His passions were obviously irritated; but without noticing the rudeness of his tone, I gave him a short and distinct account of the death of Morris. He struck the butt of his gun with great vehemence against the ground, and broke out--"I vow to God, such a deed might make one forswear kin, clan, country, wife, and bairns! And yet the villain wrought long for it. And what is the difference between warsling below the water wi' a stane about your neck, and wavering in the wind wi' a tether round it?--it's but choking after a', and he drees the doom he ettled for me. I could have wished, though, they had rather putten a ball through him, or a dirk; for the fashion of removing him will give rise to mony idle clavers--But every wight has his weird, and we maun a' dee when our day comes--And naebody will deny that Helen MacGregor has deep wrongs to avenge." So saying, he seemed to dismiss the theme altogether from his mind, and proceeded to inquire how I got free from the party in whose hands he had seen me. My story was soon told; and I added the episode of my having recovered the papers of my father, though I dared not trust my voice to name the name of Diana. "I was sure ye wad get them," said MacGregor;--"the letter ye brought me contained his Excellency's pleasure to that effect and nae doubt it was my will to have aided in it. And I asked ye up into this glen on the very errand. But it's like his Excellency has foregathered wi' Rashleigh sooner than I expected." The first part of this answer was what most forcibly struck me. "Was the letter I brought you, then, from this person you call his Excellency? Who is he? and what is his rank and proper name?" "I am thinking," said MacGregor, "that since ye dinna ken them already they canna be o' muckle consequence to you, and sae I shall say naething on that score. But weel I wot the letter was frae his ain hand, or, having a sort of business of my ain on my hands, being, as ye weel may see, just as much as I can fairly manage, I canna say I would hae fashed mysell sae muckle about the matter."