Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 4 - 1819.djvu/106

 as he described it himself, "laid his ears back in his neck, like Gustavus when he heard the key turn in the girnel-kist." He could, therefore, owing to the narrowness of the dungeon, easily overhear the following dialogue.

"Are you aware, Son of the Mist," said the Campbell, "that you will never leave this place excepting for the gibbet?"

"Those who are dearest to me," answered MacEagh, "have trod that path before me."

"Then you would do nothing," asked the visitor," to shun following them?"

The prisoner writhed himself in his chains before returning an answer.

"I would do much," at length he said; "not for my own life, but for the sake of the pledge in the glen of Strath-Aven."

"And what would you do to turn away the bitterness of the hour?" again demanded Murdoch: "I care not for what cause ye mean to shun it."

"I would do what a man might do, and still call himself a man."