With these words he left the cottage, and hurrying to Riddlestain, gave an account of the dangerous situation in which he was placed. His father saw the peril with perhaps a keener perception of the probable consequences. The act of 1525 against heretics was in full force, and the church authorities eked out its sanctions by wrested texts of Scripture, with an ingenuity and thirst of blood that threatened destruction to all heretics. It was resolved that Henry should be regulated by the warnings of the beadsman, whose sources of information would enable him to save the son of his old friend from ruin, if not death. The night was passed by the inmates of Riddlestain with fearful forebodings, and next morning, and during a part of the day, Henry expected a secret visit from the beadsman. As the evening approached, he ventured forth to look for the bearer of intelligence, but as yet he was not visible. The moon had risen, and was again flinging her beams over the muir of Falconcleugh, and the old mansion of the Melvilles stood in solemn darkness in the midst of the scene. Again he was occupied by the thoughts suggested by what he had seen on the previous night, and what he had heard from Carey and Margaret, yet all his attempts to unravel their conduct and converse was unavailing, and he felt half inclined to seek again the cottage at Mossfell, to put the maiden to another test, while he would ease her mind of the reflections which the abrupt if not cruel terms of his departure would inevitably suggest. In the midst of his reverie he was startled by a noise, and, on looking round, he saw the dark figure of the inhabitant of the Quarryheugh coming along by his peculiar springing movement. He had never before seen him beyond the precincts of the hollow where he had taken up his residence; and felt as he might have felt on the approach of some being from another world. Every now and then the creature stopped, and beckoned him forwards, but Henry retained his position as if transfixed to the ground, and, in a short time, the hermit was by his side, with his face--which was covered with long hair, and the features almost obliterated by scars--turned up to him in the full light of the moon. "The fires of other lands," said he, "are as scorching as those of the Scotch faggot. Thou wouldst yet fly to them, and leave the commendator Blackburn to seize Riddlestain, while thy father suffers the fate thou wouldst avoid." "Let him remain," replied Henry, "who has faith and fortitude to pass through the fiery ordeal. You did not, good Mansie, see Hamilton's blackened body sink among the blazing faggots." A half-suppressed groan rumbled in the throat of the Droich. "What I have seen--what I have felt, thou may'st never know," said he. "But see, there are the church emissaries already after thee."