The history of this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it." "You must know, then," proceeded Lord Menteith, "that Allan continued to increase in strength and activity, till his fifteenth year, about which time he assumed a total independence of character, and impatience of control, which much alarmed his surviving parent.

He was absent in the woods for whole days and nights, under pretence of hunting, though he did not always bring home game.

His father was the more alarmed, because several of the Children of the Mist, encouraged by the increasing troubles of the state, had ventured back to their old haunts, nor did he think it altogether safe to renew any attack upon them.

The risk of Allan, in his wanderings, sustaining injury from these vindictive freebooters, was a perpetual source of apprehension.
"I was myself upon a visit to the castle when this matter was brought to a crisis.

Allan had been absent since day-break in the woods, where I had sought for him in vain; it was a dark stormy night, and he did not return.