The prospect of passing a tempestuous night upon a precipitous piece of rock, where the spray of the billows flew high enough to drench them, filled old Ochiltree with apprehension for Miss Wardour.

“I’ll climb up the cliff again,” said Lovel, “and call for more assistance.”

“If ye gang, I’ll gang too,” said the bedesman.

“Hark! hark!” said Lovel.  “Did I not hear a halloo?”

The unmistakable shout of human voices from above was soon augmented, and the gleam of torches appeared.

On the verge of the precipice an anxious group had now assembled.  Oldbuck was the foremost and most earnest, pressing forward with unwonted desperation to the very brink of the crag.  Some fishermen had brought with them the mast of a boat, and this was soon sunk in the ground and sufficiently secured.  A yard, across the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means of lowering an arm-chair down to the flat shelf on which the sufferers had roosted.

Lovel bound Miss Wardour to the back and arms of the chair, while Ochiltree kept Sir Arthur quiet.

“What are ye doing wi’ my bairn?  She shall not be separated from me!  Isabel, stay with me, I command you!”

“Farewell, my father!” murmured Isabella; “farewell, my—­my friends!” and, shutting her eyes, she gave the signal to Lovel, and he to those who were above.

A loud shout announced the success of the experiment.  The chair was again lowered, and Sir Arthur made fast in it; and after Sir Arthur had been landed safe and sound, old Ochiltree was brought up; finally Lovel was safely grounded upon the summit of the cliff.  As he recovered from a sort of half-swoon, occasioned by the giddiness of the ascent, he cast his eyes eagerly around.  The object for which they sought was already in the act of vanishing.  Her white garment was just discernible as she followed on the path which her father had taken.  She had lingered till she saw the last of their company rescued from danger, but Lovel was not aware that she had expressed in his fate even this degree of interest.

III.—­The Duel

Some few weeks after the perilous escape from the tide, Sir Arthur invited Mr. Lovel and the Monkbarns family to join him on a visit to the ruins of a certain priory in the neighbourhood.  Lovel at once accepted, and Mr. Oldbuck decided that there would be room for his niece in a postchaise.  This niece, Mary M’Intyre, like her brother Hector, was an orphan.  They were the offspring of a sister of Monkbarns, who had married one Captain M’Intyre, a Highlander.  Both parents being dead, the son and daughter were left to the charge of Mr. Oldbuck.  The nephew was now a captain in the army, the niece had her home at Monkbarns.

All went happily at Sir Arthur’s party at the ruins, until the unexpected arrival of Hector M’Intyre.  This newcomer, a handsome young man about five-and-twenty, had ridden to Monkbarns, and learning his uncle’s absence had come straight on to join the company.  On his introduction to Lovel the young soldier bowed with more reserve than cordiality, and Lovel was equally frigid and haughty in return.