He displayed some
surprise at the sudden entrance of Morton.
"I am sorry to see you thus, my lord," said that youthful leader.
"I have heard you are an admirer of poetry," answered the prisoner; "in
that case, Mr Morton, you may remember these lines,--
'Stone walls do not a prison make,
Or iron bars a cage;
A free and quiet mind can take
These for a hermitage.'
But, were my imprisonment less endurable, I am given to expect to-morrow
a total enfranchisement."
"By death?" said Morton.
"Surely," answered Lord Evandale; "I have no other prospect. Your
comrade, Burley, has already dipped his hand in the blood of men whose
meanness of rank and obscurity of extraction might have saved them. I
cannot boast such a shield from his vengeance, and I expect to meet its
extremity."
"But Major Bellenden," said Morton, "may surrender, in order to preserve
your life."
"Never, while there is one man to defend the battlement, and that man has
one crust to eat. I know his gallant resolution, and grieved should I be
if he changed it for my sake."
Morton hastened to acquaint him with the mutiny among the dragoons, and
their resolution to surrender the Castle, and put the ladies of the
family, as well as the Major, into the hands of the enemy.
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