During the night which he had heard to be pronounced the last o' his existence, and throughout which he heard the heavy tramp o' the sentinel pacing before the place o' his confinement, he mourned not for his own fate; but the tears ran down his cheeks when he thought o' his poor widowed, desolate, and unfriended mother! "Oh, who," he exclaimed--"who will tell her that her bairns are wi' the dead!--that there's not one left, from the auldest to the youngest!--but that her husband and her sons are gone--a' gone! My mother!--my poor mother!" Then he would pause, strike his hand upon his bosom, lean his brow against the wall o' the apartment, and raising it again, say, "And Flora, too--my ain betrothed! who will tell, who will comfort her? Her father may bear the tidings to her; but there will be nae sympathy for me in his words, nae compassion for her sorrow. Oh! could I only have seen her before I died--had there been any ane by whom I could hae sent her some token o' my remembrance in death, I would hae bared my breast to the muskets that are to destroy me without regret. But to die in the manner I am to do, and not three-and-twenty yet! Oh, what will my poor Flora say?" Then, folding his arms in wretchedness, he threw himself upon the straw which had been spread as a bed for his last night's repose. Early on the following day he was brought forth for execution. Hundreds o' armed men attended as spectators o' the scene; and, as he was passing through the midst o' them, he started, as he approached one of them who stood near to Montrose, and he exclaimed, "Mr. Stuart!" He stood still for a few moments, and approaching the person whose appearance had startled him--"Mr. Stuart," he added, "ye hae long regarded me as an enemy, and as a destroyer o' your peace; but, as one, the very minutes o' whose existence are numbered and as one for whom ye once professed to hae a regard, I would make one sma' request to ye--a dying request--and that is, that ye would take this watch, which is all I hae to leave, and present it to your daughter, my ain betrothed Flora, as the last bequest and token o' remembrance o' him to whom her first, her only vow was plighted." It was indeed the father o' Flora he addressed, whose loyalty had induced him to take up arms with Montrose; but he turned away his head, and waved back his hand, as Alexander addressed him, as though he knew him not. Montrose heard the words which the prisoner had spoken, and, approaching Mr. Stuart, he said, "Sir, our young prisoner seems to know ye--yea, by his words, it seems that ye were likely to be more than friends. Fear not to countenance him; if ye can urge aught in his favour--yea, for the services ye have rendered, if ye desire that he should be pardoned--speak but the word, and he shall be pardoned. Montrose has said it." "My lord," said Stuart, "I will not stand in the way o' justice--I would not, to save a brother! I have nothing to say for the young man."