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 The Mind's Machine: Foundations of Brain and Behavior, Third Edition
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Bruno Mallart is one of the most talented Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
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freelance illustrator since 1986, Mallart Address editorial correspondence to:
first worked for several children's book Sinauer Associates
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as a symbol for abstract concepts such
Names: Watson, NeilV. (Neil Verne), 1962- author. I Breedlove, S. Marc,
as intelligence, thinking, feeling, ideas,
author.
and knowledge. Attracted to all that is
Title: The mind's machine : foundations of brain and behavior I Neil V.
mechanical, Mallart's art frequently includes
machine parts such as gears and wheels that
Watson (Simon Fraser University), S. Marc Breedlove (Michigan State
imply moven1ent and rhythm. These features University).
together, in their abstract representation, Description: Third edition. I Sunderland, Massachusetts : Sinauer Associates,
beautifully illustrate the topics discussed in Inc., [2019] I Includes bibliographical references and index.
The Mind's Machine, Third Edition. To see Identifiers: LCCN 2018032509 I ISBN 9781605357300 (paperback)
more of Bruno Mallart's art, please go to his Subjects: LCSH: Brain--Textbooks. I Brain--Physiology--Textbooks. I Human
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987654321
Printed in the United States of America
 N.V. W. S.M. B.
For my friend Marc, who has made For my rabbi,
possible many wonderful things in my life, Iroing Zucker
including this book.
 •
r1e

1 • An Introduction to Brain and Behavior 2

2 • Cells and Structures The Anatomy of the Nervous System 22

3 • Neurophysiology The Generation, Transmission,

and Integration of Neural Signals 54

4 • The Chemistry of Behavior Neurotransmitters

and N europharmacology 82

5 • The Sensorimotor System 118

6 • Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell 152

7 • Vision From Eye to Brain 182

8 • Hormones and Sex 216

9 • Homeostasis Active Regulation of the Internal Environment 262

10 • Biological Rhythms and Sleep 288

11 • Emotions, Aggression, and Stress 318

12 • Psychopathology The Biology of Behavioral Disorders 346

13 • Memory, Learning, and Development 378

14 • Attention and Higher Cognition 418

15 • Language and Lateralization 450

PART I The Birth of a Science of Brain Three types of study designs probe brain-behavior
and Behavior 4 relationships 13
Behavioral Neuroscience Spans Past, Present, Research objectives reflect specific theoretical
orientations 15
and Future 4
Animal research is an essential part of life sciences
An understanding of the brain's role in behavior has research, including behavioral neuroscience 15
developed over centuries 4
BOX 1.1 We Are All Alike, and We Are
The future of behavioral neuroscience is in All Different 16
interdisciplinary discovery and knowledge
translation 9 Behavioral neuroscientists use several levels of
analysis 17
PART II Research Design 13
Looking Forward: A Glimpse inside the Mind's
Careful Design of Studies Is Essential for Progress Machine 18
in Behavioral Neuroscience 13
• Visual Summary 21

-
PART I The Cellular Components of the BOX 2.2 Three Customary Orientations for Viewing
Nervous System 24 the Brain and Body 38

The Nervous System Contains Several Types PART III The Functional Organization of the
of Cells 24 Nervous System 42
The neuron has four principal divisions 24 The Brain Is Described in Terms of Both Structure
Information is transmitted through synapses 28 and Function 42
BOX 2.1 Visualizing the Cellular Structure The cerebral cortex performs complex cognitive
of the Brain 29 processing 42
The axon integrates and then transmits Important nuclei are hidden beneath the cerebral
information 30 cortex 43
Glial cells protect and assist neurons 31 The midbrain has sensory and motor components 43
The brainstem controls vital body functions 44
PART II The Large Scale Structure of the
Nervous System 32 Networks of connections between brain regions
determine behavior 45
The Nervous System Extends throughout
Specialized Support Systems Protect and Nourish
the Body 33
the Brain 45
The peripheral nervous system has two divisions 33
The brain floats within layers of membranes 45
The central nervous system consists of the brain
and spinal cord 36 The brain relies on two fluids for survival 45
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Stroke 47
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Brain-Imaging Techniques Reveal the Structure PET tracks radioactive substances to produce images
and Function of the Human Brain 48 of brain activity 49
CT uses X-rays to reveal brain structure 48 RESEARCHERS AT WORK Subtractive analysis
MRI maps density to deduce brain structure with isolates specific brain activity 50
high detail 48 Magnetism can be used to study the brain 51
Functional MRI uses local changes in metabolism • Visual Summary 52
to identify active brain regions 48

PART I Electric Neurons 56 Synaptic Transmission Requires a Sequence of

Electrical Signals Are the Vocabulary of the Events 70
Nervous System 56 Action potentials cause the release of transmitter
molecules into the synaptic cleft 71
A threshold amount of depolarization triggers an
action potential 59 Receptor molecules recognize transmitters 72
Ionic mechanisms underlie the action potential 61 The action of synaptic transmitters is stopped
rapidly 73
Action potentials are actively propagated along
the axon 63 Neural circuits underlie reflexes 73
BOX 3.1 How Is an Axon Like a Toilet? 65 PART III Gross Potentials 75
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Multiple Sclerosis 66 EEGs Measure Gross Electrical Activity of the
Synapses cause local changes in the postsynaptic Human Brain 75
membranepotential 66 Electrical storms in the brain can cause seizures 76
Spatial summation and temporal summation integrate
synaptic inputs 68
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Surgical probing of
the brain revealed a map of the body 78
PART II Synaptic Transmission 70 • Visual Summary 80

PART I Chemical Neurotransmission 84 The effects of a drug depend on its dose 94

Synaptic Transmission Involves a Complex Drugs are administered and eliminated in many
Electrochemical Process 85 different ways 94
Repeated treatments may reduce the effectiveness
Many Neurotransmitters Have Been Identified 86 of drugs 96
RESEARCHERS AT WORK The first transmitter Drugs Affect Each Stage of Neural Conduction
to be discovered was acetylcholine 87 and Synaptic Transmission 96
Neurotransmitter Systems Form a Complex Array Some drugs alter presynaptic processes 97
in the Brain 88 Some drugs alter postsynaptic processes 98
Four amine neurotransmitters modulate
brain activity 89 PART III Psychopharmacology:
Many peptides function as neurotransmitters 91 Effects of Drugs on Behavior 100
Some neurotransmitters are gases 92 Some Neuroactive Drugs Ease the Symptoms
of Psychiatric Illness 100
PART II Drug Actions in the Brain 92 Antipsychotics relieve symptoms of
Drugs Fit Like Keys into Molecular Locks 93 schizophrenia 100
 •
TABLE OF CONTENTS IX

Antidepressants reduce chronic mood problems 101 Hallucinogens alter sensory perceptions 107
Anxiolytics combat anxiety 101 Substance Abuse and Addiction Are Global
Opiates have powerful painkilling effects 101 Social Problems 109
Some Neuroactive Drugs Are Used to Alter Competing models of substance abuse
have been proposed 111
Conscious Experience 103
Cannabinoids have many effects 103 SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Medical Interventions for
Substance Abuse 113
Stimulants increase neural activity 104
Alcohol acts as both a stimulant and a • Visual Summary 115
depressant 106

PART I Sensory Processing and the Special neural pathways carry pain information
Somatosensory System 120 to the brain 132

Sensory Systems Detect Various Forms of Pain Control Can Be Difficult 134
Energy 120 Analgesic drugs are highly effective 134
Receptor Cells Convert Sensory Signals into Electrical stimulation can sometimes relieve pain 135
Electrical Activity 122 Placebos effectively control pain in some people, but
Sensory Information Processing Is Selective not all 135
and Analytical 123 Activation of endogenous opioids relieves pain 135
Sensory events are encoded as streams PART III Movement and the Motor
of action potentials 124
System 136
Sensory neurons respond to stimuli falling in
their receptive fields 125 Behavior Requires Movements That Are Precisely
Programmed and Monitored 137
Receptors may show adaptation to unchanging
stimuli 125 A Complex Neural System Controls Muscles to
Sometimes we need receptors to be quiet 126 Create Behavior 138
Muscles and the skeleton work together to
Successive Levels of the CNS Process Sensory
move the body 138
Information 126
Sensory feedback from muscles, tendons, and joints
Sensory cortex is highly organized 128 regulates movement 140
Sensory brain regions influence one another The spinal cord mediates "automatic" responses and
and change over time 129 receives inputs from the brain 142
PART II Pain: The Body's Emergency Motor cortex plans and executes movements-
Signaling System 130 and more 144
Human Pain Varies in Several Dimensions 130 RESEARCHERS AT WORK Mirror neurons in
premotor cortex track movements in others 146
A Discrete Pain Pathway Projects from Body to
Brain 130 Extrapyramidal systems regulate and fine-tune
motor commands 148
Peripheral receptors get the initial message 130
Damage to extrapyramidal systems impairs
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS A Professional Eater movement 148
Meets His Match 132 Visual Summary 150
x TABLE OF CONTENTS

•
PART I Hearing and Balance 154 SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Restoring Auditory
Pressure Waves in the Air Are Perceived as Stimulation in Deafness 168
Sound 154 The Inner Ear Provides Our Sense of Balance 169
BOX 6.1 The Basics of Sound 155 Some Forms of Vestibular Excitation Produce
The external ear captures, focuses, and filters Motion Sickness 170
sound 156
PART II The Chemical Senses:
The middle ear concentrates sound energies 156 Taste and Smell 171
The cochlea converts vibrational energy into
neural activity 156 Chemicals in Our Food Are Perceived as Five Basic
Tastes 171
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Georg von Bekesy and Tastes excite specialized receptor cells
the cochlear wave 158 on the tongue 172
The hair cells transduce movements of the basilar The five basic tastes are signaled by specific sensors
membrane into electrical signals 159 on taste cells 172
Auditory Signals Run from Cochlea to Cortex 160 Taste information is transmitted to several parts
of the brain 174
Our Sense of Pitch Relies on Two Signals from the
Cochlea 162 Chemicals in the Air Elicit Odor Sensations 175
Brainstem Systems Compare the Ears to Localize The sense of smell starts with receptor neurons in the
Sounds 163 nose 175

The Auditory Cortex Processes Complex Olfactory information projects from the olfactory bulbs
to several brain regions 177
Sound 164
Many vertebrates possess a vomeronasal system 178
Hearing Loss Is a Widespread Problem 165
Visual Summary 180

PART I Vision Pathways 184 RESEARCHERS AT WORK Neurons in the visual

The Visual System Extends from the Eye to the cortex have varied receptive fields 198
Brain 184 Spatial-frequency analysis is unintuitive
but efficient 199
Visual processing begins in the retina 185
Neurons in the visual cortex beyond area Vl have
Photoreceptors respond to light by releasing less
complex receptive fields and help identify
neurotransmitter 186 forms 201
Different mechanisms enable the eyes to work over Visual perception of motion is analyzed by a special
a wide range of light intensities 188
system that includes cortical area VS 202
Acuity is best in foveal vision 189
PART III Color Vision 203
Neural signals travel from the retina to several
brain regions 191 Color Vision Depends on Special Channels from
The retina projects to the brain in a topographic the Retinal Cones through Cortical Area V4 203
fashion 193 Color perception requires receptor cells that differ in
their sensitivities to different wavelengths 204
PART II Visual Analysis 194
BOX 7 .1 Most Mammalian Species Have Some
Neurons at Different Levels of the Visual System Color Vision 207
Have Very Different Receptive Fields 194 Some retinal ganglion cells and LGN cells show
Neurons in the retina and the LGN have concentric spectral opponency 208
receptive fields 195
 •
TABLE OF CONTENTS XI

Some visual cortical cells and regions appear to be Visual Neuroscience Can Be Applied to Alleviate
specialized for color perception 209 Some Visual Deficiencies 212
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Correcting ''Color Impairment of vision often can be prevented or
Blindness''? 210 reduced 213
Increased exercise can restore function to a previously
PART IV What versus Where 211 deprived or neglected eye 213
The Many Cortical Visual Areas Are Organized into • Visual Summary 214
1wo Major Streams 211

PART I The Endocrine System 218 PART II Reproductive Behavior 234

Hormones Act in a Great Variety of Ways Reproductive Behavior Can Be Divided
throughout the Body 218 into Four Stages 234
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Our Current Copulation brings gametes together 236
understanding of hormones developed in Gonadal steroids activate sexual behavior 236
stages 219
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Individual differences
Hormones are one of several types of chemical in mating behavior 237
communication 220
The Neural Circuitry of the Brain Regulates
Hormones can be classified by chemical structure 220
Reproductive Behavior 238
Hormones Act on a Wide Variety of Cellular Estrogen and progesterone act on a lordosis circuit
Mechanisms 221 that spans from brain to muscle 238
Hormones initiate actions by binding to receptor Androgens act on a neural system for male
molecules 221 reproductive behavior 238
Hormones can have different effects on different Maternal behaviors are governed by several sex-related
target organs 222 hormones 240
BOX 8.1 Techniques of Behavioral The Hallmark of Human Sexual Behavior
Endocrinology 223
Is Diversity 241
Each Endocrine Gland Secretes Specific Hormones play only a permissive role in human
Hormones 225 sexual behavior 243
The posterior pituitary releases two hormones directly
into the bloodstream 226 PART III Sexual Differentiation and
Orientation 244
Posterior pituitary hormones can affect social
behavior 226 Genetic and Hormonal Mechanisms Guide the
Feedback control mechanisms regulate the secretion Development of Masculine and Feminine
of hormones 227 Structures 244
Hypothalamic releasing hormones govern the Sex chromosomes direct sexual differentiation
anterior pituitary 228 of the gonads 244
Two anterior pituitary tropic hormones act on Gonadal hormones direct sexual differentiation
the gonads 230 of the body 244
The gonads produce steroid hormones, regulating Changes in sexual differentiation processes result in
reproduction 230 predictable changes in development 245
Hormonal and neural systems interact to produce Dysfunctional androgen receptors can block
integrated responses 232 masculinization of the body 246
Some people seem to change sex at puberty 247
xii TABLE OF CONTENTS

SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Defining an Several regions of the nervous system display
Athlete's Sex 248 prominent sexual dimorphism 251
How should we define sex- by genes, gonads, Social influences also affect sexual differentiation
genitals? 248 of the nervous system 254

RESEARCHERS AT WORK Gonadal hormones Do Fetal Hormones Masculinize Human Behaviors

direct sexual differentiation of behavior and in Adulthood? 255
the brain 249 What determines a person's sexual orientation? 256
Early testicular secretions result in masculine behavior • Visual Summary 259
in adulthood 250

•
PART I Principles of Homeostasis 264 PART III Food and Energy Regulation 272
Homeostatic Systems Share Several Key Nutrient Regulation Helps Prepare for Future
Features 264 Needs 272
Negative feedback allows precise control 264 Insulin is essential for obtaining, storing, and using
food energy 275
Redundancy ensures critical needs are met 265
Animals use behavioral compensation to adjust to The Hypothalamus Coordinates Multiple Systems
environmental changes 266 That Control Hunger 276

PART II Fluid Regulation 267 RESEARCHERS AT WORK Lesion studies

showed that the hypothalamus is crucial for
Water Moves between Two Major Body appetite 27 6
Compartments 267
Hormones from the body drive a hypothalamic
Thro Internal Cues Trigger Thirst 269 appetite controller 277
Osmotic thirst occurs when the extracellular fluid Other systems also play a role in hunger
becomes too salty 269 and satiety 280
Hypovolemic thirst is triggered by a loss of fluid Obesity Is Difficult to Treat 281
volume 270
Eating Disorders Can Be Life-Threatening 283
We don't stop drinking just because the throat and
mouth are wet 271 SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Friends with
Benefits 284
Visual Summary 286

PART I Biological Rhythms 290 Circadian rhythms have been genetically dissected
in flies and mice 295
Many Animals Show Daily Rhythms in
Activity 290 PART II Sleep 297
Circadian rhythms are generated by an endogenous Human Sleep Exhibits Different Stages 297
clock 290
We do our most vivid dreaming during REM sleep 300
The Hypothalamus Houses a Circadian Clock 292 Different species provide clues about the evolution
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Transplants prove that of sleep 301
the SCN produces a circadian rhythm 293 Our Sleep Patterns Change across the
In mammals, light information from the eyes reaches Life Span 301
the SCN directly 293
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TABLE OF CONTENTS XI 11

Mammals sleep more during infancy than in RESEARCHERS AT WORK The forebrain
adulthood 301 generates slow wave sleep 308
Most people sleep appreciably less as they age 302 The reticular formation wakes up the forebrain 309
Manipulating Sleep Reveals an Underlying The pons triggers REM sleep 309
Structure 303
Sleep deprivation impairs cognitive functioning but PART III Sleep Disorders 311
does not cause insanity 303 Sleep Disorders Can Be Serious, Even Life-
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Total Sleep Deprivation Threatening 311
Can Be Fatal 304 A hypothalamic sleep center was revealed by the
study of narcolepsy 311
Sleep recovery may take time 304
Some minor dysfunctions are associated
What Are the Biological Functions of Sleep? 305 with sleep 313
Sleep conserves energy 306 Some people appear to be acting out their
Sleep enforces niche adaptation 306 nightmares 313
Sleep restores the body and brain 306 Insomniacs have trouble falling asleep or staying
asleep 314
Sleep may aid memory consolidation 307
Although many drugs affect sleep, there is no perfect
Some humans sleep remarkably little, yet function sleeping pill 315
normally 307
Everyone should practice good sleep hygiene 315
At Least Four Interacting Neural Systems
Underlie Sleep 308 • Visual Summary 317

'~• -
PART I Emotional Processing 320 PART II Aggression 334
Broad Theories of Emotion Emphasize Bodily Neural Circuitry, Hormones, and Synaptic
Responses 320 Transmitters Mediate Violence and
Do emotions cause bodily changes, or vice versa? 321 Aggression 334
BOX 11.1 Lie Detector? 322 Androgens seem to increase aggression 334
Brain circuits mediate aggression 336
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Stanley Schachter
proposed a cognitive interpretation of stimuli The biopsychology of human violence is a topic
of controversy 336
and visceral states 323
Is There a Core Set of Emotions? 324 PART III Stress and Health 337
Facial expressions have complex functions in Stress Activates Many Bodily Responses 337
communication 326 The stress response progresses in stages 338
Facial expressions are mediated by muscles, cranial There are individual differences in the stress
nerves, and CNS pathways 327 response 339
Do Distinct Brain Circuits Mediate Different Stress and emotions affect our health 341
Emotions? 328
Why does chronic stress suppress the immune
Electrical stimulation of the brain can produce system? 341
emotional effects 328
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Long-Term Consequences
Brain lesions also affect emotions 329
of Childhood Bullying 343
The amygdala is crucial for emotional learning 330
11 Visual Summary 344
Different emotions activate different regions of the
human brain 332
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I Schizophrenia 348 SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Mixed Feelings

The Toll of Psychiatric Disorders Is Huge 348 about SSRls 364
Why do more females than males suffer from
Schizophrenia Is a Major Neurobiological depression? 365
Challenge in Psychiatry 349
Sleep characteristics change in affective
Schizophrenia is characterized by an unusual array of disorders 366
symptoms 349
Scientists are still searching for animal models of
Schizophrenia has a heritable component 349 depression 366
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Stress increases the In Bipolar Disorder, Mood Cycles between
risk of schizophrenia 352 Extremes 367
An integrative model of schizophrenia emphasizes the RESEARCHERS AT WORK The entirely accidental
interaction of factors 353
discovery of lithium therapy 368
The brains of some people with schizophrenia show
structural and functional changes 353 PART III Anxiety Disorders 369
Antipsychotic medications revolutionized the There Are Several 1ypes of Anxiety Disorders 369
treatment of schizophrenia 356
Drug treatments provide clues to the mechanisms of
BOX 12.1 Long-Term Effects of Antipsychotic anxiety 369
Drugs 357
In Post-1raumatic Stress Disorder, Horrible
PART II Mood Disorders 361 Memories Won't Go Away 370
Depression Is the Most Prevalent Disorder of In Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Thoughts and
Mood 361 Acts Keep Repeating 372
Inheritance is an important determinant of BOX 12.2 Tics, Twitches, and Snorts: The Unusual
depression 361 Character ofTourette's Syndrome 374
The brain changes with depression 362 12 • Visual Summary 375
A wide variety of treatments are available for
depression 362
t

PART I 'fypes of Learning and Memory 380 Different Forms of Nondeclarative Memory Involve
There Are Several Kinds of Learning and Different Brain Regions 386
Memory 380 Different types of nondeclarative memory serve
varying functions 386
For Patient H.M., the present vanished into
oblivion 380 Animal research confirms the various brain regions
involved in different attributes of memory 387
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Which brain structures
Brain regions involved in learning and memory: A
are important for declarative memory? 383 summary 388
Damage to the medial diencephalon can also cause
amnesia 384
Successive Processes Capture, Store, and Retrieve
Information in the Brain 388
Brain damage can destroy autobiographical memories
while sparing general memories 385 BOX 13.1 Emotions and Memory 390
Long-term memory has vast capacity but is subject to
distortion 390
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xv

PART II Neural Mechanisms of Memory 392 Cell proliferation produces cells that become neurons
or glia 404
Memory Storage Requires Physical Changes in the
Brain 392 In the adult brain, newly born neurons aid
learning 406
Plastic changes at synapses can be physiological or
structural 392 The death of many neurons is a normal part of
development 407
Varied experiences and learning cause the brain to
change and grow 392 An explosion of synapse formation is followed by
synapse rearrangement 407
Invertebrate nervous systems show synaptic
plasticity 394 Genes Interact with Experience to Guide Brain
Development 410
Classical conditioning relies on circuits in the
mammalian cerebellum 396 Genotype is fixed at birth, but phenotype changes
throughout life 411
Synaptic Plasticity Can Be Measured in Simple
Hippocampal Circuits 398 Experience regulates gene expression in the
developing and mature brain 411
NMDA receptors and AMPA receptors collaborate in
LTP 399 The Brain Continues to Change as We Grow
Older 413
Is LTP a mechanism of memory formation? 401
Memory impairment correlates with hippocampal
PART III Development of the Brain 402 shrinkage during aging 413
Growth and Development of the Brain Are Orderly Alzheimer's disease is associated with a decline in
Processes 402 cerebral metabolism 414
Development of the Nervous System Can Be SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Imaging Alzheimer's
Divided into Six Distinct Stages 404 Plaques 415
13 • Visual Summary 416

PART I Effects of Attention on Behavior 420 A Network of Brain Sites Creates and Directs
Attention Focuses Cognitive Processing on Specific Attention 433
Objects 420 Two subcortical systems guide shifts of attention 433
There are limits on attention 420 Several cortical areas are crucial for generating and
directing attention 433
Attention Is Deployed in Several Different
Ways 422 Brain disorders can cause specific impairments of
attention 435
RESEARCHERS AT WORK We can choose
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Difficulty with Sustained
which stimuli we will attend to 423
Attention Can Sometimes Be Relieved with
Some stimuli grab our attention 424 Stimulants 436
BOX 14.1 Reaction-Time Responses, from Input
to Output 425 PART III Consciousness, Thought, and
Executive Function 437
We use visual search to make sense of a
cluttered world 426 Consciousness Is a Mysterious Product of the
Brain 438
PART II Neural Mechanisms of Attention 428
Which brain regions are active when we are
Attention Alters the Functioning of the Brain 428 conscious? 438
Distinctive patterns of brain electrical activity mark Some aspects of consciousness are easier to study
shifts of attention 429 than others 440
Attention affects the activity of neurons 431 BOX 14.2 Building a Better Mind Reader 442
xvi TAB LE OF CONTENTS

The frontal lobes are a crucial part of the executive BOX 14.3 Neuroeconomics Identifies Brain Regions
system that guides our thoughts, feelings, and Active du rin g Decision Making 446
choices 444
14 • Visual Summary 447
Frontal lobe injury in humans leads to emotional,
motor, and cognitive changes 444

PART I Cerebral Lateralization 452 Functional neuroimaging technologies let us visualize

activity in the brain's language zones during
The Left and Right Hemispheres of the Brain speech 468
Are Different 452
Disconnection of the cerebral hemispheres reveals PART II Verbal Behavior: Speech and
their individual specializations 452 Reading 470
The two hemispheres process information differently Human Languages Share Basic Features 471
in most people 454 Language Has Both Inborn and Learned
The left and right hemispheres differ in their Components 472
auditory specializations 455
Nonhuman primates engage in elaborate vocal
Handedness is associated with cerebral behavior 473
lateralization 456
Many different species engage in vocal
Right-Hemisphere Damage Impairs Specific Types communication 475
of Cognition 45 7 Reading Skills Are Difficult to Acquire and Are
In prosopagnosia, faces are unrecognizable 458 Frequently Impaired 476
BOX 15.1 The Wad a Test 459 Brain damage may cause specific impairments in
reading 476
Left Hemisphere Damage Can Cause Aphasia 460
Some people struggle throughout their lives to
Damage to a left anterior speech zone causes read 477
nonfluent (or Broca's) aphasia 460
Damage to a left posterior speech zone causes fluent PART III Recovery from Brain Damage 478
(orWernicke's) aphasia 462 Stabilization and Reorganization Are Crucial for
Widespread left-hemisphere damage can obliterate Recovery of Function 478
language capabilities 462
BOX 15.3 Contact Sports Can Be Costly 479
Disconnection of language regions may result in
specific verbal problems 464 Rehabilitation and Retraining Can Help Recovery
from Brain and Spinal Cord Injury 480
BOX 15.2 Studying Conn ectivity in the
Living Brain 465 SIGNS & SYMPTOMS The Amazing Resilience
Brain mapping helps us understand the organization of a Child's Brain 481
of language in the brain 466 15 • Visual Summary 483
RESEARCHERS AT WORK Noninvasive
stimulation mapping reveals details of the brain's
language areas 467
 ••
TABLE OF CONTENTS XVII

Genes Carry Information That Encodes Southern blots identify particular genes A-4
Proteins A-1 Northern blots identify particular mRNA
Genetic information is stored in molecules of transcripts A- 6
DNA A- 1 In situ hybridization localizes mRNA transcripts
DNA is transcribed to produce messenger RNA A- 2 within specific cells A- 6
RNA molecules direct the formation of protein Western blots identify particular proteins A- 7
molecules A- 2 Antibodies can also tell us which cells possess a
Molecular Biologists Have Craftily Enslaved particular protein A- 7
Microorganisms and Enzymes A-3

Glossary G-1
References R-1
Author Index AI-1
Subject Index SI-I
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fangs of justice, by dying before the festival of St. Margaret the Martyr—
that night to which all Edinburgh, indeed all in the three Lothians, looked
forward with tiptoe and morbid expectation: thus the learned and deeply
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"Oh, good Master Apothegar!" she exclaimed, while the tears almost
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boldly, so valiantly? My dear Roland—three days—oh, who is like thee?
None—and none will ever be like thee!"

"I will recast his horoscope, for I know, lady, the star of his nativity. This
night it will be in Azebone, the head of the sixteenth mansion, and by its
digression I will judge me of his fate. It will require a long and careful
calculation, lady," said the deacon of the apothegars, shaking his long beard,
solemnly, "and yet, gramercy me! I have known as mickle foreseen by
coscinomancy, which meaneth divination by a sieve; but that, as thou
knowest, is altogether beneath one like me, who knoweth the difference of
sublimities and the distance of the stars."
 "Oh, Roland—Roland!" murmured Jane (who understood not a word of
all this), as she pressed her trembling hands upon her heart, "I love thee
now with the love of the unfortunate; and that, indeed, is a strong love, for
by few are the unfortunate loved in return."

"Thy pulse is quick and low," said the physician, placing his bony
fingers on her white and slender wrist, which was fretted and chafed by the
detestable manacle that encircled it; "thou sighest deeply, thou flushest and
becomest chilly by turns. Is thy tongue dry, and is thy brain giddy? Yes, I
know they are. By the mass, I know thou art intensely feverish. Now the
pulse flutters, and the skin becomes moist—fever—fever—nervous fever!
Didst thou take the metheglin my servitor brought thee?"

"Yes," said Jane, mechanically.

"Ah! and were much the better thereof?"

"I really do not know."

"Ah, you must have been; 'tis a compound of wort, herbs, honey, and
spices, forming a wondrous and soothing restorative."

"What need of a restorative, sir? In three days all will be over."

"We know not what the womb of Time may bring forth, lady: for, verily,
it is fruitful of events."

"Oh, that Father St. Bernard was here!" thought Jane; "how terrible this
cold physician is!"

"Continue the metheglin," said her adviser, putting on his conical cap,
and resuming his staff, "and from this phial take daily one karena, whilk
meaneth, the twentieth part of a drop——"

"Sir, thou art most kind; but remember that in three days I shall be
beyond the reach of thy skill; so farewell, and omit not to pray for me."

"Such is life!" replied the other, dreamily. "Oh, that my elixir were
complete, and then all mankind might live for a thousand years—even as
Artesius, the godlike Artesius, lived! A thousand learned doctors have
withered up their brains searching for this elixir; but there is not one among
to whom Heaven hath been so propitious as myself. Rejoice with me, lady,
rejoice! for it is nearly complete! Having failed to discover an herb or
mineral to finish it, I have plunged into the mazes of entomology; for there
are many insects whose brains or bodies, wings or claws, possess charms of
potency. Moses, Solomon, Hippocrates, and Aristotle found wondrous
properties in locusts and creeping things; and Ælian, the Greek, expatiates
at great length on those contained in the brains and tongues of crickets,
wasps, and cantharides; and there were Democritus, Neoptolemus,
Philistus, Nicander, Herodius, to say nothing of Albertus Magnus (whose
book, printed at Venice in 1519, has just been sent to me by the Spanish
ambassador), all of whose writings I have yet to search; and doubt not, lady,
that therein I must discover that which shall complete my elixir, and make
my poor little laboratory, at the hamlet of Silvermills, more famous by a
thousand degrees, than ever was that of Claudius Galenus, the physician of
Pergamus."

And with this flourish, after reiterating his directions concerning that
precious decoction, which he styled metheglin, to be taken with one karena
from the phial, this homœopathist of the sixteenth century withdrew,
leaving the poor little captive stupefied and stunned by the energy and
fustian of his conversation.

CHAPTER XLIII.

DAVID'S TOWER—THE PRIEST.

"There's but one part to play; shame has done here,
But execution must close up the scene;
And for that cause these sprigs are worn by all,
Badges of marriage, now of funeral."
ROWLEY'S Noble Soldier, 1634.
 As the physician retired, Father St. Bernard, Jane's confessor and daily
visitor, and, of all the hundreds whom she knew, her only friend, glided
softly in, and approached; for such was the terror excited by the accusations
against her, that neither Marion Logan nor Alison Hume had dared to visit
her; though they had sent many a message, saying, "how they wept and
prayed for her," and so forth.

She raised her heavy head, and with an expression almost of joy,
extended her hands towards him; but the ponderous fetters weighed them
down.

The priest lifted the chain, and smiled sadly but kindly upon her.

"Pax Domine sit semper vobiscum," said he, making use of his invariable
phrase.

"Good Father St. Bernard!" she exclaimed, "can this be the work of
Heaven or of the fiend?"

"Of the fiend, daughter—canst thou doubt it?"

"I endure agony that is unutterable when thinking of Roland and of my

mother. Oh, that she might hear nothing of all this! I have yet so much to
suffer!——"

The old priest covered his face with the wide sleeve of his cassock, and
wept, for he had still warm and acute feelings, though a long and ascetic life
had somewhat blunted them and estranged him from the world.

"Can a merciful Heaven afflict me thus, father?"

"Hush, lady; whatever his miserable creatures may do, God is ever
merciful and just. We know not but this visitation, terrible though it is, may
be the means of averting some still greater calamity."

"Can any calamity be greater than death?"

 "To the unrepentant? no. But pray, child, pray; for the Christian gathers
hope from his prayers, while the poor heretic dies despairing and
blaspheming."

"Good Father St. Bernard, if I could have been base—if I could have
stooped, and been coward enough to abandon my poor Roland, and wed
this frantic, this furious persecutor, all this misery might not have happened.
It is a frightful alternative—a terrible reflection!"

"My good child, fear nothing and regret nothing. Think of St. Theckla,
and of all she endured for shunning the love of one she detested; and now
let the bright example of her whom St. Isidore of Pelusium styled the
protomartyr of her sex, and the most glorious ornament of the apostolic age,
be as a star and a beacon to thee. Shall I tell thee her story, as an old monk
of Culross told it to me?"

Jane bowed her head, in token of assent.

"She was the pupil of St. Paul," said the prebendary, gathering energy as
he spoke, "and, amid pagans, grew in holiness like a flower in the desert.
Men called her beautiful, but she was good as she was beautiful, and gentle
as she was good. A young noble of Lycaonia loved her; but the love of God,
sayeth St. Gregory of Nyssa, burned too strongly in her bosom to admit of a
human passion. She repelled his love, and, by the practice of every
austerity, overcame all earthly affections, and subdued her passions in such
wise that she became dead to the world, living upon it, but not in it—as a
beautiful spirit, but one having no kindred feelings to those around her. The
most endearing caresses, the most ardent protestations, the most brilliant
flatteries and gorgeous presents failed to win her love to this young noble;
and lo! from tender persuasions he betook himself to the most terrible
threats; and thereupon, abandoning the stately house of her father, with its
Grecian luxuries, its chambers of marble, with gilded ceilings and silken
carpets, its Tyrian hangings, precious sculpture, and vessels of fine gold;
abandoning home, friends, country, everything, she retired into the recesses
of a forest to pray for Greece, and to commune with the God of the
Christians amid silence and solitude; for such was the blessed example of
the apostles.
 "But there her lover, the young Lycaonian, discovered her; and, full of
wrath and vengeance, accused her of certain heinous crimes before the
magistrates of Isauria, who sentenced her to be torn limb from limb and
devoured by wild beasts, in the public amphitheatre of the city. The day of
doom arrived; and, naked in the vast arena, with no other covering than her
innocence, and her long flowing hair that almost enveloped her, this tender
being was exposed to twice ten thousand eyes. Undaunted in heart and high
in soul, she stood calmly awaiting her fate from the fangs of those wild
animals, whom goads of steel had urged to frantic madness, and whose
deep, hoarse bellowing filled even the morbid multitude with dismay.

"The iron gates were withdrawn, and the mighty assemblage were awed
and frozen into silence, when three enormous lions and three gigantic
panthers, with manes erect and eyes of fire, bounded into the wide arena,
where the helpless virgin stood in all her purity and resignation. With a
simultaneous howl they rushed upon her; but lo! the mighty hand of Heaven
was there! The lions forgot their ferocity, and the panthers the rage of their
hunger; and gentle as lambs they crouched before St. Theckla, and
grovelled in the dust to lick her snow-white feet.

"The vast multitude, their cruel magistrates, and the more cruel
Lycaonian lord, were overcome at the sight of this wondrous miracle, and
permitted her to depart in peace; and she died, at an extreme old age, in
Seleucia, where, above her grave, may yet be seen the church of the first
Christian emperors."

Jane listened attentively, and with the utmost good faith, to this legend. It
was one of the many miraculous tales which then formed the staple subjects
for the discourses of the old clergy on Sundays and festival days.

"I thank you for this bright example," said she, "but I am altogether
unlike St. Theckla, for I am not above an earthly passion; and none know
how dearly and how truly I love him to whom I am betrothed. Just Heaven!
I have all that last frightful day yet vivid in my memory. The court, so calm,
so orderly, so formal, so satisfied with themselves, and so full of morbid
curiosity; the spectators' countless eyes; the judges, so serious and so
solemn; their ten sworn advocates, so silent and so dreamy; and those cold-
eyed clerks of court who gazed at me from time to time so stolidly, and with
a self-satisfied air—at me, a poor helpless creature, abandoned to them,
overwhelmed with desperation, and blind with fear and sorrow."

"Would that I could die for thee, Lady Jane. I am but a poor old
prebendary; the years of my life are many, though the days of my joy have
been few—few indeed. I would leave no one to weep for, and have none
that would weep for me. I have long been sick of the world; I have nothing
in it now to regret, and, save thyself, know none that would regret old
Father St. Bernard, unless I add a few aged alms-people, my poor penitents.
My time in it cannot be long now, and willingly would I give my life for
thine, if such a thing might be. Oh, my child, thou so nobly born, so
carefully nurtured, so innocent and so gentle, the most guileless and most
docile of my penitents! Oh, this vile man, this Redhall, is a fiend! a
monster!" exclaimed the priest, suddenly giving way to unwonted passion;
"may the heaviest curses of God fall upon him! May he inherit the leprosy
of Gehazi, and the despair of Judas! May the earth swallow him up, like
Dathan and Abiram! May he sorrow like Cain, and may the wrath of God
ever be upon him for the misery his unbridled passions, his blind vengeance
and savage hate, hath caused unto thee!"

"Alas! good Father St. Bernard," said the gentle being, terrified by the
old man's energy, "ought we not rather to pray for him?"

"Thou art right, my daughter, and thy resignation shames me!" replied
the priest, whose indignation had, for the moment, borne away his better
feelings. "Right, right—we are commanded to pray for those who persecute
and despitefully use us. Thou good soul!" he added, signing the cross upon
her brow, "may the angel of all purity watch over thee, for thou, in thy
goodness of heart, art more like unto the angels than mortals."

"But, oh! that mode of death—by fire—by fire! It is so frightful!"

"The good should fear nothing. The hand which tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb, may temper the flames to thee."

She covered her face in her hands, and began to weep. Her tears relieved
her.
 "And I must really die—so young! Oh, Roland, Roland."

"Child, thou thinkest more of him than of the will of Heaven. There is a
sin in this."

"Heaven's will be done, father. I am not a heroine.'

"Its ways are inscrutable," replied the priest, looking upward.

"Hast thou not even once seen Roland, father?"

"Roland, again!"

"Pardon me, but I cannot help it. I fear his name will be the last on my
lips—his image the last in my heart. Oh, forgive me this; but I cannot help
it."

"They have accused him of treason."

"But there is hope of mercy for him, surely?"

"The proud are ever ungrateful; and say, who can count on the gratitude
of kings? They may forget; but God never forgets."

"Another day has come and gone—a bright one it has been to all the
world but poor Roland and me; the air so soft, so bright, so balmy; the
leaves so green, the water so blue, the flowers so fresh and smiling. Can all
my griefs be possible? Another day, and another—and where shall I be
then?"

"This is the very selfishness of grief. Dost think thai thou and Roland
Vipont are the only two unhappy persons in the world?"

The night was far advanced before Father St. Bernard left her; and
before that time, his conversation had proved so soothing, that in less than
an hour after he was gone, she committed her aching head to the pillow of
the hard palliasse, which we have before described as being in a stone
recess of the apartment, and sank into a deep, but quiet slumber.
 CHAPTER XLIV.

DAVID'S TOWER—THE LOVER.

"I kist with ane sigh the ringlet fair,
That I shred frae my Marie's golden hair,
And I thought that I never would see her mair.
And when I try it to rest on my bed,
The visions of night surrounded my head.
But had I the wings of a dove to flee,
They had nae parted my Marie and me."
HENRY SCOUGALL, 1674.

In another chamber of that vast bastille-house, and at the north-west

corner thereof, which overhung the hollow where the church of St. Cuthbert
lay, and the marsh that bounded the western end of the loch, sat Roland
Vipont.

The furniture and appurtenances of his apartment, without being very

magnificent, were certainly better by many degrees than those afforded to
his unhappy betrothed; but then it must be remembered that she was
accused of sorcery, while he had merely committed high treason; and like
hamesucken, or rising in arms, high treason was but a trivial action among
the Scots of 1537.

He was not allowed to visit Jane Seton; the chamber to which the
warrant of Redhall had consigned him was one of the strongest in the
fortress; and Sir James Riddel was answerable for his body, dead or alive,
when demanded, under a penalty of ten thousand merks.
 Deprived of everything in the shape of weapons, even to his spurs, the
lover sat with his arms folded on his breast, his chin (which exhibited an
untrimmed beard) resting on his breast, his brows knit, and his eyes full of
fire, revolving, as he had been for the last two days and a sleepless night,
and re-revolving in anger and grief, a myriad of futile projects.

"Gloomy as death, and desolate as hell,"

his thoughts were too impetuous and incoherent to take any permanent or
useful form; but when his eyes rested on the enormous iron grating which
secured his window, or endeavoured to fathom the tremendous abyss that
yawned below—that abyss where the loch was rolling, every hope died
within him, and he became sick; while the recollection made him become
frantic, that, though he remained inert, secured and shut up within a few
feet of him there breathed, suffered, and wept one whom he loved to
adoration.

All his recent adventures in Douglasdale—the storming of Fleming the

farmer's barmkyn—the poisoning of Nicholas Birrel—the horrors of his
return—the trial—his defiance of the court—his challenge, and its rejection,
had all passed away from his memory, which retained but one episode, one
vision—Jane, as she appeared before that cruel and determined tribunal—so
pale, so ghastly, so helpless, and so beautiful.

The recollection was a frightful one.

"And the king, he who loved me so well," thought he; "has he too
forgotten me? James Stuart—James Stuart! the Douglases have said truly,
thou art ungrateful; and more truly and more wisely hath the good old
countess said unto me a hundred times, 'Put not your trust in princes.' Who
now thinks of the ancient wealth and valour of the Viponts?—who of their
courage and patriotism? The honour of their name lies buried in the church
of St. Colme, and beneath the moss that clusters on Aberdour—my
patrimony gifted many a year ago to the grasping house of Morton. How
unhappy am I! My whole life has been a struggle between poverty and
pride, earning by wounds, and blood, and toil, hardly and severely, at
sword's point, every penny that clinked in my pouch; for I have been a
soldier of fortune, or misfortune rather, from my boyhood to the present
hour. But have I not had some bright moments too? Ah, yes—yes! those I
have passed with Jane—with my dear Jeanie; but they have been like the
meteors that have shot over a dark winter sky; they are passed now, and a
double gloom remains behind."

His apartment had two windows, one which opened to the west, and
another to the north; and through both shone the last flush of the red sunset.

Now two voices beneath the west window, by attracting his attention,
interrupted his sad thoughts, and he listened.

The speakers were in familiar conversation; but there was something so

hateful in their tones, that his heart trembled with rage as he recognised
them; and, impelled alike by hatred and a fearful curiosity, he drew near to
listen.

In an angle of the ramparts, where the curtain wall joined a corner of the
tower, the two gossips were seated on the stock of a large brass culverin:
they were Nichol Birrel and Sanders Screw.

The yellow, livid visage, matted hair, and enormously thick beard of the
former, and the shrivelled legs, nutcracker visage of the latter, were
distinctly visible in the clear summer twilight; and there was a broad grin on
the face of each as they conversed on a subject which, as it was pecuniary,
interested them both in a high degree.

"Twenty merks and fifteen mak five-and-thirty merks," said Birrel,

counting on his huge misshapen fingers.

"Ay," responded Screw, with another wide grin, as he held a piece of

paper up to the light, which came from the west.

"The deil!" said Birrel, "ye dinna mean to pretend that ye can read,
friend Sanders?"

"No, but I ken ilka item off by heart."

"Let me hear, then."

 "First," said Sanders, pointing with a finger to the crumpled paper, which
he ogled with the corners of his bleared eyes, as he indicated each item in
succession, "first: 'Accompt of the haill expenses for ye burning of Lady
Jane Seton, umquhile of Ashkirk, at ye staik, Saint Margaret's Day, fifteen
hundred and thirty-seven——'"

"Weel?"

"Hoolie, man!" responded Sanders, scratching his head. "'Item; for one
staick of aik tree, a penny.

"'Item; for twelve bundles o' faggots, saxpence.

"'Item; for three barrels o' tar and tallow, ten shillings.

"'Item; for greased flax and gunpowder, sax shillings.

"'Item; for an iron chain to bind her to the staik, twenty Flemish rydars.

"'Item; for a pair o' steel branks and one padlock, to Jhone, the lorimar, at
ye Tron, aucht shillings of our Scots monie. Summa——'"

"Hech! ye'll hae gude profit off a' this; for I ken ye saved as mickle tar,
flax, and faggots frae the burning and worrying o' fat Father Macgridius as
will put ye owre this job, and mair."

"Never you heed that," replied Sanders, pawkily; "how mickle got ye for
the brodding o' her?"

"Sax pund Scots."

"Sax pund! my certie, think o' that! Witch pricking is profitable wark."

"Had ye seen Friar Gourlay," said Dobbie, with a leer, as he came up and
joined them, "by my faith! he burned brawly when the cardinal had him
harled to the Calton and worrit for his foul heresies. We put a tarred frock
on him, sewit owre wi' bags o' grease and powder, and piled the weel oiled
faggots knee-deep about him. We then fastened up his body to the stake by
three iron cask-hoops that held him erect as a lance, and the fire bleezed
round him like a war beacon. His yell and skirls were awsome to hear; but
the smoke and the heat soon chokit him; and then, when the breeze blew the
fire aside, we saw him standing upright and stark in the middle o't. Then his
belly fell out, and the flames shot up between his birselled ribs and out at
his scouthered jaws, his eyen and ear-holes! By my soul! gossip Birrel and
gossip Screw, it was an awsome sicht, and one to be haud in memorie!"
Even Dobbie, connoisseur as he was in these matters, shuddered at the
recollection of this extra-judicial atrocity.

"But come," said Birrel, "there is St. Cuthburt's bell striking ten, and we
have muckle to do wi' this dame ere morning peeps."

The trio then knocked at the iron gate of David's Tower, to which they
were admitted.

Roland had heard but a part of their frightful conversation; it was beyond
the power of human endurance to listen to all those wretches said. He
rushed into the farthest corner of his apartment, covered his ears with his
hands, and wept and groaned aloud in the utter impotency of his rage and
grief. But how much wilder would that rage and grief have been, had he
known that they were all gone to visit his hapless mistress, for the double
purpose of performing some of those additional tortures to which those
accused of sorcery were usually subjected, by order of the supreme tribunal
in Scotland, and at the same time to accomplish another cruel plan of Sir
Adam Otterburn's device.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE BOON.
"Now is't a deed of mercy brings thee here,—
Of mercy to a suffering fellow man,
 Or is't his rank that summons all thy pity,
And lends thy tongue its load of eloquence?"—Old Play.

On leaving King David's Tower, Father St. Bernard passed through the
Spur, by the Castle Port, and descended the Castlehill-street into the city.

The bells tolled the hour of nine in the Maison Dieu, at the head of Bell's
Wynd, as he passed it, and he saw the lights gleaming in the chapel of this
edifice, which stood on the south side of the High-street.

The vast height of its buildings cast a dusky shade over this
thoroughfare; and the steep narrow closes which diverged on each side from
it were almost buried in obscurity. In each of the small round archways,
which gave admittance to these deep and ghostly alleys, when the night
advanced an oil lamp was lighted, a remarkable improvement at this early
period, when neither London nor Paris could boast of such an advance in
civilization, for which our citizens were solely indebted to their good King
James V.

Finding that Edinburgh was becoming a place of resort from all parts of
the kingdom, in 1532, the monarch so far influenced the town Council, that
the High-street was well paved with large stones, quarried among the craigs
of Salisbury. Many of the more ancient tenements were removed,
renovated, or made more ornamental; while, as before stated, the citizens
had to hang out lanterns to light the narrow thoroughfares; but as these were
made of horn and were fed with oil, they shed but a dim and wavering
radiance on the enormous stone bastilles and overhanging Flemish fronts,
which are still the leading features of the old grey city of the Stuarts and
Alexanders.

The watching was performed by the burghers. Every man within the
barriers being on guard every fourth night; thus the whole citizens had to
perform military service in rotation, armed as infantry soldiers of the
period, with helmet, corslet and steel gloves, arquebuse and dagger, or with
sword, pole-axe, and partizan. The citizens of Edinburgh enjoyed the
distinction of wearing "quhite hatts," i.e., helmets of burnished steel; and
the whole were arrayed under their baillies four times in the year at a
general weapon-show. But to return.

The prebendary descended the Blackfriars Wynd, at the foot whereof

projected the turret which still indicates the cardinal's dwelling. Grasped by
the teeth of a grotesque stone monster, a lantern hung above the doorway,
and lighted a large stone panel, whereon were carved and gilded the
armorial bearings of Bethune of Balfour, overshadowed by the cardinal's
tasselled hat. Here the poor priest paused for a moment, and muttered a
fervent prayer for the success of his merciful errand, and then he tirled the
pin, timidly at first, but boldly afterwards.

After a brief reconnaissance being made of his person through the

vizzying hole, the door was opened by one of the cardinal's guards, who
wore the arms of the archbishopric on the breast of his purple doublet.

"Is his eminence at home?"

"Yea, father," replied the pikeman, falling back a pace, with a profound
salute.

"Please to announce that Father St. Bernard of St. Giles's craves the
honour of speaking with him alone."

"Deliver this message to my young Lord Lindesay," said the pikeman to

another of the guard, who had overheard the request; and in less than a
minute that young noble, who was the betrothed of Beaton's daughter, and
who acted as his page and equerry, appeared, bonnet in hand.

"His eminence desires me to say, that Father St. Bernard is welcome at

all times," said he.

Ascending the narrow stone stair of this antique mansion, and preceded
by young Lindesay, whose crimson velvet mantle and peach-coloured
doublet were covered with glittering embroidery, the prebend, on passing
through an opening in a gorgeous arras, found himself in presence of the
primate of all Scotland, the legate of Paul III.
 Brilliantly lighted by candles of perfumed wax, which burned in rose-
coloured globes of Venetian glass, the chamber, in which we had the honour
of introducing the reader to the foe of Henry VIII., and the terror of the
Calvinists, to the eye of the poor priest, formed a striking contrast to his
own humble dormitory at St. Giles's; but he was not a man to permit such
thoughts to dwell an instant in his mind; and dismissing them at once, he
knelt before the cardinal's chair, to kiss the white hand which that great and
luxurious prince of the church extended graciously towards him.

He was seated in a large and easy chair of stuffed velvet; his feet were
encased in slippers of morocco, red as his stockings, and rested on a gilded
footstool. Two vases of Italian glass, exquisitely carved, and glittering with
the golden-coloured and purple wine they contained, together with two
silver baskets, one full of honied biscuits and the other of grapes, showed
that his eminence had been solacing his solitary hour; for a gittern that lay
on a chair announced that his daughter, the Lady Margaret, had just retired,
and the young Lord Lindesay, having no occasion to remain, followed her;
thus the priest found himself alone with the cardinal, before whom all his
confidence vanished; for, despite his conscious rectitude of heart and
goodness of intention, in presence of the second man in Scotland, the poor
prebend became timid as a child.

"Welcome, Father St. Bernard!" said the cardinal, pointing to a seat near
his own: "you look pale and fatigued. Here are red and white Italian wines,
and these are better than our ordinary Rochelle or Bordeaux. To which shall
I have the pleasure of assisting you? and then we will to business after; for I
am certain thou hast come to me on business; no one," continued the
studious cardinal, closing a book he had been reading, "no one, save my
Lord Lindesay, comes near David Beaton for mere friendship, I find. Red
wine or white?"

"Either, please your eminence—the flask that is next you."

Reassured by the frank manner of the cardinal, and by the luscious

Greco that moistened his tongue, which had been parched and dry, St.
Bernard was about to speak, when the cardinal again addressed him.
 "Dost thou come with new tidings of this Calvinistic heresy, which
spreadeth, even as foul leprosy, over Scotland; or," he added, re-opening his
volume, which was The Franciscan, of George Buchanan, "or comest thou
merely here, as this arch-heretic sayeth, to exhibit—
'The greasy shaven heart,
A gloomy friar, with flowing gown outspread!
The twisted girdle, and the hat's broad brim,
The opened shoe dressed out in monkish trim;
Below the garb, where we so oft will find
A brutal tyrant, whom no law can bind;
The robber, who oppression's armour wields,
The sensual glutton, to excess who yields,
To deck the husband's brow, the night will spend;
The faithless lover, and deceitful friend!
His modest face, though false, worn as a cloak,
To gull the plebeian, and delude the flock;
Ten hundred thousand crimes, wild, dark, and deep.
He hides beneath the clothing of the sheep!'

Holy mother of God!" exclaimed the cardinal (who had read this passage
ironically and emphatically), as he flung the volume to the farthest end of
the apartment, "and thou permittest this wretch to encumber the earth! Holy
St. Francis of Assisium! thou whose life was a miracle of humility; who, in
a glorious vision, beheld our Saviour hanging on his cross; and thou hast
permitted the heretic dog, who writes thus of thy clergy, again to escape
me!"

"I heard that he had broken forth from your eminence's archiepiscopal
castle of St. Andrew's some months ago."

"True,—while my guards (the drunken rascals!) slept; but I should have

made them answer for him body for body. Truly, the college of St. Barbe
hath reason to be proud of its professor, this learned Buchanan, for there he
is at present teaching grammar and the humanities; and now I hear that the
Earl of Cassilis (whom I know to be an arch-heretic, traitor, and
corresponder with Henry of England) is about to secure him from me in his
castle of Culzean, as a tutor for his son, the Lord Gilbert Kennedy. By the
cross, he is a rare tutor! But let this lord beware; for though he is brother of
Quentin Kennedy, that good abbot of Crossraguell, whose pieties are those
of a saint, the people of Scotland shall see whether a cardinal's hat or an
earl's coronet will weigh the heavier in the scales of justice and of Heaven."

The cardinal was both exasperated and satirical. Father St. Bernard
found that he had chosen an unfortunate time to prefer his request, and
while he was rallying all his thoughts to introduce a more pleasing topic of
conversation than that broached by the cardinal, the latter said, suddenly,
but in a milder tone:

"And now, my good old friend, St. Bernard, what dost thou wish me to
do for thee?"

"May it please your eminence to grant me your patience and pardon."

The cardinal put one leg over the other, laid his hand upon the wine-cup,
and nodded, as much as to say—"Good: I see the reverend father has some
request to make of me."

"My Lord Cardinal, dost thou remember the 30th of August, 1534?"

"The 30th of August, 1534!" repeated the cardinal, pondering.

"That 30th of August, when I implored your eminence not to pass

through Fife to St. Andrew's."

"I do," said the cardinal, becoming suddenly animated, "for there were
certain mysterious circumstances—but what of that now? 'tis three years
ago."

"My lord, I know not whether that which I am about to reveal be a sin, or
whether, by so doing, I am breaking the irrevocable seal of confession; the
man who told what I am about to relate, made afterwards a public
confession, when he was expiring in the streets of Kinghorn, but of all the
crowd around him, I alone understood to what he referred—unhappy
being!"
 "Go on," said the cardinal, sipping his wine, "I am already all ears and
impatience."

"On the evening of the 26th of August, just the day before Straitoun and
Gourlay were burned for heresy at Greenside, I was seated in the public
confessional at St. Giles's, when a man entered in great agony of mind, and
knelt down before me. This man, my lord, was one whom the secret
orations of the Reformers and the mal-influence of his chief, for he was a
follower of old Sir John Melville of Raith, had partly led astray from the
fold of the true faith. He was James Melville, the gudeman of Pitargie. The
blessed hand of God was in it! Like a dark cloud, remorse had descended
upon this lost one, and he informed me, that with sixteen others he had
sworn to slay your eminence as you passed along the road to St. Andrew's
on the morrow; and that this ambuscade of assassins was to be in waiting
near the tower of Seafield, to the eastward of Kinghorn. In vain did I
command him not to criminate others; but he told me, that your deadliest
enemies, John Leslie of Parkhill, Peter Carmichael of Kilmadie, Sir James
Kirkaldy of the Grange, the Melvilles of Raith and of Carnbee, the Lord
Rothes, and the Laird of Kinfawns would be there. That Henry of England
was in the plot, and had offered them magnificent bribes; and that one of his
ships lay cruizing at the East Neuk, to secure for these seventeen
conspirators a safe retreat to his own dominions, whither they were to bring
your eminence's scarlet cope, drenched in blood, as a token that the deed
was done, that their lust of vengeance had been sated, and that thou, like
another Becket, had fallen beneath their swords.

"As the conscience-stricken assassin proceeded, I became frozen with

horror. With groans and with tears he concluded his dark narrative, and
beating his breast, implored me to make what use of his confession I
pleased, but at all risks to save your eminence. To warn you was impossible,
for the confessional sealed my lips! And I saw you—you, the greatest hope
of our sinking church, and the chief pillar of the Scottish throne, its bulwark
against English aggression, and Henry's grasping and heretical spirit, about
to fall! Your eminence was to be shot by arquebuses, after leaving the
ferryboat at Kinghorn. After long and deep thought, the penitent begged that
I would use all my little influence to detain your eminence for two hours
upon your journey, and you may, perhaps, remember——"
 "Thy coming to me on the second day after the auto-da-fé at Greenside,
and imploring me to delay by two hours my journey into Fife," said the
cardinal, as he arose and took in his the hands of the priest. "Thou good and
venerable man! I remember well thy diffidence, confusion, and timidity; thy
fear of being ridiculed and thy dread of offending me; and how I railed and
stormed at thy superstitious presentiment, as I now remember with regret I
named it! Well?"

"At twelve o'clock, on the 30th of August, the knights and gentlemen I
have named, with others, to the number of sixteen persons, all fleetly
mounted and well armed with arquebuses and wheel-lock calivers, posted
themselves among the copsewood that overhang certain thick hedge-rows,
which lies between Kinghorn and Sir Henry Moultray's tower at Seafield.
The king of England's ship, with all her sails set, was verging near the
shore, while a Scottish flag, to mask her nation and purpose, was displayed
from her mainmast head. The conspirators loaded their firearms with
poisoned balls, and carefully blew their matches as the bells of St.
Leonard's tower tolled twelve. It was the time at which these assassins, who
were posted eight on each side of the way, expected your eminence.

"The twelfth stroke of the hour was scarcely given, when they perceived
a man, attired exactly like your eminence, in a baretta, cope, and stockings
of scarlet, come riding up the narrow horseway, between the dark green
hedgerows——"

"What is it thou tellest me? My wraith!"

The priest smiled.

"The seeming cardinal came on, riding fast, as if in advance of his

followers! when, lo! sixteen arquebuses and calivers flashed from the
screens of thick hawthorn and dark green holly, and prone to the earth fell
horse and man, wallowing in their blood."

"Agnus Dei!"

"With a shout, the assassins rushed forward to imbrue their hands yet
further in blood, and found that they had slain—not David Beaton the
cardinal, but one of themselves—Raith's own kinsman, James Melville, the
gudeman of Pitargie! He was carried to Kinghorn, and there, as I have said,
he died. Without informing me of his project, further than to delay you, he
had thus been guilty of self-immolation, as having no other method of
punishing his own crime and saving your eminence. And so you were
saved. I delayed you at the pier of Leith for two hours, and at the very
moment you embarked, the mock cardinal was shot on the shore of Fife. On
returning, your eminence was pleased to remember kindly my warning and
presentiment, as you still named it: then, my lord, you promised me, that if
ever I wished a boon that was in your power, I should consider it as already
granted."

"True—true, my good friend, my reverend brother, I remember it all."

"You spoke of many a deanery, and many a rectory that were vacant in
Angus, Mearn, and Buchan; but I still find myself the poor prebend in the
parish kirk of St. Giles——"

"Yes, yes—I feel that I have been ungrateful, and thou justly upbraidest
me," said the cardinal, hastily opening a portfolio, "there is the Benedictine
Priory of St. Mary, at Fyvie, the superior of which——"

"Nay, Lord Cardinal, nay! Our Lady forbid I should ever presume to
upbraid thee. I am but too glad that among the maze of more important
matters my service has been forgotten! and thus that I can still appear as a
creditor, and request the fulfilment of your promise."

"Full of shame for having so long forgotten it, I swear to grant whatever
you ask, that may lie in my power to bestow."

"Oh, my Lord Cardinal, I seek nothing for myself," said the poor priest,
glancing (like Sterne's Franciscan) at the sleeve of his threadbare garment;
"my wants are few, though my years are many, and I have neither desire nor
ambition, but in the service of our Master who is in Heaven."

The old man paused, and the great prince of the church, surrounded by
wealth and luxury, grasping all but regal power, and loaded by the rank and
riches of his Scottish, his French, and Italian titles, felt how great was the
gulf between himself and this humble but purer follower of the apostles.

"If in my power," said he, "thy boon is granted."

"I seek the pardon of my poor penitent," replied St. Bernard, clasping his
hands: "I seek the pardon of Lady Jane Seton."

The cardinal started.

"Impossible!" he replied, "for the life of this woman is not in my hands."

"But it is in the hands of the king; and being so, is, I may say, also in
thine, my lord. Thou alone canst save her, for, selfish in his grief, our good
king has abandoned everything to his ministers."

"Forgiveness for her—a Seton—the daughter of a Douglas, and the

grandchild of old Greysteel! Friar, thou ravest! the thing is not to be thought
of; besides, from all my lord advocate has told me, she must have been
deeply guilty."

"Oh, good my lord cardinal, dost thou, in the greatness of thy mind,
conceive that such a crime as sorcery may be?"

"I do not—I believe too implicitly in the power of God to yield so much
to that of his fallen angel; and I believe, that as Calvinism spreads in
Scotland, so will this new terror of sorcery. I have not studied the trial, but
shall do so to-night, and with care."

"A thousand grateful thanks."

"Immersed as I am among the affairs of this troublesome state (for its

chancellorship costs me dear), and sworn as I am to extinguish by fire and
sword the heresies of Calvin, which are spreading like a wildfire among our
Scottish towns and glens, I can afford but little time for the consideration of
minor matters, such as this trial. Thou art, indeed, an auld farrand buckie,"
added the cardinal, with a smile; "and well hast thou played thy cards; so
rest assured, that if David Beaton can save thy penitent, with justice—she is
saved."

Father St. Bernard's heart was too full to reply: he raised his mild eyes to
the ceiling, and crossed his wrinkled hands upon his breast.

"On Sunday first, I am to say a solemn mass for Queen Magdalene in my

cathedral church at St. Andrew's," resumed the cardinal. "Sorely I regret
that poor girl's death; but dost thou know that the Scottish church had much
to fear from her; for, reared and educated as she had been by her almost
heretic aunt, the Queen of Navarre, she was inclined to view too leniently
this clamour raised by the heretics for liberty of conscience, as they are
pleased to term their abominable creed—a creed by which they make our
blessed Gospels like the bagpipe, on which every man may play a tune of
his own devising. On my way to St. Andrew's, I will visit the king at
Falkland, and this time, rest assured, my reverend friend, my promise shall
not be forgotten."

"Oh, my lord!" murmured the now happy old man; "your eminence
overwhelms me."

"There is now little time to lose. Young Balquhan and twenty

arquebusiers of the king's guard must accompany me, in addition to the
pikemen of my own; and the moment the pardon or order of release (if I
deem her worthy of it, and receive it) is expede, Leslie shall return with it
on the spur to Sir James of Cranstoun-Riddel;" and, as a sign that the
interview was over, the cardinal, with an air of elegance and grace, which
he possessed above all the courtiers of his time, gave the priest his jewelled
hand to kiss, and thankfully and reverently this good old man, who was
enough to be his father, kneeled down and kissed it.

"A thousand blessings on your eminence! Dominus vobiscum," said the

priest.

"Dominus vobiscum, et cum spiritu tuo," said the cardinal, and stretched
out his hand to a silver bell, which he rang.
 Hurrying out from an inner chamber, Lord Lindesay drew back the arras
which covered the doorway.

Then, as the priest with a joyous heart was about to retire, he was
appalled by the spectral figure of Redhall (who had the private entrée of the
cardinal's apartments at all hours), standing close behind the thick, heavy
tapestry.

He started hurriedly forward, and the friar saw but too well that he had
not only been listening, but had overheard, perhaps, the whole of their
conversation.

His aspect was fearful; remorse, terror, and despair had wrought their
worst upon him. His jaws had become haggard and his visage pallid; but the
priest thought that he read a gleam of hatred and rage in his eyes as he
passed him.

"If he has been listening, and should undo all I have done!" thought St.
Bernard, breathlessly, as he hurried down into the dark Wynd of the
Blackfriars; "but his eminence has promised, and blessed be him, my poor
little child is saved!"

Full of joy, and feeling as if a mountain had been removed from him, the
good old prebend knelt down in the dark and deserted street, and baring his
bald head, returned thanks to Heaven and his patron saint for having
inclined the lord chancellor to hear favourably the prayer he had just
preferred.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THIRST!
 "'Twas thou, O love! whose dreaded shafts control,
The hind's rude heart, and tear the hero's soul;
Thou ruthless power, with bloodshed never cloyed,
'Twas thou thy lovely votary destroyed:
Thy thirst still burning for a deeper woe,
In vain for thee the tears of beauty flow."
The Lusiad of CAMOENS.

Aware that he had been seen by the friar in the act of listening, the lord
advocate decided in a moment upon the course to pursue. He resolved that
the promised pardon should never reach Edinburgh; but being too wary to
make any reference to the conversation he had just heard, after simply
giving the great cardinal a paper concerning an annual subsidy from the
clergy, which was to be presented to James V. at Falkland on the morrow, he
retired, and hastened to his own house in the Canongate, where, with the
utmost impatience, he awaited the return of Nichol Birrel, whom, with
Dobbie and Sanders Screw, he had sent on a devilishly contrived mission to
the Castle of Edinburgh, whither we shall return to observe them.

From his window Roland had seen them enter David's Tower by the iron
gate at the bottom of the stair, by which they ascended straight to the
chamber where Jane Seton was confined.

After the priest had left her, the latter had become more calm, though St.
Bernard had not held out to her the faintest hope of mercy or compassion
from those powers which had abandoned her to die, or of rescue from that
once terrible faction to which her family belonged—that faction now so
scattered, crushed, and broken.

In her prison this sad and lonely being had watched the woods and water
darkening far below her; had watched the stars as one by one they sparkled
out upon the night; and she envied the airy freedom of the passing clouds as
they rolled through the sky—the blue twilight sky of a still and beautiful
summer gloaming. In masses of fleecy white on pale gold, as they were
tinted by the rising moon, they sailed on the soft west wind in a thousand
changing forms.
 The very weariness of long grief overcame her, and she lay down on the
humble pallet afforded her by the orders of the castellan, to sleep—for she
had not slumbered during many nights, and on this night, like her thirst, her
fatigue was excessive.

Her couch was a mere paillasse, with a pillow; for in everything she was
made to feel painfully that she was the—condemned witch!

The bread given her during the two past days had been unusually salt
and bitter; she endured great thirst; but the warder had removed the humble
vessel that contained the water for her use, and now, without a drop to
moisten her parched lips, she lay down to sleep. Her bread had been
purposely salted to excess, and thus, having been many hours without a
drop of water, her sufferings were greatly increased; and when she slept
there arose before her visions of streams pouring in white foam, of verdant
banks or moss-green rocks, of fountains that gushed and sparkled in marble
basins, which most tantalizingly receded or vanished when joyfully she
attempted to drink of them. At other times her kind old mother or Roland
Vipont, with their well-remembered smiles of love, approached her with
cups of water or of wine; but these dear forms faded away when the longed-
for beverage touched her lips; and then she started and awoke to solace
herself with her bitter tears—the only solace of which the cruel authorities
could not deprive her.

She slept lightly, as a bird sleeps on its perch; but not so lightly as to
hear her prison door opened by the Messrs. Birrel, Dobbie, and Screw,
whose faces were made more villanous and sinister by the yellow rays of an
oil-lamp, which darted upwards upon them. Birrel's visage, square and
mastiff in aspect, livid in colour, and surrounded by a forest of sable hair
above and below; Dobbie, with the eyes and moustaches of a cat; and
Sanders Screw, though utterly destitute of any such appendages to his
mouth, exhibiting in his nut-cracker jaws and bleared eyes a sardonic grin
of cruelty and intoxication.

He carried a large Flemish jar, which, strange to say, was brimful of pure
cold water.
 Birrel raised his lamp, the lurid flame of which made yet more livid his
yellow visage and ruffian eyes; and its sickly rays fell on the face of Jane;
but the calm and divine smile that played upon her thin and parted lips,
failed to scare from their purpose these demons, hardened as they were in
every species of judicial cruelty.

Jane was dreaming of her lover, and in her self-embodied thoughts

originated that beautiful smile.

Softly, but soundly, after all she had endured, this poor victim of
superstition and revenge was sleeping now, and dreaming fondly and
joyously—for in a dream every sensation is a thousand times more acute
than it could be in reality—dreaming of that long life which was denied her,
on this earth at least; she felt on her cheek the kiss of her young and gallant
lover; she saw his waving plume and his doublet of cloth-of-gold; his voice
was in her ear, and it murmured of his faith and love, that, like her own,
would never die.

Her lips unclosed—an exclamation of rapture would have escaped her,

when Birrel's iron fingers grasped her tender arm—and she awoke with a
start and a cry of despair.

"Gude e'en to ye, cummer Jean," said he, insolently; "byde ye wauken,
or fare ye waur; for gif ye sleep, see, madam the sorceress," and he shook
before her eyes the steel brod, or needle, which was the badge of his hateful
office.

Seated upon one side of her bed, Jane recoiled from these men, who
regarded her with eyes that to her seemed as those of rattlesnakes, for they
were pitiless in heart, and merciless as the waves of the sea.

We know not if we possess the power to describe the passages of that

night in the vaulted chamber of David's Tower.

In the days of the witch-mania in Scotland it was the custom, at the

desire of the lord president of the college of justice, of the lord advocate, of
the sheriff, or baillie of baron, or regality, or whoever had tried and
condemned a sorceress to subject her (even after trial) to a further ordeal;
for no persecution, even unto the last hour, was deemed too severe for those
unhappy beings who were accused of the imaginary crime of selling their
souls to Satan, and thus irrevocably dooming themselves to a punishment
that was everlasting.

Two of the most favourite modes of prolonged tortured were, to prevent

the prisoner from sleeping by every device that the most infernal ingenuity
could suggest, and to feed them on bread salted most liberally, to produce
an intense thirst, to assuage which the least drop of water was denied them.

Under this treatment many became insane, for the kirk sessions carried it
to the most ferocious excess in the seventeenth century.

On being awakened, and partially recovering from her terror, Jane's first
sensation was an inordinate desire for water; her thirst was excessive. Her
tongue was parched and painful, for her food during the two past days had
been coarse dry wheaten bannocks, rendered bitter by the plentiful supply
of salt used in their composition. She had been too much accustomed to the
most cruel and unceremonious intrusions, to express her keen sense of the
present one, otherwise than by her flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, for her
heart swelled with indignation; but, on perceiving the jar in the hands of
Sanders Screw, her first thought was to satisfy her thirst, and she implored
them to give her a cup of water.

At this plaintive request, a grin spread over the weasel visage of Screw
and the cat-like eyes of Dobbie, while Birrel, who was somewhat
intoxicated, replied with his habitual tone of insolence—

"By my faith, cummer Jean, ye shall be thirstier and drouthier than even
was I in Douglasdale, ere a drop rins ower your craig."

Screw set down the jar, placing himself between it and their victim. The
lamp was also placed on the floor, and seating themselves around it, Dobbie
produced from his wide trunk hose of buckram a pack of dirty and dog-
eared cards. Each worthy official then placed beside him a flask of
usquebaugh, the cards were dealt round, and the campaign of the night
commenced with an old game at which the three might play, and Birrel
could cheat to his heart's content, notwithstanding that Dobbie knew the
backs as well as the front of his favourite pack of cards.

For a time Jane gazed at them with the same startled and dismayed
expression that the sudden appearance of three reptiles might have excited;
and again she begged a cup of water, for her thirst (which had been
increasing the live-long day, and to which her salted food, the drugs of the
physician, and the grief that preyed upon her, all alike conduced) had now
attained a degree of torture and intensity which hitherto she could not have
conceived.

Her entreaties were replied to with laughter; and it seemed as if the sight
of the liberal draughts imbibed by the trio from their flasks increased the
desire of the poor captive; but her prayers and tears were unheeded, and
noisily the game went on.

Two hours passed thus!

The players had drained their flasks, and amid much cursing, quarrelling
and vociferation, the loose change had rapidly passed from hand to hand,
until the whole, amounting to somewhere about ten crowns, a few fleur-de-
lis groats, and white pennies of James III., were lodged in the pouch of
Birrel, who trimmed the lamp with his fingers, and offered a brass bodle to
each of his companions that the game might begin anew; but, as the cards
were being redealt, he perceived that, despite their brutal uproar, overcome
by weariness and torture of mind and body, the unhappy girl had again
fallen into an uneasy slumber.

Upon this the brodder arose with a growl, and drawing his needle from
its sheath, gave her a severe puncture in the arm. The pain of this made her
again, with a shriek, start up wildly from her sitting posture; and,
uncovering her snow-white arm to the elbow, she found that blood was
flowing from the deep incision.

With her imploring eyes full of horror, she turned towards Birrel and
endeavoured to speak, but her tongue, which clove to the roof of her mouth,
failed, at first, to articulate a syllable; and her lips were hard and dry.
 "Did I not tell ye quhat ye micht expect gif ye dared to sleep," said
Birrel, savagely.

She made a gasping effort to speak.

"Water!" she said, in a husky whisper, "water!—a single drop, for the
love of God!"

"Oho!" grinned Screw, "the saut bannocks are now telling tales!"

He held the Flemish jar of polished pewter before her eyes and shook the
limpid water till it sparkled in the light.

"The haill o' this is for you, dame Seton," said Birrel, "but there is a sma'
bit ceremony to be gone through first."

"Water! water!" moaned Jane, in a whispering voice, feeling as if her

throat was scorched, and her dry, parched tongue was swollen to twice its
usual size. "Oh, man, man!" she added, clasping her hands, "I will pray for
you—I will bless you in my last hour, with my whole heart, and with my
whole soul, for one drop, a single drop of water!"

There never was a villain so bad as to be without one redeeming trait;

thus, even Dobbie the doomster had his; and now the piteous tone of Jane's
husky voice, her pallid face, her entreating and bloodshot eyes, had stirred
some secret chord of human sympathy in the recesses of his usually iron
heart. He poured a little water into a cup, and approached her. Jane's eyes
flashed with thankfulness and joy; but Birrel dashed away the cup with one
hand, and laid the other on his poniard.

Jane uttered a tremulous cry of despair.

"Then false coof and half-witted staumrel!" exclaimed the witchfinder;

"is it thus ye obey the orders of Redhall, who is our master? Look ye, good
mistress, subscribe this paper and we leave you wi' the water-stoup, to drink
and to sleep till your heart is contented. But refuse, and woe be unto ye! For
here sit we doon to watch by turns, to keep ye, waking and sleepless, with
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