CHAPTER THIRD.
"The hour's come, but not the man."* * There is a tradition, that while a little stream was swollen into a torrent by recent showers, the discontented voice of the Water Spirit was heard to pronounce these words.

At the some moment a man, urged on by his fate, or, in Scottish language, _fey,_ arrived at a gallop, and prepared to cross the water.

No remonstrance from the bystanders was of power to stop him--he plunged into the stream, and perished.
Kelpie.
On the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer the sentence of the law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowded almost to suffocation.

There was not a window in all the lofty tenements around it, or in the steep and crooked street called the Bow, by which the fatal procession was to descend from the High Street, that was not absolutely filled with spectators.

The uncommon height and antique appearance of these houses, some of which were formerly the property of the Knights Templars, and the Knights of St.John, and still exhibit on their fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave additional effect to a scene in itself so striking.