I could listen no longer, but raised the latch and went in. The evening was gloomy, and the apartment ill lighted; but I could see the singer, a spectral-looking figure, sitting on a bed in the corner, with the bedclothes wrapped round his shoulders, and a napkin deeply stained with blood on his head. An elderly female, who stood beside him, was striving to soothe him, and busied from time to time in adjusting the clothes, which were ever and anon falling off, as he nodded his head in time to the music. A young girl of great beauty sat weeping at the bedfoot. "O dearest Robert," said the woman, "you will destroy your poor head; and Margaret your sister, whom you used to love so much, will break her heart. Do lie down, dearest, and take a little rest. Your head is fearfully gashed, and if the bandages loose a second time, you will bleed to death. Do, dearest Robert, for your poor old mother, to whom you were always so kind and dutiful a son till now--for your poor old mother's sake, do lie down." The song ceased for a moment, and the tears came bursting from my eyes as the tune changed, and he again sang:-- "O mither dear, make ye my bed, For my heart it's flichterin' sair; An' oh, gin I've vexed ye, mither dear, I'll never vex ye mair. I've staid ar'out the lang dark nicht, I' the sleet an' the plashy rain; But, mither dear, make ye my bed, An' I'll ne'er gang out again." "Dearest, dearest Robert," continued the poor, heart-broken woman, "do lie down; for your poor old mother's sake, do lie down." "No, no," he exclaimed, in a hurried voice, "not just now, mother, not just now. Here is my friend, Mr. Lindsay, come to see me--my true friend, Mr. Lindsay, the sailor, who has sailed all round and round the world; and I have much, much to ask him. A chair, Margaret, for Mr. Lindsay. I must be a preacher like John Knox, you know--like the great John Knox, the reformer of a nation--and Mr. Lindsay knows all about him. A chair, Margaret, for Mr. Lindsay." I am not ashamed to say it was with tears, and in a voice faltering with emotion, that I apologized to the poor woman for my intrusion at such a time. Were it otherwise, I might well conclude my heart had grown hard as a piece of the nether millstone. "I had known Robert at College," I said--"had loved and respected him; and had now come to pay him a visit, after an absence of several months, wholly unprepared for finding him in his present condition." And it would seem that my tears pled for me, and proved to the poor afflicted woman and her daughter, by far the most efficient part of my apology.