 have broken the peace of the
country.
    I repeat it,« said the Colonel, »though Heaven knows with a heart distressed
for him as an individual, that this young gentleman has studied and fully
understood the desperate game which he has played. He threw for life or death, a
coronet or a coffin; and he cannot now be permitted, with justice to the
country, to draw stakes because the dice have gone against him.«
    Such was the reasoning of those times, held even by brave and humane men
towards a vanquished enemy. Let us devoutly hope that, in this respect at least,
we shall never see the scenes, or hold the sentiments, that were general in
Britain Sixty Years since.
 

                             Chapter Sixty-Eighth.

 To-morrow? Oh, that's sudden! Spare him! spare him!
                                                                     Shakspeare.
 
Edward, attended by his former servant Alick Polwarth, who had re-entered his
service at Edinburgh, reached Carlisle while the commission of Oyer and Terminer
on his unfortunate associates was yet sitting. He had pushed forward in haste -
not, alas! with the most distant hope of saving Fergus, but to see him for the
last time. I ought to have mentioned that he had furnished funds for the defence
of the prisoners in the most liberal manner, as soon as he heard that the day of
trial was fixed. A solicitor, and the first counsel, accordingly attended; but
it was upon the same footing on which the first physicians are usually summoned
to the bedside of some dying man of rank; - the doctors to take the advantage of
some incalculable chance of an exertion of nature - the lawyers to avail
themselves of the barely possible occurrence of some legal flaw. Edward pressed
into the court, which was extremely crowded; but by his arriving from the north,
and his extreme eagerness and agitation, it was supposed he was a relation of
the prisoners, and people made way for him. It was the third sitting of the
court, and there were two men at the bar. The verdict of GUILTY was already
pronounced. Edward just glanced at the bar during the momentous pause which
ensued. There was no mistaking the stately form and noble features of Fergus
Mac-Ivor, although his dress was squalid and his countenance tinged with the
sickly yellow hue of long and close imprisonment. By his side was Evan
Maccombich. Edward felt sick and dizzy as he gazed on them; but he was recalled
to himself as the Clerk of the Arraigns pronounced the solemn words: »Fergus
Mac-Ivor of Glennaquoich, otherwise called Vich Ian Vohr,
