"Major Duncannon, thou art a coward!" said Walter, turning his eyes of fire upon him. "The brave are ever compassionate and gentle--but thou! away, man--for on thy brow is written the dark curse which the unavenged blood of Glencoe called down from the blessed God!" Duncannon turned pale. "Away with him!" he cried. "Drummers, flam off--musqueteers, march!" and the procession began. The dull rolling of the muffled drums, the regulated tap of the burial march, and the wailing of the fifes, now shrill and high, and anon sweet and low, found a deep echo in Walter's melancholy breast. Sorrowful and solemn was the measure of the Psalm, and he felt his beating heart soothed and saddened; but he could only mentally accompany the clergyman who walked bare-headed by his side, and chaunted aloud while the soldiers marched. Walter's cheek reddened, for his fearless heart beat high, and he stepped firmly behind his coffin, the most stately in all that sad procession, though marching to that dread strain which a soldier seldom hears, _his_ own death-march. The vast recesses of the great cathedral and the distant echoes of the central street of the city with all its diverging wynds, replied mournfully to the roll of the funeral drums. He whose knell they rung seemed the proudest there among two hundred soldiers. Life now had nearly lost every charm, while religion, courage, and resignation had fully robbed death of all its terrors. Roused by the unusual sound, many a nightcapped citizen peered fearfully forth from his lofty dwelling; but their looks of wonder or of pity were unheeded or unseen by Walter Fenton. He saw only his own coffin borne before him and the weapons and the hands by which he was to die; but his bold spirit never quailed, and he resolved, with true Jacobite enthusiasm, to fall with honour to the cause for which he suffered. "Halt!" cried Duncannon, and the coffin rang hollowly as it was placed beside the square stone pedestal of King Charles's statue, and Walter immediately kneeled down within it, confronting the stern Presbyterians of Argyle's regiment with an aspect of coolness and bravery that did not fail to excite their admiration and pity. A sergeant approached to bind up his eyes. "Nay, nay, my good fellow," said Walter, waving him away; "I have faced death too often to flinch now. Major Duncannon, draw up your musqueteers, and I will show you how fearlessly a cavalier of honour can die." While twelve soldiers were drawn up before him and loaded their muskets, Walter turned his eyes for the last time to the glorious autumnal sun, whose red morning rays were shot aslant between two lofty piles of building into the shadowy and gloomy quadrangle formed by the ancient Parliament House, the Goldsmiths' Hall, the grotesque piazzas, and the grand cathedral. He gave one rapid glance of adieu around him, and then turned towards his destroyers.