o the
Reverend Ephraim Macbriar, another to Kettledrummle," both of whom were
beating the drum ecclesiastic in different towns between the position of
Burley and the head-quarters of the main army near Hamilton.

"The purpose, I presume," said Morton, with an affectation of
indifference, "was to call them hither."

"So I understand," answered the sentinel, who had spoke with the
messengers.

He is summoning a triumphant majority of the council, thought Morton to
himself, for the purpose of sanctioning whatever action of atrocity he
may determine upon, and thwarting opposition by authority. I must be
speedy, or I shall lose my opportunity.

When he entered the place of Lord Evandale's confinement, he found him
ironed, and reclining on a flock bed in the wretched garret of a
miserable cottage. He was either in a slumber, or in deep meditation,
when Morton entered, and turned on him, when aroused, a countenance so
much reduced by loss of blood, want of sleep, and scarcity of food, that
no one could have recognised in it the gallant soldier who had behaved
with so much spirit at the skirmish of Loudon-hill. He displayed some
surprise at the sudden entrance of Morton.

"I am sorry to see you thus, my lord," said that youthful leader.

"I have heard you are an admirer of poetry," answered the prisoner; "in
that case, Mr Morton, you may remember these lines,--

'Stone walls do not a prison make,
Or iron bars a cage;
A free and quiet mind can take
These for a hermitage.'

But, were my imprisonment less endurable, I am given to expect to-morrow
a total enfranchisement."

"By death?" said Morton.

"Surely," answered Lord Evandale; "I have no other prospect. Your
comrade, Burley, has already dipped his hand in the blood of men whose
meanness of rank and obscurity of extraction might have saved them. I
cannot boast such a shield from his vengeance, and I expect to meet its
extremity."

"But Major Bellenden," said Morton, "may surrender, in order to preserve
your life."

"Never, while there is one man to defend the battlement, and that man has
one crust to eat. I know his gallant resolution, and grieved should I be
if he changed it for my sake."

Morton hastened to acquaint him with the mutiny among the dragoons, and
their resolution to surrender the Castle, and put the ladies of the
family, as well as the Major, into the hands of the enemy. Lord Evandale