his
daughter at one side of the bed and I at the other gazed for some time
intently and in silence on his countenance, and then glanced with
anxious inquiring looks to each other, till, at length, having placed my
finger on his pulse, to ascertain whether it had actually ceased to
throb, I shall never forget the sudden beam which again brightened his
daughter's countenance, and for a moment dispelled the intense
expression of anxiety which had for some time overspread it, when Sir
Walter, aware of my feeling his pulse, and the probable purpose,
whispered, with a faint voice, but without opening his eyes, 'I am not
_yet_ gone.' After some time he revived, and gave us a proof of the
mastery of his mind over the sufferings of the body. 'Do you recollect,'
he said to me, 'a small round turret near the gate of the Monastery of
Aberbrothwick, and placed so as to overhang the street?' Upon answering
that I did perfectly, and that a picturesque little morsel it was, he
said, 'Well, I was over there when a mob had assembled, excited by some
purpose, which I do not recollect, but failing of their original
intention, they took umbrage at the little venerable emblem of
aristocracy, which still bore its weather-stained head so conspicuously
aloft, and, resolving to humble it with the dust, they got a stout
hawser from a vessel in the adjoining harbour, which a sailor lad,
climbing up, coiled round the body of the little turret, and the rabble
seizing the rope by both ends tugged and pulled, and laboured long to
strangle and overthrow the poor old turret, but in vain, for it
withstood all their endeavours. Now that is exactly the condition of my
poor stomach: there is a rope twisted round it, and the malicious devils
are straining and tugging at it, and, faith, I could almost think that I
sometimes hear them shouting and cheering each other to their task, and
when they are at it I always have the little turret and its tormentors
before my eyes.' He complained that particular ideas fixed themselves
down upon his mind, which he had not the power of shaking off; but this
was, in fact, the obvious consequence of the quantity of laudanum which
it was necessary for him to swallow to allay the spasms.

"After he had got some repose, and had become rather better in the
morning, he said, with a smile on his countenance, 'If you will promise
not to laugh at me I have a favour to ask. Do you know I have taken a
childish desire to see the place