“The mercy of Heaven forbid!” said the old serving-man, turning as pal as the table-cloth which he was folding up.

“And why, Caleb?” said his master—­“why should the mercy of Heaven forbid my returning the Lord Keeper’s visit?”

“Oh, sir!” replied Caleb—­“oh, Mr. Edgar!  I am your servant, and it ill becomes me to speak; but I am an auld servant—­have served baith your father and gudesire, and mind to have seen Lord Randal, your great-grandfather, but that was when I was a bairn.”

“And what of all this, Balderstone?” said the Master; “what can it possibly have to do with my paying some ordinary civility to a neighbour.”

“Oh, Mr. Edgar,—­that is, my lord!” answered the butler, “your ain conscience tells you it isna for your father’s son to be neighbouring wi’ the like o’ him; it isna for the credit of the family.  An he were ance come to terms, and to gie ye back your ain, e’en though ye suld honour his house wi’ your alliance, I suldna say na; for the young leddy is a winsome sweet creature.  But keep your ain state wi’ them—­I ken the race o’ them weel—­they will think the mair o’ ye.”

“Why, now, you go father than I do, Caleb,” said the Master, drowning a certain degree of consciousness in a forced laugh; “you are for marrying me into a family that you will nto allow me to visit, how this? and you look as pale as death besides.”

“Oh, sir,” repeated Caleb again, “you would but laugh if I tauld it; but Thomas the Rhymer, whose tongue couldna be fause, spoke the word of your house that will e’en prove ower true if you go to Ravenswood this day.  Oh, that it should e’er have been fulfilled in my time!”

“And what is it, Caleb?” said Ravenswood, wishing to soothe the fears of his old servant.

Caleb replied:  “He had never repeated the lines to living mortal; they were told to him by an auld priest that had been confessor to Lord Allan’s father when the family were Catholic.  But mony a time,” he said, “I hae soughed thae dark words ower to myself, and, well-a-day! little did I think of their coming round this day.”

“Truce with your nonsense, and let me hear the doggerel which has put it into your head,” said the Master, impatiently.

With a quivering voice, and a cheek pale with apprehension, Caleb faltered out the following lines: 

“When the last Laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride, And woo a dead maiden to be his bride, He shall stable his steed in the Kelpie’s flow, And his name shall be lost for evermoe!”

“I know the Kelpie’s flow well enough,” said the Master; “I suppose, at least, you mean the quicksand betwixt this tower and Wolf’s Hope; but why any man in his senses should stable a steed there——­”

“Oh, ever speer ony thing about that, sir—­God forbid we should ken what the prophecy means—­but just bide you at hame, and let the strangers ride to Ravenswood by themselves.  We have done eneugh for them; and to do mair would be mair against the credit of the family than in its favour.”