"No, my boy; I fear no storm. But the fact is, that that sound is seldom
heard, and never, as far as I know, by any of the blood of that wicked
man, without betokening some ill to one of the family, and most probably
to the one who hears it--but I am not quite sure about that. Only some
evil it does portend, although a long time may elapse before it shows
itself; and I have a hope it may mean some one else than you."

"Do not wish that," I replied. "I know no one better able to bear it
than I am; and I hope, whatever it may be, that I only shall have to
meet it. It must surely be something serious to be so foretold--it can
hardly be connected with my disappointment in being compelled to be a
pedagogue instead of a soldier."

"Do not trouble yourself about that, Duncan," replied she. "A soldier
you must be. The same day you told me of the clank of the broken
horseshoe, I saw you return wounded from battle, and fall fainting from
your horse in the street of a great city--only fainting, thank God. But
I have particular reasons for being uneasy at your hearing that boding
sound. Can you tell me the day and hour of your birth?"

"No," I replied. "It seems very odd when I think of it, but I really do
not know even the day."

"Nor any one else; which is stranger still," she answered.

"How does that happen, nurse?"

"We were in terrible anxiety about your mother at the time. So ill was
she, after you were just born, in a strange, unaccountable way, that you