"You know that my heart is full of you, Lilian; but there is also room for ambition in it. I cannot live ignobly and obscure; as such I would be unworthy to possess you. I would feel myself a nameless intruder under the rooftree of your crested ancestors, whose armorial blazons on every panel and window-pane, would shame my meaner birth, and put me to the blush." "Ungrateful! after all I have urged and said. 'Tis a dream, Walter, a mere dream, but one that will make the world dark--oh! very dark to me." "'Tis very true; I am choosing the path of proscription, danger, and death; but the fortune of war may better the prospects of my faction." "After years of separation, perhaps." "With happiness in prospect, they would soon pass, dear Lilian." "Oh, this wicked Claverhouse! he hath quite cast a glamour over you. How can you talk so calmly of years of separation? What may not be lost in that time?" "My life on the field, or scaffold, perhaps." "Your life is mine, Walter; it was pledged to me. Have you forgot the 20th of September, and the hour by the fountain?" "Dearest girl, how could I ever forget it? 'Tis true, Lilian, that we are in the very flower of our days; the bloom of our youth and existence is at its full; love, tenderness, beauty, and susceptibility, all glow within our hearts." "And will not the roll of years make them dull, diminish their force, and cool their fervour? Oh, heavens! I am quite making love to you," said Lilian, blushing crimson; "but danger and the risk of losing you have endued me with great boldness." "But time will never diminish the love I bear thee, Lilian; and the memory of this hour's bitter struggle--this conflict between a love that is irresistible and the strong ties of honour, that bind me to the banner of Dundee, will haunt me to my grave!" Tears started into his eyes. A silence ensued. Poor Lilian had nothing more to urge; and despite of all her gentleness, felt both intensely grieved and mortified, if not quite piqued, at Walter, whose heart was wrung by an agony too acute for words. As they rode past the thick woodlands that shelter the venerable church of St. Cuthbert, they heard a shrill but cracked voice chanting slowly-- "I like ane owl in désart am, &c." "By Jove! 'tis the villain who slew poor Joram," exclaimed Walter, drawing a pistol from his holsters; but the voices of two other persons finishing the verse, arrested him. "Astonishment! 'tis the voice of Finland!" said Walter, as he spurred his horse close to a fauld dyke, on the other side of which he saw, what? Annie Laurie, and his old friend and brother Cavalier, Finland, on their knees, beside Mr. Ichabod Bummel, chanting a psalm in most dolorous accents. "By all the devils!" said Walter, almost bursting with laughter; "'tis the age of miracles this! What, ho! Dick Douglas and Mistress Anne Laurie, singing hymns among the heather like two true laverocks of the persecuted kirk."