"Ah! false and cruel fortune! foul despite! While others triumph, I am drowned in woe. And can it be that I such treasure slight? And can I then my weary life forego? No! let me die; 'twere happiness above A longer life, if I must cease to love."--_Orlando Furioso_. Sunk in an abyss of deep and gloomy thoughts, Jane Seton sat at a window of the apartment which had been allotted to her, until Sir Adam Otterburn could have her removed to his house of Redhall, a strong square tower, situated on an eminence near the village of Hailes, a few miles south-west of Edinburgh. This he intended to have done the moment he was able to ride; and nothing but his wound--"that accursed wound," as he called it--prevented the removal of the lady and her brother, on the very day succeeding their capture, to this lonely fortlet, which stood among thick woodlands above the Leith, and just where a modern mansion occupies the site of that more ancient Redhall which the soldiers of General Monk besieged and destroyed. A stupid but good-natured country girl from his barony--one who stood in dread of Sir Adam, regarding him as a demi-god and superior being, rather than a mere man and master--attended Jane; and, considering her a poor deranged lady, had been most provokingly sympathetic, and inaccessible to bribes, to threats, and entreaties; while Dobbie, like a watchful bull-dog, sat always in a niche near the door, with a small barrel of ale to solace him, and a pack of cards, with which he practised tricks and sleight-of-hand against himself. The walls were of enormous thickness, and the small windows were massively barred; the apartment was hung with rich cream-coloured arras, studded with gorgeous red flowers; the cornices, the chairs, the panelling of the doors and shutters were all profusely gilded; a gittern, an embroidery frame, a few black-letter books of poetry and romance, and a few vellum illuminations of Scripture, with various other things which might serve to wile away a lady's time, were scattered on the buffets and window-seats; while several boxes of the most splendid jewels which the art of Master Mossman could produce, stood most alluringly on the table, with their lids open, but all unnoticed.