"Farewell, good youth," said Mr. Bummel, as the tears of true and heartfelt sorrow trickled over his long hooked nose. "Farewell. When He from whose hand light went forth over the land, even as the rays of yonder sun--when He, I say, returns in His glory we will meet again. Till _then_, farewell." Covering his face with his handkerchief, he withdrew a few paces and prayed with kind and sincere devotion. At that moment the hoofs of a galloping horse spurred madly down the adjacent street rang through the vaults and aisles of the great church. Walter's colour changed. A reprieve! Alas! it was only Lord Clermistonlee who, pale, panting, and breathless, dashed into the square to stay the execution; but the cry he would have uttered died away on his parched lips. "He comes to exult over me," said Walter bitterly. "Behold, ignoble Lord," he exclaimed, "how a true cavalier can die! Musqueteers," he added, in his old voice of authority, "ready, blow your matches, present, God save King James the Seventh! give fire!" The death volley rang like thunder in the still quadrangle. Four bullets flattened against the statue, eight were mortal, and with the last convulsive energy of death Walter Fenton threw his hat into the air and fell forward prostrate into his coffin a bleeding corpse. ------------ Here ends our tale. From that hour Clermistonlee was a changed man. Though given up to dark, corroding care and moody thoughts, he lived to a great old age, and was one of those who sold his country at the union. Soon after that event he died, unregretted and unrespected, and a defaced monument in the east wall of the Greyfriars Churchyard still marks the place where he lies. His gossip, Mersington, would no doubt have obtained a comfortable share of "the compensations" in 1707 had he not (as appears from a passage in Carstairs' State Papers) unluckily been found dead one night in the severe winter of 1700, with a half-drained mug of burnt sack clutched in his tenacious grasp. A few words more of Lilian, and then we part. From the moment in which, with her child in her arms, she ascended the great staircase of Bruntisfield, she was never again seen. Every place within the mansion and without, the woods, the lake, the fields, the muir were searched, but the lady and her child were seen no more.