dy. Was it Patrick
Hume, saidst thou? Then is he dead as my grandmother, and no more shall he
follow after my betrothed, or threaten thee with the downfall of the
Newmilne dam-dike. All I sorrow for is my good sword, which, but for that
accursed loop, I might have redrawn from his vile carcass, and thus saved
my property at the same time that I gave the carrion crows of old Berwick a
dinner."

"Ah! but he's a devil that Hume," responded the Mayor. "Long has he hounded
after my daughter Bell; and though it is now likely near an end with him, I
should not like to come in the way of the dying tiger. Let us home."

The sound of the retreating warriors brought back Hume to the loop-hole, to
see if Isabel was still there, to whom he was anxious to propose a plan,
whereby he might (with the gay romp's most cheerful good-will and hearty
co-operation) carry her off from the contaminating embrace of the
pot-valiant Governor, with whom she was to be wed on that day se'ennight.
He waited a long time, but no Isabel came. He suspected that the Mayor,
after having caught her speaking to him, (Hume,) his most inveterate foe,
would, as he had often done before, lock her up, and set the noble Captain
as a guard upon his lady-love. Cursing his unlucky fate, that brought them
out to interrupt his converse with the mistress of his heart, and prevent
the arrangement of an elopement, he bent the Captain's bilbo hilt to point
till it rebounded with a loud twang, and stepping away up the Tweed, fell
into a deep meditation as to the manner by which he should secure Isabel.
As he went along, his eye fell upon that source of so much contention
between the men of Berwick and the border barons, the dam-dike of the
Newmilne, and against which the Lord Hume, as well as himself and many of
the neighbouring knights and lairds, had vowed destruction. A thought
flashed across his mind, and his eye sparkled in the moonbeam, as brightly
as did the Captain's sword, which he still held in his hand.

"I have hit it!" he cried, as he clapped his hand on his limb, and the
sound echoed back from the mill-walls. "For spearing a salmon or a
Southron, dissolving that old foolish tenure between a proprietor and his
cattle, or cutting the tie of forced duty between a rich old Mayor and his
daughter, where shall the bastard of Hume be equalled on the Borders? My
fair Bell, thou wouldst spring with the elasticity of this bent blade, and
dance like these moonbeams in th