The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

608 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
object on the other side, without allowing his head to become giddy, or his
attention to be distracted by the flash, the foam and the roar of the waters
around him, he strode steadily and safely along the uncertain bridge, and
reached the mouth of a small cavern on the farther side of the torrent.
Here he paused; for a light, proceeding from a fire of red-hot charcoal,
permitted him to see the interior of the cave, and enabled him to contemplate the appearance of its inhabitant, by whom he himself could not be so
readily distinguished, being concealed by the shadow of the rock. What
he observed would by no means have encouraged a less determined man to
proceed with the task which he had undertaken.
Burley, only altered from what he had been formerly by the addition of
a grisly beard, stood in the midst of the cave, with his clasped Bible in
one hand, and his drawn sword in the other. His figure, dimly ruddied by
the light of the red charcoal, seemed that of a fiend in the lurid atmosphere
of Pandemonium, and his gestures and words, as far as they could be heard,
seemed equally violent and irregular. All alone, and in a place of almost
unapproachable seclusion, his demeanour was that of a man who strives
for life and death with a mortal enemy. " Ha! ha! - there - there 1" he
exclaimed, accompanying each word with a thrust, urged with his whole
force against the impassible and empty air -" Did I not tell thee so?-I
have resisted, and thou fleest from me!- Coward as thou art-come in all
thy terrors - come with mine own evil deeds, which render thee most terrible of all-there is enough betwixt the boards of this book to rescue me! —
What mutterest thou of grey hairs!-It was well done to slay him — the
more ripe the corn, the readier for the sickle.- Art gone? art gone? - I
have ever known thee but a coward - ha! ha! ha!"
With these wild exclamations he sunk the point of his sword, and
remained standing still in the same posture, like a maniac whose fit is
over.
"The dangerous time is by now," said the little girl who had followed;' it seldom lasts beyond the time that the sun's ower the hill; ye may gang
in and speak wi' him now. I'll wait for you at the other side of the linn;
he canna bide to see twa folk at anes."
Slowly and cautiously, and keeping constantly upon his guard, Morton
presented himself to the view of his old associate in command.
" What! comest thou again when thine hour is over?" was his first exclamation; and, flourishing his sword aloft, his countenance assumed an
expression in which ghastly terror seemed mingled with the rage of a
demoniac.
" I am come, Mr. Balfour," said Morton, in a steady and composed tone,
"to renew an- acquaintance which has been broken off since the fight of
Bothwell Bridge."
As soon as Burley became aware that Morton was before him in personan idea which he caught with marvellous celerity-he at once exerted that
mastership over his heated and enthusiastic imagination, the power of
enforcing which was a most striking part of his extraordinary character.
He sunk his sword-point at once, and as he stole it composedly into the
scabbard, he muttered something of the damp and cold which sent an old
soldier to his fencing exercise, to prevent his blood from chilling. This
done, he proceeded in the cold determined manner which was peculiar to
his ordinary discourse.
" Thou hast tarried long, Henry Morton, and hast not come to the vintage
before the twelfth hour has struck. Art thou yet willing to take the right
hand of fellowship, and to be one with those who look not to thrones or
dynasties, but to the rule of Scripture, for their directions?'"
"I am surprised," said Morton, evading the direct answer to his question, "that you should have known me after so many years."
" The features of those who ought to act with me, are engraved on my