the roof, which served to discover the many obscure passages that branched off from it into the several parts of the building, and led to wide and lofty stone staircases.

Irwin was immediately taken up one of these the Baron could not forbear expressing some anxiety for his fate, although he did not believe such an expression calculated to procure him any additional advantages amongst the savage set they were now with; but the leader, who would have been considered a man. of a most dark and forbidding countenance, to have been seen alone, but who, by comparison with the more ferocious. faces he was now amongst, almost de served the name of gentle, assured the Baron that every care his situation required should be shewn to him; and then desired the Baron to follow him to the apartment destined for himself.

The Baron's pride wanted relief as much as his body; and considering it a conde

condescension, if not a mark of respect to his situation, in the leader, to denominate that his apartment which justice would have allowed him to have called his prison, he followed with more complacency of temper than he believed he could, in his present trying situation, have commanded.

It may be urged-"What could he do but obey? he knew resistance or complaints to be in vain." To this it is replied, that it is a mind of more than common energy that can restrain its feelings in a situation so galling to its peace ; and that it is the custom of the multitude most to murmur, where murmuring least avails; because their complaints are always great in proportion to the greatness of their sufferings; and a sense of suffering takes away from them the power of reasoning upon the good or evil effect of bewailing their misfortunes.

Following the leader, he ascended a flight of stone stairs, although not the

VOL. II.

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same up which Irwin had been carried, and passed into a long gallery, faintly lighted in like manner as the hall; hence they proceeded to some smaller stairs, which appeared to wind up a tower: there was here no lamp, and a torch was necessary to shew them their way. The stairs were extremely decayed, and even dangerous to pass; they were, however, few in number: thus, notwithstanding their ruinous situation, they soon arrived at the top of them. The leader drew from his pocket a key, and giving it to one of his attendants, ordered him to unlock a small iron door which presented itself to their view.

With difficulty the man turned the key in the rusty wards, and then forced open the door, from which issued a cloud of dust that almost blinded them, and proved the length of time the apartment had been unoccupied.

The man who bore the torch entered first; him the leader followed, and

called

called to the Baron to come in after him. The Baron obeyed, but not without casting on his conductors a look of suspicion, to which they replied by a malicious and satisfactory smile.

The room they had now entered bore every mark of having been built for a prison it was large, and high; the walls of stone, appeared once to have been plastered, but were now, in many places, bare, and in others covered with a green and mossy dew; the roof was formed of beams of oak, worm-eaten, and black with age; and the only place for the admission of light was a small grated window fixed nearly at the top of 'the wall.

In the middle of the apartment stood an iron pan, in which wood seemed once to have been burnt, for ashes might be discovered in it, as also scattered about the floor. The only furniture was a small table and a chair, and in one corner stood

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stood a large oaken chest, over which hung a rude wooden crucifix.

Lord William looked around him with marks of dejection at the appearance of the place, which the leader observing, told him that it should be made more comfortable, and immediately gave directions for a fire to be lighted, and a lamp to be brought him; which being done, some provisions were set on the table, and a mattress and blanket spread for him on the floor; and the Mosstroopers then all departed, the chief observing that it would be very soon in his own power to shorten his imprisonment. The door was shut upon him, and he heard it locked and barred without.

The Baron, left to his own reflections, cast his eyes once more, hopelessly round his prison, and, heaving a deep sigh, he threw himself into the chair, and felt his heart sinking within him.

The pride, the vanity of his life, which

it