"'Sdeath, my lord, can you not imagine that I speak of the wings of love? Every night I descended that steep at the witching hour, and every morning before the dawn I crept back to my barracks. I constructed a light twelve-foot ladder, by means of which I was able to pass the places that are perpendicular; and so well, at length, did I become acquainted with the route, that in the darkest and stormiest night, I found my way as easily as when the moonlight enabled me to see my love in the distance waiting for me at the cottage door." "You are a daring, desperate, noble fellow, Francis! However, your motive is now gone; your mistress"-- "She is dead; say no more; but another has taken her place." "Ay, ay, it's the soldier's way. Women will die or even grow old; and what are we to do? Come, who is your mistress now?" "MY COUNTRY! What I have done for love, I can do again for honor; and what I can accomplish, you, noble Randolph, and many of our comrades can do far better. Give me thirty picked men, and a twelve-foot ladder, and the fortress is our own!" "The Earl of Moray, whatever his real thoughts of the enterprise might have been, was not the man to refuse such a challenge. A ladder was provided, and thirty men chosen from the troops; and in the middle of a dark night, the party, commanded by Randolph himself, and guided by William Francis, set forth on their desperate enterprise. "By catching at crag after crag, and digging their fingers into the interstices of the rocks, they succeeded in mounting a considerable way; but the weather was now so thick, they could receive but little assistance from their eyes; and thus they continued to climb, almost in utter darkness, like men struggling up a precipice in the night-mare. They at length reached a shelving table of the cliff, above which the ascent, for ten or twelve feet, was perpendicular; and having fixed their ladder, the whole party lay down to recover breath. "From this place they could hear the tread and voices of the 'check watches,' or patrol, above; and, surrounded by the perils of such a moment, it is not wonderful that some illusions may have mingled with their thoughts. They even imagined that they were seen from the battlements, although, being themselves unable to see the warders, this was highly improbable. It became evident, notwithstanding, from the words they caught here and there in the pauses of the night-wind, that the conversation of the English soldiers above related to a surprise of the Castle; and at length these appalling words broke like thunder on their ears: 'Stand! I see you well!' A fragment of the rock was hurled down at the same instant; and as rushing from crag to crag it bounded over their heads, Randolph and his brave followers, in this wild, helpless, and extraordinary situation, felt the damp of mortal terror gathering upon their brow, as they clung with a death-grip to the precipice.