than mortal fear, The dismal dirge which strikes the ear!

THE DIRGE.

The chant and dirge were audible to the crew, who listened with deep consternation, and were awfully impressed upon the recollection of the Reverend Chaplain.

Every succeeding blast of wind bore increased terror as it swept along, and every startling sound excited suspense and dismay. Again the howling tempest burst forth, and raged with loud and renovated force, what time the stately stranger, or more correctly to speak, Colonel Davidson, in deep apparent despondency, was incontinently observed furiously to pace to and fro the deck, as if in a state of mental aberration. He appeared of more than mortal size to the terrified eyes of the beholders; his action was wild and frantic. At one time he walked with such rapidity as if pursued by an enemy; anon he would suddenly halt, and, folding his arms, gaze upon the troubled deep, which seemed in unison with his troubled mind. Next, loudly he uttered a deep and contrite groan; when having rapidly pushed aside his plaid, he drew forth dirk, sabre, or sword, whatever it might be, which brightly glistened in the lightning flash; and then, with hurried impulse, he at once precipitated it down the side of the vessel into the foaming waves. It sunk with a hissing noise, and its descent was accompanied by a fiend-like laugh, which arose from the billows; while at the moment, in a deep, base, sepulchral tone, the chorus of the dirge again fearfully was chanted from the waves:

Fuimus, Non Sumus!

When this dolefully awful chorus was repeated, the Colonel's countenance assumed the horrible expression of one writhing under intolerable pain, and seeming to undergo the agonizing tortures of the damned! His eye-balls flashed fire, he gnashed his teeth, then clenched his brawny hand, and made a sudden spring, as if in the very act of throwing himself over board. When at the moment his faithful attendant manfully grasped him by the shoulder. The Colonel was seized with a trance, and instantly fell, apparently lifeless, upon the deck. This fainting fit lasted for some time. At length, however, he was heard deeply to respire; then broke forth a hollow moan; a cold and clammy moisture was perceivable on his face and hands. His attendant had him carried down immediately to the cabin, where he was placed in his bed.

The unearthly dirge and chorus, as has been before observed, were long remembered by Doctor M'Kenzie, who was then in bed in the cabin below; and he has been often heard to express his feelings deeply excited upon this awful occasion; and to declare, that to the last expiring moment of his existence, he never could forget the mysterious sounds of that ominous night!

The events, beyond all dispute, were passing strange and fearful; but then all on board "The William Wallace" bore strongly in their remembrance, that this portentously awful night was "The Eve of All-Hallows;" and then they ceased to wonder, while each thought to himself, that

"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!"

They scarcely had been a few hours at sea, bound on their destined track, when again, with resumed fury, the storm returned. They consequently were obliged to make several tacks, still endeavouring to force their way upon the perilous voyage. The harbour of Ayr is a dangerous one, and to attempt to regain it were to encounter greater danger than what might eventually await the navigators upon the open seas. For a length of time they beat between the isles of Arran and the Firth of Clyde; when at last the wind changing, the breeze blew fair from the north-east, while the staunch vessel proceeded on her watery way. They were now sailing along the deep-indented and romantic coast of Ayrshire, when wearied by the eternal tacking to and fro, the heat and pent-up-air, and all the dull monotony and purgatorial misery of the cabin of a ship, Doctor M'Kenzie ascended the deck, and thence inhaled the invigorating and refreshing breeze, while intently, with admiring gaze, he surveyed the bold and broken masses of those picturesque shores, which had become strongly illuminated by the bright lightning flashes then briskly darting over the wild masses of rock, bank, and brae, and glanced athwart steeple, fort, and tower, o'er lofty peak and promontory; when suddenly again all was immersed in darkness! Yet he perceived that this interesting scene totally failed to attract the stranger's attention, who had returned about the same time on deck that the Reverend Chaplain had done, and continued with persevering pertinacity to pace it, as upon the preceding day.

At that period of time nobly frowned in feudal grandeur those fortresses, castles, towers, and rampires, which then defended the romantic shores of Ayrshire from the sword of the invader, extending their line of defence from Loch-Ryan to the port of Irvine; but which in our own days have become picturesque ruins, festooned with fern, lichen, and ivy, and affording solitary shelter to the owl, bat, and raven.

All these were passed by unlooked at and unobserved by the singular and silent stranger; those classic shores of fame, destined in subsequent ages to be immortalized in the ever imperishable song of the tender and inimitable Burns; these scenes, the favourite haunt of his "Tam o' Shanter," the rich and verdant lawns, and the romantic rocky braes of lordly Cassilis. All these delightful scenes were passed by unheeded, for the stranger did not even look to shore, but studiously turned his eyes seaward; and wrapt in deep, moody, mournful meditation, he seemed to rejoice in the bounding billow, and in the roar of the tempest. Not the mighty towering pyramid, of stupendous height, the colossal craig of Ailsa,[3] which now they sailed past, could arrest his eye; nor the fierce wild scream of the osprey, on its summit, could strike his ear, although joined in hoarse, sullen, and dissonant chorus, by myriads of the Solan tribe, that plumaged its surrounding base; while other sea-fowl, like a misty-halo, hovering in mid-air, crowned its conic crest.

The vessel had just shot past Ailsa-Rock, when fiercely the rising