ry, and his people didna take at least twa
lives for ane."

Butler entreated him to spare the victim for his soul's sake. But
Knockdunder answered, "that the soul of such a scum had been long the
tefil's property, and that, Cot tam! he was determined to gif the tefil
his due."

All persuasion was in vain, and Duncan issued his mandate for execution
on the succeeding morning. The child of guilt and misery was separated
from his companions, strongly pinioned, and committed to a separate room,
of which the Captain kept the key.

In the silence of the night, however, Mrs. Butler arose, resolved, if
possible, to avert, at least to delay, the fate which hung over her
nephew, especially if, upon conversing with him, she should see any hope
of his being brought to better temper. She had a master-key that opened
every lock in the house; and at midnight, when all was still, she stood
before the eyes of the astonished young savage, as, hard bound with
cords, he lay, like a sheep designed for slaughter, upon a quantity of
the refuse of flax which filled a corner in the apartment. Amid features
sunburnt, tawny, grimed with dirt, and obscured by his shaggy hair of a
rusted black colour, Jeanie tried in vain to trace the likeness of either
of his very handsome parents. Yet how could she refuse compassion to a
creature so young and so wretched,--so much more wretched than even he
himself could be aware of, since the murder he had too probably committed
with his own hand, but in which he had at any rate participated, was in
fact a parricide? She placed food on a table near him, raised him, and
slacked the cords on his arms, so as to permit him to feed himself. He
stretched out his hands, still smeared with blood perhaps that of his
father, and he ate voraciously and in silence.

"What is your first name?" said Jeanie, by way of opening the
conversation.

"The Whistler."

"But your Christian name, by which you were baptized?"

"I never was baptized that I know of--I have no other name than the
Whistler."

"Poor unhappy abandoned lad!" said Jeanie. "What would ye do if you could
escape from this place, and the death you are to die to-morrow morning?"

"Join wi' Rob Roy, or wi' Sergeant More Cameron" (noted freebooters at
that time), "and revenge Donacha's death on all and sundry."

"O ye unhappy boy," said Jeanie, "do ye ken what will come o' ye when ye
die?"

"I shall neither feel cauld nor hunger more," said the youth dogg