"Well, I do declare!" was what she said. "If ever anybody did! No, nobody couldn't never have guessed the like of this--that they couldn't! I've lived in this house three-and-thirty years come Martlemas, and I never, never did see nor hear nothing this like in all my born days! Only just to think! And them things I took for rats and ghosteses was Papishes? Eh, but I'd a cruel deal rather have a hundred rats and mice nor one of them wicked Papishes, and ghosteses too, pretty nigh! Well, to be sure, my dears, the Lord has preserved us wonderful! and 'tis uncommon thankful we'd ought to be." "You will sleep to-night, Madam, I trust," said Patient, that evening, as she bound up Celia's hair. "And you, my poor Patient!" said Celia. "I fear you slept not much last night." "No, Madam," answered Patient, quietly; "I watched unto prayer." "Well, I hope Edward is quite safe by this time," sighed Celia. "You will never see him again, Madam," said Patient, solemnly. "Patient!" exclaimed Celia, in sudden terror lest she might have heard some bad news. "Best, my bairn," said Patient, reading her thought in her face. "I have heard nothing. But 'tis borne in upon me--'tis borne in upon me. The Lord hath said unto me, 'He shall surely die.'" Celia listened in awe and wonder. "Patient, you are not a prophetess!" she said. "Ah, Madam! I think more than one of us hath been a prophet where our heart's beloved are concerned. Was it not revealed unto Alexander Peden that he should die in Scotland? And did he not say unto the captain of the ship appointed to carry him unto the American plantations, 'The ship is not launched that shall carry me thither?'" "And where did he die?" "In Scotland, Madam, as the Lord had showed him; and they laid his dust on the Gallows' Hill of the city. I reckon the Lord can see it as easily there as in the kirkyard. It is a kirkyard now. One after another came and laid their dead beside Peden, and from a gallows' hill 'tis become a burying-place.[6] It was said, indeed, that Mr. Renwick saw further than many, but he was not known unto me, and I can say nought thereanent. But that, 'The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him'[7] may be a deeper word than we ken. And as to George Wishart, all knew that he was called to be a prophet of the Lord, and John Knox likewise; but there were giants in their days. We be smaller men now. Yet the Lord is the same now as then, and He doeth whatsoever He will. 'Tis not the worthiness nor holiness of the man that maketh a prophet, but the breath and Spirit of the Lord within him. And I, being less than the least of all His, do know of a surety that I shall never see Master Edward any more." Patient's lips quivered, and some seconds passed ere she could speak again. "Ay, the will of the Lord be done!" she said, presently. "'He knoweth them that are His,'[8] and He will not let us fail of a meeting in our Father's house. Rest, my bairn; you need it!"