rise suddenly to escape from the depressing yet charmed influence of the place, and the inexplicable circumstances connected with it, and resolved, on the following moment, to endure still the creeping sensations of fear that run over him, in the hope of getting the mystery cleared up. His watch, however, still proved ineffectual. More time passed, but the silence continued unbroken by any sound, save, occasionally, the flap of a night-bird's wing, as it floated past, or the dying scream of a victim, awakened to die in the talons of the hawk. Rising, at length, he cast another look over the chasm, and bent his steps to Riddlestain. When he reached home, he found his parents waiting impatiently for him. "It is all over," said he, as he sat down, and covered his face with his hands. "The martyr has received his crown. God have mercy on us who are of the new faith!" "And we are in danger from the commendator Blackburn," replied old Riddlestain. "He has taken the lands of Falconcleugh; and he will not be contented till he get Riddlestain also. Where is the martyr's treatise on the saving efficacy of faith? You took it with you to day to St. Andrews." "Here, here," replied Henry, as he searched his bosom for the brochure. "No, no--it is gone!" he continued, as he rose and looked wildly around him. "I was reading it by the wayside; and, overcome with fatigue and suffering, I reclined, and slept--and now I find the book is gone. What may come of this, when our enemies are ranging the land with the fiery faggot?" "Saw you no one by the way?" said the father. "Only Carey, the wandering beadsman of Pittenweem," replied the son. "Seek him--seek him, ere you sleep, Henry! Our lives depend on your recovering that book, which they call heretical, because it shows us the true way to that place where priests have no power. But the way it leads is through earthly flames, and we are not yet so well prepared for that ordeal as he who passed to-day."