Bertram turned a stupified and unmeaning eye on the messenger who uttered this calamitous news; and, repeating the words "in the dead-thraw!" as if he could not comprehend their meaning, suffered the old man to drag him towards his horse. During the ride home, he only said, "Wife and bairn, baith—mother and son, baith—Sair, sair to abide!"
It is needless to dwell upon the new scene of agony which awaited him. The news of Kennedy's fate had been eagerly and incautiously communicated at Ellangowan, with the gratuitous addition, that, doubtless, "he had drawn the young Laird over the craig with him, though the tide had swept away the child's body—he was light, puir thing, and would flee farther into the surf."
Mrs Bertram heard the tidings; she was far advanced in her pregnancy; she fell into the pains of premature labour, and, ere Ellangowan had recovered his agita-
