However, Father St. Bernard had taught the countess that it was merely the romance of an old Welsh monk, and, deeply immersed therein, she had just reached the account of that dreadful battle fought by Arthur against Nero and King Lot of Orkney, who was so foully deceived by the wicked enchanter Merlin, and drawn into that strife around the castle Terrible, where Sir Kaye the seneschal and Sir Hervis de Revel performed such deeds as none ever achieved but knights of the Round Table; and where twelve valiant kings were slain, and buried in Stephen's church at Camelot. The countess, we say, had just reached this interesting point, and believing it all implicitly, was crossing herself at the contemplation of such a slaughter, when her favourite tabby, which was seated on the table, with its prodigious whiskers bristling, and its sleepy eyes winking at the wax candles, sneezed violently, which made her cross herself again three several times. A dog howled mournfully in the yard. The countess laid aside her book, took off her barnacles, and began to think. "All the dogs in Linlithgow howled on the day James IV. was killed at Flodden!" The good old lady was seriously discomposed, and she was just feeling for an Agnus Dei, which Father St. Bernard had given her to keep away the nightmare, when Janet her tire-woman, and Sabrino the page, with his poniard unsheathed, rushed into the room. The former looked pale as death, and was almost breathless; the visage of the latter was a ghastly blue; his eyes were glaring with alarm; he held one finger on his lips, and pointed downwards with another to the staircase, where now a sudden uproar of voices mingling with the clash of swords was heard. "Oh! madam! madam! my puir dear lady! it's a' a' owre--it's a' owre noo! They are coming! they are coming!" cried Janet, with a most prolonged "Oh!" of grief. "Then my four omens this day have not been for nocht!" said the countess, rising up to the full extent of her great stature; while the three young ladies rushed to her side like startled doves; "but speak, ye foolish woman, speak! Who are coming?" "They are coming to arrest you, and we are a' lost! lost! lost! Oh, the hands of dule and death are spread this nicht owre the Setons o' Ashkirk." And seizing the hands of her mistress, the woman kissed them, and then throwing herself on her knees, buried her face in her scarlet curtsey, rocking her body to and fro, and exclaiming with that noisy grief so common to her class, "Oh Archibald--my nurseling--my son, and mair than my son (for thou art the head of the name)--thy curly pow will sune be on the Netherbow, wi' the gleds and the corbies croaking owre it!" The countess trembled and grew pale; but drawing herself proudly up (and her height was as towering as her aspect was majestic), she said calmly,