overcome by some fearful emotion, and then bursting into tears, “Your son John,” he said, “died this morning!” The poor woman fainted away. “For the two last days of the sale,” said the messenger, “there was a marked alteration in John’s manner and appearance. There was a something so fixed-like in his expression, and so mournful in his way of looking at things; and then his face was deadly pale, and he took scarce any food. It was evident that the misfortunes of his family preyed deeply on his mind. Yester evening,” continued the lad, “he complained for the first time of being unwell, and retired to bed before the usual hour. The two servant-maids rose early in the morning to prepare for leaving the place, and were surprised, on entering the ‘ha’,’ to find him sitting in the great arm-chair fronting the fire. His countenance had changed during the night; he looked much older, and very like his father; and he was so weak that he could hardly sit up in the chair. The girls were alarmed, and would have called for assistance, but he forbade them. ‘My watch,’ he said, ‘hangs over my pillow; go tell me what o’clock it is.’ It was just twenty minutes past four. ‘Well,’ said he, when they had told him, ‘it is the last hour to me! there is a crook in my lot; but it’s God’s doing, not man’s.’ And, leaning back in the chair, he never spake more.” The messenger had seen the corpse laid on the bed, and wrapped up in a winding-sheet, before setting out on his melancholy journey. Need I say aught of the feelings of Isabel? The saddler and his mother strove to persuade her to remain with them till at least after the funeral, but she would not; she would go and take one last look of her son, she said--of her _only_ son, for the other was a murderer. Early, therefore, on the following morning, the saddler hired a small yawl to bring her across the Firth, and, taking his place in the stern beside her, the boatmen bent them to their oars, and the hill of Nigg soon lessened behind them.