“Gerald,” said Calantha, “you are not sure that Buchanan is the culprit: we should be cautious in our judgments.” “Oh, but I am sure, and I care not to look on him; and Linden, they say, menaces to revenge on the young lord, my wrongs and his own; but his old father begs him for God’s sake to be peaceable. Perhaps, my Lady, you will look on the poor gentleman: what though ’tis a dying man—you’ll be gratified to see him, there is such a calm upon his countenance.” “Must he die?” “Why, he’s very precarious-like:—but your noble husband, the young Lord Avondale, is very good to him—he has done all a man and a soldier could do to save him.” “I too will call,” said Calantha, to hide from Gerald how much she was affected; “and, as to you, I must entreat as a favour, that you will return to the castle: to-morrow is Harry’s birth-day; and it will not be a holiday, my father says, if you are not, as you were wont to be, at the head of the table with all the tenants.” “I will come,” said Gerald, “if it were only on account of my Lord’s remembering me: and all the blessings of the land go with him, and you, and his noble house, till the end of time, and with the young Lord of Glenarvon beside, who saved Roy and Conal from a shameful death—that he did.” “But you forget,” said Calantha, smiling, “that, by your own account, he was the first to bring them there.” “By my heart, but he’s a noble spirit for all that; and he has my good wishes, and those of many beside.” As he spoke, his eye kindled with enthusiasm. Calantha’s heart beat high: she listened with eager interest. “He’s as generous as our own,” continued he; “and if he lets his followers take a pig or two from that rogue there, Squire Flarney, does not he give half he has to those in distress? If I could ever meet him face to face, I’d tell him the same; but we never know when he’s among us; for sure, there’s St. Clara the prophetess, he went to see her once, they say, and she left her aunt the Abbess, and the convent, and all the nuns, and went off after him, as mad as the rest. Och! you’d bless yourself to see how the folks crowd about him at the season, but they’re all gone from these parts now, in hopes of saving Linden, I’m told; for you know, I suppose, that he’s missing, and if he’s deserted, it’s said they are sure to shoot him on account of the troubles.” “Three times there have been meetings in that cleft there,” continued Gerald, pointing towards the Wizzard’s Glen: “it was that was the first undoing of Miss St. Clare: they tell me she’s all for our being delivered from our tyrants; and she prophecies so, it would do you good to hear her. Oh, they move along, a thousand at a time, in a silence would surprise you—just in the still night, and you can scarce hear them tread as they pass; but I know well when they’re coming, and there is not one of us who live here about the town, would betray them, though the reward offered is very stupendous.”