[Old Mortality Complete, Illustrated by Sir Walter Scott]@TWC D-Link bookOld Mortality Complete, Illustrated CHAPTER XIV 2/9
If they attempt an escape, blow their brains out .-- You cannot call that using you uncivilly," he continued, addressing himself to Morton, "it's the rules of war, you know .-- And, Inglis, couple up the parson and the old woman, they are fittest company for each other, d--n me; a single file may guard them well enough.
If they speak a word of cant or fanatical nonsense, let them have a strapping with a shoulder-belt.
There's some hope of choking a silenced parson; if he is not allowed to hold forth, his own treason will burst him." Having made this arrangement, Bothwell placed himself at the head of the party, and Inglis, with six dragoons, brought up the rear.
The whole then set forward at a trot, with the purpose of overtaking the main body of the regiment. Morton, overwhelmed with a complication of feelings, was totally indifferent to the various arrangements made for his secure custody, and even to the relief afforded him by his release from the fetters.
He experienced that blank and waste of the heart which follows the hurricane of passion, and, no longer supported by the pride and conscious rectitude which dictated his answers to Claverhouse, he surveyed with deep dejection the glades through which he travelled, each turning of which had something to remind him of past happiness and disappointed love.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|