sorrowfully around on his beaten troops, and found that the number of the surviving was scarcely forty; of these, his chief leader, Irwin, was one, but the wounds he had received were so great, as to oblige him to be borne on a litter, formed of the branches of trees.

About the time that the sun began to withdraw his light from the earth, and usher in the twilight of the evening, they entered upon a wide and dreary heath for nearly three miles they proceeded along, without any signs of cultivation or inhabitants meeting their eyes; from the slowness of their march in these three miles, the twilight had retired beyond the expanded curtain of night, and the pale silvery light of a rising moon alone gave a faint illumination to the

scene.

The country continued wild and desolate in the extreme; no vegetation could yet be perceived, except a short brown

grass

1

grass, on which one solitary flock of sheep were picking their scanty meal; and here and there, piles of enormous stones, the growth of ages, broke the melancholy sameness of the barren heath.

At last their road wound into a rugged path, on one side of which arose immensely steep mountains, clothed with a black furze, which gave to the scene a gloomy and funereal appearance, heightened by the shades of night, from which the eye of the traveller turned to seek relief on the opposite side of the road; and here it no sooner rested, than it shuddered at the sight of a deep gulf, from which there was neither natural nor artificial protection, and which appeared expressly designed either to perpetrate or conceal a murder in; and there was not wanting evidence that of such a scene the spot beneath had been a witness, for a creaking noise drew towards it the eyeof the Baron, and he found that it pro

ceeded

ceeded from the rusty chains of a gibbet, on which hung a half decayed figure, which the wind agitated, and caused the links to grate each other in their motion.

The Baron shuddered as his eyes rested on the horrid object; the freebooters passed it with jocular observations on the fate of the unfortunate wretch, who had been placed there as a warning mark to those who were now treading in his path of iniquity.

As they drew towards the end of this path, the Baron perceived a speck in the horizon, which he conjectured to be a distant building a short time convinced him that it was so; and as they advanced towards it, the conversation of the freebooters informed him it was their haunt.

For the first time since the commencement of their march, the Baron spoke."Is this the abode of your chief?" he asked.

The reply was in the affirmative.

"Is

"Is it a castle-a building of strength?"

he rejoined.

"Oh no, no, it's no castle," replied one of the freebooters; "nor is there much strength in it, except that of some good muscles and hearts: it was once a monastery, but it is turned to a much better use now; what they used to pray for, and never get, we fight for, and always enjoy."

One of his companions was going to reply, when a horn, sounded from an advanced body of the Moss-troopers, obliged him to silence, or at least prevented his being heard.

The horn Lord William found to be a signal to those at home of the approach of their comrades; for in a very few minutes many torches were visible about the building, and their light exposed to him the ruinous state it was in; for not one of the torches was as yet in the air, but gleaming along the vaulted aisles,

and

and winding passages, which had once formed the beauty of the edifice, and which were now decayed, either by the hand of Time or violence, and appeared to leave almost the heart of the mansion naked to the light.

Those who now issued from the various outlets of the edifice with their torches, appeared, if possible, more ferocious than their companions; the triumph of the latter was instantly made known, and congratulations offered them by the former. Before this edifice they halted: the leader who had addressed Lord William on the field of battle, again approached him, and having commanded the prisoners of inferior rank to be led into the subterraneous vaults of the building, which had formerly been the cellars of the monastery, he preceded the Baron into a large gloomy hall, which appeared once to have been the nave of a church it was faintly illuminated by an iron lamp, suspended by a chain from

the