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280 the weeping birches which towered over the underwood, drooping their long and leafy fibres to intercept the sun, it must have seemed a place for a youthful poet to study his earliest sonnet, or a pair of lovers to exchange their first mutual avowal of affection. Apparently it now awakened very different recollections. Bertram's brow, when he had looked round the spot, became gloomy and embarrassed. Meg, after uttering to herself, "This is the very spot," looked at him with a ghastly sideglance,—"D'ye mind it?"

"Yes!" answered Bertram, "imperfectly I do."

"Aye!" pursued his guide, "on this very spot the man fell from his horse—I was behind that bourtree bush at the very moment. Sair, sair he strove, and sair he cried for mercy—but he was in the hands of them that never kenn'd the word!—Now will I shew you the further track—the last time ye travelled it was in these arms."