As if he had said too much, Martin Omelette hastily withdrew, leaving me to torture myself with dark anticipations of the future, and to spell over the prayers with which my hapless predecessor had supplicated the intercession of St. Fiacre. But my mind would recur again and again with stinging poignancy to my present predicament. I thought now of all my futile aspirations after fame; of all I had done at Bitche, at Ingweiler, and La Mothe, in the service of this ungrateful Louis of France, whose wanton war against Duke Charles of Lorraine I saw in all its wickedness. Then I thought of my distant home and the scenes I never more might see; of the green pastoral hills and the woods of Blanerne, that cast their shadows on the Dee, whose waters rush to meet the Solway; of the birchen glen, on the brow of which the towers of old Tungland Abbey raised their gray-worn pinnacles above the waving coppice; of the breezy upland slopes, where the yellow corn ripened on the long golden rigs, where the bonneted ploughboy whistled, nor dreamed there was such a thing as tyranny in the world; where the black crow and the eagle that had their eyry in St. Mark's lovely isle were wheeling aloft, and I panted for freedom and for _home_! Home! Alas! I had more friends in the grave than in the world; yet their graves were in Scottish earth, and that was all the world to me. I thought of my unavenged quarrel with the house of Nithsdale; of my slaughtered father, as he lay all 'boltered' in his blood by Lochar Moss; of our ravaged lands and ruined homes, all sunk in smoke and flame, as I had last seen the tower of Blanerne when I, a fugitive, looked back from the green hills of Galloway, and saw the weapons of the Maxwell troopers glitter on my track, as I forded the foaming waters of Urr. Then I thought of the horrors of the Bastille, and dashed my head upon my bed, as I longed--madly longed for liberty! Louis XIII. I abhorred, but could not petition either him or the Countess d'Amboise, for paper and ink were denied me. How had our petty intrigue--if intrigue it could be called--been discovered? I remembered the loss of the miniature at Versailles, and the malevolent smile of the jealous De Brissac, and planned a hundred impossible schemes of escape and revenge; and so, amid all these bitter, burning, and impatient thoughts, the second weary week of my captivity wore slowly and monotonously away. CHAPTER XXXI. 'NUMBER 32.' Perceiving that I was becoming very dull and miserable, Martin Omelette brought me an old book, which he said had been left by my predecessor. It was a manuscript, and was entitled _La Vie de Monseigneur St. Fiacre_. 'St. Fiacre again!' said I. 'Yes, monsieur,' said he, 'and I hope it may serve to amuse you as much as it amused and consoled the poor chevalier, who for six-and-forty years----' 'Leave me, in the devil's name!' I groaned. 'Yes, monsieur,' said Martin, bowing, for he never forgot his politeness, and withdrew.