After they were all gone, Inverawe paced about in the court-yard for some time, in sombre thought, which stole involuntarily upon him. He then sought his way up stairs, and lifting an oaken chair towards the great hearth, where the billets had by this time begun to burn red, and without flame, he sat down in it for a while, listlessly to ponder over the events of the evening. The weary servants had gladly stolen away to bed, and the whole castle was soon as silent as the grave. Not a sound was to be heard within the walls, but the dull, drowsy buzzing of a large fly, which the flickering light of a solitary lamp, left on the table, had prevented from retiring to some cranny of repose. The master of the mansion smiled for a moment, as the whimsical idea crossed him, that this tiny insect was perhaps the only thing of life, which, at that time, kept watch with him within the castle. Inverawe's thoughts reverted to the last toast which had been given by his young friend Campbell, and the strange circumstances by which it had been accompanied. He had an only son, called Donald, a promising young man, who was the prop of his house, and to whose future career in life he looked forward with all a father's anxiety. He had been long accustomed to weave a silken tissue of anticipated happiness, and honours, for the young man, and to view him, in his mind's eye, as the father of many generations to come. The youth was at that time from home; and this was the very first moment of his life that the notion of there being any chance of his being one day left childless, had ever occurred to him. He tried to shake off these gloomy presentiments, but still they returned, and clung to him, with a force and pertinacity that no reason could conquer. He would fain have risen to go to his chamber, but he felt as if some powerful, though unseen hand, had held him down to his chair,--and he continued to sit on, absorbed in contemplative musings on these gloomy and painful dreams, till the billets on the hearth had consumed themselves to their red embers. Suddenly all such thoughts were put to flight from his mind. He distinctly heard the great outer door of the castle creak upon its hinges. He remembered, that although he had not locked it, he had shut it behind him when he came in. It now banged against its doorway, and sent a hollow sound echoing up the long turnpike stair. Faint, quick, and stealthy footsteps, were then heard ascending. One or two other doors were moved in succession. The footsteps approached with cautious expedition. And as Inverawe listened with breathless attention, the door of the hall was thrust open,--a human countenance appeared for an instant in the dusky aperture--and then a man, with a naked dirk in his hand,--his clothes dripping wet--his long hair hanging streaming over his shoulders, and half veiling his glaring eyes, and pale and haggard countenance, rushed in, and made straight up to him.