In little more than an hour afterwards, however, the Lord of Hermitage’s arrival was followed by that of another person, who rode furiously up to the gate, and inquired, in an eager and anxious tone, if he had yet appeared. Being answered in the affirmative, the stranger called on the porter to open the gate, saying that he was an attendant of his master’s, whom the latter had hired some days previously, and that he had lost both him and his way in the dark, being a stranger in that part of the country. The man’s story was plausible; and he was instantly admitted. On entering the court-yard, and seeing some lights in the windows that overlooked it, the stranger inquired of the person who admitted him, whether any one, and which of these windows belonged to his master’s sleeping apartment. The porter, naturally thinking that the question was put by the stranger with the view of affording his master his services, pointed out the apartment he inquired after, and gave him particular directions how to find it. Desiring his informant now to hold his horse for a few minutes, till he should have informed his master of his arrival, when he would return, he said, to take charge of the animal himself, the stranger disappeared. In an instant after, the door of the Lord of Hermitage’s apartment was suddenly opened, and “Jock o’ the Syde” stood before its horror-struck inmate, who at once guessed the intentions of the intruder. What followed was the work of a moment. Armstrong—his eyes dilated with a fearful joy, and with a deadly smile playing on his haggard countenance, seized the unhappy Lord of Hermitage by the throat; and, as he struck a dagger to his heart, exclaimed—“Villain! most atrocious of villains! the hour of vengeance is come. I have caught thee at last. This, and this, and this,” he said, as he repeated his stabs, “is for Isabella Foster and her murdered father!” Elated beyond bounds at this successful termination to all his weary toils and watchings, and gratified to think that his vengeance had been, after all, consummated in the very stronghold of the murderer, Armstrong flew to the court-yard, leaped on his horse, and having called to the porter, in a voice of fierce exultation, to open the gate, as his master had ordered him on a pressing and important mission, “Jock o’ the Syde” galloped out of the castle; and his loud and triumphant, but most appalling laugh, as he cleared the gate-way, rang wildly through the darkness and solitude of the night, and struck those who heard it with awe and dismay; for it was, indeed, unearthly. GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT. XVIII.—KINALDY.