Lord Gowrie was evidently very uneasy. He played with the hilt of his rapier, clasping and unclasping his hands upon the sheath; he gazed eagerly in his friend's face, as if he would fain have interrupted him, but yet hesitated to do so. "Well," continued Hume, "the officers at first seemed a little touched, but they are folks not easily moved, and the waters of pity soon subside with them, when agitated for a moment by the unwonted wind. One of them took him by the shoulder, and said, 'Come, signor, you must get up, and deliver all your papers. We are sent to examine everything, by the council of the university, which has strong reason to believe you guilty of magic and sorcery.' "'My thoughts are there,' said the old man, meekly, pointing towards heaven; but the young girl by his bedside started up, and gazed at the officers with wild and frightened eyes. These men, now, were very zealous Christians; but they thought it a point of piety to interrupt a dying man's preparation to meet his Maker, and to hurry him away to death--for nothing else could have followed--before that preparation was complete." The Earl of Gowrie bent his head upon his hands, covering his eyes with his fingers; but his friend could see that he shook violently, either with anger, apprehension, or some other strong emotion. He went on, however, saying, "I thought it best now to interfere, John, knowing that I am somewhat a favourite with the good officers of the university, being too dull or too light to be taken for a conjuror, and too free with my purse for a dealer in the things of darkness. I therefore stepped quietly forward, and representing that the old gentleman was evidently too ill to be moved, suggested that it would be better to make a preliminary examination of the papers, in which I offered to assist. I had some difficulty in prevailing; but at length it was agreed that all suspicious documents should be carried at once before the senate, and those that were plain and straightforward left, while one officer remained in the house, to prevent a man from escaping who could not stir a step. The search was somewhat curious, and certainly there were sundry writings of which I understood not one word; but I pressed the old man's hand, and told him in English to make his mind easy, asking for one word of explanation in regard to the strange tongues I had found there written. 'Some are Armenian,' he answered, 'some Syriac, and some Gaelic, which you, at least, should understand.' Happily I did, for one of the first papers examined was an old song of our own Highlands, describing the hunting of a stag. I could have laughed, had the matter not been serious, to see the puzzled faces of the learned doctors. The Armenian and Syriac they knew at least by the characters, and afraid of showing their brief extent of knowledge, they pronounced them all very innocent; but the Gaelic was in the high road to the Holy Inquisition, though written in