The spell was now quickly dissolved; but no pen can do any justice to the feelings of our amazed troopers, as they again strode the green in their own forms and vigour, embracing the friar, and thanking him as their deliverer. They returned back over the ridge, not without some dreadful apprehensions, to the mill of Aikwood for their horses, but went no more in view of the portentous castle. They found their horses at good feed; and whenever Charlie saw Corby's skin, that glittered like the plumes of the raven, he cried, "Aha, Corby lad, ye haena wantit either meat or drink, ye rascal! Od ye hae fared better than your master, ye cock-luggit glooming thief; stall up, ye dog, till I caparison you, and then let us bound for the border." But the most curious and least suspected of all the circumstances attending the horses was, that Dan Chisholm's horse and those of his three companions, that they left stabled in the deep dell above Lindean, were all found standing at the mill among the rest. The miller could give no farther account about them, than that a lad brought them all tied to one another's tails, and said they belonged to four of the baron of Mountcomyn's men that were gone to Aikwood. "By the Lord Soules," cried Dan, "then it is true that Master Michael Scott said of the devil being more of a gentleman than he had been generally represented. For all the pranks he has played us, I'll think the better of him for this the longest day I have to live. What say you to this, friend Yardbire?" "I shall be twenty miles off Aikwood at least afore I speak another sentence about either him or some others that I ken o.' Mercy on us! poor Tam Craik! What an end he has made wi' his fat bacon! Hech, but it be a despisable thing to rin open mouth to the--I'll no mention whae--for their greed o' meat. Some may hae gotten nae mair than what they deserved; but as for sachless Gibbie Jordan, he has been right hardly dealt wi'. My heart's unco wae for the poor laird, and I think something should be done to recover him." "Something _shall_ be done for him," said the friar, and that of such momentous consequence, that, if his own iniquities keep him not in bondage, all the powers of the evil one shall be unequal to the task."