an armed man--I am a desperate man, and I will not die without
ample vengeance. This is my resolution, take it as you may. I WILL
hear her determination from her own mouth; from her own mouth, alone,
and without witnesses, will I hear it. Now, choose," he said drawing
his sword with the right hand, and, with the left, by the same motion
taking a pistol from his belt and cocking it, but turning the point of
one weapon and the muzzle of the other to the ground--"choose if you
will have this hall flooded with blood, or if you will grant me the
decisive interview with my affianced bride which the laws of God and
the country alike entitle me to demand."

II

THE DEATH OF MEG MERRILES[8]

The surgeon arrived at the same time, and was about to probe the
wound; but Meg resisted the assistance of either. "It's no what man
can do, that will heal my body, or save my spirit. Let me speak what I
have to say, and then ye may work your will, I'se be nae hinderance.
But where's Henry Bertram?" The assistants, to whom this name had
been long a stranger, gazed upon each other. "Yes," she said, in a
stronger and harsher tone, "I said Henry Bertram of Ellangowan. Stand
from the light and let me see him."

All eyes were turned toward Bertram, who approached the wretched
couch. The wounded woman took hold of his hand. "Look at him," she
said, "all that ever saw his father or his grandfather, and bear
witness if he is not their living image?" A murmur went through the
crowd--the resemblance was too striking to be denied. "And now hear
me--and let that man," pointing to Hatteraick, who was seated with his
keepers on a sea-chest at some distance--"let him deny what I say, if
he can. That is Henry Bertram, son to Godfrey Bertram, umquihile of
Ellangowan; that young man is the very lad-bairn that Dirk Hatteraick
carried off from Warroch wood the day that he murdered the gager. I
was there like a wandering spirit--for I longed to see that wood or we
left the country. I saved the bairn's life, and sair, sair I prigged
and prayed they would leave him wi' me--but they bore him away, and
he's been lang ower the sea, and now he's come for his ain, and what
should withstand him? I swore to keep the secret till he was
ane-an'-twenty--I kenn'd he behoved to dree his weird till that day
cam--I keepit that oath which I took to them--but I made another vow
to myself, and if I lived to see the day of his return, I would set
him in his father's se