through which I could make the better speed. But hope began again rapidly to leave me. The waves roar not after a scudding bark, with more unceasing tumult, than there arose behind me the clamour of my pursuers. I winded and doubled—I ran north—then turned on my heel and speeded in the opposite direction; but still, as a cock-boat follows a ship to which she is made fast, through all her tackings and veerings—so did my pursuers tread steadily in my track. I began to grow desperate. Again, I drew my knife from its sheath, and stopping, and leaning, panting, against a great tree, I made up my mind to rest there—recover what strength I could, and sell my life as dearly as might be. At that moment, I heard a low continuous sound—a deep hollow boom echoing faintly in the wood. I listened intently, and then started up, almost with the vigour with which I had began my flight. I could not be deceived—what I heard was the roar of a waterfall, and the sound in an instant brought, as it were, a vision before my eyes. It was the vision of an old, iron-clasped book, which we had at home at Kirkleslie. Its cover was thick parchment, its leaves were brown with age, and the letters were strange and quaint. This book my father had prized next to the Bible, and those which treated of holy things, and often was it in his hands, both out at sea and by the cosy ingle-nook in the stormy winter time. It was, indeed, an ancient chronicle of the ‘Life and Death of King Robert the Bruce,’ and at the same instant of time as I remembered it—one sentence in particular loomed, as it were, before me, until I could almost fancy I saw the very strange old letters quivering in the sunshine. This was the sentence:— “And now the Kynge being sore pressed by the Blood-houndis of ye traytour Lorne, ye whythe had followed him even from ye up gettynge of ye sun, and beyinge come unto ane small rivere, did straighte enter therynne, and in such mannerre pursue his flyghte, so that ye living waterres washynge clean awaye ye scente of his footsteppes, the blood-houndis were at faulte, and ye traytour Lorne was baffled for that tymme. Thus did ye Kynge escape aue great dangere.”