"I will let you ken, Dougal, as soon as my plans are settled." "And, by her sooth, when you do, an it were twal o' the Sunday at e'en, she'll fling her keys at the provost's head or she gie them anither turn, and that or ever Monday morning begins--see if she winna." My mysterious stranger cut his acquaintance's ecstasies short by again addressing him, in what I afterwards understood to be the Irish, Earse, or Gaelic, explaining, probably, the services which he required at his hand. The answer, "Wi' a' her heart--wi' a' her soul," with a good deal of indistinct muttering in a similar tone, intimated the turnkey's acquiescence in what he proposed. The fellow trimmed his dying lamp, and made a sign to me to follow him. "Do you not go with us?" said I, looking to my conductor. "It is unnecessary," he replied; "my company may be inconvenient for you, and I had better remain to secure our retreat." "I do not suppose you mean to betray me to danger," said I. "To none but what I partake in doubly," answered the stranger, with a voice of assurance which it was impossible to mistrust. I followed the turnkey, who, leaving the inner wicket unlocked behind him, led me up a _turnpike_ (so the Scotch call a winding stair), then along a narrow gallery--then opening one of several doors which led into the passage, he ushered me into a small apartment, and casting his eye on the pallet-bed which occupied one corner, said with an under voice, as he placed the lamp on a little deal table, "She's sleeping." "She!--who?--can it be Diana Vernon in this abode of misery?" I turned my eye to the bed, and it was with a mixture of disappointment oddly mingled with pleasure, that I saw my first suspicion had deceived me. I saw a head neither young nor beautiful, garnished with a grey beard of two days' growth, and accommodated with a red nightcap. The first glance put me at ease on the score of Diana Vernon; the second, as the slumberer awoke from a heavy sleep, yawned, and rubbed his eyes, presented me with features very different indeed--even those of my poor friend Owen. I drew back out of view an instant, that he might have time to recover himself; fortunately recollecting that I was but an intruder on these cells of sorrow, and that any alarm might be attended with unhappy consequences. Meantime, the unfortunate formalist, raising himself from the pallet-bed with the assistance of one hand, and scratching his cap with the other, exclaimed in a voice in which as much peevishness as he was capable of feeling, contended with drowsiness, "I'll tell you what, Mr. Dug-well, or whatever your name may be, the sum-total of the matter is, that if my natural rest is to be broken in this manner, I must complain to the lord mayor."