short dry cough, all attesting the fatal presence of consumption. To gaze on them thus was to imagine a meeting between life and death, or that between two warriors; the one bravely arming for the coming fight, and the other, weary of the strife, about to repose after having borne the burden and heat of the day. At length Mr. Wellwood spoke, and his voice was low and sweet as he expressed the pleasure it gave him to see Mr. Ayton; while the latter grieved beyond measure on beholding Mr. Wellwood so feeble and attenuated, could scarce command his voice sufficiently to make a suitable reply. After the lapse of some little time, during which both sat silent, Mr. Wellwood, who had been gazing in a dreamy manner on the few blighted flowers adorning his window, emblems of his own untimely fate, demanded of Andrew Ayton if Archbishop Sharpe had committed any further outrages on the Presbyterians. "Oh! Mr. Wellwood," burst forth Inchdarnie, "words cannot paint the deep hatred that haughty prelate bears towards us; he would, if possible, blot our names from the book of life; the wholesale murders committed by his orders are terrible beyond imagination; and not contented with what has been already done, he daily devises fresh means of torture. Had you seen what I witnessed while coming hither, it would never have been effaced from your memory; the lifeless corpse, the bereaved wife, and the maniac mother—all are before me even now. That such men are permitted to live only to commit crimes revolting to humanity is indeed strange!" As Mr. Wellwood gazed on the countenance of the noble youth, which glowed with a beauty almost unearthly in its brightness, and marked as it was by an expression of melancholy sometimes seen on the faces of those who are not destined to remain long in this world, the mysterious veil which conceals the future from our sight was for one moment drawn aside. His dying eyes beheld what was soon to be accomplished, and he exclaimed, "You will shortly be quit of him; he will get a sudden and sharp off-going, and you will be the first to take the news of his death to heaven." Inchdarnie reverently bowed his head in token of submission to the decrees of the Almighty. So pleased was he with the gentle bearing and pious exhortations of Mr. Well wood, that he remained with him until pretty near his decease, which occurred not long afterwards, when he was obliged to return to Inchdarnie, there to comfort with his presence his beloved mother, then labouring under severe indisposition. In danger of being imprisoned should his presence be discovered in the neighbourhood, Andrew Ayton durst not continue long in his father’s house; but during the winter months and the ensuing spring he kept himself concealed in one of the cottar’s houses, where he ran little risk of being detected.