengeance of the
law upon an unnatural monster; and we will further learn, if we can,
who this is that accompanies him."

Mrs. Calvert acquiesced, and the two dames took their way to Dalcastle,
with baskets well furnished with trifles. They did not take the common
path from the village, but went about, and approached the mansion by a
different way. But it seemed as if some overruling power ordered it
that they should miss no chance of attaining the information they
wanted. For ere ever they came within half a mile of Dalcastle they
perceived the two youths coming as to meet them, on the same path. The
road leading from Dalcastle towards the north-east, as all the country
knows, goes along a dark bank of brush-wood called the Bogle-heuch. It
was by this track that the two women were going, and, when they
perceived the two gentlemen meeting them, they turned back, and, the
moment they were out of their sight, they concealed themselves in a
thicket close by the road. They did this because Mrs. Logan was
terrified for being discovered, and because they wished to reconnoitre
without being seen. Mrs. Calvert now charged her, whatever she saw, or
whatever she heard, to put on a resolution, and support it, for if she
fainted there and was discovered, what was to become of her!

The two young men came on, in earnest and vehement conversation; but
the subject they were on was a terrible one, and hardly fit to be
repeated in the face of a Christian community. Wringhim was disputing
the boundlessness of the true Christian's freedom, and expressing
doubts that, chosen as he knew he was from all eternity, still it might
be possible for him to commit acts that would exclude him from the
limits of the covenant. The other argued, with mighty fluency, that the
thing was utterly impossible, and altogether inconsistent with eternal
predestination