Had his sentence been banishment to a foreign service, though it would have wrung his heart to leave his native country, and forego for ever the bright hopes and visions that had (though afar off) begun to lighten the horizon of his fortunes, he would have hailed the doom with joy; but to be gifted as a slave to another, to drudge amid the filth, obscurity, and disgrace of a coal mine, O! he looked forward to that with a horror inconceivable...... His mind became filled with dismal forebodings for the future. Though he still remembered with sincere pleasure the services he had rendered to the Napiers of Bruntisfield, his dreams of Lilian's mild blue eyes and glossy ringlets were sadly clouded by the perils to which they had hurried him. All these proud and high aspirations, those intense longings for fame and distinction, for happiness and power, in which the mind of an ardent and enthusiastic youth is so prone to luxuriate, and which had been for years the day dream of Walter Fenton, now suffered a chill and fatal blight. It is a hard and bitter conviction, that one's dearest prospects are blasted and withered for ever; and to the heart of the young and proud, there is no agony equal to that of unmerited disgrace and humiliation. Misery was Walter's companion, and further miseries and degradations awaited him; but happily, the dark future was involved in obscurity. CHAPTER X. HOPE. Thou art most fair; but could thy lovely face Make slavery look more comely? could the touch Of thy soft hand convey delight to mine With servile fetters on. BOADICEA, ACT IV. Three days passed away. Three, and still there was no appearance of the dreaded Deacon Macanvil with his hammer and rivets, and collar of thrall. The monotony of the prison had been unbroken save, each morning, by the entrance of the gudeman of the Tolbooth and a soldier of the Townguard, bearing a wooden luggie of fresh water and a slice of coarse bread, or coarser oaten cake on a tin trencher, and to these poor viands, the gudewife of the keeper, moved with pity for "such a winsome young man," added a cutlet or two on the third day. For the first four-and-twenty hours this mean fare remained untouched, but anon, the cravings of a youthful appetite compelled him to regale on it. In a retired, or rather, a darker corner of this miserable place, he reclined on his truss of damp straw, listening to the lively hum of the city without, and the deep ding-dong of the Cathedral bells as they marked the passing hours. Slowly the interminable day wore on.