The blow was dealt in the very back of his head; he who struck must have been a shorter man than himself, and used a horseman's battle axe, or some such weapon, for a Lochaber axe must have struck the upper part of his head.

But there he lies dead, brained, I may say, by a most frightful wound." "This is inconceivable," said Henry Wynd.

"He was in my house at midnight, in a morricer's habit; seemed to have been drinking, though not to excess.

He told me a tale of having been beset by revellers, and being in danger; but, alas! you know the man--I deemed it was a swaggering fit, as he sometimes took when he was in liquor; and, may the Merciful Virgin forgive me! I let him go without company, in which I did him inhuman wrong.

Holy St.John be my witness! I would have gone with any helpless creature; and far more with him, with whom I have so often sat at the same board and drunken of the same cup.