The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Vol 18, by Alexander Leighton.

One morning, early in the spring of 1298, a small Scottish vessel lay becalmed in the middle of the Irish Channel, about fifteen leagues to the south of the Isle of Man. During the whole of the previous night, she had been borne steadily southward, by a light breeze from off the fast receding island; but it had sunk as the sun rose, and she was now heaving slowly to the swell, which still continued to roll onward, in long glassy ridges from the north. A thick fog had risen as the wind fell—one of those low sea fogs which, leaving the central heavens comparatively clear, hangs its dense, impervious volumes around the horizon; and the little vessel lay as if imprisoned within a circular wall of darkness, while the sun, reddened by the haze, looked down cheerily upon her from above. She was a small and very rude-looking vessel, furnished with two lug-sails of dark brown, much in the manner of a modern Dutch lugger; with a poop and forecastle singularly high, compared with her height in the waist; and with sides which, attaining their full breadth scarcely a foot over the water, sloped abruptly inwards, towards the deck, like the wall of a mole or pier. The parapet-like bulwarks of both poop and forecastle were cut into deep embrasures, and ran, like those of a tower, all around the areas they enclosed, looking down nearly as loftily on the midships as [2] on the water. The sides were black as pitch could render them—the sails scarcely less dark; but, as if to shew man's love of the ornamental in even the rudest stage of art, a huge misshapen lion flared in vermillion on the prow, and over the stern hung the blue flag of Scotland, with the silver cross of St Andrew stretching from corner to corner.

From eight to ten seamen lounged about the decks. They were uncouth-looking men, heavily attired in jerkins and caps of blue woollen, with long, thick beards, and strongly-marked features. The master, a man considerably advanced in life—for, though his eye seemed as bright as ever, his hair and beard had become white as snow—was rather better dressed. He wore above his jerkin a short cloak of blue which confessed, in its finer texture, the superiority of the looms of Flanders over those of his own country; and a slender cord of silver ran round a cap of the same material. His nether garments, however, were coarse and rude as those of his seamen; and the shoes he wore were fashioned, like theirs, of the undressed skin of the deer, with the hair still attached; giving to the foot that brush-like appearance which had acquired to his countrymen of the age, from their more polished neighbours, the appellation of rough-footed Scots. Neither the number, nor the appearance of the crew, singular and wild as the latter was, gave the vessel aught of a warlike aspect; and yet there were appearances that might have led one to doubt whether she was quite so unprepared for attack or defence as at the first view might be premised. There ran round the butt of each mast a rack filled with spears, of more knightly appearance than could have belonged to a few rude seamen—for of some of these the handles were chased with silver, and to some there were strips of pennon attached; and a rich crimson cloak, with several pieces of mail, were spread out to the morning sun, on one of the[3] shrouds.

The crew, we have said, were lounging about the deck, unemployed in the calm, when a strong, iron-studded door opened in the poop, and a young and very handsome man stepped forward.

"Has my unfortunate cloak escaped stain?" he said to the master. "Your sea-water is no brightener of colour."

"It will not yet much ashame you, Clelland," said the master, "even amid the gallants of France; but, were it worse, there is little fear, with these eyes of yours, of being overlooked by the ladies."

"Nay, now, Brichan, that's but a light compliment from so grave a man as you," said Clelland. "You forget how small a chance I shall have beside my cousin."

"Not jealous of the Governor, Clelland, I hope?" said the old man, gaily. "Nay, trust me, you are in little danger. Sir William is perhaps quite as handsome a man as you, and taller by the head and shoulders; but, trust me, no one will ever think of him as a pretty fellow. He stands too much alone for that. Has he risen yet?"

"Risen!—he has been with the chaplain for I know not how long. Their Latin broke in upon my dreams two hours ago. But what have we yonder, on the edge of that bank of fog! Is it one of the mermaidens you were telling me of yesterday?"

"Nay," said the master, "it is but a poor seal, risen to take the air. But what have we beyond it? By heavens I see the dim outline of a large vessel, through the fog! and yonder, not half a bow-shot beyond, there is another! Saints forbid that it be not the English fleet, or the ships of Thomas of Chartres! Clelland, good Clelland, do call up the Governor and his company!"

Clelland stepped up to the door in the poop, and shouted hastily to his companions within—"Strange sails in sight!—supposed enemies—it were well to don your armours."[4] And then turning to a seaman. "Assist me, good fellow," he said, "in bracing on mine."

"Thomas of Chartres, to a certainty!" exclaimed the master—"and not a breath to bear us away! Would to heavens that I were dead and buried, or had never been born!"

"Why all this ado, Brichan?" said Clelland, who, assisted by the sailor, was coolly buckling on his mail. "It was never your wont before, to be thus annoyed by danger."

"It is not for myself I fear, noble Clelland," said the master, "if the Governor were but away and safe. But, oh, to think that the pride and stay of Scotland should fall into the merciless hands of a pirate dog! Would that my own life, and the lives of all my crew, could but purchase his safety!"

"Take heart, old man," said Clelland, with dignity. "Heaven watches over the fortunes of the Governor of Scotland; nor will it suffer him to fall obscurely by the hands of a mere plunderer of merchants and seamen.—Rax me my long spear."

As he spoke, the Governor himself stepped forward from the door in the poop, enveloped from head to foot in complete armour. He was a man of more than kingly presence—taller, by nearly a foot, than even the tallest man on deck, and broader across the shoulders by full six inches; but so admirably was his frame moulded, that, though his stature rose to the gigantic, no one could think of him as a giant. His visor was up, and exhibited a set of high handsome features, and two of the finest blue eyes that ever served as indexes to the feelings of a human soul. His chin and upper lip were thickly covered with hair of that golden colour so often sung by the elder poets; and a few curling locks of rather darker shade escaped from under his helmet. A man of middle stature and grave saturnine aspect, who wore a monk's frock over a coat of[5] mail, came up behind him.

"What is to befall us now, cousin Clelland?" said the Governor. "Does not the truce extend over the channel, think you?"

"Ah, these are not English enemies, noble sir," replied the master. "We have fallen on the fleet of the infamous Thomas of Chartres."

"A cruel and bloodthirsty pirate—the terror of these seas for the last sixteen years. Wo is me!—we have neither force enough to fight, nor wind to bear us away!"

"Two large vessels," said the Governor, stepping up to the side, "full of armed men, too; but we muster fifty, besides the sailors; and, if they attempt boarding us, it must be by boat. Is it not so, master? The calm which fixes us here, must prevent them from laying alongside and overmastering us."

"Were there ten fleets," exclaimed Clelland, impatiently, "I have met with as great odds ashore—and here comes Crawford."

The door in the poop was again thrown open, and from forty to fifty warriors, in complete armour, headed by a tall and powerful-looking man, came crowding out, and then thronged around the masts, to disengage their spears. They were all robust and hardy-looking men—the flower apparently of a country side; and the coolness and promptitude with which they ranged themselves round their leader, to wait his commands, shewed that it was not now for the first time they had been called on to prepare for battle. They were, in truth, tried veterans of the long and bloody struggle which their country had maintained with Edward—men who, ere they had united under a leader worthy to command them, had resisted the enemy individually, and[6] preserved, amid their woods and fastnesses, at least their personal independence. Such a party of such men, however great the odds opposed to them, could not, in any circumstances, be deemed other than formidable.

"We are not born for peace, countryman," said the Governor—"war follows us even here. Meanwhile, lie down, that the enemy mark not our numbers. That foremost vessel is lowering her boat, and yonder tall man in scarlet, who takes his seat in the bows, seems to be a leader."

"It is Thomas of Chartres, himself," said the master. "I know him well. Some five-and-twenty years ago, we sailed together from Palestine."

"He was no false pirate then," replied the master, "but a true Christian knight; and bravely did he fight for the sepulchre. But, on his return to France, where he had been pledged to meet with his lady-love, he fell under the displeasure of the King, his master; and, ever since, he has been a wanderer and a pirate. You will see, as he approaches, the scallop in his basnet; and be sure he will be the first man to board us."

"Excellent," exclaimed the Governor, gaily; "we shall hold him hostage for the good behaviour of his fleet. Mark me, cousin Crawford. His barge shoves off, and the men bend to their oars. He will be here in a twinkling. Do you stand by our good Ancient—would there were but wind enough to unfurl it!—and the instant he bids us strike, why, lower it to the deck; but be as sure you hoist it again when you see him fairly aboard. And you, dear Clelland, do you take your stand here on the deck beside me, and see to it, when I am dealing with the pirate, that you keep your long spear between us and his crew. It will be strange if he boast of his victory this bout."

The men, at the command of their leader, had prostrated[7] themselves on the deck, while his two brethren in arms, Crawford and Clelland, stationed themselves at his bidding—the one on the vessel's poop, directly under the pennon, the other at his side in the midships. The pirate's barge, glittering to the sun with arms and armour, and crowded with men, rowed lustily towards them; but, while yet a full hundred yards away, a sudden breeze from the west began to murmur through the shrouds, and the bellying sails swelled slowly over the side.

"Heaven's mercy be praised!" exclaimed the master, "we shall escape them yet. Lay her easy to the wind, good Crawford—lay her easy to the wind, and we shall bear out through them all."

"Nay, cousin, nay," said the Governor, his eyes flashing with eagerness, "the pirate must not escape us so. Lay the vessel to. Turn her head full to the wind. And you, captain, draw off your men to the hold. We must not lose our good sailors; and these woollens of yours will scarcely turn a French arrow. Nay, 'tis I who am master now"—for the old man seemed disposed to linger. "I may resign my charge, perhaps, by and by; but you must obey me now."

The master and his sailors left the deck. The barge of the pirate came sweeping onward till within two spears' length of the vessel, and then hailed her with no courtly summons of surrender. "Strike, dogs, strike! or you shall fare the worse!" It was the pirate himself who spoke, and Crawford, at his bidding, pulled down the Ancient. The barge dashed alongside. Thomas of Chartres, a very tall and very powerful man, seized hold of the bulwark rail with one hand, and bearing a naked sword in the other, leaped fearlessly aboard, within half a yard of where the Governor stood, half-concealed by the shrouds and the bulwarks. In a moment the sword was struck down, and the intruder locked in the tremendous grasp of the first[8] champion of his time. Crawford hoisted the Ancient, yard-high, to the new-risen breeze; while Clelland struck his long spear against the pirate who had leaped on the gunwale to follow his leader, with such hearty good-will that the steel passed through targe and corselet, and he fell back a dead man into the boat. In an instant the concealed party had sprung from the deck, and fifty Scottish spears bristled over the gunwale, interposing their impenetrable hedge between the pirate crew and their leader. For a moment, the latter had striven to move his antagonist; but, powerful and sinewy as he was, he might as well have attempted to uproot an oak of an hundred summers. While yet every muscle was strained in the exertion, the Governor swung him from off his feet, suspended him at arm's length for full half a moment in the air, and then dashed him violently against the deck. A stream of blood gushed from mouth and nostril, and he lay stunned and senseless where he fell. Meanwhile, the crew of the barge, taken by surprise, and outnumbered, shoved off a boat's length beyond reach of the spears, and then rested on their oars.

"He revives," said the warrior in the monk's frock, going up to the fallen pirate. "Reiver though he be, he has fought for the holy sepulchre, and has worn golden spurs."

"I will deal with him right knightly," said the Governor. "Yield thee, Sir Thomas of Chartres," he continued, bending over the prisoner, and holding up a dagger to his face—"yield thee true hostage for the good conduct of thy fleet—or shall I call the confessor?"

"I yield me true hostage," said the fallen man. "But who art thou, terrible warrior, that o'ermasterest De Longoville of France as if he were a stripling of twelve summers? Art Wallace, the Scottish Champion!"

"Thou yieldest, De Longoville," said the Governor, "to[9] Sir William Wallace of Elderslie. But how is it that I meet, in the infamous Thomas of Chartres, that true soldier of the Cross, De Longoville? I have heard minstrels sing of thy deeds against the Saracen, Sir Knight, while I was yet a boy; and yet here art thou now, the dread of the wandering sailor and the merchant—a chief among thieves and pirates."

"Alas! noble Wallace, thou sayest too truly," said Sir Thomas; "but yet wouldst thou deem me as worthy of pity as of censure, didst thou but know all, and the remorse I even now endure. For a full year have I determined to quit this wild, unknightly mode of life, and go a pilgrim as of old; not to fight for the sepulchre—for the battles of the Cross are over—not to fight, but to die for it. But I accept, noble champion, this my first defeat on sea, as a message from heaven. Accept of me as true soldier under thee, and I will fight for thee in thy country's quarrel, to the death."

"Most willingly, brave De Longoville," said the Governor, as he raised him from the deck; "Scotland needs sorely the use of such swords as thine."

"And deem not her cause less holy," said the monk—for monk he was, the well-known Chaplain Blair—"deem not her cause less holy than that of the sepulchre itself; nor think that thou shalt eradicate the stain of past dishonour less surely in her battles. The cause of justice, De Longoville, is the cause of God, contend for it where we may."

Wallace returned to De Longoville the sword of which he had so lately disarmed him; and the pirate admiral, on learning that the champion was bound for Rochelle, issued orders to his fleet, which, now that the mist rose, was found to consist of six large vessels, to follow close in their wake. The breeze blew steadily from the north-west, and the ships went careering along, each in her own[10] long furrow of white, towards the port of their destination; the pirate vessels keeping aloof full two bowshots from the Scotsman—for so De Longoville had ordered, to prevent suspicion of treachery. He had set aside his armour, and now appeared to his new associates as a man of noble and knightly bearing, tall and stalwart as any warrior aboard, save the Governor; and, though his hair was blanched around his temples, and indicated the approach of age, the light step and quick sparkling eye gave evidence that his vigour of frame still remained undiminished. He sat apart, with the Governor and his two kinsmen, Clelland and Crawford, in the cabin under the poop. It was a rude, unornamented apartment, as might be expected, from the general appearance of the vessel; but the profusion of arms and pieces of armour which hung from the sides, glittering to the light that found entrance through a casement in the deck, bestowed on the place an air of higher pretension. A table with food and wine was placed before the warriors.

"It is now twenty-six years, or thereby," said De Longoville, "since I quitted Palestine for France, with the good Louis. I had fought by his side on the disastrous field of Massouna, and did all that a man of mould might to rescue him from the Saracens, when he fell into their hands, exhausted by his wounds and his sore sickness. But that day was written a day of defeat and disaster to the soldiers of the Cross. Nor need I say how I took my stand, with the best of my countrymen, on the walls of Damietta, and maintained them for the good cause, despite of the assembled forces of the Moslem, until we had bought back our king from captivity, by yielding up the city we defended for his ransom. It is enough for a disgraced man and a captive to say that my services were not overlooked by those whose notice was most an honour; and that, ere I embarked for France, I received the badge of knighthood from the[11] hand of the good Louis himself.

"You all know of how different a character Charles of Anjou was from his brother the king. I had returned from the crusade rich, only in honour, and found the lady of my affections under close thrall by her parents, who had resolved that she should marry Loithaire, Lord of Languedoc. I knew that her heart was all my own; but I knew, besides, that I must become wealthy ere I could hope to compete for her with a rival such as Loithaire; and the good Pope Nicholas having made over the crown of the Two Sicilies to Charles of Anjou, in an evil hour I entered the army with which Charles was to wrest it from the bastard Manfred—having certain assurance, from the tyrant himself, that, if he succeeded, I should become one of the nobles of Sicily. We encountered Manfred at Beneventura, and the bastard was defeated and slain. But I must blush, as a knight, for the honour of knighthood—as a Frenchman, for the fair fame of my country—when I think of the cruelties which followed. Not the worst tyrants of old Rome could have surpassed Charles of Anjou in his butcheries. The blood plashed under the hoofs of his charger as he passed through the cities of his future kingdom; and, when he had borne down all opposition, 'twould seem as if, in his eagerness to destroy all who might resist, he had also determined to extirpate all who could obey. But his policy proved as unsound as 'twas cruel and unjust, as the terrible Eve of the Vespers has since shown. The Princes of Germany, headed by the chivalrous Conradine of Swabia, united against us in the cause of the people. But the arms of France were again triumphant; the confederacy was broken, and the gallant Conradine fell into the hands of Charles. It was I, warriors of Scotland! to whom he surrendered; and I had granted him, as became a knight, an assurance of knightly protection. But would that my arms had been hewn off at the shoulders when I first beat down his sword, and intercepted[12] his retreat! The infamous Charles treated my knightly assurance with scorn; and—can you credit such baseness, noble Wallace!—he ordered Conradine of Swabia—a true knight, and an independent prince—for instant execution, as if he were a common malefactor. My blood boils, even now, when I recall that terrible scene of injustice and cruelty. The soldiers of France crowded round the scaffold; and I was among them, burning with shame and rage. Ere Conradine bent him to the executioner, he took off his glove, and throwing it amongst us, adjured us, if we were not all as dead to honour as our leader, to bear it to some of his kinsmen, who would receive it as a pledge of investiture in his rights, and as beqeathing the obligation to revenge his death. Will you blame me, noble Wallace! that, Frenchman as I was, I seized the glove of Conradine, and fled the army of Charles; and that, ere I returned to France, I delivered it up to Pedro of Arragon, the near kinsman of the last Prince of Swabia?

"My king and friend, the good Louis, had sailed from France for Palestine, on his last hapless voyage, ere I had executed my mission. On my return to France, however, I found a galley of Toulon on the eve of quitting port, to join with his fleet, then on the coast of Africa, and, snatching a hurried interview with the lady of my affections, maugre the vigilance of her relatives, I embarked to fight under Louis, as of old, for the blessed sepulchre. We landed near Tunis, and saw the tents of France glittering to the sun. But all was silent as midnight, and the royal standard hung reversed over the pavilion of the good Louis. He had died that morning of the plague; and his base and cruel brother, the false Charles of Anjou, sat beside the corpse. I felt that I had fallen among my enemies; for though the young King was there, he was weak and inexperienced, and open to the influence of his uncle. The first knight I met, as I entered the camp, was Loithaire of Languedoc—now[13] the wily friend and counsellor of Charles. There were lying witnesses suborned against me, who accused me of the most incredible and unheard-of practices; and of these Loithaire was the chief. 'Twas in vain I demanded the combat, as a test of my innocence. The combat was denied me; my sword was broken before the assembled chivalry of France; my shield reversed; and sentence was passed that I should be burnt at a stake, and my ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven. But it was not written that I should perish so. Scarce an hour before the opening of the day appointed for my execution, I broke from prison, assisted by a brother soldier, whose life I had saved in Palestine, and escaped to France.

"I was a broken and ruined man. But how wondrous the force of true affection! My Agnes knew this; and yet, knowing all, she contrived to elude her guardians, and fled with me to the sea-shore, where we embarked, in a ship of Normandy, for the south of Ireland. From that hour De Longoville has fought under no banner but his own. I renounced, in my anger, my allegiance to my country-nay, declared war with the sovereign who had so injured me. The years passed, and desperate and dishonoured men like myself came flocking to me as their leader, till not Philip himself, or my old enemy Charles, had more kingly authority on land than De Longoville on the sea. But let no man again deceive himself as I have done. I had reasoned on the lax morality and doubtful honour of kings, and asked myself why I might not, as the admiral and prince of my fleet, achieve a less guilty, though not less splendid glory than the bastard William of Normandy, or Edward of England, or my old enemy Charles of Anjou. But I have long since been taught that what were high achievements and honourable conquest in the admiral of a hundred vessels, is but sheer piracy in the captain of six. I can trust, however, that the last days of De Longoville may yet be deemed[14] equal to the first; and that the middle term of his life may be forgiven him for its beginning and its close. Not a month since, I carried my wife and daughter to France, and took final leave of them, with the purpose of setting out on my pilgrimage to Palestine. That intention, noble Wallace! is now altered; and I must again seek them out, that they may accompany me to Scotland."

"The foul stain of treason, brave Longoville, must be removed," said the Governor. "Charles of Anjou has long since gone to his account: does the Lord of Languedoc still survive!"

"Then must he either retract the vile calumny, or grant you the combat. The young Philip has pledged his knightly word, when he solicited the visit I am now voyaging to pay him, that he would grant me the first boon I craved in person, should it involve the alienation of his fairest province. That boon, brave De Longoville, will, at least, present you with the means of regaining your fair fame."

De Longoville knelt on the cabin floor, and kissed the hand of the Governor. The conversation glided imperceptibly to other and lighter matters; time passed gaily in the recital of stories of chivalrous endurance or exploit; and the gale, which still blew steadily from the north-west, promised a speedy accomplishment of their voyage. For four days they sailed without shifting back or lowering sail; and, on the morning of the fifth, cast anchor in the harbour of Rochelle.

On the evening of the second day after their arrival, a single knight was pricking his steed through one of the glades of the immense forest which, at this period, covered the greater part of the province of Poitiers. He had been passing, ever since morning, through what seemed an interminable wilderness of wood—here clustered into almost[15] impenetrable thickets shagged with an undergrowth of thorn, there opening into long bosky glades and avenues that seemed, however, only to lead into recesses still more solitary and remote than those that darkened around him. During the early part of the day, the sun had looked down gaily among the trees, checkering the sward below with a carpeting of alternate light and shadow; and the knight, a lover of falconry and the chase, had rode jocundly on through the peopled solitude; ever and anon grasping his spear, with the eager spirit of the huntsman, as the fawn started up beside his courser, and shot like a meteor across the avenue, or the wild boar or wolf rustled in the neighbouring brake. Towards evening, however, the eternal sameness of the landscape had begun to fatigue him; the sun, too, had disappeared, long before his setting, in a veil of impenetrable vapour, mottled with grey, ponderous clouds, betokening an approaching storm; and the horseman pressed eagerly onward, in the hope of reaching, ere its bursting, the hostelry in which he had purposed to pass the evening. He had either, however, mistaken his way or miscalculated his distance; for after passing dell and dingle, glade and thicket, in monotonous succession, for hours on hours, the forest still seemed as dense and unending, and the hostelry as distant as ever. A brown and sleepy horror seemed to settle over the trees as the evening darkened; the thunder began to bellow in long peals, far to the south, and a few heavy drops to patter from time to time on the leaves, giving indication of the approaching deluge. The knight had just resigned himself to encounter all the horrors of the storm, when, on descending into a little bosky hollow, through which there passed a minute streamlet, he found himself in front of a deserted hermitage. It was a cell, opening, like an Egyptian tomb, in the face of a low precipice. A rude stone-cross, tapestried with ivy, rose immediately over the[16] narrow door-way.

"The saints be praised!" exclaimed the knight, leaping lightly from his horse. "I shall e'en avail myself of the good shelter they have provided. But thou, poor Biscay," he continued, patting his steed, "wouldst that thou wert with thy master, mine host of the Three Fleurs de Lis!—there is scant stabling for thee here. This way, however, good Biscay—this way. Thou must bide the storm as thou best may'st in yonder hollow of the rock." And, leading the animal to the hollow, he fastened him to the stem of a huge ivy, and then entered the hermitage.

It consisted of one small rude apartment, hewn, apparently with immense labour, in the living rock. A seat and bed of stone occupied the opposite sides; and in the extreme end, fronting the door, there was a rude image of the Virgin, with a small altar of mouldering stone, placed before it. The evening was oppressively sultry, and, taking his seat on the bedside, the knight unlaced and set aside his helmet, exhibiting to the fast-dying light, the brown curling hair and handsome features of our old acquaintance Clelland—for it was no other than he. The thunder began to roll in louder and longer peals, and the lightning to illumine, at brief intervals, every glade and dingle without, and every minute object within; when a loud scream of dismay and terror, blent with the infuriated howl of some wild animal, rose from the upper part of the dell, and Clelland had but snatched up his spear and leaped out into the storm, when a young female, closely pursued by an enormous wolf, came rushing down the declivity, in the direction of the hermitage; but, in crossing the little stream, overcome apparently by fatigue and terror, she stumbled and fell. To interpose his person between the poor girl and her ravenous pursuer was with Clelland the work of one moment; to make such prompt and efficient use of his spear that the steel head passed through and through the[17] monster, and then buried itself in the earth beneath, was his employment in the next. The black blood came spouting out along the shaft, crimsoning both his hands to the wrists; and the transfixed savage, writhing itself round on the wood in its mortal agony, and gnashing its immense fangs, just uttered one tremendous howl that could be heard even above the pealing of the thunder, and then belched out his life at his feet. He raised the fallen girl, who seemed for a moment to have sunk into a state of partial swoon, and, disengaging his good weapon from the bleeding carcass, he supported her to the hermitage in the rock.

She was attired in the garb of a common peasant of the age and country; but there was even yet light enough to shew that her beauty was of a more dignified expression than is almost ever to be found in a cottage—exquisite in colour and form as that which we meet with in the latter, may often be. There was a subdued elegance, too, in her few brief, but earnest expressions of gratitude to her deliverer, that consorted equally ill with her attire. On entering the hermitage, she knelt before the altar, and prayed in silence; while Clelland took his seat on the stone couch where he had before placed his helmet, leaving to his new companion the settle on the opposite side. Meanwhile the storm without had increased tenfold. The thunder rolled overhead, peal after peal, without break or pause; so that the outbursting of every fresh clap was mingled with the echoes in which the wide-spread forest had replied to the last. At times, the opposite acclivity, with all its thickets, seemed as if enveloped in an atmosphere of fire—at times one immense seam of forked lightning came ploughing the pitchy gloom of the heavens, from the centre to the horizon. The wild beasts of the forest were abroad. Clelland could hear their fierce howlings mingled with the terrific bellowings of the heavens. The[18] dead sultry calm was suddenly broken. A hurricane went raging through the woods. There was a creaking, crackling, rushing sound among the trees, as they strained and quivered to the blast; and a roaring, like that of some huge cataract, showed that a waterspout had burst in the upper part of the dell, and that the little stream was coming down in thunder—a wide and impetuous torrent. Clelland's fair companion still remained kneeling before the altar. 'Twould seem as her prayer of thanks for her great deliverance had changed into an earnest and oft-reiterated petition for still further protection.

In a pause of the storm, the frightful howlings of a flock of wolves were heard rising from over the hermitage, as if hundreds had assembled on its roof of rock. Clelland sprung from his seat, and, grasping his spear, stood in the doorway.

"We shall have to bide siege," he said to his companion. "I knew not that these fierce creatures mustered so thickly here."

"Heaven be our protection!" said the maiden. "They fill every recess of the forest. I had left my mother's this evening for but an instant—'twas in quest of a tame fawn—when the monster from whose murderous fangs you delivered me, started up between me and my home; and I had to fly from instant destruction into the thick of the forest."

"And so your place of residence is quite at hand?" said Clelland. "In the course of a long day's journey, I have not met with a single human habitation."

"The hermitage," replied the maiden, "is but a short half-mile from my mother's—would that we were but safe there!"

As she spoke, the howling of the wolves burst out again, in frightful chorus, from above, and at least a score of the ravenous animals came leaping down over the rock, brushing[19] in their descent the ivy and the underwood. Clelland couched his spear, so that nothing could enter by the narrow doorway without encountering its sharp point. But the wolves came not to the attack; and their yells and howlings from the hollow of the rock, blent with the terrified snortings and pawings of poor Biscay, shewed that they were bent on an easier conquest, and bulkier, though less noble prey. The animal, in his first struggle, broke loose from his fastenings, and went galloping madly past; and an intensely bright flash of lightning, that illumined the whole scene of terror without, shewed him in the act of straining up the opposite bank, with a huge wolf fastened to his lacerated back, and closely pursued by full twenty more.

It was, in truth, a night of dread and terror. Towards morning, however, the storm gradually sunk into a calm as dead as that which had preceded it, and a clear, starry sky looked down on the again silent forest. The maiden, now that there was less of danger, was rendered thoroughly unhappy by thoughts of her mother. She had left her, she said, but for an instant—left her solitary in her dwelling; and how must she have passed so terrible a night! Clelland strove to quiet her fears. There was a little cloud in the east, he said, already reddening on its lower edge; in an hour longer, it would be broad day, and he could then conduct her to her mother's.

"You have not always worn such a dress as that which you now wear," he continued; "nor have you spent all your days on the edge of the forest. Does your father still live?"

"I am a native of France," she at length said; "but I have passed most of my time in other countries. My father, in fulfilment of a vow, is now bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine."

"My name," she replied, "is Bertha de Longoville. Brave and courtly warrior, but for whose generous and knightly daring I would have found yester-evening a horrid tomb in the ravenous maw of the wolf, do not, I pray you, ask me more. A vow binds me to secrecy for the time."

"Nay, fear not, gentle maiden," said Clelland, "that what you but wish to keep secret, I shall once urge you to reveal. But hear me, lady, and then judge how far I am to be trusted. You are the only daughter of Sir Thomas de Longoville, once a true soldier of the blessed Cross, but, in his latter days, less fortunate in his quarrels. Your father is now in France, and in two weeks hence will be in Paris."

"Saints and angels!" exclaimed the maiden, "he has fallen into the hands of his enemies!"

"Not so, lady; he is among his best friends. The knightly word of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie, who never broke faith with friend or enemy, is pledged for his safe-keeping. With my kinsman, he is secure of at least safety—perhaps even of grace and pardon. But the day has broken, maiden; suffer me to conduct you to your mother's."

They left the hermitage together, and ascended the side of the dell. As they passed the hollow in the rock, a bright patch of blood caught the eye of Clelland.

"Ah, poor Biscay!" he exclaimed; "there is all that now remains of him; and how to procure another steed in this wild district, I know not. My kinsman will be at Paris long ere his herald gets there. Well, there have been greater mishaps. Yonder is the carcass of the wolf I slew yester-evening, half eaten by his savage companions."

The morning, we have said, was calm and still; but the storm of the preceding night had left behind it no doubtful vestiges of its fury. The stream had fallen to its old[21] level, and went tinkling along its channel, with a murmur that only served to shew how complete was the silence; but the banks were torn and hollowed by the recent torrent, and tangled wreaths of brushwood and foliage lay high on the sides of the dell. The broken and ragged appearance of the forest gave evidence of the force of the hurricane. The fallen trees lay thick on the sides of the more exposed acclivities—some reclining like spears, half bent to the charge, athwart the spreading boughs of such of their neighbours as the storm had spared; others lay as if levelled by the woodman, save that their long flexile roots had thrown up vast fragments of turf, resembling the broken ruins of cottages. And, in an opening of the wood, a gigantic oak, the slow growth of centuries, lay scattered over the soil, in raw and splintery fragments, that gave strange evidence of the irresistible force of the agent employed in its destruction. The trees opened as they advanced, and they emerged from the forest as the first beams of the sun had begun to glitter on the topmost boughs. A low, moory plain, walled in by a range of distant hills, and mottled with a few patches of corn, and a few miserable cottages, lay before them. A grey detached tower, somewhat resembling that of an English village church, rose on the forest edge, scarce a hundred yards away.

"Yonder tower, Sir Knight," said the maiden, "is the dwelling of my mother. Alas! what must she not have endured during the protracted horrors of the night!"

"There is, at least, joy waiting her now," said Clelland; "and all will soon be well."

They approached the tower. It was a small and very picturesque erection, of three low stories in height, with projecting turrets at the front corners, connected by a hanging bartizan, over which there rose a sharp serrated gable, to the height of about two stories more. A row of circular shot-holes, and a low, narrow door-way, were the only[22] openings in the lower storey—the few windows in the upper, long and narrow, and scarce equal in size to a Norman shield, were thickly barred with iron. The building had altogether a dilapidated and deserted appearance; for the turrets were broken-edged and mouldering, and some of the large square flags had slidden from off the stone roof, and lay in the moat, which, from a reservoir, had degenerated into a quagmire, mantled over with aquatic plants, and with, here and there, a bush of willow springing out from the sides. A single plank afforded a rather doubtful passage across; and the iron-studded door of the fortalice lay wide open. Clelland hung back as the maiden entered.

"My daughter! my Bertha!" exclaimed a female voice from within; "and do you yet live! and are you again restored to me!"

"That I still live," said Bertha, "I owe it to this brave and courtly knight. But for his generous daring, your daughter would have found strange burial in the ravenous maw of a wolf."

"The saints be your blessing and reward!" she exclaimed; "for I cannot repay you. God himself be your reward!—for earth bears no price adequate to the benefit. You have restored to the lonely and the broken in spirit her only stay and comfort."

"Nay, madam," said Clelland, "I would have done as much for the meanest serf; for Bertha de Longoville I could have laid down my life."

The mother again grasped his hand. She was a tall and a still beautiful woman, though considerably turned of forty, and though she yet bore impressed on her countenance no[23] unequivocal traces of the distress of the night. She told them of her sufferings; and was made acquainted in turn with the frightful adventure in the hermitage, and, more startling still, with the resolution of her husband to confront his calumniators at the court of France.

"We must set out instantly on our journey to Paris, Bertha," said the matron; "your father, in his imminent peril, must not lack some one, at least to comfort, if not to assist him."

"Nay," said Clelland, "ere your setting out, you must first take rest enough, to recover the fatigues and watching of the night. And, besides, how could two unprotected females travel through such a country as this? Hear me, lady: I was hastening to Paris in advance of my party; but now that I have missed my way and lost my good steed, they will be all there before me. It matters but little. My kinsman can well afford wanting a herald. I shall cast myself on your hospitality for the day; and, to-morrow, should you feel yourself fully recovered, you shall set out for Paris, under such convoy as I can afford you."

Both ladies expressed their warmest gratitude for the kind and generous offer; and there was that in the thanks of the younger which Clelland would have deemed price sufficient for a service much less redolent of pleasure than that he had just tendered. She was in truth one of the loveliest women he had ever seen; tall and graceful, and with a countenance exquisite in form and colour. But, with all of the bodily and the material that constitutes beauty, it was mainly to expression, that index of the soul, that she owed her power. There was a steady light in the dark hazel eye, joined to an air of quiet, unobtrusive self-possession, which seemed to sit on the polished and finely formed forehead, that gave evidence of a strong and equable[24] mind; while the sweet smile that seemed to lurk about the mouth, and the air of softness spread over the lower part of the face, shewed that there mingled with the stronger traits of her character the feminine gentleness and sweetness of disposition, so fascinating in the sex. A little girl from one of the distant cottages entered the building with a milking pail in her hands.

"Ah, my good Annette," said the matron, "you left me by much too soon yester-evening; but it matters not now. You must busy yourself in getting breakfast for us—meanwhile, good Sir Knight, this way. The tower is a wild ruin, but all its apartments are not equally ruinous."

They ascended, by a stair hollowed in the thickness of the wall, to an upper story. There was but one apartment on each floor; so that the entire building consisted but of four, and the two closet-like recesses in the turrets. The apartment they now entered was lined with dark oak; a massy table of the same material occupied the centre; and a row of ponderous stools, like those which Cowper describes in his "Task," ran along the wall. An immense chimney, supported by two rude pillars of stone, and piled with half-charred billets of wood, projected over the floor; the lintel, an oblong tablet about three feet in height, was roughened by uncouth heraldic sculptures of merwomen playing on harps, and two knights in complete armour fronting each other as in the tilt-yard. The windows were small and dark, and barred with iron; and through one of these that opened to the east, the morning sun, now risen half a spear's length over the forest, found entrance, in a square slanting rule of yellow light, which fell on the floor under a square recess in the opposite wall. The little girl entered immediately after the ladies and Clelland, bearing fire and fuel; a cheerful blaze soon roared in the chimney; and, as the morning felt keen and chill after the recent storm, they seated themselves before it. An hour passed[25] in courtly and animated dialogue, and then breakfast was served up.

The younger lady would fain have prolonged the conversation—for it had turned on the struggles of the Scots, and the wonderful exploits of Wallace—had not her mother reminded her that they stood much in need of rest to strengthen them for their approaching journey. They both, therefore, retired to their sleeping apartments in the turrets; while the knight, providing himself with a bow and a few arrows, sallied out into the forest. The practice in woodcraft, which he had acquired under his kinsman, who, in his reverses, could levy on only the woods and moors, stood him in so good stead, that, when dinner-time came round, a noble haunch of venison and two plump pheasants smoked on the board. But Bertha alone made her appearance. Her mother, she said, still felt fatigued, and slightly indisposed; but she trusted to be able to join them in the course of the evening.

There was nothing Clelland had so anxiously wished for, when spending the earlier part of the day in the wood, as some such opportunity of passing a few hours with Bertha. And yet, now that the opportunity had occurred, he scarce knew how to employ it. The radiant smile of the maiden—her light, elegant form, and lovely features—had haunted him all the morning; and he wisely enough thought there could be but little harm in frankly telling her so. But, now that the fair occasion had offered, he found that all his usual frankness had left him, and that he could scarce say anything, even on matters more indifferent. And, what seemed not a little strange, too, the maiden was scarcely more at her ease than himself, and could find not a great deal more to say. Dinner passed almost in silence; and Bertha, rising to the square recess in the wall, drew from it a flagon filled with wine, which she placed before her guest and a vellum volume, bound in velvet and gold.[26]

"This," she said, "is a wonderful romaunt, written by a countryman of yours, of whom I have heard the strangest stories. Can you tell me aught regarding him?"

"Ah!" said the knight, taking up the volume, "the book of Tristram. I am not too young, lady, to have seen the writer—the good Thomas of Erceldoune."

"Seen Thomas of Erceldoune! Thomas the Rhymer!" exclaimed the lady. "And is it sooth that his prophecies never fail, and that he now lives in Elf-land?"

"Nay, lady, the good Thomas sleeps in Lauderdale, with his fathers. But we trust much to his prophecies. They have given us heart and hope amid our darkest reverses. He predicted the years of oppression and suffering which, through the death of our good Alexander, have wasted our country; but he prophesied, also, our deliverance through my kinsman, Sir William of Elderslie. We have already seen much of the evil he foresaw, and much, also, of the good. Scotland, though still threatened by the power of Edward, is at this moment free."

"I have long wished," said Bertha, "to see those warriors of Scotland whose fame is filling all Europe. And now that wish is gratified—nay, more than gratified."

"You see but one of her minor warriors," said Clelland; "but at Paris you shall meet with the Governor himself. Your father, Bertha, should he succeed in clearing his fair fame—and I know he will—sets out with us for Scotland. Will not you and the lady your mother also accompany us?"

"I had deemed my father bound on a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre," said Bertha.

"But he has since thought," said Clelland, "how much better it were to live gloriously fighting in a just quarrel beside the first warrior of the world, than to perish obscurely in some loathsome pesthouse of the Far East. I myself heard him tender his services to my kinsman."[27]

"Then be sure," said Bertha, "my mother and I will not be separated from him. Might one find in Scotland, Sir Knight, some such quiet tower as this, where two defenceless women may bide the issue of the contest?"

"Why defenceless, lady? There are many gallant swords in Scotland that would needs be beaten down ere you could come to harm. And why not now accept of Clelland's? Scotland has greater warriors and better swords; but, trust me, lady, she cannot boast of a truer heart. Accept of me, lady, as your bounden knight."

A rich flush of crimson suffused the face and neck of the maiden, as she held out her hand to Clelland, who raised it respectfully to his lips.

"I accept of thee, noble warrior," she said, "as true and faithful knight, seeing that thy own generous tender of service doth but second what Heaven had purposed, when, in my imminent peril in the wood, it sent thee to my rescue. Trust me, warrior, never yet had lady knight whom she respected more."

"I have a sister, lady," he said, "whose years do not outnumber your own. She lives lonely, since the death of my mother, in the home of my fathers—a tower roomier and stronger than this, and on the edge of a forest nearly as widely spread. You will be her companion, lady, and her friend; and your mother will be mistress of the mansion. On the morrow, we set out for Paris."

The style in which the party travelled was sufficiently humble. Four small and very shaggy palfreys were provided from the neighbouring cottages: the ladies and Clelland were mounted on three of these; and the fourth, led by a hind, carried the luggage of the party. Before setting out, the lady had entrusted to the charge of the knight, a small, but very ponderous casket of ebony.

"It needs, in these unsettled times," she said, "some[28] such person to care for it; and Bertha and I would fare all the worse for wanting it."

The journey was long and tedious, and the daily stages of the party necessarily short. Their route lay through a wild, half-cultivated country, which seemed to owe much to the hand of nature, but little to that of man. There was an ever-recurring succession, day after day, of dreary, wide-spreading forests, with comparatively narrow spaces between, which, from the imperfect and doubtful traces of industry which they exhibited, seemed as if but lately reclaimed from a state of nature. Groups of miserable serfs, bound to the soil even more rigidly than their fellow-slaves the cattle, were plying their unskilful and unproductive labours in the fields. They passed scattered assemblages of dingy hovels, with here and there a grim feudal tower rising in the midst—giving evidence, by the strength of its defences, of the insecurity and turbulence of the time. The travellers they met with were but few. Occasionally a strolling troubadour or harper accompanied them part of the way, on his journey from one baronial castle to another. At times, they met with armed parties of travelling merchants, bound for some distant fair; at times with disbanded artisans, wandering about in quest of employment; soldiers in search of a master; or pilgrims newly returned from Palestine, attired in cloaks of grey, and bearing the scallop in their caps. The hind, their attendant, bore in his scrip, from stage to stage, their provisions for the day; and their evenings were passed in some rude hostelry by the way-side. The third week had passed, ere, one evening on the edge of twilight, they alighted at the hostel of St Denis, and ascertained, from mine host, that they were now within half a stage of Paris.

The hostel was crowded with travellers; and the ladies and Clelland, for the early part of the evening, were fain to take their places in the common room beside the fire. A[29] young and handsome troubadour, whose jemmy jerkin, and cap of green, edged with silver, shewed that he was either one of the more wealthy of his class, or under the patronage of some rich nobleman, and who had courteously risen to yield place to Bertha, had succeeded in reseating himself beside the knight.

"The hostel swarms with company," said Clelland, addressing him—"pray, good minstrel, canst tell me the occasion? Is there a fair holds to-morrow?"

"Ah, Sir Knight," said the minstrel, "I should rather ask of thee, seeing thy tongue shews thee to be a Scot. Dost not know that thy countryman, the brave Wallace of Elderslie, is at court, and that all who can, in any wise, leave their homes for a season, are leaving them, to see him? It is not once in a lifetime that such a knight may be looked at. And, besides, have you not heard that the combat comes on to-morrow?"

"I have heard of nothing," said Clelland; "my route has lain, of late, through the remoter parts of the country. What combat?"

"Sir Thomas de Longoville, so long a true soldier of the cross—so long, too, a wandering pirate—has defied to mortal combat, Loithaire of Languedoc; and our fair Philip, through the intercession of Wallace, has granted him the lists."

Both the ladies started at the intelligence; and the elder, wrapping up her face in her mantle, bent her head well nigh to her knee.

"And how, good minstrel," said Bertha, in a voice tremulous from anxiety, "how is it thought the combat will go?"

"That rests with Heaven, fair lady," said the minstrel. "Loithaire is known far and wide, as a striker in the lists; but who has not also heard of De Longoville, and his wars with the fierce Saracen? Many seem to think, too, that he has been foully injured by Loithaire. That soul of[30] knightly honour, the good Lord Jonville, has already renewed his friendship with him, as his friend and comrade in the battles of Palestine, and will attend him to-morrow in the lists."

"At the turn of noon," replied the minstrel, "when the shadow first veers to the east. I go to Paris, to find new theme for a ballad, and to see the good Wallace, who is himself the theme of so many."

The travellers were early on the road. With all their haste and anxiety, however, they saw the sun climbing towards the middle heavens, while the city was yet several miles distant. They spurred on their jaded palfreys, and entered the suburbs about noon. What was properly the city of Paris in this age, occupied one of the larger islands of the Seine, and was surrounded by a high wall, flanked at the angles by massy towers, and strengthened by rows of thickly-set buttresses; but, on either side the river, there were immense assemblages of the dirtiest and meanest hovels that the necessities of man had ever huddled together. The travellers, however, found but little time for remark in passing through. All Paris had poured out her inhabitants, to witness the combat, and they now crowded an upper island of the Seine, which the chivalry of the age had appropriated as a scene of games, tournaments, and duels. Clelland and the ladies had but reached the opposite bank, when a flourish of trumpets told them that the combatants had taken their places in the lists, and were waiting the signal to engage.

"No further, ladies, no further," said the knight, "or we shall entangle ourselves in the outer skirts of the crowd, and see nothing. This way; let us ascend this eminence,[31] and the scene, though somewhat distant, will be all before us."

They ascended a smooth green knoll, the burial mound of some chieftain of the olden time, that overlooked the river. The island lay but a short furlong away. They could look over the heads of the congregated thousands into the open lists, and see the brilliant assemblage of the beauty and gallantry of France, which the fame of De Longoville and his opponent, and the singular nature of their quarrel, had drawn together. The sun glanced gaily on arms and armour, on many a robe of rich embroidery and many a costly jewel, and high over the whole, the oriflame of France, so famous in story, waved its flames of crimson and gold to the breeze. Knights and squires traversed the area, in gay and glittering confusion; and at either end there sat a warrior on horseback, as still and motionless as if sculptured in bronze. The champion at the northern end was cased from head to foot in sable armour, and beside him, under the blue pennon of Scotland, there stood a group of knights, who, though tall and stately as any in the lists, seemed lessened almost to boys in the presence of a gigantic warrior in bright mail, who, like Saul among the people, raised his head and shoulders over the proud crests of the assembled chivalry of France.

"Yonder, ladies—yonder is my kinsman," exclaimed Clelland; "yonder is Wallace of Elderslie; and the champion beside him is Sir Thomas de Longoville."

There was a second flourish of trumpets. Bertha flung herself on her knees on the sward, and raised her hands to her eyes. Her mother almost fainted outright.

"Nay," said Clelland, "that is but the signal to clear the lists; the knights hurry behind the palisades, and the champions are left alone. Fear not, dearest Bertha!—there is a God in heaven, and——Ah, there is the third flourish! The champions strike their spurs deep into their chargers;[32] and see how they rush forward, like thunder clouds before a hurricane! They close!—they close!—hark to the crash!—their steeds are thrown back on their haunches! Look up, Bertha! look up!—your father has won—he has won! Loithaire is flung from his saddle, the spear of De Longoville has passed through hauberk and corslet; I saw the steel head glitter red at the felon's back. Look up, ladies! look up!—De Longoville is safe; nay, more—restored to the honour and fair fame of his early manhood. Let us hasten and join him, that we may add our congratulations to those of his friends."

Why dwell longer on the story of Thomas de Longoville? No Scotsman acquainted with Blind Harry need be told how frequent and honourable the mention of his name occurs in the latter pages of that historian. Scotland became his adopted country, and well and chivalrously did he fight in her battles; till, at length, when well nigh worn out by the fatigues and hardships of a long and active life, the decisive victory at Bannockburn gave him to enjoy an old age of peace and leisure, in the society of his lady, on the lands of his son-in-law. Need we add it was the gallant Clelland who stood in this relation to him? The chosen knight of Bertha had become her favoured lover, and the favoured lover a fond and devoted husband. Of the Governor more anon. There was a time, at least, when Scotsmen did not soon weary of stories of the Wight Wallace.

THE FUGITIVE.

CHAPTER I.

When Prince Charles Edward, at the head of his hardy Highlanders, took up his head-quarters in Edinburgh, issuing proclamations and holding levees, amongst those who attended the latter was a young Englishman, named Henry Blackett, then a student at the university, and the son of a Sir John Blackett of Winburn Priory, in Cheshire. His mother had been a Miss Cameron, a native of Inverness-shire, and the daughter of a poor but proud military officer. From her he had imbibed principles or prejudices in favour of the house of Stuart; and when he had been introduced to the young adventurer at Holyrood, and witnessed the zeal of his army, his enthusiasm was kindled—there was a romance in the undertaking which pleased his love of enterprise, and he resolved to offer his sword to the Prince, and hazard his fortunes with him. The offer was at once graciously and gratefully accepted, and Henry Blackett was enrolled as an officer in the rebel army.

He followed the Prince through prosperity and adversity, and when Charles became a fugitive in the land of his fathers, Henry Blackett was one of the last to forsake him. He, too, was hunted from one hiding-place to another; like him whom he had served, he was a fugitive, and a price was set upon his head.

As has been stated, he imbibed his principles in favour of the house of Stuart from his mother; but she had been dead for several years. His father was a weak man—one of whom it may be said that he had no principles at all;[34] but being knighted by King George, on the occasion of his performing some civic duty, he became a violent defender of the house of Brunswick, and he vowed that, if the law did not, he would disinherit his son for having taken up arras in defence of Charles. But what chiefly strengthened him in this resolution, was not so much his devotion for the reigning family, as his attachment to one Miss Norton, the daughter of a Squire Norton of Norton Hall. She was a young lady of much beauty, and mistress of what are called accomplishments; but, in saying this much, I have recorded all her virtues. Her father's character might be summed up in one brief sentence—he was a deep, designing, needy villain. He was a gambler—a gentleman by birth—a knave in practice. He had long been on terms of familiarity with Sir John Blackett—he knew his weakness, and he knew his wealth, and he rejoiced in the attachment which he saw him manifesting for his daughter, in the hope that it would be the means of bringing his estates within his control. But the property of Sir John being entailed, it consequently would devolve on Henry as his only surviving son. He, therefore, was an obstacle to the accomplishment of the schemes on which Norton brooded; and when the latter found that he had joined the army of the young Chevalier, he was chiefly instrumental in having his name included in the list of those for whose apprehension rewards were offered; and he privately, and at his own expense, employed spies to go in quest of him. He also endeavoured to excite his father more bitterly against him. Nor did his designs rest here—but, as he beheld the fondness of the knight for his daughter increase, he, with the cunning of a demon, proposed to him to break the entail; and when the other inquired how it could be done, he replied—"Nothing is more simple; deny him to be your heir—pronounce him illegitimate. There is no living witness of your marriage with his mother. The only document to[35] prove it is some thumbed leaf in the register of an obscure parish church in the Highlands of Scotland; and we can secure it."

To this most unnatural proposal the weak and wicked old man consented; and I shall now describe the means employed by Norton to become possessed of the parish register referred to.

Squire Norton had a son who was in all respects worthy of such a father—he was the image of his mind and person. In short, he was one of the things who, in those days, resembled those who in our own call themselves men of the world, forsooth! and who, under that name, infest and corrupt society—making a boast of their worthlessness—poisoning innocence—triumphing in their work of ruin—and laughing, like spirits of desolation, over the daughter's misery and disgrace, the father's anguish, the wretched mother's tears, and the shame of a family, which they have accomplished. There are such creatures, who disgrace both the soul and the shape of man, who are mere shreds and patches of debauchery—sweepings from the shops of the tailor, the milliner, and the hair-dresser—who live upon the plunder obtained under false pretences from the industrious—who giggle, ogle, pat a snuff-box, or affect to nod in a church, to be thought sceptics or fine gentlemen. One of such was young Norton; and he was sent down to Scotland to destroy the only proof which Henry Blackett, in the event of his being pardoned, could bring forward in support of his legitimacy.

He arrived at a lonely village in Inverness-shire, near which the cottage formerly occupied by Major Cameron, the grandfather of Henry, was situated; and of whom he found that few of the inhabitants remembered more than that "there lived a man." Finding the only inn that was in the village much more cleanly and comfortable than he had anticipated, he resolved to make it his hotel during his residence, and inquired of the landlady if there were any one[36] in the village with whom a gentleman could spend an evening, and obtain information respecting the neighbourhood.

"Fu' shurely! fu' shurely, sir!" replied his Highland hostess—"there pe te auld tominie."

"Wha put te auld tominie?" returned she; "an' a tiscreet, goot shentleman he pe as in a' te toun."

"Oigh! oigh! te tominie," added she, "tat teaches te pits o' pairns, an' raises te psalm in te kirk."

He now comprehended her meaning; and from her coupling the dominie's name with the kirk, believed that he might be of use to him in the accomplishment of his object, and desired that he might be sent for.

"Oigh!" returned she, smiling, "an' he no pe lang, for he like te trappie unco weel."

Within five minutes, Dugald Mackay, precentor, teacher, and parish-clerk of Glencleugh, entered the parlour of Mrs Macnab. Never was a more striking contrast exhibited in castle or in cottage. Here stood young Norton, bedecked with all the foppery of an exquisite of his day; and there stood Dugald Mackay, his thick bushy grey hair falling on his shoulders, holding in his hand a hat not half the size of his head, which had neither been made nor bought for him, and which had become brown with service, and was now stitched in many places, to keep it together. Round it was wrapped a narrow stripe of crape browner than itself, and over all winded several yards of gut and hair-line, with hooks attached, betokening his angling propensities. Dugald was a thickset old man, with a face blooming like his native heather. His feet were thrust into immense brogues, as brown as his hat, and their formidable patches shewed that their wearer could use the lingle and elshun, although his[37] profession was to "teach the young idea how to shoot." He wore tartan hose—black breeches, fastened at the knees by silver gilt buckles, and much the worse for the wear, while, from the accumulation of ink and dust, they might have stood upright. His vest was huge and double-breasted, its colour not recognised by painters; and his shoulders were covered by a very small tartan coat, the tails of which hardly reached his waist. Such was Dugald Mackay; and the youth, plying him with the bottle, endeavoured to ascertain how far he could render him subservient to his purpose.

"Fond o' fishing?" returned the man of letters; "ou ay; ou ay!—hur hae mony time filt te creel o' te shentlemen frae Inverness, for te sixpence, and te shilling, and te pig crown, not to let tem gaun pack wi' te empty pasket. And hur will teach your honour, or tress your honour's hooks, should you be stopping to fish. Here pe goot sport to your honour," continued he, raising a bumper to his lips.

The other, glad to assign a plausible pretext for his visit, said that he had come a few days for the sake of fishing, and inquired how long his guest had been in the neighbourhood.

"Hur peen schulemaister and parish-clerk in Glencleugh for forty year," replied Dugald.

"Parish-clerk!" said Norton, eagerly, and checking himself, continued—"that is—in the church you mean, you raise the tunes?"

"Ou ay, hur nainsel' pe precenter too," answered Dugald; "put hur be schulemaister and parish-clerk into te pargain."

"And what are your duties as parish-clerk?" inquired the other, in a tone of indifference.

"Ou, it pe to keep te pooks wi' te marriages, te christenings, and te deaths. Here pe to your honour's very goot luck again," said he, swallowing another bumper.[38]

Thus the holder of the birch and parish chronicler began to help himself to one glass after another, until the candles began to dance reels and strathspeys before him. At length the angler, expressing a wish to see such a curiosity as the matrimonial and baptismal register of a hamlet so remote, out sallied Dugald, describing curved lines as he went, and shortly returned, bearing the eventful quartos under his arm. Norton looked through them, laughing, jesting, and professing to be amused, and his eye quickly fell upon the page which he sought. Dugald laughed, drank, and talked, until his rough head sank upon his breast, and certain nasal sounds gave notice that the schoolmaster was abroad. In a moment, Norton transferred the leaf which contained the certificate of Lady Blackett's marriage, from the volume to his pocket. His father had ordered him to destroy it; but the son, vicious as the father, determined to keep it, and to hold it over him as an instrument of terror to extort money. The dominie being roused to take one glass more by way of a night-cap, was led home, as usual, by Mrs Macnab's servant-of-all-work, who carried the volumes.

Shortly after this, the marriage between Sir John Blackett and Miss Norton took place; her father rejoiced in the success of his schemes, and Henry was disinherited and disowned.

CHAPTER II.

While the latter events which we have recorded in the last chapter were taking place, Henry Blackett, the rebel soldier, was a fugitive, flying from hiding-place to hiding-place, seeking concealment in the mountains and in the glens, in the forest and crowded city, assuming every disguise, and hunted from covert to covert. A reward was not offered for his apprehension, in particular by government,[39] but he was included amongst those whom loyal subjects were forbidden to conceal; and two emissaries, sent out by Norton, sought him continually, to deliver him up. Ignorant of his father's marriage, or of the villain's part he had acted towards him, though conscious of his anger at his having joined Prince Charles, he was wandering in Dumfries-shire, by the shores of the Solway, disguised as a sailor, and watching an opportunity to return home, when the hunters after his life suddenly sprang upon him, exclaiming—"Ha! Blackett, the traitor!—the five hundred pounds are ours!"

Armed only with the branch of a tree, which he carried partly for defence, and as a walking-stick, he repelled them with the desperate fierceness of a man whose life is at stake. One he disabled, and the other being unable to contend against him singly, permitted him to escape. He rushed at his utmost speed across the fields for many miles, avoiding the highways and public paths, until he sank panting and exhausted on the ground. He had not lain long in this situation when he was discovered by a wealthy farmer, who was known in the neighbourhood by the appellation of "canny Willie Galloway."

"Puir young chield," said Willie, casting on him a look of compassion, "ye seem sadly distressed. Do ye think I could be o' ony service to ye? From yer appearance, ye wadna be the waur o' a nicht's lodging, and I can only say that ye are heartily welcome to't."

Henry had been so long the object of pursuit and persecution, that he regarded every one with suspicion; and starting to his feet and grasping the branch firmer in his hand, he said—"Know you what you say?—or would you betray the wretched?"

"It is o' nae manner o' use gripping your stick," said Willie, calmly, "for I'm allooed to be a first-rate cudgel-player—the best atween Stranraer and Dumfries. But, as[40] to kennin' what I said, I was offerin' ye a nicht's lodgings; and as to betrayin' the wretched, I wadna see a hawk strike doon a sparrow, not a spider a midge, if I could prevent it."

"Be thankit," answered the other; "I dare to say I'm as honest as my neebors; and, as ye seem in distress, I will be very happy to serve ye, if I can do't in a creditable way."

Willie Galloway was a bachelor of five and forty, and his house was kept by an old woman, a distant relative, called Janet White. Henry accompanied him home, and communicated to him his story. Willie took a liking for him, and vowed that he would not only shelter him, while he had a roof over his head, but that he would defend him against every enemy, while he had a hand that he could lift; and, the better to ensure his concealment, he proposed that he should pass as his sister's son, and not even write to his father to intimate where he was, until the persecution against those who had "been out with poor Charlie," was past.

In the neighbourhood of Willie's farm, there resided an elderly gentleman, named Laird Howison. He was an eccentric but most kind-hearted man, of whom many believed and said that his imagination was stronger then his reason; and in so saying, it was probable that they were not far from the truth. But of that the reader will determine as he sees more of the laird. There resided with him a beautiful orphan girl, named Helen Marshall, the daughter of the late parish clergyman, and to whom he had been left guardian from her childhood. But, as she grew up in loveliness before him, she became as a dream of futurity that soothed and cheered his existence; and, although he was already on the wrong side of fifty, he resolved that, as soon as she was[41] twenty-one, he would offer her his hand and fortune. Janet White, the housekeeper and relative of Willie Galloway, had nursed Helen in infancy; and the lovely maiden was, therefore, a frequent visitor at his house. She there met Henry, and neither saw nor listened to him with indifference; and her beauty, sense, and gentleness, made a like impression upon him. Willie, though a bachelor, had penetration enough to perceive that when they met there was meaning in their eyes; and he began to rally Henry—saying, "Now, there would be a match for ye!—when the storm has blawn owre your head, just tak ye that bonny Scotch lassie hame to England wi' ye as yer wife, and ye will find her a treasure, such as ye may wander the world round and no find her marrow."

As their intimacy and affection increased, Henry communicated to Helen the secret of his birth and situation; and, like a true woman, she loved him the more for the dangers to which he was exposed. He had remained more than eight months with his friend and protector; and, imagining that the persecution against himself, and others who had acted in the same cause, was now abated in its fury, he forwarded a letter to his father, at Winburn Priory, announcing his intention of venturing home in a few days, and begging his forgiveness and protection, until his pardon could be procured. He, however, intimated to Willie Galloway, his desire to secure the hand of Helen before he left.

"Weel, if she be agreeable," said Willie "—and I hae every reason to believe she is—I wadna blame ye for taking that step ava; for her auld gowk o' a guardian, Laird Howison, (though a very worthy man in some respecks), vows that he is determined to marry her himsel, as soon as she is ane and twenty; and, as he is up aboot London at present, ye couldna hae a better opportunity. Therefore, only ye and Helen say the word, and I'll arrange the business for ye in less than nae time."[42]

The fair maiden consented; a clergyman had joined their hands, and pronounced the benediction over them—the ceremony was concluded, but it was only concluded, when the two ruffians, who have been already mentioned as hired by Norton to search for him and secure his apprehension, and who before had met him by the side of the Solway, followed by two soldiers, burst into the apartment, crying—"Secure the traitor! It is he!—Harry Blackett!"

"Ye lie! ye lie!" cried Willie—"it is my sister's son—meddle wi' him wha daur, and us twa will fecht you four, even in the presence o' the minister."

So saying, he seized hold of a chair, and raised it to repel them. Henry followed his example. The soldiers threateningly raised their fire-arms. Willie suddenly swang round the chair with his utmost strength, and dashed down their arms. Henry hastily kissed the brow of his fair bride, and, rushing through the midst of them, darted from the house, while Willie, as rapidly following him, closed the door behind him, and holding it fast, cried—"Run, Harry, my lad!—run for bare life, and I'll keep them fast here!"

For several days, the soldiers searched the neighbourhood for the fugitive; but they found him not, and no one knew where he had fled. Within a week, Helen disappeared from Primrose Hall, the seat of her guardian, Laird Howison; and the general belief was, that she had set out for Cheshire, to the father of her bridegroom, to intercede with him to use his influence in his son's behalf. "And," said Willie, "if she doesna move him to forgie his son, and do his duty towards him, then I say that he has a heart harder than a whin-rock."

But no one knew the object of her departure, nor whither she had gone. Laird Howison had not returned; and, after several weeks had passed, and Willie Galloway was unable to hear ought of either Helen or Henry, he resolved to proceed[43] to Cheshire, to make inquiries after them; and for this purpose purchased an entire suit of new and fashionable raiment.

CHAPTER III.

On a beautiful summer morning, an old man, slightly stooping in his gait, was slowly walking down a green lane which led in the direction from Warrington to Winburn Priory. Behind him, at a rapid pace, followed a younger man, of a muscular frame, exceedingly well-dressed, and carrying over his arm a thick chequered plaid, like those worn in the pastoral districts of Scotland. He overtook the elder pedestrian, and accosted him, saying—

"Sir?" said the old man inquiringly, slightly lifting his hat, and not exactly comprehending his companion.

"Losh, but he's a mannerly auld body that," thought the other; "I see the siller upon this suit o' claes has been weel-wared;" and added aloud, "I was observing it's a delightful morning, sir, and as delightful a country-side; it wad be a paradise, were it no sae flat."

"Ah, sir!" replied the old man; "but I fear as how the country looks like a paradise without its innocence."

"Ye talk very rationally, honest man," said the other, whom the reader will have recognised to be Willie Galloway; "and, if I am no mistaen, ye maun hae some cause to mak the remark. But, dear me, sir, only look round ye, and see the trees in a' their glory, the flowers in a' their innocence; or just look at the rowing burn there, wimplin alang by oor side, like refined silver, beneath a sun only less glorious than the Hand that made it; and see hoo the bits o' fish are whittering round, wagging their tails, and whisking back and forrit, as happy as kings! Look at the lovely[44] and the cheerfu' face o' a' Nature—or just listen to the music o' thae sinless creatures in the hedges, and in the blue lift—and ye will say that, but for the inventions and deceitfulness o' man's heart, this earth wad be a paradise still. But I tell ye what, freend—I believe that were an irreligious man just to get up before sunrise at a season like this, and gang into the fields and listen to the laverock, and look around on the earth, and on the majesty o' the heavens rising, he wadna stand for half-an-hoor until, if naebody were seeing him, he would drap doun on his knees and pray."

Much of Willie's sermon was lost on the old man; he, however, comprehended a part, and said, "Why, sir, I know as how I always find my mind more in tune for the service of the church, by a walk in the fields, and the singing of the birds, than by all the instruments of the orchestra."

"Orchestra!" said Willie, "what do ye mean?—that's a strange place to gather devotion frae!"

"The orchestra o' the church!" said Willie, in surprise—"what's that? I never heard o't before. There's the poopit, and the precentor's desk, the pews and the square seats, and doun stairs and the gallery—but ye nonplus me about the orchestra."

"Why, our lord of the manor," continued the old man, "is one who cares for nothing that's good, and he will give nothing; and as we are not rich enough to buy an organ, we have only a bass viol, two tenors, and a flute."

"Weel," returned Willie, standing suddenly still, and striking his staff upon the ground, "that beats a'! And will ye tell me, sir, hoo it is possible to worship yer Creator by scraping catgut, or blawing wind through a hollow stick?"[45]

"Why, master," said the old man, "the use of instruments in worship is as old as the times of the prophets, and I can't see why it should be given up. But dost thou think, now, that thou couldst go into Chester cathedral at twilight, while the organ filled all round about thee with its deep music, without feeling in thy heart that thou wast in a house of praise. Why, sir, at such a time thou couldst not commit a wicked action. The very sound, while it lifted up thy soul with delight, would awe thee."

When their controversy had ended, Willie inquired—"Do ye ken a family o' the name o' Blackett, that lives aboot this neeborhood?"

"Then, after sic lang service, ye'll just be like ane o' the family?" replied Willie.

"Ye dinna mean to say," resumed Willie, in a tone of surprise, "that they hae turned ye aff, in your auld age, as some heartless wretch wad sell the noble animal that had carried him when a callant, to a cadger, because it had grown howe-backet, and lost its speed o' foot. But I hope that young Mr Henry had nae hand in it?"

"Henry!—no! no!" cried the old man eagerly—"bless him! Did you know Mr Henry, your honour?"

"Alas!" answered the old domestic, "there has been no one at the priory for more than twelve months. I don't know where the old knight is. Henry has not been here since he went to Edinburgh, and that is nigh to five years gone now."[46]

"Ye dumfounder me, auld man," exclaimed Willie; "but where, in the name o' guidness, where's the wife?—where's Mrs Blackett?"

"Ah! wo is me!" sighed his companion, and he burst into tears as he spoke, "dost see the churchyard, just before us?—and they have raised no stone to mark the spot."

"Dead!" ejaculated Willie, becoming pale with horror, and fixing upon his fellow-pedestrian a look of agony—"Ye dinna say—dead!"

"And hoo was it?" cried Willie; "was it a fair strae death—or just grief, puir thing—just grief?"

"Why, I can't say how it was," answered his informant; "but I wish I durst tell all I think."

"Say it!—say it!" exclaimed Willie, vehemently, "what do you mean by, if you durst say all you think? If there be the shadow o' foul play, I will sift it to the bottom, though it cost me a thousand pounds; and there is anither that will gie mair."

"Ah, sir, I am but a friendless old man," replied the other, "that could not stand the weight of a stronger arm."

"Plague take their arms!" cried Willie, handling his cudgel, as if to shew the strength of his own—"tell what ye think, and they'll have strong arms that dare touch a hair o' yer head."

"Well, master," was the reply, "I don't like to say too much to strangers, but if thou makest any stay in these parts, I may tell thee something; and I fear that wherever[47] poor Henry is, he is in need of friends. But perhaps your honour would wish to see her grave?"

"Her grave!" ejaculated Willie—"yes! yes! yes!—her grave!—O misery! have I come frae Dumfries-shire to see a sicht like this?"

The old man led the way over the stile, hanging his head and sighing as he went. Willie followed him, drawing his sleeve across his eyes, as was his custom when his heart was touched, and forgetting the dress of the gentleman which he wore, in the feelings of the man.

"The family vault is in yonder corner," said his conductor, as they turned across the churchyard.

"Save us, friend!" exclaimed Willie, looking towards the spot, "saw ye ever the like o' yon?—a poor miserable dementit creature, wringing his hands as though his heart would break!"

"Tis he! 'tis he!" shouted the old man, springing forward with the alacrity of youth, "my child!—my dear young master!"

"Oh! conscience o' man!" exclaimed Willie, "what sort o' a dream is this? It canna be possible! Her dead, and him, oot o' his judgment, mourning owre her grave in the garb o' a beggar!"

"Ha! discovered again!" cried Henry fiercely, and starting round as he spoke; but immediately recognising the old domestic, on whom time had not wrought such a metamorphosis as dress had upon Willie Galloway—"Ha, Jonathan! old Jonathan Holditch!" he added, "do I again see the face of a friend!" and instantly discovering Willie, he sprang forward and grasped his extended hand in both of his.

"Don't weep, Jonathan," said Henry, "I trust that we shall soon have cause to rejoice."

"I wish a' may be richt yet," thought Willie; "I took[48] him to be rather dementit at the first glance, and rejoice is rather a strange word to use owre a young wife's grave. Puir fellow!"

"Yes, Master Henry," said Jonathan, "I do rejoice that the worst is past; but I must weep too, for there be many things in all this that I do not understand."

"Why is it, Jonathan," continued Henry, "that there is no stone to mark my mother's grave? There is room enough in our burial place. Why is there nothing to her memory?" he continued, bending his eyes upon her sepulchre. "Her memory!" he added; "cold, cruel grave; and is memory all that is left me of such a parent? Is the dumb dust, beneath this unlettered stone—all!—all! that I can now call mother? Has she no monument but the tears of her only surviving child?"

"A' about his mother," muttered Willie, "who has been dead for four years, and no a word aboot puir Helen! As sure as I'm a living man this is beyont my comprehension—I dinna think he can be a'thegither there!"

Henry turned towards him and said, "I have much to ask, my dear friend, but my heart is so filled with griefs and forebodings already, that the words I would utter tremble on my tongue; but what of my Helen—tell me, what of her?"

"She—she's—weel," gasped Willie, bewildered; "that is—I—I hope—I trust—that—oh, losh, Mr Blackett, I dinna ken whare I am, nor what I am saying, for my brain is as daized as a body's that is driven owre wi' a drift, and rowed amang the snaw! Has there been onybody buried here lately?"

"Mr Galloway!—Mr Galloway!" exclaimed Henry, half-choked with agitation, and wringing his hand in his, while the perspiration burst upon his brow—"in the name of[49] wretchedness—what—what do you mean?"

"I don't know what the gentleman means," said the old man; "but no one has been buried here since your honoured mother, and that is four years ago."

"And whase grave—whase grave did ye bring me to look at?" inquired Willie, eagerly.

"Wha else could you mean!" repeated Willie; "then, be thankit! she's no dead!—ye say she's no dead!" and he literally leapt for joy.

"Wha dead, ye stupid auld body!—did I no say his wife, as plain as I could speak?"

"Whose wife?" inquired Jonathan, looking from Willie to his master in bewilderment.

"Whose wife!" reiterated Willie, weeping, laughing, and twirling his stick; "shame fa' ye—ye may ask that noo, after knocking my heart oot o' the place o't wi' yer palaver. Whase wife do ye say?—ask Mr Henry."

"Mr Galloway!" interrupted Henry, "am I to understand that you believed this to be the grave of my beloved Helen?—or, how could you suppose it? Has she left Primrose Hall?—or, has our marriage——Tell me all you know, for I wist not what I would ask."

Willie then related to him what the reader already knows—namely, that she had left Dumfries-shire, and was supposed to have gone to his father's.[50]

"Blessings on the day that these eyes beheld the dear lady, then," exclaimed old Jonathan; "for I could vow that she is under my roof now."

"I knew no more of my young master's marriage, until just now, than these gravestones do," said Jonathan; "the dear lady who is with us told nothing to me. Only my wife told me that she knew she loved our young master."

"But why is she lodging with you, Jonathan? I have learned that my father is abroad, and is it that he is soon expected home?"

"A fever caused her to be an inmate of my poor roof," answered Jonathan, "after she had been rudely driven from the gate as a common beggar. But I am no longer thy father's servant—and I wish, for thy sake, I could forget he was thy father; for he has done that which might make the blessed bones beneath our feet start from their grave. And there is no one about the Priory now, but the creatures of the villain Norton."

Henry entreated that the old man would not speak harshly of his father, though he had so treated them; and he briefly informed them, that, on flying from Scotland to escape his pursuers even at his father's lodge, he again met one of the individuals who had hunted him as "Blackett, the traitor," and who had attempted to seize him in the hour of his marriage—and that even there the cry was again raised against him; and a band, thirsting for his blood-money, joined in the pursuit. He had fled to the churchyard, and found concealment in the family vault, where he had remained until they then discovered him, as, in the early morning, he had ventured out.

Willie counselled that there was now small vengeance to be apprehended from the persecution of the government;[51] and when Jonathan stated that Sir John had married the daughter of Norton, and disinherited Henry by denying his marriage with his mother, Willie exclaimed—"I see it a', Mr Henry, just as clear as the A, B, C. This rascal, ye ca' Norton, or your faither, (forgie me for saying sae,) has employed the villains wha hunted for yer life; it has been mair them than the government that has been to blame. Therefore, my advice is, let us go and drive the thieves out o' the house by force."

Henry, who was speechless with grief, horror, and disgust, agreed to the proposition of his friend, and they proceeded to the Priory by a shorter road than the lodge.

Henry knocked loudly at the door, which was opened by a man-servant, who attempted to shut it in his face; but, in a moment the door was driven back upon its hinges, and the menial lay extended along the lobby; and Henry, with his sturdy ally, and old Jonathan, rushed in. Alarmed by the sound, the other servants, male and female, hurried to the spot; and epithets, too opprobrious to be written, were the mildest they applied to the young heir, as he demanded admission.

"Then let us gie them club-law for it," cried Willie, "if they will have it; and they shall have it to their heart's content, if I ance begin it."

Armed with such weapons as they could seize at the moment, the servants menacingly opposed their entrance; but Henry, dashing through them, rushed towards the stairs, where he was followed by four men-servants, two armed with swords, and the others with kitchen utensils.

But Willie, following at their heels, cried—"Come back!" and, bringing his cudgel round his head, with one tremendous swoop caused it to rattle across the unprotected legs of the two last of the pursuers, and, almost at the same instant, before their comrades had ascended five steps from the ground, they, from the same cause, descended backwards,[52] rolling and roaring over their companions. Within three seconds, all four were conquered, disarmed, and unable to rise. As the discomfited garrison of the Priory gathered themselves together, (much in the attitude of Turks or tailors,) groaning, writhing, and ruefully rubbing their stockings, Willie, with the composed look of a philosopher, addressed to them this consoling and important information—"Noo, sirs, I hope ye are a' sensibly convinced, what guid service a bit hazel may do in a willing hand; and if ony o' yer banes are broken, I would recommend ye to send for the doctor before the swelling gets stiff about them. But ye couldna hae broken banes at a cannier place on a' the leg than just where I gied ye the bits o' clinks; they were hearty licks, and would gie them a clean snap, so that, in the matter o' six weeks, ye may be on your feet again."

Old Jonathan had already followed Henry up stairs; and Willie having finished his exhortation, proceeded in quest of them. Henry succeeded in obtaining a change of raiment; and having sent for one who had been long a tenant upon the estate, he left the house in charge to him, with orders that he should immediately turn from it all the creatures of Norton, and engage other servants; and he and his friend, Willie, proceeded to the house of old Jonathan, where, as the latter supposed, a lady that he believed to be the wife of his young master, then was.

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs Holditch (the wife of old Jonathan) was wandering up the lane in quest of her husband, wondering at the length of his absence, and fretting for his return; for "the sweet lady," as she termed Helen, "would not take breakfast[53] without them." She had proceeded about half a mile from the cottage, when she was met by none other than Laird Howison of Primrose Hall, and the following dialogue took place:—

"Will ye hae the kindness to inform me, ma'am, if the person that used to keep the gate of Sir John Blackett lives ony way aboot here?"

"And, oh!" interrupted he, earnestly, "know ye if there be a young leddy frae Scotland stopping there at present—for I have heard that there is? Ye'll no think me inquisitive, ma'am; for really if ye kenned what motive I hae for asking, ye would think it motive enough."

"There be, your honour," returned she, "and a dear excellent young lady she is."

"Oh! if it be her that I mean," said he, "that she is dear, indeed, I have owre guid reason to ken, and her excellence is written on every line o' her beautiful countenance. But, if I'm no detaining ye, ma'am, may I just ask her name?"

"Yes! yes!" cried he, "it's just Helen!—Helen, and nothing else to me! Mony a time has that name been offered up wi' my prayers. But I thought, ma'am, ye said she bade you call her Helen."

"Yes, your honour," said she; "I be the wife of old Jonathan Holditch, and she be staying with us now."

"Bless you!" he exclaimed, "for the shelter which yer roof has afforded to the head o' an orphan. But, oh! what like is your Helen? Is her neck whiter than the drifted snaw? Does her hair fa' in gowden ringlets, like the clouds that curl round the brows o' the setting sun? Is her form delicate as the willow, but stately as the young pine? Is her countenance beautiful as the light o' laughing[54] day, when it chases sickness and darkness together from the chamber o' the invalid? If she isna a' this—if her voice isna sweeter than the sough o' music on a river—dear and excellent she may be, and they may call her Helen—but, oh! she isna my Helen!—for there is none in the world like unto mine. But, no! no!—she is not mine now! O Helen, woman! did I expect this? Excuse me, ma'am, ye'll think my conduct strange; but, when my poor seared-up heart thinks o' past enjoyment, it makes me forget mysel'. Do you think your Helen is the same that I hae come to seek?"

"A sweeter and a lovelier lady," said she, "never called Christian man father. She had business at Winburn Priory; but my husband says she was driven away from the gate like a dog."

"What's this I hear!" cried he:—"Gracious! if I may again hope!—and why for no? But how is it that she is stopping wi' you?—wherefore did she not return to the home where she has been cherished from infancy, and where she will aye be welcome. Has Helen forgot me a'thegither?"

"Alas, sir!" said she; "it was partly grief, I believe, that brought on a bad fever, and I had fears the sweet, patient creature would have died in my hands. I sat by her bedside, watching night after night; and, oh! sir, I daresay as how it was about you that she sometimes talked, and wept, and laughed, and talked again, poor thing."[55]

"And did ye," he inquired, fumbling with, a pocket book; "did ye watch owre her? I'm your debtor for that. And ye think she spoke about me—my name's Howison, ma'am—Thomas Howison of Primrose Hall, in the county o' Dumfries. She would, maybe, call me Thomas!"

"Mr Howison!" replied the old woman: "yes, your honour, she often mentioned such a name—very often."

"Did she really," added he; "did she mention me?—and often spoke about me—often? Then she's no forgotten me a'thegither!"

He thrust a bank-note into the hands of Mrs Holditch, which she refused to accept, saying that "the dear lady had more than paid her for all that she had done already." But, while she spoke, they had arrived within sight of the cottage, and he suddenly bounded forward, exclaiming—"Oh! haud my heart!" as he beheld Helen, sitting looking from the window—"yonder she is! yonder she is! O Helen! Helen!" he cried, rushing towards the door—"wherefore did ye leave me?—why hae ye forsaken me? But, joy o' my heart, I winna upbraid ye; for I hae found ye again."

With an agitated step, she advanced to meet him—she extended her hand towards him—she faltered—"My kind, kind benefactor."

He heard the words she uttered—with a glance he beheld the marriage-ring upon her finger—he stood still in the midst of his transport—his outstretched arms fell motionless by his side—"O Helen, woman!" he cried in agony, "do ye really say benefactor?—that isna the word I wish to hear frae ye. Ye never ca'ed me benefactor before!"

The few words spoken by the old woman had called up his buried hopes; but the word benefactor had again whelmed him in despair.

"Oh!" he continued, dashing away the tears from his eyes, "my poor mind is flung away upon a whirlwind, and[56] my brain is the sport o' every shadow! O Helen! I thought ye had forgotten me!"

"Forgotten you, my kind dear friend!" said she; "I have not, I will not, I cannot forget you; and wherefore would you forget that I can only remember you as a friend?"

"Poor, miserable, and deluded being that I am," added he; "I expected, from what the mistress o' this house told me, that I wouldna be welcomed by the cauldrife names o' friend or benefactor. Do ye mind since ye used to call me Thomas?"

"Mr Howison," answered she, "I know this visit has been made in kindness—let me believe in parental anxiety. You have not now to learn that I am a wife, and you can have heard nothing here to lead you to think otherwise. I will not pretend to misunderstand your language. But by what name can I call you save that of friend?—it was the first and the only one by which I have ever known you."

"No, Helen," cried he, wringing her hand; "there was a time when ye only said Thomas! and the sound o' that ae word frae yer lips was a waff o' music, which echoed, like the vibrations o' an angel's harp, about my heart for hours and for hours!"

"If," added she, "from having been taught by you to call you by that name in childhood, when I regarded you as my guardian, and you condescended to be my playmate, will you upbraid me with ceasing to use it now, when respect to you and to myself demand the use of another? Or can you, by any act of mine, place another meaning upon my having used it, than obedience to your wishes, and the familiarity of a thoughtless girl? And, knowing this, is it possible that the best of men will heap sorrow upon sorrow on the head of a friendless and afflicted woman?"

"Oh, dinna say friendless, Helen," cried he; "friendless ye canna be while I am in existence. Ye hae torn the[57] scales from my eyes, and the first use o' sicht has been to show me that the past has been delusion, and that the future is misery, solitary madness, or despair! And hae I really a' this time mistaen sweetness for love, and familiarity for affection? Do ye really say that it was only familiarity, Helen?"

"The feelings of a sister for a brother," she answered; "of a daughter for a father."

"True," said he; "I see it now; I was, indeed, older than your father—I didna recollect that."

He sat thoughtful for a few minutes, when Helen, to change the subject, inquired after her old nurse, Janet White.

"Poor body," said he, raising his head, "her spirits are clean gone. I understand she sits mourning for you by the fire, cowering thegither like a pigeon that's lost its mate, or a ewe whose lamb has been struck dead by its side. It would wring tears from a heart o' stane to hear her lamenting, morning, noon, and night, for her 'dear bairn,' as she aye ca'ed ye—rocking her head and chirming owre her sorrow, like a hen bird owre its rifled nest. I had her owre at the Hall the day after I cam back frae London, and just afore I cam here to seek for ye. But there is naething aboot it that she taks delight in noo. And, when I strove to amuse her, by taking her through the garden and plantations, (though I stood mair in need o' comfort mysel'), she would stand still and lean her head against a tree, in the very middle o' some o' the bonniest spots, while a tear came rowing down her cheeks, and look in my face wi' such a sorrowfu' expression, that a thousand arrows, entering my breast at ance, couldna hae caused me mair agony. I felt that I was a puir, solitary, and despised being, only cast into the midst o' a paradise, that my comfortless bosom might appear the blacker and the more dismal. The puir auld body saw what was passing within me, and she shook[58] her head, saying, 'Oh, sir! had I seen ye leading my bairn down thir bonny avenues as your wife, Janet White would have been a happy woman.' Then she wrung her withered hands, and the tears hailed down her cheeks faster and faster; while I hadna a word o' consolation to say to her, had it been to save my life. For the very chirping o' the birds grew irksome, and the young leaves and the silky flowers painful to look upon. O Helen! if ye only kenned what we a' suffer on yer account! If ye only kenned what it is to have hope spired up, and affection preying upon your ain heart for nourishment, ye wadna be angry at onything I say."

"Think not it is possible," she replied, while her tears flowed faster than her words; "but wherefore feed a hopeless passion, the indulgence of which is now criminal?"

"Oh! forgie ye!" he exclaimed, vehemently; "dinna say that, Helen! Hopeless it may be, but not criminal! That is the only cruel word I ever heard frae yer lips! I didna think onybody would hae said that to me! Did you really say criminal? But, oh! as matters stand, if ye'd only alloo me to say anither word or twa anent the subject, and if ye wadna just crush me as a moth, and tak pleasure in my agonies—or hae me to perish wi' the sunless desolation o' my ain breast—ye'll alloo me to say them. They relate to my last consolation—the last tie that links me and the world together!"

"Speak," said Helen; "let not me be the cause of misery I can have power to prevent."

"Oh, then!" replied he, "be not angry at what I'm going to say; and mind, that, on your answer depends the future happiness or misery o' a fellow-being. Yes, Helen! upon your word depends life and hope—madness and misery; I say life and hope—for, if ye destroy the one, the other winna hand lang oot; and I say madness—for, oh! if ye had been a witness o' the wild and the melancholy days and nights[59] that I hae passed since I learned that ye had left me, and felt my heart burning and beating, and my brain loup, louping for ever, like a living substance, and shooting and stinging through my head, like stings o' fire, till I neither kenned whar I was, nor what I did; but stood still, or rushed out in agony, and screamed to the wind, or gripped at the echo o' my voice!—I say, if ye had seen this, ye wadna think it strange that I made use o' the words. And, now, as ye have heard nothing from——from Henry Blackett, from the night that the ceremony o' marriage was performed—and if ye should hear nothing o' him for seven years to come, ye will then, ye ken, be at liberty—and will ye say that I may hope, then? O Helen, woman! say but the word, and I'll wait the seven years, as Jacob did for Rachel, and count them but a day if my Helen will bless me wi' a smile o' hope!"

As he thus spoke, Mrs Holditch bustled into the room, exclaiming—"O sweet lady, here be one coming thee knows—see! see! there be my husband, and our own dear young master Henry, come to make us happy again!"

Poor Laird Howison stood dumb, his mouth open, his eyes extended, staring on vacancy. He beheld the object of his delirious love sink into her husband's arms, and saw no more. He clasped his hands together, and, with a deep groan, reeled against the wall. Henry and Helen, in the ecstasy of meeting each other, were unconscious of all around, and Willie Galloway was the first to observe his countryman.

"Preserve us! you here, too, Mr Howison!" said he. But the features of the laird remained rivetted in agony, and betrayed no symptom of recognition. The mention of the[60] laird's name by Willie, arrested the attention of Henry, and approaching him, he said—"Sir, to you I ought to offer an apology."

The unhappy man wildly grasped the hand of Henry, and seizing also Helen's, he exclaimed—"It is a' owre now! The chain is forged, and the iron is round my soul. But I bless you baith. Tak her! tak her!—and hear me, Henry Blackett—as ye would escape wrath and judgment, be kind to her as the westlin' winds and the morning dews to the leaves o' spring. Let it be your part to clothe her countenance wi' smiles and her bosom wi' joy! Fareweel, Helen!—look up!—let me, for the last time, look upon your face, and I will carry that look upon my memory to the grave!"

"Now!—now, it is past!" he cried; "it was a sair struggle, but reason mastered it! Fareweel, Helen!—fareweel!"

Thus saying, he rushed out of the house, and Willie Galloway followed him; but, although fleet of foot, he was compelled to give up the pursuit.

A few minutes after the abrupt and wild departure of the laird, and before Helen had recovered from the shock, the ruffians, who, at the instigation of Norton, had hunted after Henry to deliver him up to the government, and from whom he had already twice escaped, rushed into the room, exclaiming—"Secure the traitor!"

Henry sprang back to defend himself, and Willie Galloway, who had returned, threw himself into a pugilistic attitude. But Helen, stepping between her husband and his pursuers, drew a paper from her bosom, and placing it in his hands, said—"My Henry is free! he is pardoned!—the king hath signed it!—laugh at the bloodhounds!" And, as she spoke, she sank upon his breast. He opened the[61] paper; it was his pardon under the royal signature and the royal seal! "My own!—my wife!—my wife!" cried Henry, pressing her to his heart, and weeping on her neck.

The ruffians slunk from the room in confusion, and Willie informed them that the sooner they were out of sight it would be the better for them.

Helen, on leaving Scotland, had proceeded to London, where, through the interest of a friend of Laird Howison's, she gained access to the Duke of Cumberland, and throwing herself at his feet, had, through him, obtained her husband's pardon, and that pardon she had carried next her bosom to his father's house, hoping to find him there.

CONCLUSION.

Henry being now pardoned, Willie Galloway advised that he should take his wife to his father's house, and remain there, adding—"Mind ye, Maister Henry, that possession is nine points o' law—and if ye be in want o' the matter o' five hundred pounds for present use, or for mair to prove your birthright at law, I am the man that will advance it, and that will leave no stone unturned till I see you righted."

Willie's suggestion was acted upon; and Henry and Helen took up their abode in the Priory, where they had been but a few weeks, when he obtained information that his father had fallen in a duel, and that his adversary was none other than Squire Norton, the father of his then wife; but with his dying breath he declared, in the presence of his seconds, and invoked them to record it, that his injured son Henry was his only and lawful heir.[62]

"That," exclaimed Norton, with a savage laugh over his dying antagonist, "it will cost him some trouble to prove!"

The murderer, in the name of a child which his daughter had borne to Sir John, had the hardihood to enter legal proceedings to obtain the estate.

Henry applied to the parish of Glencleugh for the register of his mother's marriage; but no such record was found. Old Dugald Mackay had a dreamy recollection of such a marriage taking place; but he said—"It pe very strange that it isna in te pook; hur canna swear to it."

Many thought that the day would be given against Henry, and pitied him; but before judgment was pronounced in the case, young Norton was found guilty of forgery, and condemned to undergo the just severity of the law. Previous to his ignominious death, in the presence of witnesses, he confessed the injury he had done to Henry by tearing the leaves from the parish register, and directed where they might be found. They were found—old Norton fled from the country, and Henry obtained undisputed possession of the estate; but on his father's widow and child he settled a competency.

Laird Howison's sorrow moderated as his years increased; and when Henry and Helen had children, and when they had grown up to run about, he requested that they should be sent to him every year, to pull the primroses around Primrose Hall; and they were sent. One of them, a girl, the image of her mother, he often wept over, and said, he hoped to live to love her, as he had loved her mother. Willie Galloway often visited his friends in Cheshire, and remained "canny Willie" to the end of the chapter.

THE BRIDE OF BRAMBLEHAUGH.[1]

It has been stated by the greatest critics the world ever saw—whose names we would mention, if we did not wish to avoid interfering with the simplicity of our humble annals—that no fictitious character ought to be made at once virtuous and unfortunate; and the reason given for it is that mankind, having a natural tendency to a belief of an adjustment, even in this world, of the claims of virtue and the deserts of vice, are displeased with a representation which at once overturns this belief, and creates dissatisfaction with the ways of Providence. This may be very good criticism, and we have no wish to find fault with it as applied to works intended to produce a certain effect on the minds of readers; but, so long as Nature and Providence work with machinery whose secret springs are hid from our view, and evince—doubtless for wise purposes—a disregard of the adjustment of rewards and punishments for virtue and vice, we shall not want a higher authority than critics for exhibiting things as they are, and portraying on the page of truth, wet with unavailing tears, goodness that went to the grave, not only unrewarded, but struck down with griefs that should have dried the heart and grizzled the hairs of the wicked.

In a little haugh that runs parallel to the Tweed—at a part of its course not far from Peebles, and through which there creeps, over a bed of white pebbles, a little burn, whose voice is so small, except at certain places where a larger stone raises its "sweet anger" to the height of a tiny

"buller," that the lowest note of the goldfinch drowns it and charms it to silence—there stood, about the middle of the last century, a cottage. Its white walls and dark roof, with some white roses and honeysuckle flowering on its walls, bespoke the humble retreat of contentment and comfort. The place went by the name of Bramblehaugh, from the sides of the small burn being lined, for several miles, with the bramble. The sloping collateral ground was covered with shrubs and trees of various kinds, which harboured, in the summer months, a great collection of birds—the blackbird, the starling, the mavis, and others of the tuneful choir—whose notes rendered harmonious the secluded scene where they sang unmolested. The spot is one of those which, scattered sparingly over a wild country, woo the footsteps of lovers of nature, and, by a few months of their simple charms, regenerate the health, while they quicken and gratify the business-clouded fancies of the denizens of smoky towns.

The cottage we have now described was occupied by David Mearns, and his wife Elizabeth, called, by our national contraction, Betty. These individuals earned a livelihood, and nothing more, by the mode in which poor cotters in Scotland contrive to spin out an existence; the leading feature of which, contentment, the result of necessity, is often falsely denominated happiness by those whose positive pleasures, chequered by a few misfortunes, are forgotten in the contemplation of a state of life almost entirely negative. Difficulties that cannot be overcome deaden the energies that have in vain been exerted to surmount them; and, when all efforts to better our condition are relinquished, we acquire a credit for contentedness, which is only a forced adaptation of limited means to an unchangeable end. David Mearns, who had, in his younger days, been ruined by a high farm, had learned from misfortune what he would not have been very apt to have received from the much-applauded[65] philosophy which is said to generate a disposition to be pleased with our lot. The bitterness of disappointment, and the wish to get beyond the reach of obligations he could not discharge, suggested the remedy of a reliance simply on his capability of earning a cotter's subsistence; and having procured a cheap lease of the little domicile of Bramblehaugh, he set himself down, with the partner of his hopes and misfortunes, to eat, with that simulated contentment we have noticed, the food of his hard labour, with the relish of health, and to extract from the lot thus forced upon him as much happiness as it would yield. The cottage and the small piece of ground attached to it, was the property of an old man, who, having made a great deal of money by the very means that had failed in the hands of David Mearns, had purchased the property of Burnbank, lying on the side of the small rivulet already mentioned, and, in consequence, it was said, of Betty Mearns bearing the same name, (Cherrytrees,) though there was no relationship between them, had let to David the small premises at a low rent.

A single child had blessed the marriage of David Mearns and his wife—a daughter, called Euphemia, though generally, for the sake of brevity and kindliness, called Effie; an interesting girl, who, at the period we speak of, had arrived at the age of sixteen years. In a place where there were few to raise the rude standard of beauty formed in the minds of a limited country population, she was accounted "bonny"—a much—abused word, no doubt, in Scotland, but yet having a very fair and legitimate application to an interesting young creature, whose blue eyes, however little real town beauty they may have expressed or illuminated, gave out much tenderness and feeling, accompanied by that inexpressible look of pure, unaffected modesty, which is the first, but the most difficult gesture of the female manner attempted to be imitated by those who are destitute of the feeling[66] that produces it. An expression of pensiveness—perhaps the fruit of the early misfortunes of her parents operating on the tender mind of infancy, ever quick in catching, with instinctive sympathy, the feeling that saddens or enlivens the spirits of a mother—was seldom abroad from her countenance, imparting to it a deep interest, and, by suggesting a wish to relieve the cause of so early an indication of incipient melancholy, creating an instant friendship, which subsequent intercourse did not diminish.

Walter Cherrytrees, the Laird of Burnbank, a man approaching seventy years of age, had a daughter, Lucy, about the same age as Effie Mearns. He had lost his wife about fifteen years before; and—though a feeling of anxiousness often found its way to his heart, suggesting to his vacant mind, as the cure of his listlessness and the balm of his bereavement, another wife—he had for a long time been nearly equally poised between the hope of Lucy becoming his comfort in his old age, and the wish for a tender partner of pleasures which, without participation, lose their relish. His daughter, Lucy, was a sprightly, showy girl, who, having got a good education, might, with the prospect she had of inheriting her father's property, have been entitled to look for a husband among the sons of the neighbouring proprietors, if her father's secluded mode of life, and plain, blunt manners, had not to a great extent limited her intercourse to a few acquaintances, by no means equal to him in point of wealth or status, however estimable they might have been in other respects. A more pleasant companion to the old Laird of Burnbank could not be found, from the one end of Bramblehaugh to the other, than David Mearns, his tenant, whose honesty and bluntness, set off by a fertility of simple anecdote, had charms for one of the same habits of thought and feeling, which all the disadvantages of his poverty could not counterbalance. The intimacy of the fathers produced, at a very early period, a friendship between the daughters,[67] who, notwithstanding, could not boast of the resemblance of thought and manners, and community of feeling, which formed the foundation of the attachment existing between the parents.

This friendship was not exclusive of some acquaintanceships with the neighbouring young men and women, which, however, were in general mutual; neither of the two young maidens having formed any intimacy with another without, her friend participating in the friendship. Among others, Lewis Campbell, the son of a neighbouring farmer, who had been a large creditor of David Mearns at the time of his failure, called sometimes at the cottage of Bramblehaugh, and was soon smitten with a strong love for Effie. They sometimes indulged in long walks by the side of the river.

We may anticipate, when we say that the hours spent in these excursions—in which the greatest beauties of external nature, and the strongest and purest emotions of two loving hearts, acting in co-operation and harmony, formed a present and a future such as poets dream of, and the world never realizes, but in momentary glimpses—were the happiest of these lovers. Effie's inseparable companion, Lucy, frequently met them as they sauntered along by the house of Burnbank; and the soft breathings of ardent affection were relieved by the gay and innocent prattle of the companions, who enjoyed, though in different degrees, the conversation and manners of the young lover. The simplicity and single-heartedness of Effie were entirely exclusive of a single thought unfavourable to an equal openness and frankness on the part of her companion, whom she had informed, in her artless way, of the state of her affections. But what might not have resulted from a mere acquaintanceship between Lucy and Effie's lover, was called forth by the pride of the former, whose spirit of emulation, excited by the good fortune of her poor friend, suggested a secret wish to alienate the affections of Lewis from her companion,[68] and direct them to herself. The wish to be beloved, though the mere effect of emulation, is the surest of the artificial modes by which love itself is generated in the heart of the wisher; and Lucy soon became, unknown for a time to Effie, as much enamoured of young Lewis as was her unsuspecting friend.

The first intimation that Effie received of the state of Lucy's feelings towards her lover, was from Lewis himself. Sitting at a part of the haugh called the Cross Knowe, from the circumstance of an old Romish cruciform stone that stood on the top of a gentle elevation—a place much resorted to by the lovers—Lewis, unable to conceal a single thought or feeling from one who so well deserved his confidence, first told her of the perfidy of her friend.

"You are not so well supplied with sweethearts, Effie," he began, "as I am; for I can boast of two besides you."

"That speaks little in your favour, Lewie," replied she; "for, if it was my wish, I could hae a' the young men o' the haugh makin love to me frae mornin to e'en."

"That remark, Effie," said Lewis, "implies that I have courted, or at least received marks of affection, from others besides you, while I was leading you to suppose that my heart was entirely yours. Now, that is not justified by what I said; for one may have sweethearts, and neither know nor acknowledge them as such."

"Maybe I am wrang, Lewie," said Effie; "but what was I to think but that the twa ither sweethearts ye mentioned were acknowledged by ye? It's no in the pooer o' my puir heart to conceive how a young woman could love are that neither kenned nor acknowledged her love. But I speak frae my ain simple, an' maybe worthless thoughts. The world's wide, an' haulds black an' fair, weak an' strong, heigh and laigh; an' wharfore no also hearts an' minds as different as their bodies? The birds o' this haugh hae only[69] their ain single luves; but they're a' coloured alike that belang to ae kind. Would that it had been God's pleasure to mak mankind like thae bonny birds!"

"I fear, Effie," replied Lewis, "that a statement of mine, intended to be partly in jest, has been construed by you in such a manner as to produce to you pain. God is my witness that I am as single-hearted in my affection as the birds of this haugh; and gaudier colours, sweeter notes, and better scented bowers will never interfere with the love I bear to Effie Mearns."

"What meant ye, then, Lewie, by sayin ye had twa sweethearts besides Effie Mearns?" said she.

"That you shall immediately know," replied Lewis "and you will think more highly of me when I shew you, by my revealing secrets, not indeed confided to me, but still secrets, that you have all my heart and the thoughts that it contains. The first of my other lovers you will not be jealous of, for she is old Lizzy Buchanan, or, as she calls herself, Buwhanan, my nurse, who loves me as well as you do, Effie; but the other, I fear, may create in you an unpleasant feeling of confidence misplaced, and friendship repaid by something like treachery. Surely I need say no more."

"Is it indeed sae, Lewie?" said she. "It's lang sin I whispered—and my heart beat and my limbs trembled as I did it—in the ear o' Lucy Cherrytrees, that my puir, silly thoughts were never aff Lewie Campbell. And what think ye she said to me? She said I needna look far ayont Bramblehaugh for a bonnier and a brawer lover."

"Then," replied Lewis, "I am not much better off than you are; for she told me that your simplicity, she feared, was art, and that your poverty made any beauty you had; and she doubted if that bonny face was not a great snare for the ruin of a penniless lover."

"Sae, sae," said she, sighing deeply; "and has the fair face o' life's friendship put on the looks o' the hypocrite at[70] the very time when greater confidence was required? I hae read in Laird Cherrytrees' books he is sae kind as lend me, many an example o' fause and faithless creatures, baith men and women, o' the world, o' the great cities that lie far ayont oor humble sphere; but little did I think that here in Bramblehaugh, where our bughts ken nae nicht-thieves, and our hen-roosts nae reynards, there was ane, and that ane my friend, wha could smile in my face at the very moment she was tryin to ruin me in the eyes o' ane wha is dearest to me on earth."

As she thus poured forth her feelings with greater loquacity than she generally exhibited—being for the most part quiet and gentle—the tears flowed down her cheeks in great profusion, and she sobbed bitterly, in spite of all the efforts of Lewis to satisfy her that Lucy's endeavours to lessen her in his estimation were entirely fruitless.

"Apprehend nothing, dear Effie, from the discovered treachery of a false friend," said he, as he pressed her to his bosom. "It has less power with me than the whispers of that gentle burn have on the sleeping echoes of the Eagle's Rock that only answers to the voice of the tempest."

"It's no that, Lewie," replied she, wiping away her tears, "that gies me pain. I hae nae fear o' faith and troth that has been pledged, and better than pledged; for I hae seen it i' yer looks, and heard it i' the soonds o' yer deep-drawn sighs. Thae tears are for a broken friendship—for the return o' evil for guid—for the withered blossoms o' a bonny flower I hae cherished and watered, in the hope it wad yield me a sweet smell when I kissed its leaves i' the daffin o' youth or the kindliness o' age. If it is sae sair to lose a friend, what, Lewie—what wad it be to lose a lover?"

"The very existence of great evils, Effie," said he,[71] "makes us happy, in the thought that they are beyond our reach."

"But did I no think," said she, "that I was beyond the reach o' the pain o' experiencing the fauseness o' Lucy Cherrytrees—the very creature o' a' ithers, I hae chosen as my bosom friend—to whom I confided a' my thochts and the very secret o' my love?"

"But it is an ill wind that blaws naebody guid, as they say, Effie," said Lewis. "I can better appreciate your goodness, now that I have experienced the faithlessness of another."

"An' if I hae lost a friend," replied Effie, "I am the mair sure o' my lover. Ye dinna ken, Lewie, how muckle this has raised you even in my mind, whar ye hae aye occupied the highest place. Ye hae rejected the offered luve o' the braw heiress o' Burnbank, for the humble dochter o' David Mearns, wha earns his bread in the sweat o' his brow. Oh! what can a puir, penniless cottager's dochter gie in return to the man wha, for her sake, turns his back on a big ha', a thoosand braid acres, an' a braw heiress?"

"Her simple, genuine, unsophisticated heart," replied Lewis, "with one unchangeable, devoted affection beating in its core. Were Burnbank Hall as big as the Parliament House, and Burnbank itself longer than the lands watered by the Brambleburn, and Lucy Cherrytrees as fair as our unfortunate Mary Stuart, I would not give my simple Effie, with no more property of her own than the bandeau that binds her fair locks, for Lucy Cherrytrees and all her lands."

The two lovers continued their evening walks, indulging in conversations which, embracing the subject of their affection, and anticipating the pleasures of their ultimate union, realized that fullest enjoyment of hope which is said to transcend possession. No notice was taken of their mutual sentiments on the subject of Lucy Cherrytrees' affection[72] for Lewis, and her unjustifiable attempts to displace her old friend, to make room for herself in the heart of the contested object of their wishes.

Matters continued in this state for some time, Effie being regularly gratified by a visit from Lewis three times a-week. On one occasion a whole week passed without any intelligence of her lover. Her inquiries had produced no satisfactory explanation of the unusual occurrence; and Fancy, under the spell of the genius of Fear, was busy in her vocation of drawing dark pictures of coming evil. At last she was told by her father, who had procured the intelligence from a friend of George Campbell, the father, that young Lewis had been suspected of an intention to marry the poor daughter of the cottager, David Mearns, and had been despatched, without a minute's premonition, 'to an uncle, who was a merchant in Rio de Janeiro. No time had been given to him to write to Effie; and care had been taken to prevent him from sending her any intelligence while he remained at Liverpool, previous to his departure. The statement was corroborated by intelligence to the same effect, procured by one of Laird Cherrytrees' servants from one of the servants of George Campbell, who told it to Lucy, and who again told it to Effie, with tears in her eyes, which she took every care to conceal. The effect produced on the mind of Effie Mearns, by this unexpected misfortune, was proportioned to its magnitude, and the susceptibility of the feelings of the delicate individual on whom it operated. For many days she wept incessantly, refusing the ordinary sustenance of a life which she now deemed of no importance to herself or to any one else. All attempts at comforting a bruised heart were—as they generally are in cases of disappointed love—unavailing; and the effects of time seemed only apparent in a quieter, though not in any degree less poignant sorrow. Every object kept alive the remembrance of the youth who had first made an impression[73] on her heart, and whose image was graven on every spot of the neighbourhood which had been consecrated by the exchange of a mutual passion. The scenes of their wanderings, hallowed as they had been in her memory, were now peopled with undefined terrors; and every time that she was forced abroad to take that air and exercise which latterly seemed indispensable to her existence, her sorrow received an accession of power from every tree under which they had sat, and every knowe or dell where they had listened to the musical loves of the birds, as they exchanged their own in not less eloquent sighs.

The first circumstance that produced any effect on the mind of the disconsolate maiden, was a misfortune of another kind, which, realizing the old adage, seemed to follow with all due rapidity the footsteps of its precursor. Her mother, who sat on one side of the fire, while Effie occupied her usual seat in a corner of the cottage in the other, had been using all the force of her rude but impressive eloquence to get her daughter to adopt the means that were in her power for the amelioration of a grief which might render her childless.

"I am gettin auld, Effie," she said, "an' you are the only are I can look to for administerin to yer faither an' to me that comfort we hae a richt to expect at the hands o' a dochter wha never yet was deficient in her duty. Our poverty, which winna be made ony less severe, as ye may weel ken, by the income o' years, will mak yer attention to us mair necessary; an' it may even be—God meise the means!—that your weak hands may yet be required to work for the support o' yer auld parents. I hae lang intended to speak to you in this way, and it was only pity for my puir heart-broken Effie that put me aff frae day to day, in the expectation that either some news wad come frae Lewie, or that ye wad get consolation frae anither and a higher source, to support ye for trials ye may yet hae to[74] bear up against, for the sake o' them that brocht ye into the world. A' ither means hae been tried to get ye to determine to live, an' no lay yersel doun to dee, an' they havin failed, what can I do but try the last remedy in my pooer—to speak, as I hae now dune, to yer guid sense, an' lay afore ye the duties o' a dutifu' bairn, which are far aboon the thochts o' a disappointed love. Promise, now, my bonny Effie, that ye will try to gie up yer mournin, for the sake o' parents whase love for ye is nae less than Lewie Campbell's."

As Betty finished her impressive admonition to Effie, who acknowledged its force, and inwardly determined on complying with the request of her mother, an unusual noise at the door of the cottage startled her anxious ear. It seemed that a number of people were approaching the cottage, and the groans of one in deep distress and pain were mixed with the low talk of the crowd, who, from those inexpressible indications which the ear can catch and analyse ere the mind is conscious of the operation, seemed already to sympathise with one to whom they were bearing a grief. Housed by that anticipative fear of evil which all unfortunate people feel, Betty ran to the door, followed by her daughter, and opened it—to let in the mangled body of her husband; who, in felling an oak, on the property of Burnbank, had fallen under the weight of the tree, and got his leg broken, and one of his arms dislocated at the shoulder-joint. He was conveyed, by the kind neighbours, to a bed; and, by the time they got him undressed, for the purpose of his wounds being submitted to the curative process of the doctor, that individual arrived, and proceeded to perform the painful operation of setting the broken bones. The full effect of this misfortune to Effie and her mother was for a time suspended by the call made upon them to relieve the sufferings of the father and husband; and it was not till the bustle ceased, and the neighbours (excepting two women,[75] whose services, in addition to those of the wife and daughter, might still be required) went away, that they felt the full force of the gigantic evil that had befallen them, the consequences of which might extend through the remaining years of their existence.

A period of no less than eighteen months passed away, and David Mearns was still unable to do more than, with assistance, to rise from his bed, and sit, during a part of the day, by the fire, or at the window. During the whole of this time, he had been tended by his daughter with assiduous care. Her filial sympathies, called into active operation by the sorrows of her parent, filled up the void that had been made in her heart by the departure of her lover; and a new source of grief effected (however paradoxical it may seem) a change in the morbid melancholy to which she had been enslaved, which, although not for mental health or ease, was so much in favour of exertion and remedial exercise, that she came to present the appearance of one inclined to endeavour to sustain her sorrow, rather than resign herself to the fatal power of an irremediable woe. Among the visitors who took an interest in a family reduced by one stroke to want and all its attendant evils, Laird Cherrytrees evinced the strongest concern for the fate of his friend; and, by a timeous contribution of necessary assistance, ameliorated, in so far as man could, the unhappy condition of virtue under the load of misery. The many visits of the good old laird, and the long periods of time he passed by the bedside of the patient, enabled him to see and appreciate the devoted attention of Effie to her parent; and often, as she flew at the slightest indication of a wish for something to assuage pain, or remove the uneasiness produced by the long confinement, he would stop the current of his narrative, and fix his eyes on the kind maiden, so long as her tender office engaged her attention and feelings These long looks, not unaccompanied at times with a deep[76] sigh, were attributed, as they well might, to admiration and approbation of so much filial affection and devotedness exercised towards one whom the old laird respected above all his friends.

The visits of Laird Cherrytrees were at first twice or thrice a-week. His infirm body already begun to exhibit the effects of old age, prevented him from walking; and such was the anxiety he felt for the unhappy patient, that he mounted his old pony, Donald, nearly as frail as his master, to enable him to administer consolation so much required. He came always at the same hour; Effie, who expected him, was often at the door ready to receive him; and, while she held old Donald's head till he dismounted, welcomed her father's friend with so much sincerity and pleasure, that if she had failed in her ostlership, he would have felt a disappointment he would not have liked to express. Even when at a distance from the cottage, he strained his eyes to endeavour to catch a glimpse of the faithful attendant; and, if he did not see her, the rein of Donald was relaxed, and he was allowed to saunter along at his own pleasure, or even to eat grass by the roadside, (a luxury he delighted in from his having once belonged to a cadger,) so as to give Effie time to get to her post.

The three days of the week on which Laird Cherrytrees was in the habit of visiting David Mearns, were Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; and he seldom came without bringing something to the poor family—either some money for old Betty; some preserves, prepared by Lucy, for the invalid; or a book, or a flower from Burnbank garden, for Effie. When his conversation with David was finished—and every day it seemed to get shorter and shorter, though there seemed no lack of either subjects or ideas—he commenced to talk with Effie, chiefly on the nature and contents of the books he brought her to read; and nothing seemed to delight him more than to sit in the large arm-chair by[77] David's bedside, and hear Effie discoursing, ex cathedra, (on a three-footed stool at the foot of the bed, opposite to the Laird's chair,) with her characteristic simplicity and good sense, on the subjects he himself had suggested. But, notwithstanding all her efforts to appear well-pleased in presence of the man who was supporting her family, her train of thoughts was often broken in upon by the recollections of Lewis Campbell, and she would sit for an hour at a time, with the eyes of the Laird fixed on her melancholy face, as if he had been all that time in mute cogitation, suggesting some remedy for her sorrow. His ideas and feelings seemed to be operated upon by the same power that ruled the mind of the maiden; for his face followed, in its changing expressions, the mutations of her countenance. Her melancholy seemed to be communicated by a glance of her watery eye, as the thought of Lewis entered her mind; and when she recovered from her gloomy reverie, a corresponding indication of relief lighted up the grey, twinkling orbs of the old Laird. This custom of "glowrin," for whole hours at a time, on the face of the sensitive girl, at first painful to her, became a matter of indifference; and the position and attitudes of the three individuals—Betty being generally engaged about the house—undergoing, while the Laird was present, no change, came to assume something like the natural properties of the parties, as if they had been fixtures, or lay figures for the study of a painter.

Every time the Laird came to the cottage, he extended the period of his stay, and, latterly, he did not stir till a servant from Burnbank, sent by Lucy, came to take him home. It seemed as if he could not get enough of "glowrin;" for, latterly, all his occupation, which at first consisted of rational conversation, merged in that mute eloquence of the eye, or rather in that inebriation of the orb, "drinking of light," which lovers of sights, especially female countenances, are so fond of. The visits had been so[78] regular, not a day being ever missed, that, as Effie held the stirrup till he mounted Donald, during all which time the process of "glowrin" went on as regularly as at the bedside of David, she never thought of asking, and he never thought of stating, when he would call again. Time had stamped the act of calling with the impress of unchangeable custom. The caseless clock of David's cottage was not more regular; the only change being that already observed—that the time of the Laird's stay gradually and gradually lengthened.

The homage paid by Effie to Laird Cherrytrees was, as may easily be conceived, the respect, attention, and kindness of an open-hearted girl, filled with gratitude to the preserver of the lives of her and her parents. Every evening she offered up, at her bedside, prayers for the preservation and happiness of the man but for whose kindness starvation might have overtaken the helpless invalid, and not much less helpless wife and daughter. In their prayers the "amen" of David and his wife was the most heart-felt expression of love and gratitude that ever came from the lips of mortal. This feeling, however, did not prevent David Mearns and Betty from sometimes indulging, in the absence of Effie (in all likelihood giving freedom to her tears, as she sat in some favourite retreat of her absent lover,) in some remarks on the extraordinary conduct of Laird Cherrytrees. They soon saw through the secret, and resolved upon drawing him out; for which purpose Effie was to be called away on the occasion of the next visit.

The Laird came as he used to do, took his seat, and resumed his gazing. Effie pleased him exceedingly, by an account she gave him of the last book he brought to her; and, throwing himself back in the arm chair, he seemed, for a time, wrapped in meditation. Effie obeyed, in the meantime, her mother's request, to come for a few minutes to the green to assist her in her work; and, when the Laird again[79] applied his eyes to their accustomed vocation, he was surprised, but not (for once) displeased, at her disappearance. A great struggle now commenced between some wish and a restraint. He looked round the cottage, and then turned his eyes on David; acts which he repeated several times. Incipient syllables of words half-formed died away in his struggling throat. He moved restlessly in the large chair, and twirled his silver-headed cane in his hand. He even rose, went to the door, looked out, came back again, and took his seat without saying a word. Holding away his face from David, he at last made out a few words, uttered with great difficulty.

"A bonnier an' a better never was brocht up in Bramblehaugh, savin yer ain Lucy," replied David.

"It's a pity she's sae young," rejoined the Laird, with a great struggle, and making a noise with his cane, as if he had repented of his words, and wished to drown them before they reached the ears of David.

"I dinna think sae, beggin yer Honour's pardon," replied David. "We need her assistance, in this trial; an' I'm just thinkin o' some way she micht use her hands—an she's willing aneugh, puir cratur—for our assistance."

"Are ye no pleased wi' my assistance?" said the Laird, displeased at something in David's reply.

"Yer Honour has saved our lives," replied David, feelingly, "an' it wad only be because we are ashamed o yer guidness that we wad wish our dochter to tak a part o' that burden aff ane wha is under nae obligation to serve us."

"If I hae been yer friend, ye hae been mine," said the Laird. "I hae got guid advices frae ye; an', even noo, I[80] hae something to ask ye concernin mysel, that nae ither man i' the haugh could sae weel answer."

"What do ye think, David Mearns, I should do," said the Laird, moving about in the chair in evident perplexity, "if my dochter Lucy were to tak a husband an' leave Burnbank? I carena aboot fa'in into the hands o' Jenny Mucklewham, wha, for this some time past, has neither cleaned my buckles nor brushed my coat as I wad wish. She says I'm mair fashious; but that's a mere excuse."

"I hae seen aulder men marry again," said David, thinking he would please the Laird, by giving him such an answer as he was clearly fishing for.

"Aulder men, David, man!" replied the Laird, looking down at his person, and adjusting his wig. "Did I ask ye onything aboot my age? I wanted merely your advice, what I should do in certain circumstances, an' ye gie me a comparison for an answer.—Do ye think I should marry?"

"I never yet did wrang in following your advice, David Mearns," said the Laird. "—She's a fine lassie, Effie."

"Very fine," again said the Laird, turning his face partially from the window, so as the tail of his eye reached David's face, and waiting for something more.

David could, however, say nothing. The very circumstance of the Laird's wishing him to say something pertinent to the purpose already so broadly hinted at, prevented him from touching so delicate a subject; and, notwithstanding of another application of the tail of the Laird's eye, he was silent.

"Ye hae gien me ae advice, David," said the Laird, in despair of getting anything more out of David without a question:[81] "could ye no tell me wha I should marry, man?" And having achieved this announcement, he rose and walked to the window.

"That's owre delicate a subject for me to gie an advice on, yer Honour," replied David. "The doo lays aside ninety-nine guid straes, an' taks the hundredth, though a crooked ane, for its nest. Ye maun judge for yersel."

"What say ye to yer ain Effie, then?" said the Laird, relieved at last from a dreadful burden.

"If yer Honour likes the lassie, an' she'll tak yer Honour, I can hae nae objections," replied David.

The Laird, who seemed twenty years younger after this declaration, took David by the hand, and shook it till the pain of his dislocated arm almost made him cry.

"Will ye speak to her aboot it. David!" said he, still holding his hand. "The best farm o' Burnbank will be your reward. Plead for me, David, my best friend. Tell Betty aboot it, and get her to use a mother's pooer. If I can trust my een, Effie doesna dislike me. If a' gaes weel, ye may hae Ravelrigg, or Braidacre, or Muirfield—onything that's in my pooer to gie, David." And the old lover, exhausted by the struggle and excitement he had suffered, sank back into the chair.

"I will do my best," replied David. And the old Laird sighed, and absolutely groaned with pure, unmixed satisfaction.

At the end of this scene, Effie and her mother came in. The damsel took her old seat on the three-footed stool at the foot of the bed; the eyes of the Laird sought again her face, where he thought they had a better right now to rest. No more was spoken; enough for a day had been said and done; and, with a parting look to David, to keep him in remembrance of his promise, and a purse of money slipped into the hand of Betty, as a solvent of any obstacle that might exist in her mind, the lover went to the door to receive Donald[82] from the soft hands of Effie, who, as was her custom, had gone out before him, to lead the old cadger to the door, and hold the bridle till he with an effort got into the saddle. The only difference Effie could observe in his departure this day, was a kind of mock-gallant wave of the hand, as he, with more than usual spirit, struck his spurless heels into Donald's sides, and tried to rise in the saddle, in response to the hobble of the old Highlander.

The Laird had been scarcely out of the house, when David had a communing with his wife, in absence of Effie, on the extraordinary intimation made by the old lover. Betty was agreeable to the match; but the tear came into her eye as she thought of the sacrifice poor Effie was to be called upon to make. Neither of them could answer for the consent of Effie, whose melancholy, though somewhat ameliorated, was little diminished, and whose recollections of Lewis Campbell were as vivid as they were on the day of his departure. When she returned from one of her solitary rambles, which fed her passion and increased her grief, she was delicately told of the intentions of Laird Cherrytrees. The announcement of the extraordinary intelligence produced an effect which neither her father nor mother could have anticipated. A quick operation of her mind placed before her all the affectionate acts of attention she had for years been in the habit of applying to the old friend of her father, and the preserver of their lives. Gratitude, operating in one of the most grateful hearts that ever beat in the bosom of mortal, had produced in her an exuberant kindness, a devotedness of a species of affection due by a child to its godfather, a playful freedom of the confidence of one who relied on the disparity of years for a license from even the suspicion of a possibility of any other relation existing between them. That now came back upon her, loaded with self-reproach and shame, and attributing to her misconstrued attentions the extraordinary passion that had taken hold of[83] the heart of the old Laird. She was totally unable to make any reply to her parents. The image of Lewis Campbell, never absent from her mind, assumed a new form, and swam in the tears which flowed from her eyes. The natural contrast between age and youth, love and gratitude, assumed its legitimate strength. The first feeling of her mind was, that she would suffer the death that had for a time been impending over her, and whose finger was already on her breaking heart, rather than comply with the wishes of her father and mother. They saw the struggle that was in her mind, and abstained from pressing what they had suggested. They did not ask her even to give her sentiments; but the silent tears that stole down her cheek and dropped in her lap from her drooping head, required no spoken commentary to tell them the extent of her grief, and the resolution at least of a heart that might entirely break, as it appeared to be breaking, but never could forget.

There was little sleep for the eyes of Effie on the succeeding night. Her sobs reached the ears of her parents, who, unable to yield her consolation, were obliged to leave her to wrestle with her grief; sending up a silent prayer to the Author of all good dispensations, that He might assuage the sorrow of one who had already, with exemplary patience, submitted to the rod of affliction. The sacredness of her feelings was too well appreciated by her parents to admit of any offer of counsel, where deep-seated affection, the work of mysterious instinct, stood in solemn derision of the vulgar ideas of this world's expediency. The struggle in her mind arose from the strength of her love, and the power of her filial devotion. No part of the attendant circumstances or probable consequences of her decision escaped her mind. She knew that she never could be happy as the wife of any other individual, even of suitable age, than Lewis Campbell. But this concerned only herself; and she knew, and trembled as she thought, that the result of her decision might be[84] the destitution, the want, perhaps the death of her parents; their all depended on the breath of the man whom she, by the sign of her finger, might change from a friend to a foe; and she might thereby become the destroyer of those who gave her being.

The morning came, but brought neither sleep nor relief to the unhappy maiden. Her parents seemed inclined not to advert to the subject that day, but to let her struggle on with her own thoughts. The hour of the Laird's visit approached, and he was already on the road for the home of his beloved, whom his ardent fancy pictured standing smiling at the door, ready as usual to receive him and lead him into the house. Donald—who knew a reverie in his master bettor than he did himself, and did not fail to take advantage of it—ambled on with diminished speed. The Laird approached the cottage. No Effie was there. His bright visions took flight, and were succeeded by a cold shiver, the precursor of a gloomy train of ideas, which pictured a refusal and all its attendant horrors. He drew up the head of Donald, and even invited him to partake of the long grass which grew by the way-side. He counted the moments as Donald devoured the food; and, from time to time, lifted his eyes to see if Effie was yet at the cottage door. She was not, to be seen—and she had not been absent before for many months. His mind was unprepared for a refusal; the ground-swell of his previous excited fancy distracted him amidst the dead stillness of despair. He looked again, and for the last time that day. Effie was not yet there. He turned the head of the delighted, and no doubt astonished Donald, and quietly sought again the house of Burnbank.

The same procedure was gone through on the succeeding day. Laird Cherrytrees again proceeded to the cottage of David Mearns; and, as he sauntered along, he thought it impossible that Effie should again be absent from her post.[85] He was too good a man, and too conceited a lover, as all old lovers are, to allow his mind to dwell on the probable operation of necessity and the fear of injuring her father's patron, on the mind of the daughter; and yet a lurking, rebellious idea suggested that he would rather see Effie at the door, impelled by that cause, than absent altogether. His hopes again beat high, and Donald was pricked on to the goal of his wishes with an asperity he did not relish so well as a reverie. The spot was attained. Effie was still absent. Donald was again remitted to the long grass, and all the resources of a lover's mind were called up, to enable him to face the evil that awaited him. But all was in vain—he found it impossible to proceed.

"I am rejected," he muttered to himself, with a sigh; "a cottager's dochter has refused the Laird o' Burnbank; but her cauldness an' cruelty mak me like her the mair. Effie Mearns, Effie Mearns! hoo little do ye ken what commotion ye hae produced in this puir, burstin heart! But, though ye winna hae me, I winna desert yer faither. Hame, Donald, to Burnbank." And, as he pulled up the bridle with his left hand, he wiped away the tears that had collected in his eyes, and, casting many a look back to the cottage, cantered slowly home.

These proceedings of the Laird had been noticed by Betty Mearns from the window of the cottage, and she and David were at no loss to guess the cause of them. They knew his timid, sensitive disposition, and truly attributed his return to his not seeing Effie at the door waiting for him as usual. Apprehensions now seized the good mother, that the Laird might withdraw his attentions and assistance from the family, the result of which would be nothing but misery and ruin; as David's fractured limbs were yet far from being healed, and a long period must yet pass before he could earn a penny to keep in their lives. These fears were increased by a third and a fourth day having passed[86] without a visit from the Laird, who had, notwithstanding, been seen reconnoitering as usual at a distance from the cottage. Effie herself saw how matters stood, and learned, from the looks of her father and mother, sentiments they seemed unwilling to declare. She was still much convulsed with the struggle of the antagonist duties, wishes, emotions, and fears, that rose in her mind; and the apprehensions of her parents, which she considered well-founded, added to her sorrow an additional source of anguish.

"This house," said David, at last overcome by his feelings, "has become mair like an hospital that has lost its mortification than an honest man's cottage. Effie sits greetin an' sabbin the hail day, an' you, Betty, look forward to starvation, wi' the gruesome face o' despair. I am unhappy mysel, besides being an invalid. What is this to end in? What are we to do? How are we to live withoot meat, now that Burnbank, guid man, has deserted us?"

"There has come naething frae Burnbank for five days," replied Betty; "an' the siller I got frae the guid auld man, the last time he was here, I payed awa i' the village for necessaries I had taen on afore we got that help. Our girnel winna haud oot lang against three mous; an' if Laird Cherrytrees bides awa muckle langer, I see naething for it but to beg."

The tear started to the eye of David. He looked at Effie. She wept and sobbed, and covered her face with her hands.

"Effie, woman," said David, "a' this micht hae been averted if ye had just gane to the door, an' welcomed the auld Laird, as ye were wont. He's a blate man, though a guid carl; an' he has, nae doot, thocht he was unwelcome when yer auld practice o' waitin for him was gien up."

"I tauld her that, David," said Betty, "an' pressed her to gang to the door, though it was only to gie the blate Laird[87] a glimpse o' her, whilk was a' he wanted to bring him in; but she only sabbed the mair. Unhappy hour she first saw that callant, wha may now be dead or married for ought she kens!—an yet for his sake maun a hail family dree the dule o' this day's misery. Effie, woman, can ye no forget are wha hasna thocht ye worth the trouble o tellin ye, by ae scrape o' his pen, whether he be i' the land o' the livin!"

"I hae tauld Effie," said David, "what wad save us frae the ruin an' starvation that stare us i' the face; but my mind's made up to suffer to the end, though I should lie here wi' my broken banes, and dree the pains o' hunger, rather than force my dochter to marry a man against her ain choice. But, O Effie, woman, wad ye see yer puir faither, broken as he is baith in mind and body, lie starvin here in his bed, wi' nae mair pooer to earn a bite o' bread than the unspeaned bairn, and no mak a sacrifice to save him?"

"But deein winna save either him or me," said Betty. "Naething will hae that effect but yer agreein to be the leddy o' the braw hoose an' braid acres o' Burnbank. Wae's me! what a difference between that condition, wi' servants at yer nod, an' a' the comforts an' luxuries o' life at yer command, an', abune a', the pooer o' makin happy yer auld faither and mother, an' this awfu prospect o' dreein the very warst an' last o' a' the evils o' life—want an' auld age—ill-matched pair! Effie, woman, my bonny bairn, hae ye nae love in yer heart, but for Lewie Campbell? Wad ye, for his sake, see a' this misfortune fa' on the heads o' yer parents, whom, by the laws o' God an' man, ye are bound to honour, serve, and obey?"

It was easier for Effie to say she would die to save[88] her parents, than that she would comply with the wish of her mother; but the feeling appeal of her parent increased her agony, which induced another paroxysm of hysterical sobs—the only answer she could yet make to her mother.

"Effie doesna care for either you or me, Betty," said David, "or she wad hae little hesitation aboot marryin a guid, fresh, clean, rich, auld man, to save her faither and mother frae poverty and starvation. I see nae great sacrifice i' the matter. Her young heart mayna rejoice i' the pleasures o' a daft love, but her guid sense will be gratified by a feelin o' duty far aboon the vain, frawart freaks o' a silly, giddy, youthfu passion. Let her refuse Laird Cherrytrees, an' when Lewie Campbell comes hame, the owrecome bread o' the funeral o' her faither may grace a waddin bought wi' the price o' his life."

"Dinna speak that way, faither," cried Effie, lifting up her hands; "I canna stand that. You said ye wadna force me, an' ye are forcin me. Oh, my puir heart, wha or what will support ye when grief for my parents turns me against ye? Faither, faither, when I am dead, Laird Cherrytrees will be again yer friend. A little time will do't: will ye no wait?"

"Hunger waits only eight days, as the sayin is," replied he, "an ye'll live mair than that time, I hope an' trow. I will be dead afore ye, Effie, an' ye'll hae the consolation, as ye maybe drap a tear on the mossy grey stane that covers the Mearnses i' the kirkyard o' our parish, to think, if ye shouldna like to say, in case ye micht be heard—though thinkin an' speakin's a' ane to God—that 'that stane was lifted ten years suner than it micht hae been, because I liked Lewie Campbell better than auld Laird Cherrytrees.'"

"An' it's no likely," said the mother, "that I wad be there to hear Effie mak sae waefu a speech. If I binna[89] lyin wi' the Mearns, I'll be wi' the Cherrytrees o' Mossnook—nae relations o' the Burnbanks, though maybe as guid a family. But, afore I'm mixed wi' the dust o' that auld hoose, Effie—an' it mayna be lang—ye may join the twa Cherrytrees, an' let the gravestanes o' the Mearns, as weel as the Mossnooks, lie yet a score years langer withoot bein moved. It's a pity to disturb the lang grass. Its sough i' the nichtwind keeps the bats frae pickin the auld banes, an' maybe it may save yer mother's, if ye send her there afore her time."

Effie's feelings could no longer withstand these appeals. Her sobbing ceased suddenly; and, starting up from her seat, she looked to the old clock that stood against the wall of the cottage. She noticed that it was upon the hour of the Laird's usual visit.

"It is twelve o'clock, faither," she said, firmly—"this hoor decides the fate o' Effie Mearns."

Walking to the door, she placed herself in the position she used to occupy when she intended to welcome her father's friend. Now she was to welcome a husband. Laird Cherrytrees was, as might have been expected, allowing Donald to take his liberty of the road-side, grazing while he was busy reconnoitering the cottage. The moment he saw the form of Effie standing where he had for several long days wished to see her, he pulled up Donald's bridle with the alacrity of youth, and, striking his sides with his unarmed heels, made all the speed of a bridegroom to get to his bride. The sight of the object he had gazed upon so unceasingly for so long a time, and whom he had strained his eyes in vain to see during these eventful days, operated like a charm on the old lover. He discovered at first sight the red, swollen eyes of Effie; but he was too happy in thinking he had been successful, as he had no doubt he had, to meditate on the struggle which produced his bliss. Having taken a long draught of the fountain of his hopes and happiness, and feasted his eyes on the face of the maiden,[90] who attempted to smile through her tears, which he did sitting on his horse, and, without speaking a word—for, loquacious in politics or rural economy, he was mute in love—he dismounted, while Effie, as usual, held the reins. He lost no time in getting into his chair, falling back into it like a breathless traveller who has at last attained the end of his journey. David and Betty, who construed Effie's conduct into a consent, took an early opportunity, while she was still at the door, of letting the happy Laird know that their daughter, as they conceived, was inclined to the match. The Laird received the intelligence as if it had been too much for mortal to bear. He was at first beyond the vulgar habit of speech. He sighed, turned his eyes in their sockets, groaned, and wrung his hands. On recovering himself, he exclaimed——

"Whar is she, Betty? Let me see the dear creature. David, ye'll hae Ravelrigg; it's the best o' them a'. Whan is't to be, Betty? Ye maun fix the day; an' ye maun brak the thing to Lucy, and to Jenny Mucklewham; for I hae nae pooer. Let me see her—let me see the sweet creature this instant."

Effie, at the request of her mother, came in and resumed her seat on the three-footed stool. Her eyes were still swollen, and she looked sorrowfully at her father. The Laird fixed his eyes on her; but his loquacity was gone. He had not a word to say; but his "glowrin" was in some degree changed, being accompanied by a soft smile of self-complacency and contentment, and freed from the nervous irritability with which he used to solicit with his eyes a look from the object of his affections. His visit this day was shorter than it used to be. Next day, Betty was to visit Burnbank, to arrange for the marriage.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate girl resigned herself as a self-sacrifice into the hands of her mother. Bound with the silken bands of filial affection, she renounced all desire[91] of exercising her own free-will, or indulging in those feelings of the female heart which are deemed so strong as to demand the sacrifice often of all other earthly considerations. The fate of Iphiginia has occupied the pens and tongues of pitying mortals for thousands of years. A lovely woman sacrificed for a fair wind, doomed to have the blood that mantled in the blushing cheeks of beauty sprinkled on the altar of a false religion, is a spectacle which the imagination cannot contemplate without a participation of the strongest sympathies of the heart; yet there are, in the common every-day world we now live in, many a scene in the act of being performed, where, though there is no bloodshed and no smoking altar exhibited, the sacrifice is not less than that of the Grecian victim. Our blessed, holy altar of matrimony is often, by the wayward feelings of man—for we here say nothing of vice or corrupt conduct—made more cruel than those of Moloch and Chiun. There is many a bloodless Iphiginia in those days, whose sufferings are unknown and unsung, because confined to the heart that broke over them and concealed them in death. The young, tender, and devoted female, who, for the love she bears to her parents, consents to intermarry with rich age, to embrace dry bones, to extend her sympathies to churlishness, caprice, and ill-nature, or, what is worse, to the asthmatic giggle of a superannuated love, while all the while her heart, cheated of its tribute and swelling with indignation, requires to be watched by her with vigilance and firmness, the cruelty of which she herself feels—presents a form of self-sacrifice possessing claims on the pity of mankind beyond those of the boasted self-immolation of ancient devotees.

The silence and dejection of our bride were construed, by her parents, into that seemly and becoming sedateness which sensible young women think it proper to assume on the eve of so important a change in their condition as marriage; while the happy bridegroom had come to that[92] time of life when he is pleased with submission, though it be expressed through tears. No chemical menstruum has so much power in the dissolution of the hardest metals as the self-complacency of an old lover has in construing, according to his wishes, the actions, words, or looks of the young woman who is destined to be his bride. Silence and tears are expressive of happiness as well as of grief; and, so long as the desire of the ancient philosopher is uncomplied with by the gods, and there is no window to the heart, that organ in the young victim may break while the sexagenarian bridegroom is enjoying the imputed silent, restrained happiness of the object of his ill-timed affection.

The sadness and melancholy of the apparently-resigned Effie Mearns had no effect on the noise and show of the preparations for her marriage with her old lover. The marriages of old men are well known to be celebrated with higher bugle notes from the trumpet of fame than any others. A sumptuous dinner was to be given to the neighbouring lairds, and the cotters were to be fed and regaled on the green opposite to the mansion. Dancing and music were to add their charms to the gay scene; and it was even alleged that the light of a bonfire would lend its peculiar aid, in raising the joy of the guests, predisposed to hilarity by plenteous potations, to the proper height suited to the conquest of the old bridegroom over, at once, a young woman and old Time.

For days previous to the eventful one, Effie Mearns was not heard to open her lips. She looked on all the gay preparations for her marriage as if they had been the mournful acts of the undertaker employed in laying the silver trimming on the coffin lid of a lover. The bedside of her sick parent, who was still unable to rise, was the place where she sat "shrouded in silence." She heard the conversations of her father and mother about the progress of the preparations, without exhibiting so much interest as to show that she[93] understood them. Misgivings crossed the minds of the old couple, and brought tears to their eyes, as they contemplated the animated corpse that sat there, waiting the nod of the master of ceremonies, and ready to perform the part assigned to it in the forthcoming orgies of mournful joy; but they had gone too far to recede, and it was even a subject of satisfaction to them that the period of the celebration was so near, for otherwise they might have had reason to fear that their daughter would not have survived the intermediate time. When the bridegroom called, his ears were alarmed by the voices of the parents, who saw the necessity of endeavouring to hide the condition of their daughter; and he was satisfied, if he got, free and unrestrained, "a feast of the eyes." His love was still expressed by silent gazing; for it was too deep in his old heart for either words or tears; if, indeed, there was moisture enough in the seat of his affection for the suppliance of the softest expression of the soft passion.

The eventful day arrived. The marriage was to take place in the cottage, where David Mearns still lay confined to bed. The sick man wore a marriage favour attached to the breast of his shirt!—for Laird Cherrytrees would be contented with no less a demonstration of his participation in his unparalleled happiness. The still silent bride submitted passively to all the acts of her nimble dressers, whose laugh seemed to strike her ears like funeral bells; yet she tried—poor victim! to smile, though the clouded beam came through a tear which, by its steadfastness, seemed to belong to the orb. The bridegroom came at the very instant when he ought to have come—the hand of the clock not having had time to leave the mark of notation. He was dressed in the style of his earliest days, with cocked hat, laced coat, and a sky-blue vest, embroidered in the richest manner; while a new wig, ordered from the metropolis, imparted to him the freshness of youth. His cheek[94] was flushed with the blood which joy had forced, for a moment, from where it was more needed, at the drying fountain of life; and his eye spoke a happiness which his parched tongue could not have achieved, without causing shame even to himself. Everything was new, spruce, perking, self-complacent. The clergyman next came, and all was prepared.

Throughout all this time and all these preparations, not the slightest change had been observed on the bride. After she was dressed, she took her seat again, silently by the side of her father's sickbed, where she sat like a statue. The ceremony was now to commence, and she stood up, when required by the clergyman, as if she obeyed the command of an executioner. It was noticed that she seemed to incline to be as near as possible to her father's bed; and her unwillingness or inability to come forward forced the clergyman and the bridegroom some paces from the situation they at first held. The ceremony proceeded till it came to the part where the consent of the parties is asked. The happy bridegroom pronounced his response, quick, sharp, and with an air of conceit, which brought a smile to the faces of the parties present. There was now a pause for the consent of the bride. All eyes were fixed on her death-like face. A severe struggle was going on in her bosom; yet her countenance was unmoved, and no one conjectured that she suffered more than sensitive females often do in her situation. The clergyman repeated his question. There was still a pause—the eyes of all were riveted on her. "I canna, I canna!" at last she exclaimed, in a voice of agony, and fell back on the bed—a corpse!

Six months after the death of Effie Mearns, Lucy Cherrytrees was married, without faint or swoon, to Lewis Campbell, who returned home, in spite of his reported death. The union was against the consent of the Laird, who soon died of either a broken heart or old age—no doctor could have told which.

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.

XIV. —JAMES RENWICK.

In the times in which we live, party spirit is carried very far. Many honest tradesmen, merchants, and shopkeepers, are ruined by their votes at elections. The ordinary intercourse of social life is obstructed and deranged. Friends go up to the polling station with friends, but separate there, and become, it may be, the most inveterate enemies. This, our later reformation of 1832, has cost us much; but our sufferings are nothing to those which marked the two previous reformations from Popery and Prelacy. In the one instance, fire and faggot were the ordinary means adopted for defending political arrangements; in the other, the gallows and the maiden did the same work, and the boots and the thumbikins acted as ministering engines of torture. The whole of society was convulsed; men's blood boiled in their veins at the revolting sights which were almost daily obtruding upon their attention; and their judgments being greatly influenced by their feelings, it is not to be wondered at that they should, in a few instances, have overshot, as it were, the mark—have sacrificed their lives to the support of opinions which appear now not materially different from those which their enemies pressed upon their acceptance. It is a sad mistake to suppose that the friends of Presbytery, during the fearful twenty-eight years' persecution of Charles and James, died in the support of certain doctrines and forms of church government merely. With these were, unhappily, or rather, as things have turned out, fortunately, combined, political or civil liberty, the establishment and support of a supreme power, vested in King, Lords, and[96] Commons—instead of being vested, by usurpation, merely in the King alone. By avoiding to call Parliaments, and by obtaining supplies of money from France and otherwise, the two last of the Stuart Despots had, in fact, broken the compact of Government, and had exposed themselves all along, through the twenty-eight years of persecution, to dethronement for high treason. This was the strong view taken by those who fought and who fell at Bothwell Bridge, and this was the view taken by nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Scotland—of the descendants and admirers of Bruce and Wallace—of Knox and Carstairs. James Renwick, the last of the martyrs in the cause of religion and liberty, was executed in Edinburgh in his twenty-sixth year. He was a young man of liberal education, conducted both at the college of Edinburgh, and Groningen, abroad—of the most amiable disposition, and the most unblemished moral character—yet, simply because he avowed, and supported, and publicly preached doctrines on which, in twelve months after his execution, the British Government was based, he was adjudged to the death, and ignominiously executed in the presence of his poor mother and other relatives, as well as of the Edinburgh public. Mr Woodrow, in his history of this man's life, alludes to some papers which he had seen, containing notices of Mr Renwick's trials and hair-breadth escapes; prior to his capture and execution—which, however, he refrains from giving to the public. It so happens that, from my acquaintance with a lineal descendent of the last of the Martyrs, I have it in my power, in some measure, to supply the deficiency; his own note, or memorandum-book, being still in existence, though it never has been, nor ever will, probably, be published.

It was in the month of January 1688, that Mr Renwick was preaching, after nightfall, to a few followers, at Braid Craigs, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. The night was stormy—a cold east wind, with occasional blasts of snow—whilst[97] the moon, in her second quarter, looked out, at intervals, on plaids and bonnets nestled to the leeward of rocks and furze. It was a piteous sight to view rational and immortal creatures reduced to a state upon the level with the hares and the foxes. Renwick discoursed to them from the point of a rock which protruded over the lee side of the Craigieknowe. His manner was solemn and impressive. He was a young man of about twenty-five years of age; and his mother, Elspeth Carson, sat immediately before him—an old woman of threescore and upwards—in her tartan plaid and velvet hood. Her son had been born to a larger promise, and had enjoyed an excellent academic education; and much it had originally grieved the old woman's heart to find all her hopes of seeing him minister of her native parish of Glencairn, blasted; but his conscience would not allow him to conform; and she had followed him in his wanderings and field-preachings, through Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and all along by the Pentland Hills, to Edinburgh, where a sister of hers was married, and lived in a respectable way on the Castle Hill. This evening, after psalm-singing and prayer, Mr. Renwick had chosen for his text these words, in the fourth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the book of Revelation—"Come out of her, my people." The kindly phrase, "my people," was beautifully insisted upon.

"There ye are," said Renwick, stretching out his hand to the darkening sleet; "there ye are, a poor, shivering, fainting, despised, persecuted remnant, whom the great ones despise, and the men of might, and of war, and of blood, cut down with their swords, and rack with their tortures. Ye are, like ye'r great Master, despised and rejected of men; but the Master whom ye serve, and whom angels serve with veiled faces, and even He who created and supports the sun, the moon, and the stars, He—blessed be His name!—is[98] not ashamed to acknowledge ye, under all your humiliation, as His people. 'Come out of her,' says He, 'my people.' O, sirs, this is a sweet and a loving invitation. Ye are 'His people,' the sheep of His pasture, after all; and who would have thought it, that heard ye, but yesterday, denounced at the cross of Edinburgh as traitors, and rebels, and non-conformists, as the offscourings of the earth, the filth and the abomination in the eyes and in the nostrils of the great and the mighty? 'Come out!' says the text, and out ye have come—'done ere ye bade, guid Lord!' Ye may truly and reverentially say—Here we are, guid Lord; we have come out from the West Port, and from the Grassmarket, and from the Nether Bow, and from the Canongate—out we have come, because we are thy people. We know thy voice, and thy servants' voice, and a stranger and a hireling, with his stipend and his worldly rewards, will we not follow; but we will listen to him whose reward is with him; whose stipend is Thy divine approbation; whose manse is the wilderness; and whose glebe land is the barren rock and the shelterless knowe. Come out of her. There she sits," (pointing towards Edinburgh, now visible in the scattered rays of the moon,) "there she sits, like a lady, in her delicacies, and her drawing-rooms, and her ball-rooms, and her closetings, and her abominations. Ye can almost hear the hum of her many voices on the wings of the tempest. There she sits in her easy chair, stretching her feet downwards, from west to east, from castle to palace! But she has lost her first love, and has deserted her covenanted husband. She hath gone astray—she hath gone astray!—and He who made her hath denounced her—He whose she was in the day of her betrothment, hath said—She is no longer mine; 'come out of her, my people'—be not misled by her witcheries, and her dalliance, and her smiles—be not terrified by her threats, and cruelties, and her murderings—she is drunk, she is drunk—and with the most dangerous and intoxicating[99] beverage, too—she is drunk with the blood of the saints. When shipwrecked and famishing sailors kill each other, and drink the blood, it is written that they immediately become mad, and, uttering all manner of blasphemies, expire! Thus it is with the 'Lady of the rock'—she is now in her terrible blasphemies, and will, by and by, expire in her frenzy. And who sits upon her throne?—even the bloody Papist, who misrules these unhappy lands—he, the usurper of a throne from which by law he is debarred—even the cruel and Papistical Duke, whom men, in their folly or in their fears, denominate 'King'—he, too, is doomed—the decree hath gone forth, and he will perish with her, because he would not come out."

"Will he, indeed, Mr Bletherwell? But there are some here who must perish first." So said the wily and infuriated Claverhouse, as he poured in his men by a signal from the adjoining glen, (where the lonely hermitage now stands in its silent beauty,) and in an instant had made Renwick, and about ten of his followers—the old woman, his mother, included—prisoners. This was done in an instant, for the arrangements had been made prior to the hour of meeting, and Claverhouse, attired in plaid and bonnet, had actually sat during the whole discourse, listening to the speaker till once he should utter something treasonable, when, by rising on a rock, and shaking the corners of his plaid, he brought the troop up from their hiding-places, amidst the whins and the broom by which the glen was at that time covered. Renwick, seeing all resistance useless, and indeed forbidding his followers, who were not unprovided for the occasion, to fire upon the military, marched onwards, in silence, towards Edinburgh. As they passed along by the land now denominated "Canaan," they halted at a small public-house kept by a woman well known at the time by the nickname of "Red-herrings," on account of her making frequent use of these viands to stimulate a desire for her strong drink.[100] Over her door-way, indeed, a red-herring and a foaming tankard were rudely sketched on a sign-board, (like cause and effect, or mere sequence!) in loving unity. The prisoners were accommodated with standing-room in Tibby's kitchen; while the soldiers, with their leader, occupied the ben-room and the only doorway—thus securing their prisoners from all possibility of escape. Refreshments, such as Tibby could muster, consisting principally of brandy and ale, mixed up in about equal proportions of each, were distributed amongst the soldiers—who were, in fact, from their long exposure in the open air, in need of some such stimulants; whilst the poor prisoners were only watched, and made a subject of great merriment by the soldiers. The halt, however, was very temporary; but, temporary as it was, it enabled several of the members of the field-meeting to reach Edinburgh, and to apprise their friends, and what is termed the mob of the streets, of the doings at "Braid Craigs." Onwards advanced the party—soldiers before and behind, and their captives in the middle—till they reached the West Port, at the foot of the Grassmarket. It was near about ten o'clock, and the streets were in a buz with idle 'prentices, bakers' boys, shoemakers' lads, &c. The march along the Grassmarket seemed to alarm Clavers, for he halted his men, made them examine their firelocks, spread themselves all around the prisoners, and, advancing himself in front, and on his famous black horse, with drawn sword and holster pistols, seemed to set all opposition at defiance. The party had already gained the middle of that narrow and winding pass, the West Bow, when a waggon, heavily loaded with stones, was hurled downwards upon the party, with irresistible force and rapidity—Clavers's horse shied, and escaped the moving destruction; but it came full force into the very midst of the soldiers, who, from a natural instinct, turned off into open doors and side closes; in this they were imitated by the poor prisoners,[101] who were better acquainted with the localities of the West Bow than the soldiery. In an instant afterwards, a dense and armed mob rushed headlong down the street, carrying all before them, and shouting aloud, "Renwick for ever! Renwick for ever!" This was taken as a hint by the prisoners, who, in an instant, had mixed with the mob; or sunk, as it were, through the earth, into dark passages and cellars. "Fire!" was Claverhouse's immediate order, so soon as the human torrent had reached him; and fire some of the soldiers did, but not to the injury of any of the prisoners, but to that of a person—a bride, as it turned out—who, in her curiosity or fear, had looked from a window above; she was shot through the head, and died instantly. But, in the meantime, the rescue was complete—Claverhouse, afraid manifestly of being shot from a window, galloped up the brae, and made the best of his way to the Castle, there to demand fresh troops to quell what he called an insurrection: whilst, in the meantime, the men, after a very temporary search or pursuit, marched onwards, with their muskets presented to the open windows, in case any head should protrude. But no heads were to be seen; and the soldiers escaped to the guard-house (to the Heart of Midlothian) in safety. Here, however, a scene ensued of a most heart-rending nature. Scarcely had the men grounded their muskets in the guard-house, when a seeming maniac rushed upon them with an open knife, and cut right and left like a fury. He was immediately secured, but not till after many of the soldiers were bleeding profusely. They thrust him immediately, bound hand and foot, into the black-hole, to await the decision of next morning; but next morning death had decided his fate—he had manifestly died of apoplexy, brought on by extreme excitement. His mother, who had followed her son when he issued forth deprived seemingly of reason, having lost sight of him in the darkness, had learned next morning of his fate and situation.[102] She came, therefore, with the return of light, to the prison door, and had been waiting hours before it was opened. At last Clavers arrived, and ordered the maniac to be brought into his presence, and that of the Court, for examination. But it was all over; and the distorted limbs and features of a young and handsome man were all the mark by which a fond mother could certify the identity of an only son. From this poor woman's examination, it turned out that her son was to have been married on that very day to a young woman whom he had long loved; but that he had been called to see her corpse, after she was shot by the soldiery, and had rushed out in the frantic and armed manner already described. The poor woman, from that hour, became melancholy; refused to take food; and, always calling upon the names of her "bonny murdered bairns," was found dead one morning in her bed.

In the meantime, James Renwick had made the best of his way down the Cowgate, and across, by a narrow wynd, into the Canongate, where a friend of his kept a small public-house. He had gone to bed; but his wife was still at the bar, and two men sat drinking in a small side apartment. He asked immediately for her husband, and was recognised, but with a wink and a look which but too plainly spoke her suspicion of the persons who were witnesses of his entrance. Hereupon he called for some refreshment, as if he had been a perfect stranger, and, seating himself at a small table, began to read in a little note-book which he took from his side pocket—"four, five, six, seven—yes, seven," said he—"and it has cost me seven pounds my journey to Edinburgh." This he said so audibly as to be heard by the persons who were sitting in the adjoining box, that they might regard him as a stranger, and unconnected with Edinburgh. But, as he afterwards expressed it, he deeply repented of the attempt to mislead. The Lord, he said, had justly punished him[103] for distrusting his power to extricate him, as he had already done, from his troubles. The men, after one had accosted him in a friendly tone about the weather, or some indifferent subject, took their departure; and Mrs Chalmers and he, now joined by the husband, enjoyed one hour's canny crack ere bedtime, over some warm repast. The whole truth was made known to them; but, though perfectly trustworthy themselves, they expressed a doubt of their customers, who were known to be little better than hired informers, who went about to public-houses, at the expense of the Government, listening and prying if they could find any evidence against the poor Covenanters. Next day, even before daylight, the house was surrounded by armed men, and Renwick was demanded by name. Mr Chalmers did not deny that he was in the house, but said that he came to him as to a distant relation, and that he was no way connected with his doctrines or opinions. In the meantime, Renwick was aroused, and had resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. He was a young and an active man, and trusted, as he owned with great regret afterwards, to his strength and activity, rather than to the mercy and the wisdom of his Maker. So, rushing suddenly down stairs, and throwing himself, whilst discharging a pistol, (which, however, did no harm), into the street, he was out of sight in a twinkling; but, in passing along, his hat fell off; and this circumstance drew the attention and suspicion of every one whom he passed, to his appearance. One foot, in particular, pressed hard upon him from behind, and a voice kept constantly crying, "Stop thief!—stop thief!" He ran down a blind alley, on the other side of the Canongate, and was at last taken, without resistance, by three men, one of whom—and it was the one who had all along pursued him—was the person who had accosted him last night in the public-house, respecting the weather. He was immediately carried to[104] prison, where he remained—visited indeed by his mother—till next assizes, when he was tried, condemned, and afterwards executed—the Last of the Martyrs!

The conversation which he had with his mother, his public confessions of faith, and adherence to the covenanted cause, as well as his last address, drowned at the time in the sound of drums—all these are given at full length in Woodrow, (the edition of Dr Burns of Paisley), to which I must refer the reader who is curious upon such subjects. In this valuable work will likewise be found the inscription placed upon a very handsome cippus, or monument of stone, erected to his memory. We give it to the reader. There is another, if we mistake not, in the Greyfriars of Edinburgh, somewhat in the same style. They are both equally simple and touching.

The late James Hastings, Esq. gave a donation of the ground. The subscriptions, amounting to about £100, were collected at large from Christians of all denominations; and the gentleman who took the most active part in suggesting and carrying through the undertaking, was the Rev. Gavin Mowat, minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation at Whithorn, and formerly at Scar-brig, in Penpont, Dumfries-shire. The monument is placed upon the farm of Knees, at no great distance from the farm-house where the martyr was born. It stands upon an[105] eminence, from which it may be seen at the distance of several miles down the glen, in which the village of Monyaive is situated. It was visited last summer by the author of this narrative; when the resolution, which has now been very imperfectly fulfilled, was taken.

XV. —OLD ISBEL KIRK.

Isbel Kirk lived in Pothouse, Closeburn, in that very house where that distinguished scholar, the late Professor Hunter of St Andrew's, was born. She had never been married, and lived in a small lonely cottage, with no companions but her cat and cricket, which chirped occasionally from beneath the hudstone, against which her peat-fire was built. There sat old, and now nearly blind, Isbel Kirk, spinning or carding wool, crooning occasionally an old Scotch song, or, it might be, one of David's psalms, and enjoying at intervals her pipe, a visit from her next neighbour, Nancy Nivison, or her champit-potatoes—a luxury which the west country, and that alone, has hitherto enjoyed. Two old Irish women had settled some time before this on the skirts of the opposite brae, where they had built a small turf cabin, and lived nobody could well tell how. They were generally understood to make a kind of precarious living, by going about the country periodically, giving pigs or crockery-ware in exchange for wool. Isbel Kirk was a most simple, honest creature, living on little, but procuring that little by her industry in spinning sale yarn, weaving garters, and using her needle occasionally, to assist the guidwife of Gilchristland in shirt-making for a large family. But the M'Dermots were the aversion of everybody, and seldom visited even by the guidman of Barmoor, on whose farm, or rather on the debatable skirts of it, they had sat down, almost in spite of his teeth. He[106] was a humane man; and, though he loved not such visitors, yet he tolerated the nuisance, as his wife reckoned them skilled in curing children's diseases, and in spaeing the young women's fortunes. John Watson pastured sheep, where corn harvests now wave in abundance; and his flocks spread about to the doors of the M'Dermots and Isbel Kirk. These flocks gradually decreased, and much suspicion was attached to his Irish and heathenish neighbours, for they attended no place of worship, not even the conformed Curate's; but there was no proof against them. At last, a search was suddenly and secretly instituted under the authority of the Laird of Closeburn; and, although much wool was found, still there were no entire fleeces, nor any means left of bringing it home to the M'Dermots.

"Na, na, guidman," said the elder of the two harridans. "Na—ye needna stir aboot the kail-pot in that way—ye'll find naething there but a fine bit o' the dead braxy I gat frae the guidman o' Gilchristland, for helping the mistress wi' her kirn, that wadna mak butter; but there are folks that ye dinna suspect, and that are maybe no that far off either, wha could very weel tell ye gin they liked whar yer braw gimmer yows gang till."

Being pushed to be more particular, they were seemingly compelled at last to intimate that auld Isbel Kirk, she and her friend, Nanny Nivison, could give an account of the stolen sheep, if they liked. The guidman would not credit such allegations; but the old women persisted in their averment, and even offered to give the guidman of Barmoor occular demonstration of the guilt of the twa saunts, as they called them. A few days passed, and still a lamb or an old sheep would disappear—they melted away gradually, and the guidman began to think that his flocks must be bewitched, and that the devil himself must keep a kitchen somewhere about the Chaise Craig, over which[107] Archy Tait had often seen the old gentleman driving six-in-hand about twelve o'clock at night. Returning, therefore, one morning to the M'Dermots, and renewing the conversation respecting Isbel Kirk and Nanny Nivison, it was agreed that one of the Irish sisterhood should walk over to Isbel's with him next forenoon, and that she would give him evidence of the fate of his flocks. Isbel was sitting before her door, in the sunshine of a fine spring morning, when the guidman and Esther M'Dermot arrived. She welcomed them kindly into her small but clean and neat cottage; and, with all the despatch which her blindness would permit of, dusted for their use an old-fashioned chair, and a round stool, which served the double purpose of stool and table. The conversation went on as usual about the weather, and the last sufferer in the cause of the Covenant, when Esther M'Dermot went into a dark corner, and forthwith drew out into the guidman's view, and to his infinite astonishment, a sheep's head, which bore the well-known mark of the farm on its ears.

"Look there, guidman," said Esther, "isna that proof positive of the way in which your braw hirsel is disposed of? By Jasus and the holy St Patrick! and here is a foot too, and twa horns!"

Poor Isbel Kirk could scarcely be made to apprehend the meaning of all this—indeed she could scarcely see the evidences of her guilt—and assured the guidman, in the most unequivocal manner imaginable, that she was innocent as the child unborn; indeed, she said, what should she do with dead sheep, or how should she get hold of them, seeing she was old and blind, and had not enjoyed a bit of mutton, or any other flesh, meat, since the new year?

"Ay," responded old Esther; "but ye hae friends that can help ye; dinna I whiles see, after dark, twa tall figures stealing o'er your way frae the Whitside linn yonder! I'se warrant they dinna live on deaf nits, after lying a' day in a[108] dark and damp cave." Isbel held up her hands in prayer, entreating the Lord to be merciful to her and to his ain inheritance, and to discomfit the plans of his and her enemies.

"Ye may pray," said Elspat, "as ye like, but ye'll no mak the guidman here distrust his ain een, wi' yer praying and yer Whiggery." This last suggestion of the nightly visitors staggered Mr Watson not a little; he well knew how friendly old Isbel was to the poor Covenanters, and brought himself to conclude, under the weighty and conclusive evidence before him, that Isbel might have persuaded herself that she was rendering God good service by feeding his chosen people with the best of his flock. Isbel could only protest her innocence and ignorance of the way in which these evidences against her came there; whilst the guidman and Esther took their leave—he threatening that the matter should not rest where it was, and the old Irish jade pretending to commiserate Isbel on the unfortunate discovery.

Next morning, the pothouse was surrounded, and carefully searched by a detachment of Lag's men, to whom information of Isbel's harbouring rebels had been (the reader may guess how) communicated. Having been unsuccessful in their search, they put the poor blind creature to the torture, because she would not discover, or, perhaps, could not reveal, the retreat of the persecuted people. A burning match was put betwixt her fingers, and she was firmly tied to a bedpost, whilst the fire was blown into a flame by one of the soldiers. Not a feature in Isbel's countenance changed; but her lips moved, and she was evidently deeply absorbed in devotional exercise.

"Come, come, old Bleary," said one, "out with it! or we will roast you on the coals, like a red herring, for Beelzebub's breakfast."

"Ye can only do what ye're permitted to do," said the[109] poor sufferer, now writhing with pain, and suffering all the agonies of martyrdom. "Ye may burn this poor auld body, and reduce it to its natural dust; but ye will never hear my tongue betray any of the poor persecuted remnant."

It is horrible to relate, but the fact cannot be disputed, that these monsters stood by and blew the match till the poor creature's fingers were actually burnt off—yet she only once cried for mercy; but, when they mentioned the conditions, she fainted; and thus nature relieved her from her sufferings. When she came again to herself, she found that they had killed the only living creature which she could call companion, and actually hung the body of the dead cat around her neck; but they were gone, and her hands were untied.

During the ensuing night a watch was set upon poor Isbel's house, thinking, as the persecutors did, that they would catch the nightly visitants, who were yet ignorant of their friend's sufferings in their behalf. The men lay concealed among brackens, on the bank opposite to the pothouse, and near to Staffybiggin, the residence of the M'Dermots. To their surprise, a figure, about twelve o'clock, came warily and stealthily around a flock of sheep which lay ruminating in the hollow. It was a female figure, if not the devil in a female garb. They continued to keep silent and lie still. At last they saw the whole flock driven over and across a thick-set bush of fern. One of the sheep immediately began to struggle; but it was manifestly held by the foot—in a few instants, two figures were seen dragging it into M'Dermot's door. This naturally excited their surprise, and, rushing immediately into the hut, they found the two old women in the act of preparing in a pit—which, during the day time, was concealed—mutton for their own use. The murder was now out. These wretched women had been in the habit, for some years, of supplying themselves from the Barmoor flocks; the one lying flat down upon her back amongst the furze, and the[110] other driving the sheep over her breast. Thus the sister who caught, had an opportunity of selecting; and the best of the wedders had thus from time to time disappeared.

Poor Isbel Kirk!—her innocence was now fully established; but it was too late. Her kind friend Nanny Nivison attended her in her last illness, and the guidman of Barmoor paid every humane attention. But the ruffians of a mistaken and ill-advised government had deranged her nervous system. Besides, the burn never properly healed; it at last mortified, and she died almost insensible, either of pain or presence. Her soul seemed to have left its frail tabernacle ere life was extinct. The example we have here given is taken from that humble source, which the historian leaves open to the gleaner. Indeed, the histories of those times give but a very imperfect idea of the atrocities of that remarkable period. The cottage door must be opened to get at the truth; but the stately political historian seldom enters.

XVI. —THE CURLERS.

Winter 1684-5 was, like the last, cold, frosty, and stormy. The ice was on lake and muir from new year's day till the month of March. Curling was then, as it is still, the great winter amusement in the south and west of Scotland. The ploughman lad rose by two o'clock of a frosty morning, had the day's fodder threshed for the cattle, and was on the ice, besom in hand, by nine o'clock. The farmer, after seeing things right in the stable and the byre, was not long behind his servant. The minister left his study and his M.S., his concordance, and his desk, for the loch, and the rink, and the channel-stane. Even the laird himself was not proof against the temptation, but often preferred full twelve hours of rousing game on the ice, to all the fascinations of the drawing or the billiard-room,[111] or the study. Even the schoolmaster was incapable of resisting the tempting and animating sound; and, at every peal of laughter which broke upon his own and his pupils' ears, turned his eyes and his steps towards the window which looked upon the adjoining loch; and, at last, entirely overcome by the shout over a contested shot; off he and his bevy swarmed, helter-skelter, across the Carse Meadow, to the ice. From all accounts which I have heard of it, this was a notable amongst many notable days. The factor was never in such play; the master greatly outdid himself; the laird played hind-hand in beautiful style; and Sutor John came up the rink "like Jehu in time o' need." Shots were laid just a yard, right and left, before and behind the tee; shots were taken out, and run off the ice with wonderful precision; guards, that most ticklish of all plays, were rested just over the hog-score, so as completely to cover the winner; inwicks were taken to a hair, and the player's stone whirled in most gracefully, (like a lady in a country dance), and settled, three-deep-guarded, upon the top of the tee. Chance had her triumphs as well as good play. A random shot, driven with such fury that the stone rebounded and split in two, deprived the opposite side of four shots, and took the game. The sky was blue as indigo, and the sun shot his beams over the Keir Hills in penetrating and invigorating splendour. Old women frequented the loch with baskets; boys and young lads skated gracefully around; the whisky-bottle did its duty; and even the herons at the spring-wells had their necks greatly elongated by the roaring fun. It was a capital day's sport. Little did this happy scene exhibit of the suffering and the misery which was all this while perpetrated by the men of violence. Clavers, the ever-infamous, was in Wigtonshire with his Lambs; Grierson was lying in his den of Lag, like a lion on the spring; Johnstone was on the Annan;[112] and Winram on the Doon; whilst Douglas was here, and there, and everywhere, flying, like a malevolent spirit, from strath to strath, and from hill to dale. The snow lay, and had long been lying, more than a foot deep, crisp and white, over the bleak but beauteous wild; the sheep were perishing for want of pasture; and many poor creatures were in absolute want of the necessaries of life. (The potato, that true friend of the people, had not yet made its way to any extent into Scotland). Caves, dens, and outhouses were crowded with the persecuted flock. The ousted ministers were still lifting up their voice in the wilderness, and the distant hum of psalmody was heard afar amongst the hills, and by the side of the frozen stream and the bare hawthorn. What a contrast did all this present to the fun, frolic, and downright ecstacy of this day's sport! But the night came, with its beef and its greens, and its song, and its punch, and its anecdote, and its thrice-played games, and its warm words, and its half-muttered threats, and its dispersion about three in the morning.

"Wha was yon stranger?" said John Harkness to Sandy Gibson, as they met next day on the hill. "I didna like the look o' him; an' yet he played his stane weel, an' took a great lead in the conversation. I wish he mayna be a spy, after a'; for I never heard o' ony Watsons in Ecclefechan, till yon creature cast up."

"Indeed," said lang Sandy, "I didna like the creature—it got sae fou an' impudent, late at nicht; an' then that puir haverel, Will Paterson, cam in, an' let oot that the cave at Glencairn had been surprised, an' the auld minister murdered. If it be na the case—as I believe it isna hitherto—there was enough said last nicht to mak it necessary to hae the puir, persecuted saint informed o' his danger."

"An' that's as true," responded John; "an' I think you an' I canna do better than wear awa wast o'er whan[113] the sun gaes down, an' let honest Mr Lawson ken that his retreat is known. That Watson creature—didna ye tent?—went aff, wi' the curate, a wee afore the lave; they were heard busy talking together, in a low tone of voice, as they went hame to the manse. I wonder what maks the laird—wha is a perfect gentleman, an' a friend, too, o' the Covenanted truth—keep company, on the ice, or off it, wi' that rotten-hearted, roupit creature, the curate o' Closeburn?"

"Indeed," replied the other, "he is sae clean daft aboot playing at channel-stane, that, I believe, baith him, an' the dominie, an' the factor—forby Souter Ferguson—would play wi' auld Symnie himself, provided he was a keen and a guid shot! But it will be mirk dark—an' there's nae moon—ere we mak Glencairn cave o't."

John Harkness and Sandy Gibson arrived at Monyaive, in Glencairn, a little after dark. The cave was about a mile distant from the town; and, with the view of refreshment, as well as of concerting the best way of avoiding suspicion, they entered a small ale-house kept by an old woman at the farther end of the bridge. They were shewn into a narrow and meanly-furnished apartment, and called for a bottle of the best beer, with a suitable accompaniment of bread and cheese. The landlady, by-and-by, was sent for, and was asked to partake of her own beverage, and questioned, in a careless and incidental manner, respecting the news. She looked somewhat embarrassed; and, fixing her eyes upon a keyhole, in a door which conducted to an adjoining apartment, she said, in a whisper—

"I ken brawly wha ye are, an maybe, too, what ye're after; but ye hae need to be active, lads; for there are those in that ither room that wadna care though a yer heads, as well as those o' some ither folks that shall be nameless were stuck on the West Port o' Edinbro."[114]

In an instant, the two young farmers were butt the house, and beside Tibby Haddow's peat fire. In the course of a short, and, to all but themselves, an inaudible conversation, they learned that Lag himself, disguised as a common soldier, was in the next room, in close colloquy with a person clothed in grey duffle, with a broad bonnet on his head. From the description of the person, the two Closeburnians had no manner of doubt that the information obtained last night, in regard to the existence of a place of refuge in Glencairn, was now in the act of being communicated.

"Yes, at one," responded the stranger, Watson—whose voice was equally well-known to the farmers—"at one!" And they parted—the one going east, and the other west—and were lost in the darkness of night.

It was now past seven, with a clear, frosty night. What was to be done? It was manifest that the cave was betrayed—at least, that the whereabouts was known—and it was likewise necessary that this information should be conveyed to the poor inmate. But where was he to find a refuge, after the cave had been vacated? It struck them, in consulting, that if they could get the old woman to be friendly and assisting, the escape might be effected before the time evidently fixed upon for taking the cave by surprise. This was, however, a somewhat dangerous experiment; for, although Tibby M'Murdo was known to be favourable—as who amongst the lower classes was not?—to the non-conformists, yet she might not choose to run the immense risk of ruin and even death, which might result from her knowingly giving harbour to a rebel. So, by way of sounding the old woman—who lived in the house by herself, her granddaughter, who was at service in the town, only visiting her occasionally—they proposed to stay all night in the house,[115] as they were in hourly expectation of a wool-dealer who had made an appointment to meet them here, but who, owing to the heavy roads, had manifestly been detained beyond the appointed time. The old woman had various objections to this arrangement; but was at last persuaded to make an addition to her fire, to put half-a-dozen bottles of her best ale on the table, with a tappit hen, and what she termed "a wee drap o' the creature," and to retire to rest about eight o'clock, her usual hour, they having already paid for all, and promised not to leave the house till she rose in the morning. At this time, about eight o'clock, the night had suddenly became dark and cloudy, and there was a strange noise up amongst the rocks overhead. It was manifest that there was a change of weather fast approaching. At last the snow descended, the wind arose, and it became a perfect tempest. Next morning, there were three human beings in Tibby's small ben, busily employed in discussing the good things already purchased, as well as in higgling and bothering about the price of wool. The weather, which had been exceedingly boisterous all night, had again cleared up into frost, and the inhabitants of Monyaive were busied in cutting away the accumulated snow from their doors, when in burst old Tibby's granddaughter, and, all at once, with exceeding animation, made the following communication:—

"Ay, granny, ye never heard what has taen place this last nicht. I had it a' frae Jock Johnston. Ye ken Jock—he's oor maister's foreman, an' unco weel acquent wi' the dragoons that lodge in the Spread Eagle. Weel, Jock tells me that Lag was here last nicht, in disguise like, an' that they had gotten information, frae ane o' their spies like, aboot a cave up by yonder where some o' the puir persecuted folks is concealed; an' that, aboot ane o'clock o' this morning—an' an awsome morning it was—they had marched on, three abreast, through the drift, carrying strae alang wi'[116] them an lighted matches; an' that they gaed straight to the cave, an' immediately summoned the puir folks to come out and be shot; and that they only answered by a groan, which tellt them as plainly as could be, that the puir creatures were there; and that they immediately set fire to the straes at the mooth o' the cave, and fairly smoked them (Jock tells me) to death. Did ye ever hear the like o't?"

"O woman!" responded the grandmother, "but that is fearfu'!—these are indeed fearfu' times; there is naebody sure o' their lives for half-an-hour thegither, wha doesna gae to hear the fushionless curates!"

At this instant, one of the dragoons drew up his horse at the door, asking if a man, such as he described, with a blue bonnet and a grey duffle coat, had returned late last night, or rather this morning, to bed. Old Tibby answered, in a quavering voice, that the man mentioned had left her house about eight o'clock, and had not yet returned. The dragoon appeared somewhat incredulous; and, giving his horse to the girl to hold, he dashed at once and boldly into the room, where the three persons already mentioned were seated. The young farmers questioned immediately the propriety of his conduct; but he drew his sword, and swore that he would make cats' meat of the first that should lay hold upon him. He had no sooner said so, than a man sprang upon him from the fireside, and, striking his sword-arm down with the poker, immediately secured his person by such means as the place and time presented. The fellow roared like a bull, blaspheming and vociferating mightily of the crime of arresting a king's soldier in the discharge of his duty. But he was hurried into a concealed bed, tied firmly down with ropes and even blankets, and made to know that, unless he was silent, he might have to pay for his disobedience with his life. When old Tibby saw how things were going on, and that[117] her house might suffer by such transactions, she sallied forth as fast as her feeble limbs and well-worn staff would carry her, exclaiming as she went—"We'll a' be slain—we'll a' be slain!—the laird o' Lag will be here—and Clavers will be here—and the King himself will be here—an' we'll a' be murdered—we'll a' be murdered!" At this moment, the trooper appeared in his regimentals, mounted his horse, and was off at full gallop. The granddaughter, now relieved from holding the dragoon's horse, followed her grandmother, and brought her lamp to the house; but, to their infinite surprise, there was nobody there save the very cursing trooper whom she had seen so recently ride off. His voice was loud, and his complainings fearful; but neither Tibby nor her granddaughter durst go near him, as they were fully convinced that he was a devil, and no man, since he had the power at once of mounting a horse and flying rather than riding away, and, at the same time, of lying cursing and swearing in a press bed in the ben. At last a neighbour heard the tale, and, being less superstitions, relieved the unfortunate prisoner from his rather awkward predicament. He swore revenge, and to cut poor old Tibby into two with his sword; but he found, upon searching for his weapon, that it was absent, as well as his clothes, which had been forcibly stripped from him when he was tied—and that without leave—and that he had nothing for it but to thrust himself into canonicals—in which garb he actually walked home to his quarters, amidst the shouts of his companions, and to the astonishment of all the staring villagers.

As he was making the best of his way to hide his disgrace in the Spread Eagle, he was told that his commanding officer, Sir Robert Grierson, had been wishing to speak with him, for some time past. Upon appearing immediately in the presence of authority, he was questioned in regard to the mission on which he had been despatched, and was scarcely[118] credited when he narrated the treatment which he had met with, and the loss which he had sustained. A detachment was immediately despatched in quest of the thief, the wool-merchant, who had so cleverly supplied himself with a passport from the king; and, after our soldier's person had been unrobed, and attired for the present in his stable undress, Lag set out with a few followers, to examine the cave, in order to be assured of Mr Lawson's death. "They may gallop off with our horses," said Lag, in a jocular manner, by the way; "but they will not easily gallop off with the old choked hound, who has led us so many dances over the hills of Queensberry and Auchenleck." At last, they arrived at the mouth of the cave, and entered. Black and blue, and severely bruised, lay the dead body before them. "Ah, ha!" said Lag, making his boot, as he expressed it, acquainted with old Canticle's posteriors. "Ah, ha! my fleet bird of the mountain, and we have caught you at last, and caught you napping—ha, ha! Why don't you speak, old fire and brimstone? What! not a word now!—and yet you had plenty when you preached from the Gouk Thorn, to upwards of two thousand of your prick-eared, purse-mouthed, canting followers. Come, my lads, we have less work to do now; we will e'en back to quarters, and drink a safe voyage into the Holy Land, to old Dumb-and-flat there!" So saying, he reined up his horse, and was on the point of withdrawing the men, when one of them, who had eyed the body, which was imperfectly seen in the dark cave, more nearly than the rest, exclaimed—"And, by the Lord Harry, and we are all at fault, and the game is off, on four living legs, after all—off and away! and we standing drivelling here, when we should be many miles off in hot pursuit of this cunning fox who has contrived to give us the slip once more."

"Mean!—why, what should I mean, Sir Robert, but that this here piece of carrion is no more the stinking corpse[119] of old Closeburn, than I am a son of the Covenant!"

It turned out, upon investigation, that this was the body of the informer Watson, who had preceded Lag to the cave during the terrible drift; had been observed by John Harkness and Sandy Gibson, who were then employed in removing Lawson to the small inn; and, after a drubbing which disabled him from moving, he had been left the only tenant of the cave. When Grierson came, as above mentioned, from the drift and the cold, as well as the beating, he was unable to speak; but his groans brought his miserable death upon him; and Lawson, by assuming the dragoon's garb and steed, was enabled to escape, and to officiate, as has been already mentioned in a former paper, for several years before his death, in his own church, from which he had been so long and so unjustly driven. Thus did it please God to punish the infamous conduct of Watson, and to enable his own servant to effect his escape. The dragoon's horse was found, one morning at day-light, neighing and beating the hoof at old Tibby's door. It soon found an owner, but told no stories respecting its late occupant, who was now snugly lodged in William Graham's parlour in the guid town of Kendal. Graham and he were cousins-german.

XVII. —THE VIOLATED COFFIN.

An effort has, of late, been made to repel the allegations which, for past ages, have been made against the infamous instruments of cruelty during the twenty-eight years' persecution. The Covenanters have been represented as factious democrats, setting at defiance all constituted authority, and exposing themselves to the vengeance of law and justice. These sentiments are apt to identify themselves with modern politics; but we hope we will never see our[120] country again devastated by oppression, cruelty, and all the shootings, and headings, and hangings of the Stuart despotism repeated. It becomes, therefore, the duty of every friend of good and equal government to put his hand to the work, and to support those principles under which Britain has flourished so long, and every man has sat in safety and in peace under his own vine and his own fig-tree. No train of reasoning, or of demonstration, however, will suffice for this. The judgment is, in many occasions, convinced of error and injustice, whilst the heart and the conduct remain the same. There must be something in accordance with the decisions of the judgment pressed home upon the feelings. There must be vivid pictures of the workings of a system of misrule placed before the mind's eye, so that a deep and a human interest may be felt in the picture. The reader must open the doors of our suffering peasantry, and witness their family and fireside bereavements. He must become their companion under the snow-wreath and the damp cave—he must mount the scaffold with them, and even listen to their last act and testimony. How vast is the impression which a painter can, in this way, make upon the spirit of the spectator! Let Allan's famous Circassian slave be an instance in point; but the painter is limited to a single point of time, and the relation which that bears and exhibits to what has gone before or will come after; but the writer of narrative possesses the power of shifting his telescope from eminence to eminence—of varying, ad libitum, time, place, and circumstances—and thus of making up for the acknowledged inferiority of written description of narratives to what is submitted, as Horace says, "Oculis fidelibus," by his vast and unlimited power of variety. The means, therefore, by which past generations have been made to feel and acknowledge the inhumanities, the scandalous atrocities of those blood-stained times, still remain subservient to their original and long tried purposes; and[121] it becomes the imperious duty of every succeeding age to transmit and perpetuate the impressions of abhorrence with which those times were regarded and recollected. This duty, too, becomes so much the more necessary, as the times become the more remote. The object which is rapidly passed and distanced by the speed of the steam-engine, does not more naturally diminish in dimensions to the eye, as it recedes into the depths of distance, than do the events which, in passing, figured largely and impressively, lose their bulk and their interest when removed from us by the dim and darkening interval of successive centuries; and the only method by which their natural and universal law can be modified, or in any degree counteracted, is by a continuous and uninterrupted reference to the past—by making what is old, recent by description and imagination; and by more carefully tracing and acknowledging the connection which past agents and times have, or may be supposed to have, upon the present advancement and happiness of man. Had the devotedness of the Covenanter and Nonconformist been less entire than it was—had the arbitrary desires of a bigoted priesthood and a tyrant prince been submitted to—then had the Duke of York been king to the end of his days—Rome had again triumphed in her priesthood; and we at this hour, if at all awakened from the influence of surrounding advancement to a sense of our degradation, had been only enacting bloody Reformation, instead of bloodless Reform, and suffering the incalculable miseries which our forefathers, centuries ago, anticipated. Nay, more, but for the lesson taught us by the friends of the Covenant and the conventicle, where had been the great encouragement to resist political oppression in all time to come, when the proudly elevated finger may point to the record, which said, and still says, in letters indeed of blood—"A people resolved to be free, can never be ultimately enslaved." The Covenant had its use—and, immense[122] in its own day, and in its immediate efforts, it placed William, and law, and freedom on the throne of Britain; but that is as nothing in the balance, when compared with the less visible and more remote effects of this distinguished triumph:—It, throughout all the last century, maintained a firm and unyielding struggle with despotism, sometimes indeed worsted, but never altogether subdued; and it has, of late years, issued in events and triumphs too recent and too agitating to be now fairly and fully discussed. Nor will the influence of the Covenant cease to be felt in our land, till God shall have deserted her, and left her entirely to the freedom of her own will, to the debasing influence of that luxury and corruption which has formed the grave of every kingdom that has yet lived out its limited period.

These Gleanings of the Covenant have been written under the impression, and with the view above expressed; and it is hoped that the following narrative, true in all its leading circumstances, and more than true in the "vraisemblable," may contribute something to the object thus distinctly stated.

The funeral of Thomas Thomson had advanced from the Gaitend to the Lakehead. The accompaniment was numerous—the group was denser. Thomas had lived respected, and died regretted. He was the father of five helpless children, all females, and his wife was manifestly about to be delivered of a sixth. Just as the procession had advanced to the house of Will Coultart, a troop of ten men rode up. They had evidently been drinking, and spoke not only blasphemously, but in terms of intimidation.—"Stop, you cursed crew," said the leader. "He has escaped law, but he shall not escape justice. Come here, lad;" and at once they alighted from their horses, seized the coffin, and opening the lid, were about to penetrate the corpse through and through. "Stop a little," said John Ferguson,[123] the famous souter of Closeburn; "there are maybe twa at a bargain-making;" so saying, he lifted an axe which he took up at a wright's door, and dared any one to disturb them in their Christian duty. A "pell-mell" took place, in the midst of which poor Ferguson was killed. He had two sons in the company, who, seeing how their father had been used, rushed upon the dragoons, and were both of them severely wounded. In the meantime, Douglas of Drumlanrig came up, and, understanding how things went, ordered the soldiers to give in, and the wounded men to be taken care off. All this was wondrous well; but what follows is not so. The body of Ferguson was carried to Croalchapel; and the two sons accompanied it, with many tears. Douglas seemed to feel what had happened, and could not avoid accompanying the party home. He entered the house of mourning, where there was a dead father, a weeping widow, and two wounded sons. He entered, but he saw nothing but Peggy. Poor Peggy was an only sister of these lads—an only daughter of her murdered father. Douglas was a man of the world! Oh, my God, what a term that is! and how much misery and horror does it not contain. Peggy was really beautiful; not like Georgina Gordon, or Lady William, or Mrs Norton, or Lady Blessington; for her beauty depended in no degree upon art. Had you arrayed her in rags, and placed her in a poor's-house, she would have appeared to advantage. Peggy, too, (the God who made her knows,) was pure in soul, and innocent in act as is the angel Gabriel! she never once thought of sinning, as a woman may, and does (sometimes) sin; she lived for her father, whom she loved—and for her mother, whom she did not greatly dislike. But her mother was a stepmother, and Peggy liked her father. Guess, then, her grief, when Peggy saw her father murdered, her brothers wounded, and knew the cause thereof. "Lift her," said Douglas to his men, after he had, in seeming humanity, seen the corpse and brothers[124] home; "lift her into Red Hob's saddle, and carry her to Drumlanrig." No sooner said than done. The weeping, screaming girl was lifted into the saddle, and conveyed, per force, to Drumlanrig. At that gate there stood a figure clothed in dyed garments. It was the elder brother of Peggy, he who had been least injured of the two. He stood with his sword in his hand, and dared any one who would conduct his sister into the abode of dishonour. Douglas snapped, and then fired a pistol at him, but neither took effect. In the meantime, the brother was secured, and the sister was carried into the "Blue Room," well known afterwards as the infamous sleeping-chamber of old "Q." The not less infamous, though ultimately repentant Douglas, advanced into the chamber. The poor girl seemed as if she had seen a snake; she shrunk from his approach and from his blandishments. She had previously opened the window into the green walk; she had taken her resolve, and, in a few instants, lay a maimed, almost mangled being, on the beautiful walks of Drumlanrig. Douglas was manifestly struck by the incident, but not converted. He took sufficient care to have the poor girl conveyed home, and to have the brothers provided for, but his hour was not yet come. It was not till after his frequent conversations with the minister of Closeburn, that he came to a proper sense of his horrible conduct. But what was the awful devastation of this family. The poor beauteous flower Peggy, who was about to have been married to a farmer's son, (Kirkpatrick of Auchincairn,) was by him rejected. He called at the house sometime afterwards, with a view to see her; but he came full of suspicion, and therefore unwilling to receive the truth. He had heard the whole story, and must have known that his Peggy was at least as pure in mind as she had been beautiful in person; but he belonged not naturally to the noble stock of the family to which he was to have been allied, and gave himself up to prejudice. The girl was still[125] in bed, to which, from her bruises, she had been confined for months. The meeting might have been one which a poet would have gloried in describing, or a painter in delineating and embellishing, with hues stolen from the arc of Heaven! Alas! it was one only worthy of the pencil of a Ribera—fraught with cruelty, and abounding in selfishness and dishonour. The girl, as she turned her pale yet beautiful face on him, told him the truth, and watched, with tears in her eyes, the effect of her narrative on one whose image had never been absent from her mind, if indeed it had not supported her in her struggle, and nerved her to the purpose which preferred death to dishonour. Her bruises and wounds spoke for her, and, to any one but her lover, would have proved that he was a part of the object of her sacrifice. It was all to no purpose. The eloquence of truth, of love, of nature, were lost upon him; nothing would persuade him that the object of his love had not been degraded. He turned a cold glance of doubt upon her, and turned to leave the room. Peggy rushed out of bed, and, maimed and weak as she was, would have stopped him. Her energies failed her—her lover was gone; and her mother, roused by the cries of her pain, came and assisted her again into bed. Poor Peggy heard no more of Kirkpatrick. She sickened and died?—no! far worse!—she became desperate, married a blackguard, and lived a drunkard; the sons were banished for firing at Douglas, as he passed in his carriage through Thornhill; and the poor mother of the whole family became—shall I tell it I—an object of charity! Thus was, to my certain knowledge, at least to that of my ancestors, a most creditable and well-doing family ruined, root and branch, by the persecutors—or, in other words, by those who, without knowing what they did, regarded the "Covenant" as an unholy thing, and fought the foremost in the ranks of oppression and uniformity.[126]

Now, there is not a word of this in Woodrow, or Burns, or even in the MS. of the Advocate's Library; and yet we can assure the reader, that the material facts are as true as is the death of Darnley, or the murder of Rizzio! God bless you, madam! you have, and can have, and ought to have no notion whatever of the united current of horribility, which ran through the whole ocean of cruelty during these awful and most terrific times! May the God that made, the Saviour that redeemed, and the Holy Spirit that prepares us for heaven, make us thankful that in those times we do not live; and that such men as Woodrow and Burns (the first and the last) have been raised up, to vindicate and to justify such men as then suffered in their families, or in their persons, for the covenanted cause of the Great Head of our Presbyterian Church!

THE SURGEON'S TALES.

THE MONOMANIAC.

In some of my prior papers, I have had occasion to make some oblique references to that disease called pseudoblepsis imaginaria—in other words, a vision of objects not present. Cullen places it among local diseases, as one of a depraved action of the organs contributing to vision; "whereby, of course, he would disjoin it from those cases of madness where a depraved action of the brain itself produces the same effect. In this, Cullen displays his ordinary acuteness; for we see many instances where there is a fancied vision of objects not present, without insanity; and, indeed, the whole doctrine of spirits has latterly been founded on this distinction.[2] From the very intimate connection, however, which exists between the visual organs and the brain itself, it must always be a matter of great difficulty—if indeed, in many cases, it be not entirely impossible—to make the distinction available; for there are cases—such as that of the conscience-spectre, and those that generally depend upon thoughts and feelings of more than ordinary intensity—that seem to lie between the two extremes of merely diseased visual organs and diseased brains; and, in so far as my experience goes, I am free to say that I have seen more cases of imaginary visions of distant objects, resulting from some terrible excitement of the emotions, than from the better defined causes set forth by the medical writers. Among the passions and emotions, again, that in their undue influence over the sane condition of the mind,

are most likely to give rise to the diseased vision of phantasmata, I would be inclined to place that which usually exerts so much absorbing power over the young female heart. The cause lies on the surface. In the case of the passions—of anger, revenge, fear, and so forth—the feeling generally works itself out; and, in many cases, the object is so unpleasant that the mind seeks relief from it, and flies it; while, in the emotions of love, there is a morbid brooding over the cherished image that takes hold of the fancy; the object is called up by the spell of the passion placed before the mind's eye, and held there for hours, days, and years, till the image becomes almost a stationary impression, and is invested with all the attributes of a real presence. I do not feel that I would be justified in saying that I am able to substantiate the remark I have now made by many cases falling under my own observation; the examples of monomania in sane persons are not very often to be met with; and I have heard many of my professional brethren say, that they never experienced a single instance in all their practice.

The case I am now to detail, occurred within two miles of the town of ——. The patient was a lady, Mrs C——, an individual of a nervous, irritable temperament, and possessed of a glowing fancy, that, against her will, brought up by-past scenes with a distinctness that was painful to her. She had lately returned from India, whither she had accompanied her husband, whom she left buried in a deep, watery grave in the channel of the Mozambique. I had been attending her for a nervous ailment, which had shattered her frame terribly, while it increased the powers of her creative fancy, as well as the sensibility by which the mental images were invested with their chief powers over her. She suffered also from a tenderness in the retina, which forced her to shun the light. How this latter complaint was associated with the other, I cannot explain,[129] unless upon the principle which regulates the connection between the sensibility of the eye and the heated brains of those who labour under inflammation of that organ. I was informed by her mother, Mrs L——, as well as her sister, that she had come from India a perfect wreck, both of mind and body; and, for a period of eighteen months afterwards, could scarcely be prevailed upon to see any of her friends—shutting herself up for whole days in her room, the windows of which were kept dark, to prevent the light, which operated like a sharp sting, from falling upon her irritable eyes. It was chiefly with a view to the removal of this opthalmic affection, that I was requested to visit her; and I could very soon perceive, that the visionary state of her mind was closely connected with the habit of dark seclusion to which she was necessitated to resort, for the purpose of avoiding the pain produced by the rays of the sun. On my first interview, I found her sitting alone in the darkened room, brooding over thoughts that seemed to exert a strong influence over her; but she soon joined me in a conversation which, diverging from the subject of her complaint, embraced topics that brought out the peculiarity of her mind—a strong enthusiastic power of portraying scenes of grief which she had witnessed, and which, as she proceeded, seemed to rise before her with almost the vividness of presence; yet, with her, judgment was as strong and healthy as that of any day-dreamer among the wide class of mute poets, of whom there are more in the world than of philosophers.

I could not detect properly her ailment, and resolved to question her mother alone.

"The love of a shaded room, resulting from an irritability in the organs of sight, is to me no great rarity," I replied.[130]

"Though her fit has not been upon her," rejoined she, with an air of melancholy, "it is not an hour gone since her scream rung shrilly through this house, as if she had been in the hands of fiends; and, to be plain with you, I left you to discover yourself what may be too soon apparent. I fear for her mind, sir."

"I have seen no reason for the apprehension; but her scream, was it not bodily pain?"

"I could wish that it had been mere bodily pain; but it was not. You have not heard Isabella's history," she continued, in a low, whispering tone. "She has experienced what might have turned the brain of any one. I discovered something extraordinary in her about six months ago. One evening, when the candles were shaded for the relief of her eyes, and I and Maria were sitting by her, she stopped suddenly in the midst of our conversation, and sat gazing intensely at something between her and the wall; pointing out her finger, her mouth open, and scarcely drawing her breath. I was terror-struck; for the idea immediately rushed into my mind, that it was a symptom of insanity; but I had no time for thought—a scream burst from her, and she fell at my feet in a faint. When she recovered, she told us that she had seen, in the shaded light of the candle, which assumed the blue tinge of the moonlight, the figure of a dead body sitting upright in the waters, with the sailcloth in which he was committed to the deep wrapped around him, and his pale face directed towards her. At the recollection of the vision, she shuddered, would not recur to the subject again, but betrayed otherwise no wandering of the fancy. Several times since, the same object has presented itself to her; and, what is extraordinary, it is always when the candle is shaded; yet she exhibits the same judgment, and I could never detect the slightest indication of a defect in the workings of her mind. I sent for you to treat her eyes, and left it[131] to you to see if you could discover any symptoms of a diseased mind."

"Was the object she thus supposes present to her, ever exposed in reality to the true waking sense?" said I, suspecting a case of monomania.

And leading me again into her daughter's darkened apartment, she whispered something in her ear, retired, and left us together.

"Your mother informs, me, madam," said I, "that you have seen what exists not; and I am anxious, from professional reasons, to know from yourself whether I am to attribute it to the creative powers of an active fancy, or to an affection of the visual organs, that I have read more of than I have witnessed."

She started, and I saw I had touched a tender part—probably that connected with her own suspicions that her mother and sister deemed her insane.

"It was for this purpose, then, that you have been called to see me?" she replied, hastily. "It is well; I shall be tested by one who at least is not prejudiced. My mother and sister think that I am deranged. I need not tell you that I consider myself sane, although I confess that this illusion of the sense, to which I am subjected, makes me sometimes suspicious of myself. Will you listen to my story?"

Experience, sir, is a world merely to those who live in it—it exists not—its laws cannot be communicated to the heart of youth; the transfusion of the blood of the aged into the veins of the young to produce wisdom, is not more vain than the displacing of the hopes of the young mind by the cold maxims of what man has felt, trembled to feel, and wished he could have anticipated, that he might have been prepared for it. Such has ever been, such is, such[132] will ever be, the history of the sons and daughters of Adam. What but the changes into which I—still comparatively a young woman—have passed—not, it would almost seem, mutations of the same principle, but rather new states of existence—could have wrung from a heart, where hope should still have lighted her lamp, and illuminated my paths, these sentiments of a dearly purchased experience? When I and George Cunningham, my schoolfellow, my first and last lover, and subsequently my husband, passed those brilliant days of youth's sunshine among the green holms and shaggy dells of ——; following the same pursuits—conning the same lessons—indulging in the same dreams of future happiness, and training each other's hearts into a community of feeling and sentiment, till we seemed one being, actuated by the same living principle: in how happy a state of ignorance of those changes that awaited me in the world, did I exist? I would fall into the hackneyed strain of artificial fiction writing, were I to portray the pleasures of a companionship and love that had its beginning in the very first impulses of feeling; with a view to set off by contrast the subsequent events that awaited us, when our happiness should have been realized.

When a woman of sensibility says she loves a man, she has told, through a medium that works out the conditions of the responding powers of our common nature, the heart, more than all the eulogistic eloquence of the tongue could achieve, to show the estimate she forms of the qualities of the object of her affections; but when she adds that that love originated in the friendship of children, grew with the increase of the powers of mind and body, and entered as a part into every feeling that actuated the young hearts, she has expressed the terms of an endearment so pure, tender, exclusive, and lasting, that it transcends all the ordinary forms of the communion of spirits on earth. The attachment is different from all others—it stands by itself; and[133] to endeavour to conceive its purity and force by any factitious mixture of friendship, and the ordinary endearments of limited time and favourable circumstances of meeting, would be as vain as all hypothetical investigation into the nature of feeling must ever be. I cannot tell when I first knew the young man whose name I have mentioned under an emotion that shakes my frame; the syllables were a part of my early lispings, and I cannot yet think that they are unconnected with a being that has now no local habitation upon earth. Our parents were intimate neighbours; and the woods and waters of ——, if their voices—sweeter than articulated intelligence—could imitate the accents of man, would tell best when they wooed us into that communion, which they cherished, and witnessed, with an apparent participation of our joy, to open into an early affection. The power of mutual objects of pleasure and interest, especially if they are a part of the lovely province of nature—the rural landscape, secluded and secreted from the eyes of all the world besides, with its dells and fountains, birds and flowers—in increasing the attachment of young hearts, has been often observed and described; but we felt it. These inanimate objects are generally, and were to us, not only a tie, but they shared a part of our love, as if in some mysterious way they had become connected with, and a part of us. The often imputed association of ideas is a poor and inadequate solution of this work of nature: it is the effect put for the cause; the common, boasted philosophy of man, who invents terms of familiar sound to explain secrets eternally hidden from him. If we who felt, as few have ever felt, the influence of these green, umbrageous shades—with their nut-trees, bushes, flowers, and gowany leas; their singing birds, and nests with speckled eggs; their half-concealed fountains of limpid water, and running streams, and beds of white pebbles—in nourishing and increasing our young loves, could not tell how or why they were invested with such power; the[134] philosopher, I deem, may resign the task, and say, with a sigh, that it was nature, and nature alone, who did all this; and the secret will remain unexplained.

We enjoyed ten years of this intercourse—I calculate from the fifth to the fifteenth year of our youth—and every one of these years, as it evolved the ripening powers of our minds, so it strengthened the mingling affections of our hearts. We became lovers long before we knew the sanctions and rights, and duties of pledged faith; we were each other's by a troth, a thousand times spoken; exchanged and felt in the throbbing embrace, the burning sighs, and the eloquent looks, that were but the natural impulses of a feeling we rejoiced in, yet scarcely comprehended. My heart, recoiling from the thoughts of after years, luxuriates in the memory of these blissful hours; and, were not the theme exhausted a thousand times by the eloquence of rapt feeling, speaking with the tongue of inspiration, I could dwell on these early rejoicings of unsullied spirits for ever.

My dream was not scattered—it was only changed in its form and hues, when my youthful betrothed was removed from home, to go through a course of navigation to fit him for the service of the sea, to which the intentions of his father, and his own early wishes, led him. I could have doubted my existence sooner than the faith of his heart; and he was only gone to make those preparations for attaining a position in society that would enable him to realize those fond and bright prospects we had indulged in contemplating among the woods that resounded to pledges exchanged in the face of heaven. The first place of his destination was London, from whence, for a period of about three years, I heard from him regularly by letters, which breathed with an increased warmth the same sentiments we had repeated and interchanged so often during the long period of our prior intercourse. Some time after this, he sailed to India; then were my thoughts first tinged by the changing hues of[135] solitude; and my hopes and fears bound to the wayward circumstances of a world which had as yet been to me a paradise.

I heard nothing from him for two long years after he left London. A portrayment of my thoughts during that period would be a thousand times more difficult than for the painter to seize and represent the changing hues of the gem that, thrown on a tropic strand, reflects the endless hues of the earth and sky. I trembled and hoped by turns but every idea and every feeling were so strongly mingled with reminiscences of former pleasures, the prospects of future happiness, the fears of a change in his affections, or of his death, that I could not pronounce my mind as being, at any given moment, aught but a medium of impressions that I could not seize or fix, so as to contemplate myself. All I can say is, that he was the presiding genius of every emotion with which my heart was influenced; and, to those who have loved, that may be sufficient to shew the utter devotion of every pulse of my being to the deified image enshrined within my bosom. Now came the period of the realizing of my dreams. George Cunninghame came back, and married me.

We had scarcely been two months married when my husband, whom I loved more and more every day, got, by the influence of powerful friends, the command of a large vessel—the Griffin—engaged in the trade to India. It was arranged that I should accompany him, that, as we had been associated from our earliest infancy, (our separation had been only that of the body, and interfered not with the union of the immaterial essence), we should still be together. In this resolution I rejoiced; and, though by nature a coward, my love overcame all my terrors of the great deep. The day was fixed for our departure. A lady passenger and two servants were to go with us to the Cape, from whose society I expected pleasure; and every preparation[136] which love could suggest was made to render me happy. We left the Downs on a calm day of December, and went down the Channel with a rattling gale from the north. Life on board of an Indiaman has been a thousand times described; and, would to heaven I had nothing to detail but the ordinary conduct of civilized men! Our chief officer was one Crawley, and our second a person of the name of Buist—the only individual my husband had no confidence in being Hans Kreutz, the steward, a German, who was whispered to have been engaged as a maritime venatic, or pirate, in the West Indies: and, if any man's character might be detected in his countenance, this foreigner's disposition might have been read in lineaments marked by the graver of passion. Part of what I have now said may have been the result of after experience; yet I could perceive shadowings of evil at this time, which I had not the knowledge of human nature to enable me to turn to any account.

With a series of gentle breezes and fine weather, we came to the Cape, where Mrs Hardy and her two servants were put ashore. One of the servants had agreed to accompany me to Madras, and was to have come on board again, to join us, before we left Table Bay. Whether she had changed her mind, or been detained by some unforeseen cause, I know not, but the boat came off without her; and all the information that I could get was, that she was not to be found. I trembled to be left on board of a vessel without a female companion, and strongly insisted upon George to delay his departure until another effort should be made to endeavour to find a servant in Cape Town; but, a favourable wind having sprung up at that moment, Crawley remonstrated, in his peculiar mode of abject petitioning; and my husband, having himself seen the advantage of seizing the favourable opportunity for taking and accomplishing the passage of the Mozambique, we departed, under a stiff gale; and, in a short[137] time, reached the middle of that famous Channel, where the fears of the seamen have been so often excited by the reputed cannibalism of the natives of Madagascar. At this time I was strangely beset by nightly visions of terror, which I could impute to no other cause than the stories that George had repeated to me of the wild character of these savages. During the day, but more especially during the blue, sulphurous, flame-coloured twilight of that region—I often fixed my eye on the long, dark, umbrageous coast—followed the ranges of receding heights—threaded the deep recesses of the valleys, that seemed to end in dark caves, and peopled every haunt with festive savages performing their unholy rites over a human victim, destined to form food for creatures bearing that external impress of God's finger which marks the lords of the creation. Those visions were always connected, in some way, with myself; and I could not banish the idea, which clung to me with a morbid power of adherence, that I might, alone and unprotected, be cast into some of these cimmerian recesses, and be subjected to the unutterable miseries of a fate a thousand times worse than death, and what might follow death, by the usages of of eaters of human beings. There was no cause for any such apprehensions; and I am now satisfied that these dark creations of my fancy were in some mysterious way connected with a disordered state of my physical economy; but I was not then aware of such predisposing causes of mental gloom, and still brooded over my imagined horrors, till I drove rest and sleep from my pillow, and disturbed my husband with my pictured images of a danger that he said was far removed from me. From him I got some support and relief; but the faces of the men I saw around me, and especially those of Crawley and Kreutz, seemed, to me, rather to reflect a corroboration of my fears, than to afford me encouragement and support. The grim visions retained their power over me; and, the wind having fallen off almost to a[138] dead calm, I found myself fixed in the very midst of the scenes that thus nourished and perpetuated them. The depression of mind produced by these frightful day-dreams and nightmares, made me sickly and weak. I could scarcely take any food; every piece of flesh presented to me, reminded me of the feasts of the inhabitants of that dark, dismal island that lay stretching before me in the vapours of a tropical climate, like a land of enchantment called up by fiends from the great deep; the dyspeptic nausea of sickness was the very food of my gloomy thoughts; and the co-operative powers of mind and body tended to the increase of my misery, till I seemed a victim of confirmed hypochondria.

We were still fixed immovably in the same place: all motive powers seemed to have forsaken the elements—the sea was like a sheet of glass, the sails hung loose from the masts, and the men lay listless about, overcome with heat, and yawning in lethargy. It was impossible to keep me below. I required air to keep me breathing, and felt a strange melancholy relief from fixing my eyes on the very scene of my terrors. Every effort to occupy my mind was vain; and I lay, for hours at a time, with my eyes fixed on the shore, piercing the deep, wooded hollows, following the faint traces of the savages as they disappeared among the thick trees, and investing every naked demon with all the characteristics of the followers of the mysterious midnight rites in which I conceived they engaged when the hour of their orgies came. I often saw individuals—rendered gigantic by the magnifying medium of the thick vapour—come down to the beach, and fix their gaze on us for a time, and then pace back again to the wooded recesses. Sometimes, when unable to sleep, I crept up from the cabin, and sat and surveyed the silent scene around me—the hazy moon, throwing her thick beams over the calm sea—the dark shadows of unknown birds sailing slowly through the air, and uttering at intervals sounds I had never heard before—the[139] fires of the inhabitants among the trees on the coast, that sent up a long column of red light through the atmosphere, and exhibited the flitting bodies of the naked beings as they danced round the objects of their rites. It is impossible for me, by any language of which I have the power, to convey an adequate conception of my feelings during these hours. They were realities to me; and, therefore, whatever may be said against fanciful creations, I have a right to claim attention to states of the mind and feelings that belong to our nature in certain positions. At a late hour one night, I was engaged in those gloomy watchings and reveries, when Kreutz came to me, and said the captain had been taken suddenly ill. I turned my eyes from the scene along the shore I was surveying, and fixed them for a moment on his face, where the light of the moon sat in deep contrast with the long bushy hair that flowed round his temples. A shudder—that might have been accounted for from the state of my mind and the nature of the communication he had made to me, but which I instinctively attributed, at the time, to the expression of his face—passed over me, and, starting up, I hurried into the cabin off the cuddy, where I found George under the grasp of relentless spasms of the chest and stomach. He was stretched along on the floor, grasping the carpet, which he had wound up into a coil, and vomiting violently into a bason which he had hurriedly seized before he fell.

'Good God, Isabella!' he exclaimed, 'what is this? I am dying. That villain Cr'——

And, whether from weakness or prudence, he stopped, with the guttural sound of these two letters, Cr, which applied equally to Crawley as to Kreutz, and left me in doubt which of them he meant. At this moment Buist the mate entered the cabin; and my agitation and the necessity of affording relief to the sufferer, took my mind off the fearful subject hinted at by the broken sentence I had heard.[140] With the assistance of Buist, I got him placed on the bed. There was no doctor on board, and I was left to the suggestions of my own mind, for adopting means to save him. These were applied, but without imparting any relief. The painful symptoms continued, and he got every moment worse. Neither Crawley nor Kreutz appeared; and when Buist went out to bring what was deemed necessary for the patient, I hung over him, and asked him what he conceived to have been the cause of his illness; but my question startled him—he looked up wildly in my face; his mind was directed towards heaven; and the means of salvation through the redeeming influence of a believed divinity of Him who died on the cross, was the subject alone on which he would speak. The scene, at this moment, around me was extraordinary, and, though I cannot say I had any distinct perception of the individual circumstances that combined to make up the sum of my horrors, I can now see, as through a dark medium, the co-operating elements. There was no candle in the cabin; the light of the moon through the windows filling the apartment with a blue glare, and tinging his pallid face with its hues. My mind, wrought up by the dreamy visions I had indulged in previously, and labouring under a disease which imparted to every feeling its own eliminated gloom, saw even the darkest circumstances of my condition in a false and unnatural aspect. The scenes of our youth and early love; the impressions of the religious sentiments he was muttering in broken snatches; the view of his approaching death; the dark means by which it was accomplished; my condition after he should die, in the power of men I feared; the orgies of the natives I had been contemplating; the deep grave, so fearful in its dead calmness; and the monsters that revelled in it, to which he would be consigned—all flitted through my brain; but with such rapidity—driving out, by short energies, the more engrossing thoughts concerned in the manner of his recovery—that[141] I could not particularize them, while I drew, by some synthetic process of the mind, their general attributes, and thus increased the terror of the scene.

Two hours passed, and every moment made it more apparent that my husband was posting to death. There was no sound heard throughout the ship except the dull tread of the watch; and, at intervals, the whispers of Crawley, as he communed stealthily with Buist, who went out of the cabin repeatedly, to carry intelligence of the state of the sufferer. For about three quarters of an hour he had been raving wildly. The detached words he uttered raised, by their electric power, the working of my fancy which filled up, by a train of thoughts scarcely more within the province of reason, the chain of his wandering ideas. No connected discourse on the subject of his illness, though mixed up with all the reminiscences of an affection that had lasted since the period of infancy, or the prospects that awaited me in the unprecedented position in which I was about to be thrown, could have distracted me in the manner effected by these insulated vocables, wrung by madness from expiring life and reason. They ring in my ears even yet, when the beams of the moon shine through the casements; and, even now, I think I see that dimly lighted cabin, and my husband lying before me in the agonies of death. I became, as if by some secret sympathy, as much deranged as himself. As I watched him, I cast rapid looks around me—out upon the still deep, in the direction of the fearful island—upon the articles of domestic use lying in confusion, and exhibiting dimly-illuminated sides and dark shades. It seemed to me some frightful dream; and, when I turned my eyes again on the pale face which had been the object of my excited fancy for so many years, saw the struggles of expiring nature, and heard the wild accents that still came from his parched lips, I screamed, and tore my hair in handfuls from my head. In that condition, I saw[142] him die; and the increase of my frenzy, produced by that consummation of all evils, made me rush out, and forward to the side of the ship. I felt all the stinging madness of the resolution to die—to fly from the man who, I feared, had murdered him—to escape from that island of cannibals, where I thought I would be left by my relentless foes, by plunging into the deep, when Crawley, who had heard of his demise, seized me, and dragged me back.

This paroxysm was succeeded by a kind of stupor that seized my whole mind and body. I sat down on a cot in the side of the cabin, and saw Kreutz bring in a light. The glare of it startled me; but it was only as a vision that could not awake the sleeper. They proceeded to lay out my husband on a table. They undressed him—for his clothes were still on; and I saw them take a large sheet, wrap it round him, and pin it firmly at all the folds. When their labours were finished, they took each a large portion of brandy, and Crawley came forward and offered me a portion. I had no power to push it from me. He held it to my mouth; but my lips were motionless; and, tossing it off himself, he and the others went out of the cabin. No precaution was taken to keep me within; but the frenzy that had previously impelled me to self-destruction had subsided, and I shuddered at what a few moments before appeared to me to be a source of relief. I sat for hours in the position in which they left me, gazing upon the dead body before me, but without the energy to rise and look at the features of him who had formed the object of my earliest devotions, the subject of all my fondest dreams of early youth and matured womanhood, now lying there lifeless. I had scarcely, during that period, consciousness of any object, but of a long, white figure extended on the table, with the moonlight reflected from it. The stupor left me—I cannot tell at what hour; and the first movement of living energy in my brain was a stinging impulse[143] to rush forward and seize the body. I obeyed it, without a power to resist; and, tearing off the folds, laid bare the face, which was as placid as I had ever seen it, when, watching over him, I used to steal a look of him, during the hours of night, as he slept by my side, in the moonlight that stole through the cabin-window. In my agony, I clung to him—kissed the cold lips—called out 'George! George!'—threw the folds of the sheet over the face—again looked round me for some one to comfort me—felt the consciousness of my perilous position—and, as a kind of refuge from the despair that met me on every hand, withdrew again the folds, and acted over again the frenzied parts of a madness that mocked the miseries of the inmates of an asylum.

I must have exhausted myself by the excitement into which I was thrown; for, some time afterwards, I found myself lying upon the cot, and wakening again to a consciousness of all the ills that surrounded me. The light of the moon had given place to the dull beams of earliest dawn, which were only sufficient to shew me the extended figure on the table, and the confusion into which the furniture of the cabin was thrown. I heard the sounds of several footsteps in the cuddy. Sounds of voices struck my ear; and, rising up, I crawled forward to a situation where I could hear the communings from which my fate might be known.

'When the wind starts,' said Crawley—'it will be from the north—we should turn and make all speed for Rio, where we may dispose of the cargo, and then run the vessel to the West Indies. How do the men feel disposed, Kreutz—all braced and steady?'

'All but Wingate and Ryder, who are watched by the others,' replied the German. 'These dogs would mutiny, ha! ha!—mein gut friend Buist is against their valking the plank; but they must either come in or go out. Teufel! no mutineers aboard the Griffin.'[144]

'Right, Hans,' said Crawley. 'Get Murdoch to knock together the boards—we will bury him to-morrow; but the wife, man, what is to be done with her?'

'Put her ashore, to be sure,' responded Kreutz. 'There is not von difficulty there. The natives will be glad of her, and we want her not. If this calm were gone, all would be gut and recht. That is the von thing only that troubles me.'

'If there is no wind,' said Crawley, 'to carry us out of the channel, there is none to bring any one to us.'

At this moment, I thought they heard some movements, produced by a nervous trembling that came over me, and forced me to hold by a chair. Some whisperings followed. Kreutz went away, and Crawley entered. I had just time to retreat to the other side of the body of my husband. His manner was now that which was natural to him—harsh and repulsive. He ordered me peremptorily to the lower cabin. I had no power to resist, or even to speak; but I saw, in the order, the eternal separation of me and George; and, rushing forward, I withdrew the covering from his face, to take the last look—to imprint the last kiss on his cold lips. The act operated like the stirrings of conscience on the cowardly man of blood. His averted eye glanced for an instant on the body, and, seizing the coverlet, he wrapped up the countenance, and, taking me by the arm, hurried me down to the apartment set apart for passengers. This cabin was darker than the captain's, from some of the windows having been changed into dead lights; and I considered myself pent up in a dungeon. Hitherto my feelings had been, in a great measure, the result of existing moving circumstances; but now I was left to reflection, in so far as that act of the mind could be concerned in the attempt to picture the extremities of a fate that seemed as unavoidable as unparalleled. The diseased visions that had distracted me before any real evil occurred, were changed, from[145] their dreamy, shadowy character, to realities. The lengthened trains of images that were required to satisfy the cravings of hypochondria, fled; and, in their place, there was one general, overwhelming fear, that seemed to engross all my thinking energies, and left no power to particularize the visions of danger that awaited me among the savages. There was only one presiding, prevailing idea that served as the rallying point of my terrors; and that was the dead body of George, with the white sheet in which he was swathed, and the peculiarly-formed oaken table on which he was placed, and at which we used to dine upon all the dainties to be found on board an Indiaman. It was the steadfastness of this idea that excluded the images of the fearful deep recesses—the Bacchanalian orgies of the savages—their anthropophagous rites, their midnight revels; but retained, as it were, hanging round it, the fear they had engendered, as a more complex feeling. After Crawley had left me, I had thrown myself down on a couch—an act of which I retained no consciousness; for afterwards, when daylight began to break in through the only window that was not closed up, I started to my feet, and did not know, for some time, that I was separated from the corpse; the vision of which had, during the interval, been so vivid, that it combined the conditions of figure and locality as perfectly as if the object had been before me.

On the deck I now heard the sound of several loud voices, and afterwards a scuffle, accompanied with the tramping of feet. There was then silence for a time; but my ears were stung, on a sudden, by a scream, succeeded by a plash, as if some one had been precipitated into the sea. A gurgling noise, as if the individual were drowning, followed; and the suspicion rushed into my mind, that they had made an example (to terrify the others) of one of the men who had rebelled against the authority of the mutineers. A silence, as deep as that of death, succeeded, which lasted about an[146] hour, at the end of which period the sound of the saw and hammer were distinctly heard. I recollected the orders of Crawley, for Murdoch, the carpenter, to prepare George's coffin. The knocking continued for a considerable time, and produced such an effect upon me that the ideas, which had been, as it were, chained up by the freezing influence of the prevailing vision of the extended and rolled-up body, broke away and careered through my mind with the velocity, unconnectedness, and intensity, that belong to certain states of excited mania. Images of the past and the future were mixed up in confusion; and every succeeding thought stung me with increased pain, till the idea of suicide again suggested itself, bringing in its train that which destroyed it—the terror of an avenging God, who will pass judgment on the takers of their own lives. I started, and sought forgiveness; and, for the first time under this agony, felt the soft action of the balm of a confided trust in Him who has mercy in endless stores for the good, but who poured his fury even upon the house of Israel, for the blood they shed upon the land. But, must I confess it, the relief I felt from this high source was immediately again lost in the cold shiverings of instinctive fear, as I heard the knocking cease, knew the coffin was finished, and perceived, from the sounds in the cabin off the cuddy, that they were putting the body into the rudely constructed box, with a view of burying him in the deep sea.

Some indescribable emotion, at this time, forced me towards the cabin window, although the sight of the water was frightful to me. It was still and calm as ever, and the light was already sufficient to enable me to see far down in its green recesses. I could not take my eye from it. There were numerous creatures swimming about in it, some of which I had got described to me, but many of them I had never seen before. They seemed more hideous to me now than they had ever appeared when, on former occasions, I[147] sat and watched their motions. The large bull-mouthed shark was there, rolling his huge body in apparent lethargy, and turning up his white belly in grim playfulness, as if in mockery of my misery. It had a charm about its truculent savageness that riveted my attention, while it shook my frame. It was connected in my mind with the fate of George's body, which, every moment, I expected to hear plash in the sea, in the midst of that shoal of creatures with strange forms and ravenous maws. An exacerbation of these sickly feelings made me lift my eyes; but it was only to fix them on the not less fearful island that lay before in the far distance, and now, in the fogs of the morning, through which the red sun struggled to send his beams, appeared a huge mass of inspissated vapour lying motionless on the surface of the sea. The very indistinctness of this hazy vision stimulated my fancy to its former morbid activity, and I saw again the mystic wooded ravines, sacred to the rights of cannibalism, of which I myself was doomed to be the object.

From this dream I was roused by the loud tread of men's feet over my head, as if the individuals were bearing a load that increased the heaviness of their steps. I was at no loss for the cause—they were carrying the coffin with the body in it to midship, where it was to be let down into its watery grave. In a short time afterwards, a gurgling of the waters met my ear, and, struggling to the foot of the companion ladder, I would have rushed upon deck if my strength would have permitted; but I fell upon the steps, and, lying there, heard a cry from some of them. I gathered, from the detached words I heard, that the bottom of the coffin had given way, from its insufficiency and the weight that had been put in it to make it sink; and that the body had gone down, while the chest swam on the surface. Several feet were now heard rapidly in motion, and the voice of Kreutz, who was running aft, fell on my ear.[148]

'Teufel!' I heard him say, 'we shall have that grim corpse when the gallenblase—ha!—ha!—the gall bladder has burst, rising like von geist from the bottom of the deep sea, and staring at us. Hell take the stumper, Murdoch!'

These words, uttered by the German, were followed by some expression from Crawley, no part of which I could make out, except the oaths directed against the carpenter. The sounds died away; but I heard enough to satisfy me of the fact that George's body had been consigned to the deep with only the shroud to defend it against the attacks of the ravenous creatures I had been contemplating. My mind was again forced, and with increased energy, into the train of gloomy meditations suggested by what I had heard; and so vivid were the visions that obeyed the excited powers of my imagination, that I forgot, as I lay brooding over them on the sofa to which I had staggered, the danger that next awaited myself. I could not now look at the sea, for I feared to meet the fact which would add probation to my imaginations—that the animals I had seen there had disappeared to crowd round the prey that had been given to them. Yet the actual vision of that dear form, mutilated, torn, and devoured, could not, I am satisfied, have produced more insufferable agony, than accompanied and resulted from the diseased imaginings in which my fancy was engaged. The process that I pictured going on in the bottom of the sea, was coloured by hues so sickly, and attended by circumstances so distorted and grim, that all natural appearances, however harrowing, must have fallen short of the power they exercised over me. The positions in which I imagined him to be placed, were varied in a greater degree than ever I had seen the human body; the expressions of the countenance, though fixed by death, and not likely to be changed, became as Protean as the changing postures of the limbs; and the marine monsters that gambolled or fought around him for the prize, were invested with forms,[149] colours, and attributes, of a kind not limited to what I had ever seen in the deep. The only idea that seemed to remain stationary, and not liable to the mutations into which all the others were every moment gliding, was the colour of the body, which was that of the green medium in which he lay. That sickly hue pervaded all parts; and even the dark or light colours of the inhabitants of the deep, partook, more or less, of the prevailing tint. It seemed to be the universal of all particulars, as time or space is the medium or condition of existence of all thought and matter; I felt the impossibility of any idea being true that did not partake of it; and, so strongly was the feeling of the ex-natural that accompanied it, that even now I cannot look at anything green without shuddering.

I cannot tell how long I was under the dominion of this train of thought. I was, in a manner, torn from it by the entrance of Kreutz with some food for me. He growled out a few words of mixed German and English, and left it on the table. It is needless to say that I could eat nothing. Even before these misfortunes overtook me, my appetite had left me; but now I loathed all edibles. After having been roused from the train of morbid imaginings in which I had been engaged, and which I clung to as if they imparted to me some unnatural satisfaction, I felt (and it is a curious fact) a recoiling disinclination to resume the grim subject, and even resorted to some imbecile and despairing efforts to avoid it. It was not that I expected any relief from forbearing: every other subject that could be suggested by my position was equally fraught with tears and pains; but that having, as I now suppose, exhausted, for the time, the diseased workings, the view of an effort to call up again the thoughts that had been as it were supplied by disease, penetrated me with a sensation beyond the powers of endurance. For two or three hours afterwards, my attention was directed to the proceedings upon deck; but I could hear little[150] beyond indistinct mutterings, and occasional sounds of the treading of feet over me. The calm, which had lasted for many days, still continued; and, until a wind sprung up, no effort could be made by the mutineers to retrace their progress through the channel, and proceed to their projected destination. At last the shades of night began to fall; exhausted nature claimed some relief from her sufferings; but the drowsiness that overcame me, was only a medium of a new series of imaginings still more grotesque and unnatural than those that had haunted me during the day.

When the morning dawned, I expected every moment the execution of the purpose I had heard declared by Crawley, to put me ashore on the island; and, during moments of more rational reflection, I could not account for my not having been disposed of in this way on the previous day. The terrors of that destiny were as strong upon me as ever; but, I must confess, that the view of real evil, almost unprecedented, as it seemed, in its extent and peculiarity, produced feelings entirely different from what resulted from the prior musings of my hypochondriac fancy: I would not be believed were I to say that the expected reality was not much more painful than the sickly vision. The miseries were of different kinds, proceeding from different causes, operating upon a mind in two different states. There was something in my own power. I was not justified in committing suicide as a mode of escape from an affliction that God might have seen meet to put upon me; but all my reasonings on this subject fled before the view of this next calamity that awaited me. An extraordinary thought seized me, that I was not bound to hold life, when, through my own body and sensibilities, God's laws were to be overturned, and my sufferings were to be made a shame in the face of heaven. I secreted a knife in my bosom, and sat in silent expectation of the issue. I was again supplied with meat; but, on this occasion, Crawley brought it to me—and[151] here began a new evil. He resumed, partially, his former dastardly sneaking manner; made love to me; offered me the honour of being still a captain's wife, and accompanied the offer with, obliquely-hinted threats of a due consequence of my rejection of his suit. I spurned him; but I cannot dwell on the details of this proceeding. His suit was persisted in for two or three days, when, roused to madness, he told me, that next day, if I consented not, I would be wedded to the natives of Madagascar. I traced the outline of the knife through the covering of my bosom, and defied him.

The next night was clear, and somewhat chill—indications of a cessation of the calm. The rudeness of Crawley had had the effect of keeping my mind from falling into the grasp of the demon of diseased fantasy; but, now my fate was fixed, I had no more to fear from him; and towards midnight, I fell again into the train of imaginings that had formerly haunted me. I had opened the cabin window for air—having felt a suffocating oppression of the chest during the day, proceeding from the extreme heat and the confined apartment. My eyes were again fixed in the direction of the island. I could see the dark shade of the land lying upon the gilded waters. All was still; my thoughts sought again the deep—the grave of George, the fancied condition of his body; and, as my ideas diverged to the calm scene around, it appeared to me as if all nature were dead, and that my own pulsations were the only living movements on earth. Lights now began to move along the shore, and then a fire blazed up into the firmament. The bodies of the savages flitted before it; I had seen the same appearances before; but I was now connected with these orgies in a more real manner than formerly. They ceased, and my mind again sought the recesses of the green deep, where all I loved on earth lay engulfed. My eye at times wandered over the surface of the waters; but I[152] feared to look downwards into their bosom. My attention was suddenly fixed by an object in the sea. I put up my hands and rubbed my eyes. Was I deceived by a fancy? No! a dead body was there, not four yards distant from where I sat. It was that of my husband, rolled up in the same white sheet in which I had seen him extended on the oak table, and with his head raised somewhat above the surface, by the weights placed in the shroud having, as I afterwards thought, descended to the feet. A part of the sewing had been torn off the head, which was bare—the face was openly exposed to me, the moon shone upon it; I could perceive the very features, and even the lustreless eyes, that seemed fixed on the ship. There was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the sea, which shone with a blue lustre in the light of the moon; and the body was as motionless as if it had been fixed on the earth. I have described, hitherto, what actually befell me, with the various states of my mind under extraordinary circumstances of pain and depression. My fancies belonged as much to nature as the facts which excited and nourished them, and must be believed by those who have studied the workings of the mind, even unconnected with the principles and facts of pathology. This was, however, no vision of the fancy, but a reality resulting from well-known physical laws. I sat, fixed immovably, at the window, and felt no more power of receding from it, than I formerly had of resigning my musings. My eyes were fixed upon that countenance which had been the beau ideal of love's idolatry—the fairest thing on earth, and the archetype of my dreams of heaven. I could not fly from it, horrible as it seemed in its blue glare and ghastly expression. I loved it while it shocked me; and all my powers of thinking were bound up in freezing terror. I felt the hair on my head move as the shrivelling skin became corrugated over my temples. That, and the occasional throbbings of my heart, were the only[153] motions of any part of my being; but the body I gazed at seemed to be as immovable, and its eyes seemed not less steadfastly fixed on me than mine were on it.

How long I sat in this position I know not. There was no internal impulse that moved me to desist. I could, I thought, have looked for ever. Certain fearful objects possess a charm over the mind—and this was one of them; but I have sometimes thought that the power lay in producing the negative state of mental paralysis; for the instant my attention was called to a strange noise upon the deck, I was suddenly recalled to a natural sense of the fear it inspired. The sounds I heard were a mixture of exclamations and objections, pronounced in tones of fear and anger. I turned away my face from the dead body, with a strong feeling of repugnance to contemplate it again; and, groping my way to the companion-ladder, listened to what was going on above. Kreutz and Crawley were in communication.

'There is more than chance in that frightful appearance,' I heard Crawley say. 'And this calm too—it will never end. God have mercy on us! Is there no man that will undertake to sink the body? I cannot stand the gaze of these white balls. See! the face is directed towards me; and yet I did not do the deed, though I authorized it. Will no one save me from the glare of the grim avenger? I will give twenty gold pieces to the man who will remove it to the deep. Go forward, Kreutz, and try if you can prevail upon a bold heart to undertake the task!'

'Pho, man!' responded the German—'all von phantasy—anybody would have risen in the same way—Teufel! I heed it not von peterpfenning. But the men are alarmed, and begin to say that the captain has not got fair play. Hush! seize your degen. There is von commotion before the mast.'

I now heard a tumult in the fore part of the vessel and[154] began to suspect that the crew had been led to believe that George had died a natural death, and had been by some means prevailed upon to work the vessel, when the wind rose in another direction, under the command of Crawley. The noise increased, and with it the fears of the cowardly villain whose conscience had been awakened by such strange means. Kreutz had left him to try to pacify the men; and the tones of his terror-struck voice continued to murmur around.

'There it still is,' he groaned, as his attention seemed to be divided between the sight he contemplated and the tumult, 'gazing steadfastly with these lack-lustre eyes for revenge. It is on me they are fixed—immovably fixed—as a victim which the spirit that floats over the body in that dead light of the moon demands, and will get. There is a God above in that blue firmament, who sees all things. I am lost. These men obey the call of a power that chooses that grim apparition as its instrument to call down destruction on my head. Ha! Kreutz has no influence here; the avengers are prepared.'

'If you will not try to quell them,' said he, 'all is lost. They swear the captain has been murdered, and that verdamt traitor Buist heads them on. Donner! shall Hans Kreutz die like one muzzled dog? On with degen in hand, and it may not be too late! We have friends among the caitiffs; strike down the first man; his blut will terrify them more than that staring geist, which is, after all, only von natural body, with no more spirit in it than the bones of my grandmutter. Frisch! frisch! auf, man! come, come, dash in and strike the first mutineer!'

The cowardly spirit of Crawley was acted upon by the stern German; for I heard him cry out—

The rest of his words were drowned by the noise; but I[155] heard the sounds of his and Kreutz's feet as they rushed forward. In an instant, the sound like that of a man falling prostrate on the deck, met my ear; and then there rose a yell that rung through every cranny of the ship. All seemed engaged in a desperate struggle. The words 'Revenge for our captain!' often rose high above all the other sounds. The clanging of many daggers followed; several bodies fell with a crash upon the deck, and loud groans, as if from persons in the agonies of death, were mixed with the cries of those who were struggling for victory. The tramping and confusion increased, till all distinct sound seemed lost in a general uproar. I got alarmed, and left my station at the foot of the companion-ladder; but I knew not whither to fly. I took again my seat at the window, as if I felt that there was an opening for me from which I might fly from the fearful scene. My agitation had banished from my mind for an instant the vision of the body; and I started again with increased fear as my eyes fell upon the corpse that had apparently been the cause of the uproar. It was still there, as motionless as before; yet, I thought, still nearer to me. I saw the features still more distinctly than ever, and found my mind again chained down by the charm it threw over me. The sounds for a time seemed to come upon my ear from a far, far distance, or like those heard in a dream; and like a dreamer, too, I struggled to get away from a vision that I at once loved and trembled at. The noises on deck seemed as those of the world, and the object before me the creation of the fancy that bound my soul, but left the sense of hearing open to living sounds. While in this state, I was suddenly roused by a rush of several men into the cabin; they held daggers in their hands and their countenances were besmeared with blood. I looked at them, under the impression that they were my enemies, and that the cause of Crawley had triumphed; but I was soon undeceived—they told me that both he and[156] Kreutz lay dead upon the deck, and that the victorious party were determined to complete the voyage and take the ship to Madras. The removal of one evil from a mind borne down by the weight of many, only leaves a greater power of susceptibility of the pain of what remains. The moment I heard of my own personal safety, I recurred again to the subject that affected me more deeply than even the fears of being consigned to the natives of the island—the dead body of George was still in the waters. The men understood and appreciated my sufferings. I again went to the cabin window, and, pointing to the corpse, implored Buist, who was present, to get it taken up and buried. He replied, that that had already been agreed upon, and orders were given to that effect. Several of the men volunteered of themselves to assist. A boat was put out, and I watched the solemn process. I saw them drag up the body from the sea, and would have flown to the deck to embrace once more the dearest object of my earthly affections; but I was restrained from motives of humanity. I had reason to suppose that it had been dreadfully mutilated, and that was the reason why I was saved the pain of the sad sight. That same evening it was consigned again to the deep; and with it sunk the bodies of his murderers, Crawley and Kreutz.

Next day, a breeze sprang up, and bore us away from that fatal place. My eyes were fixed on it till I could see no longer any traces of that island which had caused me so many fears. In a short time, we arrived in India, where I remained about two months, and returned again with the Griffin to Britain.

"Now, sir," she continued, "all these things are in the course of man's doings in this strange world. It is also very natural that I should think of him. But a more dreadful effect has followed. I shudder when I think of it."

She stopped and looked at me, as if she were afraid to touch upon the subject of the visual illusion. I told her[157] that I understood the cause of her fears; and having questioned her, I satisfied myself from her answers that I had at last discovered a case of true monomania, in which the patient conceived that she saw, with the same distinctness as when she looked from the cabin window of the Griffin the corpse of her husband swimming in the sea, with the head and chest above the waters, surrounded with the same blue moonlight, and every minute circumstance attending the real presence.

I meditated a cure; but I frankly confess that it was my anxious wish to witness her under the influence of the fit; and, with that view, I purposed waiting upon her repeatedly in the evenings, when, under the shaded light of the candle, it generally came over her. I was baffled in this for several weeks, chiefly, I presume, from the circumstance of my presence operating as an engagement of her mind; but one evening when I was sitting with her mother in another room, the sister came suddenly, and beckoned me into that occupied by my patient. The door was opened quietly and, on looking in, I saw, for the first time, a vision-struck victim of this extraordinary disease. She sat as if under a spell, her arms extended, her eyes fixed on the imaginary object, and every sense bound up in that which contemplated the spectre vision. The fit ended with a loud scream; she fell back in her chair, crying wildly—"George!—George!" and lay, for a minute or two, apparently insensible.

I continued my study of this extraordinary case for a considerable period; and, while I administered to her relief, I got her to explain to me some things which may be of use to our profession. I need not say that I was able to penetrate the dark secret of the seat of either the pathology or the metaphysique of the disease. That it was connected with the irritability of her nerves, and the affection of the eyes, there can be little doubt; because, as she mended in health,[158] the fits diminished in number, and latterly went off. I may, however, state that, from all I could learn from her, the fit was something of the nature of a dream—all the objects around her, at the time, being as much unnoticed as if they existed not; and although she was possessed with an absolute conviction that the body of her husband was actually at the time present, it was precisely that kind of conviction that we feel in a vivid dream.

THE FOUNDLING AT SEA.

About the year 1708 or 1710, the good ship Isabella, Captain Hardy, sailed from the port of Greenock for Bombay, being chartered by the East India Company to carry out a quantity of arms and ammunition for the use of the Company's forces.

The Isabella carried out with her several passengers; amongst whom were a lady, her child—a girl about three years of age—and a servant-maid. This lady, whose name was Elderslie, was the wife of a lieutenant in the British army, who was then with his regiment at Calcutta, whither she was about to follow him; he having written home that, as he had been fortunate enough to obtain some semi-civil appointments in addition to his military services, he would, in all probability, be a residenter there for many years. The lieutenant added that, under these circumstances, he wished his "dear Betsy, and their darling little Julia, to join him as soon as possible." And this, he said, he had the less hesitation in requiring, that the appointments he alluded to would render their situation easy and comfortable. It was then in obedience to this invitation that Mrs Elderslie and her child were now passengers on board the Isabella.

For about six weeks the gallant ship pursued her way prosperously—that whole period being marked only by alternatives of temporary calms and fair winds. The vessel was now off the coast of Guinea; and here an inscrutable Providence had decreed that her ill-fated voyage—for it was destined to be so, flattering as had been its outset—should terminate. A storm arose—a dreadful storm—one of those wild bursts of elemental fury which mock the might of[160] man, and hoarsely laugh at his puny and feeble efforts to resist their destructive powers. For two days and nights the vessel, stript of every inch of canvass, drove wildly before the wind; and, on the morning of the third day, struck furiously on a reef of rocks, at about half a mile's distance from the shore. On the ship striking, the crew—not doubting that she would immediately go to pieces, for a dreadful sea was beating over her, and she was, besides, every now and then, surging heavily against the rock on which she now lay—instantly took to their boats, accompanied by the passengers. All the passengers? No, not all. There was one amissing. It was Mrs Elderslie. About ten minutes before the ship struck, that unfortunate lady, together with two men and a boy, were swept from the deck by a huge sea that broke over the stern; sending, with irresistible fury, a rushing deluge of water, of many feet in depth, over the entire length of the ship. Neither Mrs Elderslie nor any of the unhappy participators in her dismal fate were seen again.

In the hurry and confusion of taking to the boats, none recollected that there was still a child on board—the child of the unfortunate lady who had just perished; or, if any did recollect this, none chose to run the risk of missing the opportunity of escape presented by the boats, by going in search of the hapless child, who was at that moment below in the cabin. In the meantime, the overloaded boats—for they were much too small to carry the numbers who were now crowded into them, especially in such a sea as was then raging—had pushed off, and were labouring to gain the shore. It was a destination they were doomed never to reach. Before they had got half-way, both boats were swamped—the one immediately after the other—and all on board perished, after a brief struggle with the roaring and tumbling waves that were bellowing around them.

From this moment, the storm, as if now satisfied with[161] the mischief it had wrought, began to abate. In half an hour it had altogether subsided; and the waves, though still rolling heavily, had lost the violence and energy of their former motion. They seemed worn out and exhausted by their late fury.

The crew of the unfortunate vessel had left her, as we have said, in the expectation that she would shortly go to pieces; but it would have been better for them had they had more confidence in her strength, and remained by her; for, strange to tell, she withstood the fury of the elements, and, though sorely battered and shaken, her dark hull still rested securely on the rock on which she had struck. The wreck of the Isabella had been witnessed from the shore by a crowd of the natives, who had assembled directly opposite the fatal reef on which she had struck. They would fain have gone out in their canoes to the unfortunate vessel when she first struck, as was made evident by some unsuccessful attempts they made to paddle towards her; but whether with a friendly or hostile purpose, cannot be known. On the storm subsiding, however, they renewed their attempts. A score of canoes started for the wreck, reached it, and, in an instant after, the deck of the unfortunate vessel was covered with wild Indians. Whooping and yelling in the savage excitement occasioned by the novelty of everything around, they flew madly about the deck, scrambled down into the hold, tore open bales and packages, and possessed themselves of whatever most attracted their whimsical and capricious fancies. While some were thus occupied in the hold, others were ransacking the cabin. It was here, and at this moment, that a scene of extraordinary interest took place. A huge savage, who was peering curiously into one of the cabin beds, suddenly uttered a yell, so piercing and unusual, that it attracted the notice of all his wild companions; then, plunging his hand into the bed, drew forth,[162] and held up to the wondering gaze of the latter, a beautiful little girl of about three years old. It was the daughter of the unfortunate Mrs Elderslie. The unconscious child had slept during the whole of the catastrophe, which had deprived her, first of her parent, and subsequently of her protectors, and had only awoke with the shout of the savage who now held her in his powerful, but not unfriendly grasp; for he seemed delighted with his prize. He hugged the infant in his bosom, looked at it, laughed over it, and performed a thousand antics expressive of his admiration and affection for the fair and blooming child of which he had thus strangely become possessed. The child, for some time, expressed great terror of her new protector and his sable companions, calling loudly on her mother; but the anxious and eager endearments of the former gradually calmed her fears and quieted her cries.

In the meantime, the plunder of the vessel was going on vigorously in all directions—above and below, in the cabin and forecastle, till, at length, as much was collected as the savages thought their canoes would safely carry. These, therefore, were now loaded with the booty; and the whole fleet, shortly after, made for the shore.

In one of these canoes was little Julia Elderslie and her new protector, who, by still maintaining his friendly charge over her, shewed that he meant to appropriate her as a part of his share of the plunder.

On reaching the shore, the kind-hearted savage, as his whole conduct in the affair shewed him to be, consigned his little protegée to the care of a female—one of the group of women who were on the beach awaiting the arrival of the canoes, and who appeared to be his wife.

The woman received the child with similar expressions of surprise and delight with those which had marked her husband's conduct on his first finding her. She turned her gently round and round, examined her with a delighted[163] curiosity, patted her cheeks, felt her legs and arms, and, in short, handled her as if she had been some strange toy, or as if she wished to be assured that she was really a thing of flesh and blood.

For two days the natives continued their plunder of the wreck. By the third, the vessel had been cleared of every article of any value that could be carried away; and on this being ascertained, a general division of the spoil, accumulated on the shore, took place.

It was a scene of dreadful confusion and uproar, and more than once threatened to terminate in bloodshed; but it eventually closed without any such catastrophe. The partition was effected, the encampment was broken up, and the whole band—men, women, and children, all loaded with plunder—commenced their march into the interior; the little Julia forming part of the burden of the man who had first appropriated her; a labour in which he was from time to time relieved by his wife.

From three to four years after the occurrence of the events just related, a Scotch merchant ship, the Dolphin of Ayr, Captain Clydesdale, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, while prosecuting her voyage, unexpectedly run short of water, in consequence of the bursting of a tank, when off the Gold Coast of Africa.

On being informed of the accident, the captain determined on running for the land for the purpose of endeavouring to procure a further supply of the indispensable necessary of which he had just sustained so serious a loss.

The vessel was, accordingly, directed towards the coast, which she neared in a few hours; and, finally, entered a small bay, which seemed likely to afford at once the article wanted, and a safe anchorage for the ship while she waited for its reception.

By a curious chance, the bay which the Dolphin now entered[164] was the same in which the Isabella had been wrecked upwards of three years before. But of that ill-fated vessel there was now no trace; a succession of storms, similar to that which had first hurled her on the rocks, had at length accomplished her entire destruction: she had, in time, been beaten to pieces, and had now wholly disappeared.

There was then no appearance of any kind, no memorial nor vestige by which those on board the Dolphin might learn, or at all suspect that the locality they were now in had been the scene of so deep a tragedy as that recorded in the early part of our tale.

All unconscious of this, the Dolphin came to within pistol-shot not only of the reef, but of the identical spot on which the Isabella had been wrecked.

Having come to anchor, a boat, filled with empty watercasks, was despatched from the ship for the shore. In this boat was the captain, first mate, and a pretty numerous party of men, all well armed, in case of any interruption from the natives.

On landing, Captain Clydesdale, the mate, and two men, leaving the others in the boat, set out in quest of water. The search was not a tedious one. When they had walked about a quarter of a mile inland, the gratifying noise of a waterfall struck upon their ears. Following the delightful sound, they quickly reached a rocky dell into which a crystal sheet of water, of considerable breadth, was falling from a height of about fifteen feet; and, after sportively circling about for a moment in a deep but clear pool below, sought the channel which conducted to the sea, found it, and glided noiselessly away.

Delighted with this opportune discovery, Captain Clydesdale despatched one of the men who was along with him to the boat, to order the others up with the water casks.

Having seen the people commence the task of filling the[165] latter, the captain and mate, each armed with a musket, cutlass, and brace of pistols, started for a walk a little farther inland, in order to obtain a view of the country. For nearly an hour they wandered on, now scaling heights, and now forcing their way through patches of tangled brushwood, without meeting with any adventure, or seeing anything at all extraordinary. They had now gained the banks of the stream which, lower down, formed the cascade at which the water casks were filling; and this they proposed to trace downwards, as its banks presented a clear and open route, till they should reach the point whence they had started.

While jogging leisurely along this route, the adventurers, by turning a projecting rock, suddenly opened a small bight or hollow, sheltered on all sides, except towards the river, by the high grounds around it. In the centre of this little glen was an Indian encampment! Alarmed at this unexpected sight, the captain and mate abruptly halted, and would have again retreated behind the projecting rock or knoll which had first concealed them, and taken another route, but they perceived they were seen by a group of male natives who were lolling on the grass in front of the wigwams. On seeing the white men—who now stood fast, aware that it was useless to attempt to retreat—the Indians sprang to their feet with a loud yell, and rushed towards them. The captain and mate instinctively brought down their muskets; for reason would have shown them that resistance was equally useless with flight. The hostile attitude, however, which they had assumed, had the effect of checking the advance of the natives, who suddenly halted, and, to the great relief of the captain and mate, made friendly signs of welcome to them.

Confiding in and returning these signs, the latter raised their muskets and advanced towards the party, who now also resumed their march towards the strangers. They[166] met, when, after some attempts at conversation, conducted on the part of the natives with great good-humour, but, on both sides, altogether in vain, one of the former suddenly ran off at full speed towards the wigwams, into one of which he plunged, and instantly reappeared, leading a female child of six or seven years of age by the hand. As he advanced towards the captain and mate, he kept pointing to the child's face, then to his own, then towards those of the strangers, and laughing loudly the while.

With an amazement which they would have found it difficult to express, Clydesdale and his companion perceived that the child, now produced, was fair, of regular features, smooth hair, and without any trace of African origin. Exposure to a tropical sun had deeply embrowned her little cheeks; but enough of bloom still remained, as, when coupled with other characteristics, left no doubt on the minds of the captain and his mate that the child, however it had come into its present situation, was of European parentage.

His curiosity greatly excited by this extraordinary circumstance, Mr Clydesdale now endeavoured to obtain some account of the child from the natives; but he could make little or nothing of the attempted conference on this subject. From what, however, he did gather, he came to the conclusion—a very accurate one, as the reader may guess—that a shipwreck had taken place on the coast, and that the child had been saved by the natives.

Believing this to be the case, Captain Clydesdale now became anxious to know whether any others had escaped; but could not make himself understood. At length one of the savages, of more apt comprehension than the others, seemed to have obtained a glimmering of the import of the captain's queries, and fell upon an ingenious mode of replying to them. Grasping Mr Clydesdale by the arm, he conducted him to a small pool of water that was hard by. He then took a piece of bark that was lying on the[167] ground, placed about a dozen small pebbles on it, and launched it into the pool. Then stooping down, he edged it over, till the stones slid, one after the other, into the water, until one only remained. Allowing the piece of bark now to right itself, and to float on the water, he pointed to the single stone it carried, and then to the child; thus intimating, as Mr Clydesdale understood it, and as it was evidently meant to signify, that all had perished excepting the little girl.

While this primitive mode of communication was going on, the man who had brought the child to Captain Clydesdale had returned to his wigwam, and now reappeared, carrying several articles in his hand, which he held up to the former. Mr Clydesdale took them in his hand, and found them to consist of fragments of a child's dress, made, as he thought, after the fashion of those in use in Scotland. On the corner of what appeared to be the remains of a little shift, he discovered the initials, J. E. But the most interesting relic produced on this occasion, was a small locket, containing some rich black hair on one side, and on the other the miniature of a young man in a military uniform, with the same initials, J. E., engraven on the rim. This locket, the man who brought it gave Captain Clydesdale to understand, had been found hanging around the neck of the child when first discovered.

Satisfied now, beyond all doubt, of the child's European descent, Mr Clydesdale approached her, took her kindly by the hand, and, hoping to make something of her own testimony, began to put some questions to her; but, to his great disappointment, found that she did not understand him, although he spoke to her both in French and English. The little girl, in truth, he soon discovered, neither understood nor spoke any language but that of the tribe in whose hands she was.

It appeared, however, sufficiently clear to Captain Clydesdale,[168] that a shipwreck had taken place on the coast, and that at no very great distance of time, and that the child before him had been on board of the unfortunate vessel. Various circumstances, too, led him to the belief that the ship had been a British one; and in this opinion he was joined by the mate.

The result of the Captain's reflections on these points, was a determination to take the child to Scotland with him, if he could prevail upon her present possessors to part with her, and to take his chance of making some discovery regarding her on his return home.

Having come to this resolution, he hastened to make known to the natives his wish to have the little girl; and was well pleased to perceive that the proposal, which they seemed at once to comprehend, was not received with any surprise, far less indignation. Encouraged by this reception of his overture, Captain Clydesdale now addressed himself particularly to the man who appeared to be the guardian, or, perhaps, proprietor of the child, and, unbuckling his cutlass from his side, presented it to him—making him, at the same time, to understand that he offered it as the price of the little girl. The man demurred. Captain Clydesdale pulled a clasp-knife out of his pocket, and made signs that he would give that also, provided the locket and fragment of shift, with the initials on it, were given along with the child. This addition to the first offer had the desired effect. The cutlass and knife were accepted, the locket and shift given in exchange, and the little hand of the girl placed in Captain Clydesdale's, to signify that she was now his property. After some farther interchange of civilities with the natives, the captain, his mate, and the little Julia Elderslie—for, we presume, the reader has been all along perfectly aware that the child in question was no other than that unfortunate little personage—proceeded on their way towards the place[169] where the watering party had been left. This spot they reached in safety, after about an hour's walking, and found the men waiting their return—the casks having been already all filled and shipped.

In half an hour after, the boat was alongside the Dolphin, and little Julia was handed upon deck; and, in less than another hour, the ship was under weigh, and prosecuting her voyage to the Cape, where she ultimately arrived in safety. During this time, Captain Clydesdale had discovered in his Ponakonta—the name given to little Julia by the Africans, and by which he delighted to call her—a disposition so docile and affectionate, and a manner so gentle and unobtrusive, that he already loved her with all the tenderness of a parent, and had secretly resolved that he would adopt her as his own, and as such bring her up and educate her, if no one possessed of a better right to discharge this duty to her should ever appear.

In about six months after the occurrence of the events just related, the good ship Dolphin arrived safely at the harbour of Ayr, all well; and the little demi-savage, Ponakonta, in high spirits, and already beginning to jabber very passable English—an acquisition which still more endeared her to her kind-hearted protector, who took great delight in listening to her prattle, and in questioning her regarding her life amongst the Africans—of which she was now able to give a tolerably intelligible account. She had, however, no recollection whatever of the shipwreck, nor of any incident connected with it. Some dreamy reminiscences, indeed, she had of her mother; but, as might have been expected, considering how very young she was when that catastrophe happened which had deprived her of her parent, they were too vague and indefinite to be of the slightest avail towards throwing any light on her parentage.

On arriving at Ayr, Captain Clydesdale's first step, with[170] regard to his little charge, was to avail himself of every means he could think of to make her singular history, with all its particulars, publicly known, in the hope that it might bring some one forward who stood in some relationship to her. The worthy man, however, took this step merely as one that was right and proper in the case, and not, by any means, from any desire to get rid of his little protegée. On the contrary, if truth be told, he would have been sadly disappointed had any one appeared to claim her. Nothing of this kind occurring, after a lapse of several weeks, Captain Clydesdale—who, although pretty far advanced in years, was unmarried, and had no domestic establishment of his own, being almost constantly at sea—placed little Julia under the charge of some female relatives, with instructions to give her every sort of education befitting her years; for all of which—boarding, clothing, and tuition—he came under an obligation to pay quarterly—giving a handsome sum, in the meantime, to account. Having thus disposed of his protegée, and satisfied that he had placed her in good hands, which was indeed the case, Captain Clydesdale went again to sea—his destination, on this occasion, being South America.

The worthy man, however, did not go away before having a parting interview with his little Ponakonta, whom he kissed a thousand times, nor before he had entreated for her every kindness and attention, during his absence, at the hands of those whom he had now constituted her guardians. It was upwards of two years before Captain Clydesdale returned from this voyage; for it included several trading trips between foreign ports; and thus was his absence prolonged.

Great was the good man's delight with the improvement which he found had taken place on his little charge since his departure. She now spoke English fluently; had made rapid progress in her education; and gave promise of[171] being more than ordinarily beautiful. Captain Clydesdale had the farther satisfaction of learning that she was a universal favourite—her gentle manners and affectionate disposition having endeared her to all.

On first casting eyes on her protector, after his return from South America, little Julia at once recognised him, flew towards him, flung her arms about his neck, and wept for joy—calling him, in muttered sounds, her father, her dear father. Deeply affected by the warmth of the grateful child's regard, Captain Clydesdale, with streaming eyes, took her up in his arms, hugged her to his bosom, and kissed her with all the fervour of parental love. Soon after, Captain Clydesdale again went to sea; and, by and by, again returned. Voyage after voyage followed, of various lengths; and, after the termination of each, the worthy man found his interesting protegée still advancing in the way of improvement, and still strengthening her hold on the affections of those around her.

Time thus passed on, until a period of nine years had slipped away; and when it had, Julia Elderslie—who now bore, and had all along, since her arrival in Scotland, borne, the name of Maria Clydesdale—was a blooming and highly accomplished girl of sixteen.

It was about this period that Captain Clydesdale began to think of retiring from the sea, and of settling at home for the remainder of his life. He was now upwards of sixty years of age, and found himself fast getting incompetent to the arduous duties of his profession. Fortunately, he was in a condition, as regarded circumstances, to enable him to effect the retirement he meditated. He was by no means rich; but, having never married, he had accumulated sufficient to live upon, for the few remaining years that might be vouchsafed him.

Part of Captain Clydesdale's little plan, on this occasion, was to rent or purchase a small house in the neighbourhood[172] of the village of Fernlee, his native place, in the west of Scotland; to furnish it, and to take his adopted daughter to live with him as his housekeeper. All this was accordingly done; a house, a very pretty little cottage, with garden behind, and flower-plot in front, was taken, furnished, and occupied by Mr Clydesdale and his protegée. Here, for two years, they enjoyed all the happiness of which their position and circumstances were capable—and it was a happiness of a very enviable kind. No daughter, however deep her love, could have conducted herself towards her parent with more tenderness, or with more anxious solicitude for his ease and comfort, than did Maria Clydesdale towards her protector. Nor could any parent more sensibly feel, or more gratefully mark the affectionate attentions of a child, than did Captain Clydesdale those of his Maria.

He doated on her, and to such a degree, that he never felt happy when she was out of his sight.

More than satisfied with her lot, Maria sought no other scenes of enjoyment than those of her humble home; and coveted no other happiness than what she found in contributing to that of her benefactor.

Thus happily, then, flew two delightful years over the old man and his adopted child; and, wrapped up in their felicity, they dreamt not of reverses. But reverses came; Misfortune found her way even into their lonely retirement. Within one week, Captain Clydesdale received intelligence of the total loss of two vessels of which he was the principal owner, and in which nearly all that he was worth was invested. The blow was a severe and unexpected one, and affected the old man deeply. Not on his own account, as he told his Maria, with a tear standing in his eye, but on hers. "I had hoped," he said, "to leave you in independence—an humble one indeed, but more than sufficient to place you far beyond the reach of want. But now——" And the old man wrung his hands in exquisite agony of grief.[173]

Infinitely more distressed by the sight of her benefactor's unhappiness than by the misfortune which occasioned it, Maria flung her arms about his neck, and said everything she could think of to assuage his grief and to reconcile him to what had happened. Amongst other things, she told him that the accomplishments which his generosity had put her in possession were more than sufficient to secure her an independence, or, at least, the means of living comfortably; and that she would immediately make them available for their common support.

"There are a number of wealthy families around us, my dear father," she said, "from which I have no doubt of obtaining ample employment. I can teach music, drawing, French, sewing, &c.; and will instantly make application to the various quarters where I am likely to succeed in turning them to account. Besides, father," she continued, "it is probable that we shall soon have some great family in Park House; and, in such case, I might calculate on obtaining some employment there—perhaps enough of itself to occupy all my time."

To all this the old man made no reply—he could make none. He merely took the amiable girl in his arms, embraced her, and bade God bless her.

Although the mention by Miss Clydesdale of the particular residence above named appears a merely incidental circumstance, and one, seemingly, of no great importance, it is yet one, as the sequel will shew, so connected with our story, that a particular or two regarding it may not be deemed superfluous.

Park House was a large, a magnificent mansion, with a splendid estate attached, both of which were, at this moment, in the market. The house was within a quarter of a mile of Captain Clydesdale's cottage, and the reference in the advertisements to those who wished to see the house and grounds, was made to the captain, who, with his usual[174] readiness to oblige, had undertaken this duty—a duty which he had already discharged towards several visitors—none of whom, however, had become purchasers. It was about a week after the period last referred to—namely, that marked by the circumstance of Mr Clydesdale's losses—that a gentleman's carriage drove up to the little gate which conducted to that worthy man's residence. From this carriage descended a tall military-looking man, of apparently about sixty years of age, who immediately advanced towards the house. Captain Clydesdale, who saw him approaching, hastened out to meet him. The latter, on seeing the captain, bowed politely, and said—

"You are referred, to, sir, I think, as the person to whom those wishing to see Park House and grounds should apply."

"Thank you," said the visitor. "It is precisely for that purpose I have taken the liberty of calling on you. I have some idea of purchasing the estate, if I find it to answer my expectations."

"Will you have the goodness to step into the house, sir, for a few moments, and I will then be at your service?" said Captain Clydesdale.

The gentleman bowed acquiescence, and, conducted by the former, walked into the house, and was ushered into a little front parlour, in which Miss Clydesdale was at the moment engaged in sewing. On the entrance of the visitor, she rose, in some confusion, and was about to retire, when the latter, entreating that he might not be the cause of driving her away, she resumed her seat and her work. Having also seated himself, the stranger now made some[175] remarks of an ordinary character, by way of filling up the interval occasioned by the absence of Captain Clydesdale. Many words, however, had he not spoken, nor long had he looked on the fair countenance of his companion, when he seemed struck by something in her appearance which appeared at once to interest and perplex him. From the moment that this feeling took possession of the stranger, he spoke no more, but continued gazing earnestly at the downcast countenance of Maria Clydesdale; who, conscious of, and abashed by the gaze, kept her face close over the work in which she was engaged. From this awkward situation, however, she was quickly relieved by the entrance of Captain Clydesdale, who came to say that he was now ready to accompany his visitor to Park House. The latter rose, wished Miss Clydesdale a good morning; accompanying the expressions, however, with another of those looks of interest and perplexity with which he had been from time to time contemplating her for the last five or ten minutes, and followed the captain out of the apartment.

"That interesting and very beautiful young lady whom I saw at your house is your daughter, sir, I presume?" said the stranger to Captain Clydesdale, as they proceeded together towards Park House.

"Yes, sir, she is: that is, I may say she is; for I have brought her up since she was a child; and she has never, at least, not since she was five or six years of age, had any other protector than myself. She never knew her parents."

"Yes, but under rather extraordinary circumstances. I found her amongst the savages of the coast of Guinea."

"On the coast of Guinea!" exclaimed the stranger, in much amazement. "Very extraordinary, indeed. What are the circumstances, if I may inquire?"

Captain Clydesdale related them as they are already before the reader; not omitting to mention the fragment of shift,[176] with the initials on it, and the locket with hair and miniature, which he still carefully kept.

On Captain Clydesdale concluding, the stranger suddenly stopped short, and, looking at the former with a countenance pale with emotion, said—"Good God, sir, what is this? I am bewildered, confounded. I know not what to think. It is possible. Yet it cannot be. My name, sir, is Elderslie, General Elderslie. I have just returned from the East Indies, where I have been for the last seventeen years. Shortly after my going out, my wife and child, a daughter, embarked on board the Isabella from Greenock, to join me at Calcutta. The ship never reached her destination; she was never more heard of; but there was a report that she was seen, if not bespoken, off the Gold Coast; and from there being no trace of her afterwards, it is more than probable that she was wrecked on these shores; and, O God! it is probable also, although I dare not allow myself to believe it, that this girl is—is my child! Let us return, let us return instantly," he added, with increasing agitation, and now grasping Captain Clydesdale by the arm, "that I may see this locket you speak of. I gave such a trinket to my beloved, my unfortunate wife. The initials you mention correspond exactly. My child's name was Julia Elderslie; my own Christian name is James; and the same initials are thus also on the rim of the locket."

"It is precisely so!" said Captain Clydesdale, with a degree of surprise and emotion not less intense than those of the general's. "There are the initials of J. E. also on the locket; and now that my attention is called to the circumstance, there is a strong resemblance between the miniature it encloses, and the person now before me."

"Let us hasten to the house, for God's sake! captain," said the general, with breathless eagerness, "and have this matter cleared up, if possible."

They returned to the house. Captain Clydesdale put the[177] locket and the fragment of the little shift, which bore the initials J. E., into the hands of the general. He glanced at the latter, examined the former for an instant with trembling hands, staggered backwards a pace or two, and sank into a chair. It was the identical locket which, some twenty years before, he had given to his wife. The miniature it contained, introduced into the trinket at a subsequent period, was his own likeness.

"Bring me my child, Captain Clydesdale," said the general, on recovering his composure; "for I can no longer doubt that your adopted daughter is, indeed, my Julia."

Captain Clydesdale left the apartment, and in a moment returned leading in Julia Elderslie, who had hitherto been kept in ignorance of what was passing. On her entrance the general rushed towards her, took her by the left hand, gently pushed the sleeve of her gown a little way up the wrist, saw that the latter exhibited a small brown mole, and exclaiming—"The proof is complete; you are—you are my daughter, the image of your darling but ill-fated mother," took her in his arms in a transport of joy.

The feelings of Julia Elderslie, on this extraordinary occasion, we need not describe, they will readily be conceived. Neither need we detain the reader with any further detail; seeing that, with the incident just mentioned, the interest of our story terminates.

It will be enough now, then, to say, that General Elderslie, who had amassed a princely fortune, bought the estate and mansion of Park House. That he took every opportunity, and adopted every means he could think of, of shewing his gratitude to Captain Clydesdale, for the generous part he had acted towards his daughter. That this daughter ultimately inherited his entire fortune; the general having never married a second time; and that she finally married into a family of high rank and extensive influence in the west of Scotland.

THE ASSASSIN.

At a late hour of an evening in the beginning of the year 1569, mine host of the Stag and Hounds—the principal hostelry of Linlithgow at the period referred to—was suddenly called from his liquor—the which liquor he was at the moment enjoying with a few select friends who were assembled in the public room of the house—to receive a traveller who had just ridden up to the door.

Much as Andrew Nimmo—for such was the name of mine host—much, we say, as Andrew loved custom, it was not without reluctance that he rose to leave his party to attend the duties of his calling on the present occasion. He would rather he had not been disturbed; for he was in the middle of an exceedingly interesting story, when the summons reached him, and was very unwilling to leave it unfinished. But business must be attended to; its demands are imperative; and no man, after all, could be more sensible of this than mine host of the Stag and Hounds. So, however reluctant, from his seat he rose, and, telling his friends he would rejoin them presently, hastened out of the apartment.

On reaching the door, Andrew found the traveller had dismounted. He was standing by the head of his horse—a powerful black charger—and seemingly waiting for some one to relieve him of the animal.

This duty Andrew now performed; he took hold of the bridle, after a word or two of welcome to his guest, and asked whether he should put up the horse and supper him?

"What else have I come here for?" replied the stranger, gruffly. "Surely put him up; but I must see myself to his being properly suppered and tended. If we expect a[179] horse to do his duty, we must do our duty by him. So lead the way, friend!"

Damped by the uncourteous manner of the traveller, Andrew made no further reply than a muttered acquiescence in the justice of the remark just made, but instantly led the horse away towards the stable; calling out, as he went, on John Ramsay, the ostler, to come out with the buet—i.e. lantern; for it was pitch dark, and a light, of course, indispensable.

With the scrutinizing habits of his calling, mine host of the Stag and Hounds had been secretly but anxiously endeavouring to make out his customer; to arrive at some idea of his rank and profession, if he had any; but the darkness of the night had prevented him from noting more than that he was a man of tall stature, and, he thought, of a singularly stern aspect.

When Ramsay had brought the light, however, mine host obtained farther and better opportunities of pursuing his study of the stranger; and, besides having his former remarks confirmed, now discovered that he had the appearance of a person of some consideration, his dress being that of a gentleman.

"Fine beast that, sir!" adventured mine host, after a silence of some time, during which the latter and his guest had been standing together overlooking the operation of John Ramsay as he fed and littered the animal, whose noble proportions had elicited the remark. "Poorfu' beast, sir," continued Mr Nimmo. "I think I hae never seen a better."

"Not often, friend, I daresay," replied the stranger, who was standing erect, with folded arms, and carefully marking every proceeding of the ostler. "For a long run and a swift, he is the animal for a man to trust his life to."

Mine host was startled a little by the turn given to this remark: it smelt somewhat, he thought, of the highway; or,[180] at any rate, seemed to carry with it a somewhat suspicious sort of reference. He was, however, much too prudent a man to exhibit any indication of an opinion so injurious to the character of his guest, and, therefore, merely said laughingly—

"That he weel believed that if a man war in sic jeopardy as required his trusting to horse legs for his life, he wad be safe aneuch on sic a beast as that, especially if he got onything o' a reasonable start."

"Yes, give him ten minutes of a start, and there's not a witch that ever rode over North Berwick Law on a broomstick that'll throw salt on his tail, let alone a horse and rider of flesh and blood!" replied the stranger, with a grim smile. "I'll trust my life to him," he added, emphatically, "and have no fears for the result."

The tendence on the much prized animal which was the subject of these remarks having now been completed, mine host and his guest left the stable, and proceeded to the house, which having entered, the former ushered the latter into the public room, being the best in the house, and the only one fit for the reception, as our worthy landlord deemed it, of a personage of the stranger's apparent quality.

The latter at first shewed some reluctance to enter an apartment in which there was already so many people assembled; for it was still occupied by the company formerly alluded to; but, on being told by mine host that he should have a table to himself, in a distant part of the room, if he did not wish for society, he expressed himself reconciled to the arrangement, and, walking into the apartment, took his place at its upper end; then throwing himself down in a chair, having previously laid aside his hat, cloak, and sword, he commenced a vigilant but silent scrutiny of the party by which the table that occupied the centre of the apartment was surrounded. While he was thus employed, the landlord, who had gone for a moment about some household[181] business, approached him to receive his orders regarding his night's entertainment. The result of the conference on this subject, was an order for supper, and for a measure of wine to be brought in, in the meantime, until the former should be prepared. The landlord bowed, and retired to execute his commissions. In a minute after, a pewter measure of claret, with a tall drinking glass, stood before the stranger. He filled up the latter from the former, drank it off, and again set himself to the task of scrutinizing the company before him—a task to which he now added that of listening to their conversation, which seemed to be of a nature to interest him much, if one might judge from the earnest intensity of his look, and the varying but strongly marked expression of countenance with which he listened to the various sentiments of the various speakers. The subject of the conversation was the Regent Murray—his proceedings, government, and character.

"Aweel, folk may say what they like o' the Regent," said one of the speakers, "but I think he's managing matters very weel on the whole, and I wish we may never hae a waur in his place. He's no a man to be trifled wi'; and if he keeps a tight rein hand, he doesna o'erride the strength o' his steed. He's a strict, justice-loving man; that I'll say o' him."

"Then ye say mair o' him than I wad, deacon," said another of the party. "His strictness I grant ye; but as to his justice, there was unco little o't, I think, in his treatment o' his sister: his conduct to that poor woman has been most unnatural, most savage, selfish, and unfeelin. That's my opinion o't, and it's the opinion o' mony a ane besides me."

"Weel, weel; every are has his ain mind o' thae things, Mr Clinkscales," replied the first speaker; "but for my part, I'll ay ride the ford as I find it; that's my creed."

"Has ony o' ye heard," here interposed another of the[182] party, "o' that cruel case o' Hamilton's o' Bothwellhaugh? Ane o' the Queen's Hamilton's," added the querist.

Some said they had, others that they had not. For the benefit of the latter, the speaker explained. He said that Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was one of those who had been forfeited for the part he took at the battle of Langside. That the person to whom his property was given by the Regent, had turned Hamilton's wife out of her home, unclothed, and in a wild and stormy night; and that the poor woman had died in consequence of this cruel treatment.

"They say he's in an awfu takin about it," replied the first speaker, "an' threatenin vengeance, richt an' left; particularly against the Regent."

"I think little wonder o't," said another of the party. "It's a shamefu business, and aneuch to mak ony man desperate."

The reply to this question came from a very unexpected quarter: it came from the stranger, who, starting fiercely to his feet, and stretching towards the company with a look and gesture of great excitement, exclaimed—

"Yes, gentlemen, true it is—true as God is in heaven—true in every particular. An eternal monument to the justice and clemency of the tyrant Murray. The wife of Bothwellhaugh was turned naked out of her own house in a cold and bitter night, and died of bodily suffering and a broken heart. She did—she did. But"—and the stranger ground his teeth and clenched his fist as he pronounced the word—"there will be a day of count and reckoning. The vengeance, the deadly vengeance of a ruined, deeply injured, and desperate man, will yet overtake the ruthless, remorseless tyrant."

Having thus delivered himself, the stranger again retired[183] to his former place, reseated himself, and relapsed into his former silence; although the deep and laboured respiration of recent excitement, which he could not subdue, might still be distinctly heard even from the farthest end of the apartment.

It was some time after the stranger had retired to his place before the company felt disposed to resume their conversation. The incident which had just occurred, the energy with which the stranger had spoken, and the extreme excitement he had evinced, had had the effect of throwing them all into that silent and reflective mood which the sudden display of anything surprising or interesting is so apt to produce even in our merriest and most thoughtless moments.

At length, however, the chill gradually wore off; the conversation was resumed, at first in an under tone, and by fits and starts; by and by it became more continuous; and, finally, began to flow with all its original volume and freedom. No more allusion, however, was made by any of the party to the case of Bothwellhaugh. This was a subject to which, after what had taken place, none seemed to care about returning. Neither did the stranger evince any desire to hold farther correspondence with the revellers; but, on the contrary, appeared anxious to avoid it; nay, one might almost have supposed that he regretted having obtruded himself upon them at all, and that he could have wished that what he had uttered in an unguarded moment had remained unsaid. Be this as it may, however, he sought no farther intercourse with the party, but having hastily despatched the supper which was placed before him, and finished his measure of wine, he glided unobserved out of the apartment, and, conducted by his host, retired to the sleeping chamber which had been appointed for him.

On the following morning, the stranger, who was sojourning[184] at the Stag and Hounds, went out to transact, as he told his landlord, some business in the town; saying, besides, that he would not probably return till evening.

Strongly impressed by the manner and appearance of his guest, and not a little awed by his grim and fierce aspect, he of the Stag and Hounds could not help following him to the door, when he departed, and furtively looking after him as he stalked down the main street of the town; and much, as he looked at him, did he marvel what sort of business it could be he was going about. This, however, was a point on which the worthy man had no means of enlightening himself, and he was therefore obliged to be content with the privilege of muttering some expressions of the wonder he felt.

In the meantime, the stranger had turned an angle of the street, and disappeared—at least from the view of the landlord of the Stag and Hounds. Not from ours; for we shall follow and keep sight of him, and endeavour to make out what he was so curious to know.

Having passed about half-way down the main street of the town, the former suddenly halted before a large unoccupied house, with a balcony in front. It was a residence of the Archbishop of St Andrew's. Standing in front of this house, the stranger seemed to scan it with earnest scrutiny. He looked from window to window with the most cautious and deliberate vigilance, and appeared to be noting carefully their various heights and positions. While pursuing this inquiry, he might also have been frequently observed glancing, from time to time, on either side, as if to see that no one was marking the earnestness of his examination of the building.

Having apparently completed his survey of the front of the house, the stranger passed round to the back part of the building, and proceeded to the gate of the garden, which lay behind, and through which only was the house accessible[185] on that side. On reaching the gate, the stranger paused, looked cautiously around him for a few seconds, when, observing no one in sight, he hastily plunged his hand beneath his cloak, drew out a key, applied it to the lock, opened the gate, passed quickly in, and closed the door cautiously behind him.

With hurried step the intruder now proceeded to the house, drew forth another key, inserted it into the lock of the main door, turned it round, applied his foot to the latter, pushed it open, and entered the building; having previously, as in the former instance, secured the door behind him. Ascending the stair in the inside of the house, the mysterious visitant now commenced a careful examination of the various apartments on the second floor; and at length adopting one—a small room, with one window to the front—made it the scene of his future operations. These were, the laying on the floor a straw mattress, which he dragged from another apartment, and hanging a piece of black cloth—which he also found in the lumber-room, from whence he had taken the mattress—against the wall of the apartment opposite the window.

Having completed these preparations, the secret workman went up to the window, knelt down on the mattress, and levelling a stick, or staff, which he found in the apartment, as if it had been a musket, seemed to be trying where he might be best situated for firing at an object without. This experiment he tried repeatedly; shifting his position from place to place, until he appeared to have hit upon one that promised to suit his purpose.

This ascertained, he rose from his knees; threw down the staff; glanced around the apartment, as if to see that all was right; descended the stair; came out of the house, locking the door after him; crossed the garden, and passed out at the gate, locking that also before he left, and with the same precaution that he had used at entering; that is, looking[186] around him to see that no one marked his proceedings.

The guest of the Stag and Hounds now returned to his inn, from which he had been absent about two hours. At the door he was met by mine host, who, touching his cap, asked if "his honour intended dining at his house, as it was now about one of the clock," the general dinner-hour of the period.

"Be there any armourers in this town of yours, friend?" he said, "where I could fit me with some weapons I want."

"Yes, indeed, there be one, and a main good one he is," replied the other. "Tom Wilson, I warrant me, will fit your honour with any weapon you can desire, from a pistolet to a culverin; from a two-handed sword of six feet long, to a dagger like a bodkin. And as for armour, you may have anything, everything from head-piece to leg-splent; all of the best material, and first-rate workmanship."

"See you, sir," replied the other; "see you yonder projecting corner, beyond the palace entrance?"

"Well, sir, three doors beyond that, you will find Wilson's shop; and, if your honour chooses, you may use my name with him, and he will not serve you the worse, or the less reasonably, I warrant me. It is always a recommendation to Tom to be a guest at the Stag and Hounds."

Without saying whether or not he would avail himself of the privilege offered him of using his name, the mysterious stranger hastened away in the direction pointed out to him, and, in half a minute after, he was in the workshop of Wilson the armourer.

"Your pleasure, sir," said that person, advancing towards his customer from an inner apartment.[187]

"Pretty fair, sir; pretty fair," replied the armourer "What description may you want?"

"Why, I want a carbine, friend—something of a sure piece—that will carry its ball well to the mark. None of your bungling articles, that first hang fire, and then throw their shot in every direction but the right one. I would have a piece of good and certain execution."

"Here, then, sir, here is your commodity," said the armourer, disengaging a short and heavy gun from an arms'-rack that occupied one side of the shop. "Here is a piece that I can recommend. It will be the fault of the hand or the eye when this barker misses its mark, I warrant ye. I'd take in hand myself to smash an egg with it, with single ball, at fifty yards distance. I have done it before now with a worse gun."

"I will not require any such feat from the piece as that, friend," said Wilson's customer, drily; and having taken the gun in his hand, he began to examine the lock, and to see that the piece was otherwise in serviceable condition. Being satisfied that it was, he demanded the price. It was named. The money was tendered, and accepted, and the stranger departed with his purchase; having, however, previously received from the armourer, in lieu of luck's-penny, although he offered to pay for them, half a dozen balls, and a few charges of powder, to put the capability of the gun to immediate trial. This, however, its new proprietor did not think necessary; but, instead, returned to the archbishop's house with it; and, after loading and priming it, placed it in a corner of the apartment, which we have described him as having put into so strange a state of preparation.

Leaving the house with the same cautious and stealthy step as before, the stranger again returned to his inn; but it was now to leave it no more for the night.[188]

"Naething, sir," replied he, as he laid the cloth for his dinner; "only that the Regent will pass through the town to-morrow. I hear he'll be this way about twelve o'clock. The magistrates, I understand, hae gotten notice to that effect."

"A brave sight, sir, for he is to be accompanied by a gallant cavalcade, and the trades of the town are to turn out with banners and music to do him honour. It will be a stirring day, sir, and I trust a good one for my poor house here; for such doings make people as thirsty as so many dry sponges."

To these remarks the guest made no reply, but proceeded with his dinner; the materials for which having, in the meantime, been brought in, and placed on the table by another attendant.

On the following morning, the little town of Linlithgow exhibited a scene of unusual bustle. Hosts of idlers were seen gathered here and there, along the whole line of the main street; and persons carrying trades' banners—as yet, however, carefully rolled up—might be seen hurrying in all directions to the various mustering-places of their crafts. An occasional discharge of a culverin too; and, as the morning advanced, a merry peal of bells heightened the promise of some impending event of unusual occurrence. By and by, these symptoms of public rejoicing became more and more marked: the groups of idlers increased; the banners were unfurled; the firing of the culverins became more frequent; and the bells either really did ring, or appeared to ring more furiously.

It was when matters thus bespoke the near approach of a crisis—which crisis, we may as well say at once, was the advent of the Regent—that the mysterious lodger at the Stag and Hounds ordered his horse to be brought to the[189] door. The horse was brought; the stranger settled his bill; and, saying to his landlord that he would witness the sight from horseback more advantageously than on foot, mounted, and rode off in the direction of the approaching cavalcade. In this direction, however, he did not ride far; for, on gaining the eastern extremity of the town, he suddenly wheeled round, and rode back in rear of the line of street, until he reached the gate of the garden behind the mansion of the Archbishop of St Andrew's, in which the mysterious preparation before described had been made.

Having arrived at the gate, he dismounted, opened it, led in his horse, and fastened him to a tree close by. This done, he removed the lintel, or cross-bar, over the gate. The latter, contrary to his practice on former occasions, he now left wide open, and proceeded towards the house, into which he disappeared.

In less than a quarter of an hour after, the Regent had entered the town. He was on horseback, surrounded by a number of friends, also mounted, and followed by a numerous party of armed retainers.

As the cavalcade penetrated into the town, the crowd, which the occasion had assembled, gradually became more and more dense, and the progress of the Regent and his party consequently more slow; until, at length, they were so packed in the narrow street, with the human wedges that were forcing themselves around them, that it was with great difficulty they could make any forward progress at all.

Becoming impatient with the delay thus occasioned, although carefully concealing this impatience, the Regent, who was now directly opposite the house of the Archbishop of St Andrew's, kept waving his hand to the crowd, as if entreating them not to press so closely, that he might pass on with more speed. The crowd endeavoured to comply with the wishes of the Regent, but their efforts only added to the confusion, without mending the matter in other respects.[190] It was at this moment that all eyes were suddenly directed towards the house of the Archbishop of St Andrew's, in consequence of a shot being fired from one of the windows. When these eyes looked an instant after again towards the Regent, he was not to be seen; he had fallen from his horse, mortally wounded: a ball had passed through his body. It was Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh who had fired the fatal shot.

The friends and retainers of the Regent, seconded by the town's people, flew to the house of the archbishop, and endeavoured to force the door, in order to get at the murderer but it had been barricaded by the wily assassin, and resisted their efforts long enough to allow of his escaping from the house, mounting his horse, and darting through the garden gate at the top of his utmost speed. He was pursued; but, thanks to his good steed, pursued in vain, and subsequently escaped to France; having done a deed which the moralist must condemn, but which cannot be looked upon as altogether without palliation.

THE PRISONER OF WAR.

I had been preserved, through divine mercy, from one of the most lingering and fearful deaths. I was rescued, I scarce knew how, after the grim king of terror held me in his embrace, and all hope had fled. As consciousness returned, my heart thrilled at the recollection of the miseries I had endured while floating, a helpless being, on the bosom of the ocean.[3] I shuddered to think, while I lay feeble as an infant in the cabin of the vessel which was bearing me to my home, and whose humane crew had been the means of my deliverance, that I was still at the mercy of the winds and waves; but kind nursing, aided by youth and a good constitution, quickly brought strength; and I was enabled, after a few days, to come upon deck. On my first attempt, when my head rose above the deck as I ascended the companion-ladder, and my eyes fell upon the boundless waste of waters, a chill of horror shot through my frame. Like a lone traveller who had suddenly met a lion in his path, I stood paralysed; every nerve and muscle refused to act. I must have fallen back into the cabin, had not my hand instinctively clung to their hold for a few seconds. I could not withdraw my fixed gaze, while all I had suffered rushed upon me like a hideous dream. Slowly my faculties returned, when I ascended the deck, where I sat for a few hours. Each day after this brought additional strength; so that, before we made soundings, I was as strong and cheerful as I had ever been in my life. The weather was squally, and I assisted the crew as much as was in my power; and, when not so occupied, lay listlessly looking over the ship's bows that bravely dashed aside the waves that rolled between me and

the home I now longed to reach, or walked the deck musing upon the joy my return would impart to my over-indulgent parents.

As we neared the shores of Scotland, a circumstance occurred that both greatly surprised and alarmed me. This was a sudden change in the manners and temper of the crew. Care and anxiety took the place of their wonted cheerfulness; the joyous laugh, or snatch of song, no longer broke the monotonous hissing of the waves that rippled along the sides of the vessel, or the dull whistle of the wind through the rigging. At the first appearance of every sail that hove in sight, I could perceive every eye turned to it with a look of alarm until she was made out. Fearful of giving offence to my benefactors, I made no remark on the subject for some time, although I felt disappointed at what I saw—attributing it to cowardice; yet they were all stout, young, resolute-looking fellows at other times. This scene of alarm, and appearance of a wish to skulk below or conceal themselves, had occurred twice in the course of the forenoon. After the last ship we encountered was made out to be a merchant-brig, I could no longer refrain from delivering my sentiments of the greater number of the crew, but addressing the mate, said—

"Mr Ross, it is fortunate for us that these strange sails have turned out to be British merchantmen. Had they proved to be French privateers, we should have made but a poor stand, I fear, notwithstanding our eight carronades."

"Why, there is not a vessel that heaves in sight," said I, "but the men look as if they wished themselves anywhere but where they are."

"Avast there, my man!" said he. "What! do you mean to say that they would not stand by their guns while there was a chance? Yes, they would, and long after; and,[193] if you think otherwise, all I say is, you form opinions and talk of what you know nothing about."

Casting an angry look at me—the only one he ever gave—he squirted his quid over the bulwarks, and was walking away, when I stopped him.

"If I have given you offence, Mr Ross, nothing was farther from my intention. I cannot but observe the alarm caused by every sail that heaves in sight until she is made out to be a friend. Now, the little time I was at sea, before I fell overboard and was saved by you, every sail that hove in sight made the hearts of all on board leap for joy."

"Ho! ho!" and he laughed aloud. "Are you on that tack, my messmate? You are quite out in your reckoning, and becalmed in a fog; but I shall soon blow it away. There is not a man on board with whom I would not go into action with the fullest reliance upon his courage; and, were we to meet a French privateer, you would quickly see such a change as would satisfy you that my confidence is not misplaced. Every face, that the moment before expressed anxiety and alarm, would brighten up with joy; every man would stand to his gun as cheerfully as to the helm. It is their liberty the poor fellows are afraid of being deprived of by our own men-of-war—the liberty to toil for their parents or wives where they can get better wages than the Government allows. Danger, in any form, they meet undaunted when duty calls; it is for their countrymen they quail. Were the smallest sloop-of-war in the British navy to heave in sight, and a boat put off from her with a boy of a midshipman and eight or ten men, every one on board, who had not a protection, would shake in his shoes at her approach; yet, against an enemy, every man would stand to his gun until his ship was blown out of the water."

A new and painful feeling came over me as he spoke. I[194] was myself an entered seaman, and, of course, liable to impressment; but the idea of being taken had never occurred to me. I wondered that it had not, after the scenes I had witnessed in the frigate; but my longing for home had entirely engrossed my mind. I was, indeed, home-sick, and weary of the sea. From this moment, no one on board felt more alarm than I did at the sight of a top-royal rising out of the distant waters. My feelings were near akin to those of a felon in concealment.

At length we reached the Moray Firth, in the evening, and arrangements were made for as many of the crew as could be spared to be landed at Cromarty, where the vessel was to put in. This was to avoid the danger of impressment in the Firth of Forth. I gave the captain an order upon my father for my passage, and the expense he had been at on my account, as I was to leave, with the others in the boat, as soon as we were off the town, which we hoped to reach in the morning. My anxiety was so great that I had kept the deck since nightfall. It was intensely dark; nothing broke the gloom but the flashes of light that gleamed for a moment upon the waves, as they rippled along the sides of the vessel, and the dull rays of the binnacle-lamp before the man at the helm. Bell after bell was struck, still I stood at the bows, leaning upon the bowsprit, unmindful of the chill wind from under the foretopsail, anxiously watching for the first tints of dawn. Tediously as the night wore on, I thought, when morning dawned, it had fled far too fast.

The dark clouds began at length to melt away in the east, and the distant mountain-tops to rise like grey clouds above the darkness that still hid the shores from our view. Gradually the whole face of nature began to emerge from the morning mists. We were just off the Sutors of Cromarty. My heart leapt for joy at the near prospect of being once more on firm ground, and so near home. Several of the[195] crew had now joined me, and all eyes were directed to the entrance of the bay. Only a few minutes had elapsed in this pleasing hope—for it was still dullish on the horizon—when the report of a gun from seaward of us, so near that I thought it was alongside, made us start and look round. Each of us seemed as if we had been turned into stone by the alarming sound; while, so sudden was the revulsion of feeling, in my own case, that my heart almost ceased to beat. There, not half-a-league to windward of us, lay a frigate, with her sails shaking in the wind, and a boat, well-manned, with an officer in her stern, putting off from her.

So completely were we overcome by the sudden appearance of this dreaded object, which seemed to emerge from darkness, as the sun's first rays fell upon and whitened her sails, that we stood incapable of thought or action. The well-manned barge was carried, by the faint breeze and impetus of her oars, almost as swift as a gull on the wing. The report of the gun brought the captain and mate upon deck before we had recovered from our stupor.

"Bear a hand, men!" cried Ross, as he sprung upon deck. "Man the tacklefalls! clear the boat! and give them a run for it at least."

Roused by his voice, every nerve was strained, the boat lowered, and we in her, ready to push off, when the captain called over the side—

"My lads, do as you think for the best; but it is of no use to try. The frigate's boat will be under our stern ere you can gain way."

I stood in the act of pushing off, when the object we were going to strain every nerve to avoid swept round the stern, and grappled us. We hopelessly threw our oars upon the thwarts, and prepared to reascend the vessel, to settle with the captain and bring away our chests. As for myself, I had no call to leave the boat. All I possessed in the world was upon my person, and half-a-guinea given me[196] by the captain to carry me home. The other three were getting their bags and chests ready to lower into the boat, having got their wages from the captain, when he called me to come on deck. I obeyed; when he said to the midshipman in command of the boat—

"Sir, to prevent any unpleasant consequences arising to this poor fellow, Elder, here, I shall let you know how he came on board of us. He belonged to the Latona, and is no deserter, I assure you. Ross, bring here our log-book, and satisfy the gentleman if he wishes." Ross obeyed; and having examined it, the captain told the wretched state in which I had been picked up, and the way in which I had accounted to him for the accident. During the recital, he looked hard at me, no muscle of his face indicating either pity or surprise. When the captain ceased to speak, he only said—

"Well, my lad, you have for once had a narrow escape—you must hold better on in future. I shall report to the captain, and get the D from before your name. Tumble into the boat, my lads. Good day, captain." And, in a few minutes afterwards, I was on board the Edgar, seventy-four, and standing westwards for the Firth of Forth.

It was strange the change that came over the impressed men, when there was no longer any hope of escape. Like true seamen, they bent to the circumstance they could not remedy, and were, as soon as they got on board, as much at home, and more cheerful, than they had been for many days before. As for myself, I took it much to heart, and was very melancholy when we entered the Firth and stood up to the roadstead. I could hardly restrain my feelings when the city of Edinburgh came in sight, and when I thought of the short distance in miles that divided me from my parents and home—that home I had left so foolishly in the hopes of being back at the conclusion of the war, which I now found was raging more furiously, if possible, than[197] when I left, and with much less prospect of its termination. I would stand for hours gazing upon the White Craig, the eastern extremity of the Pentland Hills, and wish I was upon it, until my eyes were suffused with tears. I begged hard for the first lieutenant to give me leave to go on shore, if only for eight-and-forty hours, to visit my parents; but he refused my request, fearful of my not returning. Several of the hands on board, natives of Edinburgh, who had been long in the Edgar, obtained leave. With one of them I sent a letter to my father, who came the following day. It was a meeting of sorrow, not unmixed with upbraidings, on his part, for what I had done; but we parted with regret—he to do what he could to obtain my discharge, I under promise not to act so precipitately in future, if I was once more a free agent. What steps were taken I know not, for next morning we received orders to sail for the Nore. We had many faces on board that looked as long as my own, for there were still several who had obtained promise of leave whose turn had not come round. Wallace, one of the mess I was in, had not been in his native city for ten years, having been all that time voluntarily on board of men-of-war, either at home or on foreign stations. He was to have had two days' leave the very morning we sailed, and had doomed ten gold guineas, which he had long kept for such purpose, to be expended in a blow-out in Edinburgh, among his relations and friends. When the boatswain piped to weigh anchor, Wallace, who was captain of the foretop, ran to his berth, opened his chest, took out his long-hoarded store, and came on deck with it in his hand. His looks bespoke rage and disappointment, bordering upon insanity. He gazed upon the distant city that shone upon the gently swelling hills glancing back the sun's rays, then at the purse of gold in his hand. He seemed incapable of speech. A bitter smile curled his lip, bespeaking the most intense scorn. I looked on, wondering[198] what he meant to do. It was but the scene of a minute. Suddenly raising his hand, he threw the purse and gold over the side with all his force, exclaiming:—"Go, vile trash! what use have I for you now? The first action may lay me low!" Then, as if relieved from some oppressive load, he mounted the rattlings to his duty with a smile of satisfaction; and we bore away for the Nore, where I was draughted on board the Repulse, sixty-four, and departed upon a cruise along the coast of Brittany; at times lying off Brest harbour, and at others, standing along the coast in search of the enemy. Employed in this monotonous duty, month followed month, and year after year passed away.

It was now the year 1799. The century was drawing to a close; but the interminable war seemed only commencing. I had become almost callous to my fate. We were standing along, under a steady breeze, as close in shore as we could with safety to the vessel. It was the dog-watch; and I had only been a short time turned in when our good ship struck upon some sunken rocks with such force that I thought she had gone to pieces. Every one in a moment turned out. The night was as dark as pitch, and the sea breaking over us, while we lay hard and fast. Everything was done to lighten her in vain. She was making water very fast, in spite of all our exertions at the pumps. Still there was not the smallest confusion on board. Our discipline was as strict, and our officers as promptly obeyed, as they were before our accident. As the tide rose, the wind shifted, and blew a gale right upon the shore, causing the ship to beat violently. Day at length dawned, and there, not one hundred fathoms from our deck, lay a rocky and desolate-looking shore. We had been forced over a reef of sunken rocks that were not in our charts; and, during the darkness, as was supposed, had been carried in-shore by some current; but, however it had[199] happened, there we were, in a serious scrape, the sea breaking over our decks, and our hold full of water.

Soon after daybreak we could perceive the peasantry crowding down to the water's edge. Everything had been done that skill and resolution could accomplish, to save the vessel, but in vain. We had nothing before our eyes but instant death. The sea ran so high that no boat could live for a moment in the broken water between us and the shore. The French peasantry were making no effort for our safety, but running about and looking on our deplorable situation, with apparently no other feeling than that of curiosity. At this time, James Paterson, an Edinburgh lad, volunteered to make the attempt to swim to the shore with a log-line, and fearlessly let himself over the side. It was, to all appearance, a hopeless attempt; for every one felt assured that he would be beat to death against the rocks that lined the beach, on which the waves were beating with great fury.

It was a period of fearful suspense; yet, dreadful as our situation was, there was not the least unnecessary noise on board. All was prompt attention and obedience. The weather was extremely cold, and the sea, at times, making a complete breach over the ship, which we expected every moment to go to pieces. As for myself, I meant to stow below and perish with her, rather than to float about, bruised and maimed, and drown at last. One half of the crew were only dressed in their shirts and trousers, without shoes or stockings, as they had leaped from their hammocks. When she struck, we had no leisure to put on more than our trousers. Thus we stood, holding on by the nettings, or anything we could lay hold of, to prevent our being washed off the decks, with our eyes anxiously watching the progress of the brave Paterson, who swam like an otter, the boatswain and his mates serving out the line to him. We saw him near the rocks, and the people making signs[200] to him. This was the point of greatest danger, but, by the aid of the peasants, he surmounted it.

Those on the beach gave a shout, which we replied to from the deck. A hawser was made fast to the line, and secured on shore. It was not until now that we began to hope; and with this hope arose an anxiety on the part of every one to save what they could. I strove to reach my chest, in which were a pair of new shoes and five guineas, but my efforts, like those of the others, were vain; our under decks were flooded several inches, and everything was loose and knocking about in the most furious manner, from the rolling and pitching of the vessel upon the rocks, so that I was but too happy to reach the decks without being crushed to death. All I regretted was my shoes; the money I cared not for, and do not think I would have taken it, as we expected to be plundered as soon as we got to the beach.

After a great deal of fatigue, we all got safe to land, and now the plundering began. There were no regular soldiers on the spot, but a great many of the peasantry had firelocks and bayonets, and stood over us, stripping those of the men, who had them, of their jackets and hats. At first, we were disposed to resist, but soon found it to be of no use. One of the fellows seized the chain of the watch belonging to one of our men, and was in the act of pulling it from the pocket, when the owner, Jack Smith, struck him to the ground with a blow of his fist. The next moment poor Smith lay a lifeless corpse upon the sand, felled by a stroke from the butt end of a musket.

There was no one present who seemed to have or who assumed any authority, to whom our officers might appeal for protection; they were not more respected than the men; all were searched and robbed as soon as they arrived from the wreck. Poor Smith's fate taught us submission, even while our bosoms burned with a desire for vengeance. One[201] of my messmates said aloud—"I would cheerfully stand before the muzzle of one of the old Repulse's thirty-twos, were she charged to the mouth with grape well laid, to sweep these French robbers from the face of the earth." As for myself, they took nothing from me. I had twopence in the pocket of my trousers; when I saw what was going on, I took it out and held it in my hand while they searched me. I more than once thought they were going to strip me of my nether garments, and give me in exchange a pair of their own gun-mouthed rags, which would scarcely have reached my knees; for several of them looked at them as if they felt inclined to make the exchange; but I escaped, and felt thankful.

We stood for several hours shivering upon the beach without food, fire, or water, while the plunderers were busy picking up anything that drifted ashore, but still keeping a strict watch over us; at length, the chief magistrate of a neighbouring small town arrived, and to him our officers complained of the usage we had received. He only shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders, when the body of Smith was pointed out to him. What could we do? A grave was dug for him on the spot where he was murdered, and we were marched off into the interior. It was well on in the afternoon before we reached the place where we were to halt. It was a small poverty-stricken-like town, with an old ruinous church and churchyard, surrounded by high walls, with an iron gate close by. Into this chill, desolate place, we were crowded by the soldiers, the gate locked upon us, and sentinels placed around the building. Here we remained until the evening, when there was served out to every man a small loaf, black as mud; yet, black as it was, I never ate a sweeter morsel; for neither I nor any of my companions had tasted any food since the evening before.

But how shall I express the horror we felt when we found we were to remain where we were, in this old, ruined[202] charnel-house of a church, which could scarcely contain us all, unless we stood close together. To lie down was out of the question; and, although we could, there were neither straw, blankets, nor covering of any kind, to screen us from the cold. We implored in vain to be removed; but these privations, bad as they were, did not annoy us so much as the idea of spending the long dark night in such a miserable place. By far the greater number of us believed as firmly in the reality of ghosts as we did in our own existence; and, of all places in the world, a church and churchyard, from time immemorial, have been their favourite haunts, and the terror of all who believe in their reality—even those who affect to disbelieve in the visits of spirits to this earth, feel sensations which they would not choose to own, when in a churchyard, in a dark night, with gravestones and crumbling human bones around them. Of all men seamen are the most superstitious, and give the most ready credence to ghost stories. The unmanning feeling of fear, that had not touched a single heart in the extremity of our danger from the storm, was now strongly marked in every face, exaggerated by a horror of we knew not what. Fear is contagious—we huddled together, and peered fearfully around, expecting every moment to see some appalling vision or hear some dreadful sound. Our sense of hearing was painfully acute—the smallest noise made us start; but our feelings were too much racked to remain long at the same intensity—they gradually became more obtuse as the night wore on, until we at length began to entertain each other with fearful stories of ghosts; feeling a strange satisfaction in increasing the gloomy excitement under which we laboured. Had any of us begun a humorous story, with the view of diverting our thoughts from their present bent, and the circumstances we were in, I am certain he would have been silenced in no gentle manner.

We might have been about two hours or less in this[203] state, in the most intense darkness—our own whispers being all that we could recognise of each other, even although in contact—when a low pleasant murmur suddenly fell upon our ears: It was the voice of Dick Bates, who, having either been requested, or, moved by his present situation, had, of his own accord, commenced singing in an under tone his favourite ballad of "Hozier's Ghost." Now, Dick was the best singer in the whole crew, with a voice like a singing bird; it was at this moment so low that, had it been broad daylight, he would have appeared only to have been breathing hard; yet it was at this time distinctly heard by all, and made our flesh creep upon our bones, although a strange kind of pleasure was mingled with the feeling. We scarcely breathed when he came to the lines—

I thought the whole was present before me, and I could see the scene the poet described, and shuddered when he breathed forth—

I believe there was not a man in the old church who did not think he saw the ghastly train of spectres flitting before his eyes, and who did not feel every nerve thrill, and every hair of his head stand on end. Many were the tales of superstition and of terror related, until overpowered nature sank into sleep; but I have since often reflected that, of all the accounts of fearful sights I heard, they were all related[204] at second hand, from the authority of others. No one asserted they themselves had ever seen anything out of the ordinary course of nature except Bob Nelson, and his was calculated to lead a more prejudiced observer astray. It was as follows—

"It was during a voyage I made to New York from Greenock, in the brig Cochrane, that I once saw, with my own eyes, a strange sight, such as I hope never to witness again. Our cargo consisted of dry goods, and we had several emigrants as passengers; in particular, a family of six in the cabin, the husband and wife, with four children; they were wealthy, and had sold off their farm stock to purchase land, and settle somewhere in America. When they came on board at the quay of Greenock, they were accompanied by a great many relations and friends, who took a most affectionate leave of them; in particular one old woman, the mother of the emigrant's wife. Her wailings were most pitiable; she wrung her hands, and stood as if rooted to our decks. I heard her say more than once—

"'Mary, I feel I shall never see you more, nor these lovely babes. O why will you leave your aged mother to go mourning to her grave?'

"Her daughter looked more like one dead than alive, as she lay sobbing upon the breast of her husband, her mother holding one of her hands between both of her's. Poor soul, she looked as if her heart was breaking, but spoke not; at length, the husband said—

"The old woman's grief seemed, all at once, turned into rage: she let her daughter's hand drop, and, raising her hands, cursed him for depriving her of her daughter; concluding with—

"The poor young woman was carried below in a faint[205] and the old dame was conveyed from the deck by the friends, for we were by this time cast loose, and leaving our berth. For several days I saw nothing of the farmer's family, as they were very sick; but the children had now begun to play about the deck, and their father would leave the cabin for a short time, once or twice a-day, for his wife remained very ill, and confined to her bed. The haglike appearance of the old woman, in her rage, had made a great impression on me, and had evidently sunk the spirits of the young people; for I often saw, when the husband came on deck, that he was much dejected. I felt it strange that the figure of the old woman often occurred to my mind when I looked at him; and I several times dreamed I saw her in my sleep, as I had seen her in Greenock, but her appearance was more pale and hideous, and had so great an effect upon me, that I always awoke in an agony, and cursed her from my heart.

"About mid-passage we met with westerly gales and rough weather, which caused the passengers to keep below for several days, and retarded our passage much. It was blowing very hard. It was my turn at the wheel. In the midwatch we had occasional showers. The clouds were scudding along in immense bodies over the face of the moon, which was just at the full, so that we had, at times, bright moonlight for a minute or two, then gloom; but the night was not dark. I might have been at the wheel half my time or so. My eye was fixed ahead to watch the set of the waves, save when I glanced to the compass. I thought I saw something upon the bowsprit in the gloom that was not there a moment before. I looked aloft to see for a break in the clouds that the moon might shew me more distinctly what it was. I looked ahead again, and there it still was, but nearer the bows of the vessel. Still I could not make out what it was. Soon a burst of moonlight shone forth, and I saw it resembled a human figure, but whether[206] man or woman I could not tell, for the moon was as suddenly obscured as it had shone forth. I felt very queer; being certain it was none of the crew—for the whole watch was aft at the time—and I was sure that all the passengers were below, and no one had come on deck since the watch had been changed. I looked at the spot where I had seen it, and it was gone. I felt the greatest inclination to tell what I had seen; but the fear of being laughed at, made me say nothing of it at this time; I, however, never wished so much for anything in my life as that my spell at the wheel was over, and the watch passed. When, at length, I was released, I crept to the foxa, and tumbled into my hammock, but could not close an eye for thinking of what I had seen.

"Well, my mates, I was then, as I am now, in a pretty mess, and wished myself as heartily out of the Cochrane as we all do ourselves out of this old foundered hulk of a church. I was fairly aground with fear, and felt all of a tremble for the nights I must pass on board before we reached New York, where I was determined to leave the brig if I saw any more such sights. For a few days the gale continued, sometimes blowing very hard, at others more moderate, but nothing uncommon occurred. At length it abated, and we had pleasant weather. I began to think I had been deceived, and was glad I had not spoken of what I had seen to any of the crew. It was the afternoon, towards evening. I was again at the wheel. The sun was setting in a bed of clouds, as gaily coloured as a ship rejoicing—the colours of all nations floating aloft, from the point of her bowsprit to the end of her jib-boom. The four children were playing upon deck, laughing and full of joy at being once more relieved from their long confinement in the cabin. I looked at their innocent gambols and at the beautiful sky by turns, as much as my duty would allow, and felt more happy than I had done since we sailed. It was so pleasant to look ahead; for every face on deck[207] wore a pleasing and happy aspect. I looked again at the children's gambols; but I almost dropped at the wheel. My hands and limbs refused to do their office. There, before me, close by the children, stood the exact representation of the old woman—so stern, so unearthly was her look, that I cannot express it; but she was pale as the foam on the crest of a wave. I could not call out. I had no power either to move tongue or limb. The yawing of the vessel called the attention of the mate to me, who sung out to hold her steady. I heard him, but could not obey. My whole faculties were engrossed by the fearful vision. My eyes appeared as if they would have started out of my head. One of the crew seized the wheel. All looked at me with astonishment. I stood rivetted to the spot, pointing to where the spectre stood; but no one saw anything but myself. The captain was below in the cabin, with the farmer and his wife—the latter of whom was known to all the crew to be very ill. As I looked to the unearthly figure, attracted by a power I could not resist, the children continued their play. The features of the old woman, I thought, relaxed, and a sadness came over them, but it was of unearthly expression. The figure glided from the children to the cabin-companion, and disappeared below, when it as suddenly came again upon deck, accompanied by the farmer's wife, pale and wasted. Both gazed upon the children. The young woman appeared to wring her hands in great distress, as I had seen her before she was carried below; but the old woman hurried her over the side of the brig, and I saw no more of them. When they disappeared, my faculties returned. I trembled as if I had been in an ague, and the cold sweat stood in large drops upon my forehead. The mate and crew thought that I had been in a fit, until I told them what I had seen. They looked rather serious, but were much inclined to laugh at me. The mate began to jaw me a little on my fancies. All had passed in a[208] minute or two. Scarce had the mate spoken a dozen of words, when the captain hurried upon deck, much affected, and called to one of the female steerage passengers to go instantly to the cabin and assist, as he feared the farmer's wife was dead. The mate ceased to speak, and the rest of the crew looked as amazed as I did at the strange occurrence. The captain came to us. When he heard my strange story, he shook his head, and only said it was a remarkable occurrence; but I had been deceived by some illusion, and commanded us not to speak of it, for distressing the poor husband. We resolved to obey him, as we were by this time nearly in with the land, and expected to make it next day, which we did; and the poor farmer was helped ashore, almost as death-like as the body of his wife, which was buried in New York. I sailed several trips afterwards in the Cochrane, but never saw anything out of the common afterwards in her or anywhere else."

The first rays of the rising sun shone upon us all sound asleep, as quiet and undisturbed as if we had passed the night under the roofs of our fathers' houses; but I was cold, stiff, and sore when I awoke. I had passed the night upon a flat gravestone outside of the church, for want of room within, without any covering but my shirt and trousers—all I had saved from the wreck. There was not a character engraved on the stone that was not as distinctly marked on my body. It was of no use grumbling or being cast down—we were fairly adrift, and must go with the current. It was now that the buoyancy of a sailor's mind burst forth. The old church and churchyard resounded with shouts and laughter, that made the French sentinels think we had all gone mad. Some were busy at leap-frog, others were pursuing each other among the ruins and tomb-stones—all were in active exertion for the sake of warmth, and to beguile the time; while the French gathered outside wherever they could obtain a sight of us, and looked[209] on in amazement at our frolics. I am certain they were not without fear for us; for a few of the lads had contrived to clamber to the top of the ruins; and were amusing themselves by antics, at the hazard of their necks, and throwing small pieces of lime at us below. The officer in command called to them to come down; but they knew not what he said. Some of them cried out, in answer to his call—"Speak like a Christian if you want us to understand you, and don't wow like a dog." At this moment, Nick Williams, one of our maintop men, had scaled the highest point of the walls, and had, at the risk of his life, contrived to perch himself upon the crumbling stone, and was huzzaing most vociferously. It was a daring and foolhardy feat. A shout of admiration rose from the outside of the walls, when a real British cheer answered it from within. Whether the officer was enraged at the apparent defiance and disobedience to his commands, I know not, but several muskets were fired through the rails of the gate, and the balls recoiled from the walls. A shout of rage burst from us; and a serious conflict was only prevented by the prudence of the petty officers who were among us; for the enraged seamen had begun to collect stones from the base of the ruined walls to hurl at the dastardly guards, who were shouting, "Vive la Nation!" "Vive la Republique!" Our boatswain, who was a cool and resolute old tar, seeing that the storm was still on the verge of bursting out—for we looked upon their cries as insulting as their balls—by a happy thought, struck up the national air, "God save the King," which we sung with an enthusiasm and strength of lungs never, I am certain, surpassed before or since. If it had no melody, it had a tone and sound equivalent to both. Many who still held the stones in their hands, which they had lifted to hurl at the guards, struck them together like cymbals, in regular time, to increase the noise. The effect was most exhilarating and produced the desired effect of turning our angry[210] feeling into good-humour. So pleased were we, that we gave them "Rule Britannia" in the same style, until we forgot, in our enthusiasm, that we were prisoners, hungry, cold, and naked. Scarce had the last loud cadence died away, when the gate was thrown open, and a miserable allowance of the same black bread was served out to us, with plenty of water, and the gate once more shut against us.

It was very strange that, among more than five hundred of us, not one knew a word of French, and there were none of those who entered the enclosure could speak a word of English, so that we knew not what those who had the power over us meant to do. We conjectured that they intended to keep us where we were until we were exchanged; and had already begun to canvass the possibility of breaking out of the hated church and yard, and making a bold push for our liberty, in the following night, by overpowering our guards, seizing their arms, and passing along the coast, until we reached some of the small ports, and making prizes of all the vessels in it, and setting sail for England. A council was actually deliberating in the church, composed of the petty officers and a few of our picked hands, when our attention was roused by the sound of martial music approaching the churchyard, where it halted, and we were soon after turned out, and numbered to the officer in command.

The party who had just arrived consisted of two companies of soldiers of the line, regularly clothed and armed, as the French troops were; while those under whose charge we had been were only the armed peasantry of the neighbourhood. We hoped the change would be for our advantage. We saw at once we were going to be conveyed into the interior. Go where we must, we felt we could not be worse fed, lodged, or used than we had been. No harsh word was used to us by the regular troops; and, before we had[211] been a few hours on the road, we understood each other well enough by dumb show, and marched on in good humour; we walking in the middle of them like a drove of bullocks, as frolicsome as children, singing, laughing, and putting practical jokes upon each other, to beguile the way. Scarce had we travelled a couple of miles, until my bare feet became sore from the small stones and bruises; yet I limped on in the best manner I could, and as cheerfully as possible. I was in the front as we were on the point of entering a village; the soldiers in file enclosing us on either side, and bringing up the rear, so that we could not walk faster or slower than they chose. A few hundred yards from the entrance of the village, those in front turned round, and pointing to the fowls of various kinds that were feeding on the highway before us, made signs which we readily understood, and nodded significantly; they then drew to each side of the road, and we behind them, leaving a gap in the middle of the way like the prongs of a fork closed at the base. The ducks, hens, and other fowls became alarmed as we came close upon them, and ran for shelter to the vacant space in the middle, when the front closed, and all were secured by those in the centre; the poor people, their owners, calling in vain for restitution of their property. The soldiers would not allow them to come within their ranks; and, at night, when we stopped, the former procured wood for us to dress the stolen fowls, after having received their proportion. This, I confess, was a species of robbery; but we were starved by the allowance of government, and we were in an enemy's country, who had plundered the shipwrecked mariner cast upon their shores. We thought, therefore, although, of course, the reasoning was wrong, that, in appropriating whatever we could lay hands upon, we were merely making fair and just reprisals for the losses we had sustained at the hands of our captors; but, the truth is, we troubled ourselves very little about the right or wrong of[212] the matter, for we were lodged either in large empty barns, or ruined churches, all the way to Rennes, and could, from hunger, have eaten a jackass when we were allowed to rest for the night. Even yet, I remember the relish a small piece of a roast pig or fowl had, without either bread or salt, at this time, for we were not scrupulous what we lifted that would eat, if we could carry it. In one village, five pigs disappeared in this manner, and only the great weight of the parent prevented her following them. At the time, it had not the appearance of theft; there was so much fun in it that it resembled a great hunt, for every eye was in quest of game, and all was done so quietly and dexterously that there was not the least confusion or noise. We closed so rapidly that the prey had no means of escape, nor room to move until it was despatched; yet the people, as we passed, were often very kind to us, so far as was in their power, for they appeared to be miserably poor. When we reached Rennes my feet were so sore, swelled, and cut, that I walked with great pain; numbers of us were in the same situation. We did not pass straight through the town, but were halted, for some time, in the market-place, while the inhabitants came in crowds to gaze at the English prisoners; and a miserable sight we were. We might have been here about half an hour, when a beautiful young lady came to where we were, with a young woman behind her carrying a large basket filled with shoes. I thought she had come to sell them, as so many were barefoot. I saw her giving them to the men, and hirpled to the spot, and looked with an anxious eye at the store which was diminishing fast. I had still retained the twopence, and resolved to make an effort to obtain a pair, but felt backward, conscious I had no equivalent to give for them; holding out my coppers, I pointed to a pair which I thought would answer me; I felt ashamed, and looked to the ground, pointing to my feet when I had attracted her attention, for she was looking in another direction.[213] She took the shoes and gave them to me. I proffered my little cash; she gently put my hand aside, and, by a sign, made me know that I was welcome to them. I never saw a female so lovely as this young lady; her clear, black eyes were swimming in tears, and her face covered with blushes; her looks were so mild, so benevolent, she looked like an angel sent from heaven to administer to our wants. Never before or since have I felt the same sensation so intensely. It was delightful; it was painful. I felt a choking in my throat. I could have wept, and have found relief in it, but I was surrounded by those who would have made sport of my emotion. I retired a few paces to make way for others, in silence. I dared not utter a sound, lest my feelings had overpowered me, but stood and gazed at the lovely creature until she retired. I felt as if everything to be esteemed on earth was concentrated in her person and mind. Had I been an admiral I would have gloried in calling her mine; had it been necessary I could have faced death or any danger, to free her from trouble or grief, with a feeling of joy and exultation. Many a time has this fair creature been embodied in my mind's eye, as fair and lovely as she was then, but I never saw her again.

Many others of the good inhabitants of Rennes administered to our wants. I got, besides the shoes, a substitute for a jacket, and a straw hat from an old man. Indeed, we saw in our route scarce any others except old men, women, and boys. Women were driving the carts, and working in the fields, and doing the work done by the men in Britain. From Rennes we were marched to Perche, our final destination, in the same manner as we had been from the coast, and lodged in prison; but I found it no prison to me: men were so scarce at this time in France that we were allowed to work out of prison if we chose, and only visited once a-week to pass muster, and receive our allowance—so I soon found a master, or, more properly, he found me in[214] prison—a cart and plough-wright residing a short distance from town.

Citizen Vauquin, in secret, was a staunch Royalist; but, in his common conversation, a Republican. To me he was extremely kind, but our communications were very limited, from my want of knowledge of French; but I was picking it up with rapidity, and we soon contrived to understand each other pretty well.

It was now well on in the spring, and the weather warm and agreeable. I was busy at my work, when Vauquin, who was a stout, hale old man, came to me; there was something comic in the expression of his countenance, joy and vexation seemed by turns to pass over it, and at times to struggle for mastery; he looked cautiously around lest any one might overhear us, then said—

"Ah, France! beautiful France! these cursed Democrats have dimmed your glory, and ruined you! We have lost our fleet in Egypt, and we fly before the Germans. What can we have but defeat, while the best blood in France either has been shed by her sons, or languishes in obscurity. Could we be freed from the ruffians that tyrannize over us in any way but this? We have suffered much, and must suffer more, before we see the glories of France shine as they once shone in the courts of her kings. Ha! Elder, your sailors are the devils that humble France; from your riches the seas are covered with your ships, and the brave French, plundered by their rulers, have few. What could be done with sixteen ships when fifty were upon them?"

"Because they would have run if they could," replied I; "or struck when they saw no chance—that's all I have to say on the subject. If you please let us change it, my friend."[215]

"By all means," said he, "let us change it. We are a ruined and undone people since we lost our King. The great nation are a people without a head; and, when a house wants the head, all goes wrong."

"You and I are at one on this point," replied I. "But how comes it that you are as democratic as any one in the neighbourhood when politics is the subject of discourse? It is not so in Britain. Every man speaks his mind; yet we have a king and a kingly government. I was led to believe, before I left home, that in France alone there was liberty: for all men were equal—freedom and equality being the law of the land."

"O Monsieur Elder!" exclaimed he, "freedom and equality are the worst tyranny, as I shall shew you by my sad experience. When all men make the law, who is to obey? Better one tyrant than one million; for, when every one thinks he is a law-maker, no one thinks of obeying the law farther than it pleases himself. Listen to me; and you shall hear the truth as I have experienced it, and many thousands in France as well as I:—

"When first the people of France began to give attention to the writers and haranguers against the oppression which we, no doubt, suffered, no one was more enthusiastic than I was for the removal of the abuses; and I thought no sacrifice could be too great to have them removed. I was, at the time, carpenter to the great chateau which you see in the distance. Our old lord, who was a severe master, had died only a few years before, and had not the love of a single peasant in his wide domains; but his son was the reverse of his parent—the friend and benefactor of every one on his estate; yet he inherited a fund of animosity which it would have taken years of his kindness and humanity to have obliterated. In this state of matters, the troubles broke out. He was on the side of the people, and aided, as far as in him lay, the cause of improvement in[216] the state, until the factions in Paris—who, ruling the silly multitude, led them to believe that they were ruled by them—struck at the root of all good government by insulting and imprisoning the King. From this time, he took no active part in the commotions, but remained at his chateau. I was his overseer, and managed his affairs. I loved him with all my soul, for he was worthy of my love. My ideas went still farther than his went, and I felt not displeased with anything that had as yet occurred; for I knew the tenacity with which the aristocracy clung to their privileges; but the cunning and designing men who, under the faint shew of obeying the people, ruled them at their will for mischief and disorder, ultimately, by taking the life of the King, took the key-stone out of the arch which sheltered the people, and brought the whole fabric of civil order about their ears. I was confounded at the blindness I had laboured under; and, from that hour, my whole ideas changed. But, alas! it was too late; and even those that had lent a willing hand trembled at the mischief they had done. Benefits are soon forgot; but the remembrance of injuries are indelible. Numbers of needy plunderers had arrived from Paris, and overspread these peaceful plains like evil spirits, rousing the worst feeling of our peasantry into action. As yet, no serious outrage had been committed in this quarter; but I too plainly saw that it would not long be deferred. I requested my dear master to fly, as many others had done; for blood had begun to flow like water in Paris and the provinces—not the blood of the guilty, but the blood of the noble and virtuous; for, alas! France had become the arena in the remorseless war of poverty against property. The whole fabric of social order had been dissolved, and men had returned to their original state of barbarism; like jackalls or wolves, only banding together when they scented plunder. To be rich or nobly born was a crime of the deepest dye, only to be atoned by blood. I,[217] with extreme pain, saw the storm gathering, and could only deplore it; and what added to my anguish, was, I dared not argue against them; for our old and worthy magistrates had been deposed, and others, more in the spirit of the times, appointed. As yet, no blood had been shed in Perche, but numbers were immured in prison; and, had I given the least cause of suspicion, I would have been placed beyond the power of lending that aid to the distressed which I was resolved to afford them, or perish in the attempt. Several times I had entreated my young lord to fly, and avoid the storm; but my entreaties were in vain. He thought far too well of his fellow-men.

"At length a rumour reached us that two commissioners were on their way to the chateau to sequestrate it for the use of the state: immediately there was a violent commotion amongst the people—fearful of losing their share of the plunder, all marched in a tumultuous manner to assault it. Aware of what might ensue—for blood had begun to flow—I got my young lord disguised as one of my workmen, and set to his bench—that very one at which you work—and joined the crowd as they approached the chateau. To prevent suspicion, no one shouted louder than I, 'Down with the Tyrants!'—'Down with the Aristocrats!'—'Vive la Nation!'—'Vive la Republique!' We entered the chateau, which was searched in vain for my young lord. It was now that the true spirit of the peasantry shewed itself in all its deformity; everything of value was in a short time carried off or destroyed; while every quarter resounded with execrations and cries for blood—the oppressions of the father were alone remembered. How it occurred I have yet to learn, but the youthful aristocrat was discovered in my shop; this was a severe blow to me, for I was immediately seized by the furious crowd, charged by them with the worst of crimes in their eyes, the concealing from them a victim of their rage. It was a fearful hour. I expected[218] to have been torn to pieces upon the spot. My presence of mind did not forsake me: I begged to be heard before the fatal daggers that were brandished around reached my heart. I stood firm until a pause of the storm, when I appealed to them not for mercy, but for revenge—revenge upon my lord before I died. "I have been betrayed," I cried, "by some one. I appeal to yourselves for my former love of my country. Let me die, but let it be for my country, and let me be revenged upon the tyrants. Fire the chateau!—'Vive la Nation,' 'A bas les Aristocrats,' 'Vive la Republique'—and let me die by the light of the stronghold of tyranny enveloped in flames."

"I now breathed more freely. Shouts rent the air; for like a weathercock is a mob—ever pointing as the last breath of wind blows. 'Vive Vauquin!' resounded from every lip; the chateau was enveloped in flames; its owner immersed in a dungeon to await his doom, already fixed before the mock forms of justice were gone through. Think not the worse of me for the part I acted; every paper and article of plate had been concealed for some days before. To save, if possible, his life, no one was louder in denouncing my lord than myself, for his having dared to conceal himself in my shop. At my return, I began seriously to turn over in my mind what steps I was next to pursue for his safety, now rendered difficult, almost beyond my power to overcome. I feared not death, nor any danger to myself, could my object have been attained by it. There was not a moment to be lost; the following day was to have been the day of his trial and death. The commissioners had arrived from Paris, and a fête was resolved to be got up to welcome them. In a state of anxiety I can hardly describe, I bustled about and waited upon the commissioners; but my chief object was to ascertain the exact spot where the aristocrats were confined. My lord was my chiefest care, for however much I had, at the commencement[219] of the revolution, wished for the abused power of the nobles to be reduced, I had no wish for their ruin, far less their murder; judge my horror when I learned that he was in the lower dungeon of the prison, to which there was only one entrance through the guard-room, which was constantly filled by the soldiers on guard. With a heart void of hope I returned to my home. In an agony of mind I threw myself upon my couch, that if possible I might exclude every other thought but the one that I wished to fix my whole attention upon: while I walked about, I felt like one distracted. At length, I was so fortunate as to call to mind having, when a boy, heard my father tell that he had assisted my grandfather in securing a door into the lower dungeon, that led into another even more loathsome, where the Huguenots were wont to be confined in the time of Louis the Fourteenth; this had a door which led into the outer court of the prison, the walls of which were in the hinder part, ruinous and neglected, as few of the present people in authority knew of such a dungeon; the old door having been long built up. A faint ray of hope shot through my mind; I started from my bed, and, concealing what tools I judged to be necessary, proceeded to the jail without being perceived—this was rendered the more easy as every one was engaged preparing for the fête. I remained under the shelter of the ruined wall until it was quite dark. A voice of mirth and revelry sounded in the front of that prison, whose gloomy walls and strong iron barred windows might, and no doubt did, enclose hearts more sorrowful than mine, but none more anxious. My situation, solitary as it was, was full of peril—I might be missed at the fête, and suspicion roused if I was so fortunate as to succeed; but I allowed no selfish thought to intrude. I was so fortunate as to find the low arched door I had heard my father speak of; after considerable labour it yielded to my efforts, and I entered the low and noisesome vault which had[220] heard and re-echoed the groans of so many victims of tyranny whose only fault was adhering to the dictates of their consciences against an intolerant priesthood. So baleful was the air I breathed, that I was forced to retire, or I had fallen to the damp floor; again I entered, for I heard the voice of my lord in prayer, and felt a new sort of assurance arise in my mind; there was no distinguishing one object from another, so impenetrable was the darkness, and the faint sound appeared to come from no particular side of the dungeon. I commenced groping with my hands, from the entrance, along the walls; it was a loathsome task, for they were damp and ropy, and loathsome reptiles ever and anon made me withdraw my fingers; still I groped on. At length I succeeded; the door was forced to yield to my skill and efforts; all that divided me from him I sought was the strong planks and plaster. I struck a sharp single blow upon it, and paused—the voice of my master had ceased from the commencement of my work upon the second door. It was a period of intense anxiety, lest he should alarm his guards, if any of them had been in his dungeon. To my first signal no answer was made: he knew not that he had a friend so near, willing to sacrifice everything for his rescue. I struck a second blow, and again listened; I heard him utter a faint exclamation of surprise, and all was again still. The third time I struck, and I heard a movement on the other side: the plaster was struck, piercing a small hole, and we were enabled to communicate. I found he was alone in his dismal dungeon. It was agreed that I was to return in two hours with a disguise for him, after I had appeared at the fête; and, in the meantime, I loosened the fastening so as he could easily force it away should any thing happen to prevent my return; and, these arrangements being made, I took my departure, in the same stealthy manner in which I had reached him.

"With my heart still anxious but more at ease, I joined[221] the festive throng, and, joining in the dance for a short time, then retired, got all ready, returned, with a view to relieve my lord from his dungeon, and had the unspeakable pleasure to see him beyond its walls, dressed as a peasant girl. Our parting was brief but sincere, my wishes for his safety were equal to the extent of my love, but I have never heard of him since; whether he went for La Vendee, or joined the allied army, I never knew. As soon as I saw him safe out of the town, I returned to the joyous group, and was among the last to leave it. My share in the escape of my noble master was never even suspected; but from this time I have wished the fall of the tyrants that have ruled France with a rod of iron, and for the return of our King and nobility, until which time we can never hope for tranquillity. I am not displeased at what can assist in aiding their overthrow but I feel, as a true Frenchman, humbled at every defeat our brave forces sustain. I love the beautiful fields of France and all her sons, but I hate the demagogues who at present rule her destinies."

Had I not been an exile against my will, I never had been more happy in my life than I was at this time. I, no doubt, was a prisoner of war; but it was only in name. I never saw my prison but once a-week, when I appeared at the muster to receive my jail allowance, and returned to citizen Vauquin's in a few hours after, or strayed where I chose within the proscribed distance. Our visits to the prison always gave rise to an afternoon of merriment and pleasure—a meeting of friends. Not one of us wished to escape, or desired an exchange.

I was always a fortunate fellow. The four months I was here I improved much in my drawing, and found the instructions of poor Walden of the utmost service to me; and I was much benefited by a relation of Vauquin's, who had studied the arts at Paris. It was thus I spent my evenings; but I was never as yet allowed to enjoy my good fortune[222] long. We were ordered to be marched to the coast at Saint Malos, where a cartel was to be in readiness to receive us. I bade adieu to my kind friend, Citizen Vauquin, not without regret, and set out for the coast. There was not a trace of pleasure at our release among us; we had no cause, at least nine-tenths of us. For, as Bill Wates had foretold, off Jersey we were brought too by the Ramillies, and crowded on board her. The greater part were draughted to other men-of-war, but in her I remained until she was paid off, at the peace.

WILLIE WASTLE'S ACCOUNT OF HIS WIFE.

"It was a very cruel dune thing in my neebor, Robert Burns, to mak a sang aboot my wife and me," said Mr William Wastle, as he sat with a friend over a jug of reeking toddy, in a tavern near the Bridge-end in Dumfries where he had been attending the cattle market; "I didna think it was neebor-like," he added; "indeed it was a rank libel upon baith her and me; and I took it the worse, inasmuch as I always had a very high respect for Maister Burns. Though he said that I 'dwalt on Tweed,' and that I 'was a wabster,' yet everybody kenned wha the sang was aimed at. Neither did my wife merit the description that has been drawn o' her; for, though she was nae beauty, and hadna a face like a wax-doll, yet there were thousands

o' waur looking women to be met wi' than my Kirsty; and to say that her mither was a 'tinkler,' was very unjustifiable, for her parents were as decent and respectable people, in their sphere o' life, as ye would hae found in a' Nithsdale. Her faither had a small farm which joined on with one that I took a lease o', when I was about one-and-twenty. Kirsty was about three years aulder; and, though not a bonny woman, she was, in many respects, as ye shall hear in the coorse o' my story, a very extraordinary one. I was in the habit o' seeing her every day, and as I sometimes was working in a field next to her, I had every opportunity o' observing her industry, and that, frae mornin' till nicht, she was aye eident. This gave me a far higher opinion o' her than if I had seen her gaun about wi' a buskit head; and often, at meal-times, I used to stand and speak to her owre the dyke. But, after we had been acquainted in this manner for some months, when the cheerfu' summer weather came in, and the grass by the dyke-sides was warm and green, and the bonny gowans blossomed among it, I louped owre the dyke, and we sat doun and took our dinners together. I couldna have believed it possible that a bit bare bannock and a drap skim milk wad gang doun sae deliciously, but never before had I partaken o' onything that was sae pleasant to the palate. One day I was quite surprised, when I found that my arm had slipped unconsciously round her waist, and, drawing her closer to my side, I seighed, and said—'O Kirsty, woman!'

"She pulled away my hand from her waist, and looking me in the face, said—'Weel, Willie, man, what is't?'

"'Perhaps I could, dear,' said I; 'but ye ken true love is aye blate; however, if ye hae nae objections, I'll gang yont, after fothering time the micht, and speak to yer faither[225] and mither; and if they hae nae objections, and ye have yer providin' ready, wi' yer guid-will and consent, I shall gie up oor names, and we shall be cried on Sabbath first.'

"'Oh,' said she, 'I haena lived for five-and-twenty years without expectin' to get a guidman some day; and I hae had my providin' ready since I was eighteen, an' a' o' my ain spinnin' and bleachin', an' the lint bocht wi' what I had wrocht for; so that I am behauden to naebody. My faither and mither have mair sense than to cast ony obstacle in the way o' my weelfare; and, as ye are far frae bein' disagreeable to me, if we are to be married, it may as weel be sune as syne, and we may be cried on Sunday if ye think proper.'

"'O Kirsty, woman!" cried I, and I drew my arm round her waist again, 'ye hae made me as happy as a prince! I hardly ken which end o' me is upmost!'

"'Na, Willie,' said she, 'there is nae necessity for ony nonsensical raptures, ye ken perfectly weel that yer head is upmost, though I hae heard my faither talk about some idiots that he ca's philosophers, who say that the world whirls roond aboot like a cart-wheel on an axle-tree, and that ance in every twenty-four hours our feet are upmost, and our head downmost; but it will be lang or onybody get me to believe in sic balderdash! As to yer being happy at present, it shall be nae faut o' mine if ye are not aye sae; and if ye be aye as I would wish ye to be, ye will never be unhappy.'

"Such, as near as I can recollect, is not only the history, but the exact words o' oor courtship. Her faither and mither gied their consent without the slightest hesitation. I remember her faither's words to me were—'Weel, William, frae a' that I hae seen o' ye, ye appear to be a very steady and industrious young man, and ane that is likely to do weel in the world. I hae seen, also, wi' great satisfaction, that ye are very regular in yer attendance upon the ordinances; there hasna been a Sabbath, since ye cam to be[226] oor neebor, that I hae missed ye oot o' yer seat in the kirk. Frae a' that I hae heard concernin' ye, also, ye hae always been a serious, sober, and weel-behaved young man. These things are a great satisfaction to a faither when he finds them in the lad that his dochter wishes to marry. Ye hae my consent to tak Kirsty; and, though I say it, I believe ye will find her to mak as industrious, carefu', and kind a wife, as ye would hae found if ye had sought through a' broad Scotland for ane. I will say it, however, and before her face, that there are some things in which she takes it o' her mother, and in which she will hae her ain way. But this is her only faut. I'm sure ye'll ne'er hae cause to complain o' her wasting a bawbee, or o' her allowing even the heel o' a kebbuck to gang to unuse. It is needless for me to say mair; but ye hae my full and free consent to marry when ye like.'

"Then up spoke the auld guidwife, and said—'Weel, Willie, lad, if you and Kirsty hae made up yer minds to mak a bargain o' it, I am as little disposed to oppose yer inclinations as her faither is. A guid wife, I sincerely believe, ye will find her prove to ye; and though her faither says that in some things she will be like me, and have her ain way, let me tell ye, lad, that is owre often necessary for a woman to do, wha is striving everything in her power for the guid o' her husband and the family, and sees him, just through foolishness, as it were, striving against her. Ye are strange beings you men-folk to deal wi'. But ye winna find her a bare bride, for she has a kist fu' o' linen o' her ain spinnin', that may serve ye a' yer days, and even when ye are dead, though ye should live for sixty years.'

"I thought it rather untimeous that the auld woman should hae spoken aboot linen for oor grave-claes, before we were married; and I suppose my countenance had hinted as much, for Kirsty seemed to hae observed it, and she said—'My mother says what is and ought to be. It is[227] aye best to be provided for whatever may come; and as Death often gies nae warning, I wadna like to be met wi' it, and to hae naething in the house to lay me out in like a Christian.'

"I thought there was a vast deal o' sense and discretion in what she said; and though I didna like the idea o' such a premature providing o' winding-sheets, yet, after she spoke, I highly approved o' her prudence and forethought.

"It was on a Monday afternoon, about three weeks after the time I have been speaking o', that Kirsty, wi' her faither, and mother, and another young lass, an acquaintance o' hers, that was to be best-maid, cam yont to my house for her and me to be married. I had sent for ane o' my brothers to be best-man, and he was with me waiting when they came. She was not in the least discomposed, but behaved very modestly. In a few minutes the minister arrived, when the ceremony immediately began, and within a quarter of an hour she was mine, and I was hers, for the term o' oor natural lives.

"From the time that I took the farm, I had no kind o' dishes in the house, save a wooden bowie or twa, four trenchers, three piggins, and twa bits o' tin cans, that I had bought from a travelling tinker for twopence a-piece, and which Kirsty afterwards told me, were each a halfpenny a-piece aboon their value. I dinna think that I had tasted tea aboon a dozen times in the whole course o' my life; but, as it was coming into general use, I thought it would look respectfu' to my bride, before her faither and mother, if I should hae tea upon oor marriage day, and I could ask the minister to stop and tak a dish wi' us. I thought it would gie a character o' respectability to oor wedding. Therefore, on the Saturday afore the marriage, I went to Dumfries, and bought half a dozen o' bonny blue cups and saucers. I never durst tell Kirsty how meikle I gied for them. It was with great difficulty that I got them carried hame without[228] breaking. I also bought two ounces o' the best tea, and a whole pound o' brown sugar.

"I had a servant lassie at the time, the doohter o' a hind in the neighbourhood; she was necessary to me to do the work about the house, and to milk twa kye that I kept, to mak the cheese, and a part o' the day to help the workers out wi' the bondage.

"'I'm no very sure,' said she; 'but I think I do. I ance got a cup when I wasna weel, frae the farmer's wife that my faither lives wi'. I'll try.'

"'Here, then,' says I; 'tak care o' thir, and see that ye dinna break them, or it will mak a breaking that ye wouldna like in your quarter's wages.' So I gied her the cups and saucers to put awa carefully into the press.

"'O maister,' says she; 'but noo, when I recollect, ye'll need a tea-kettle, and a tea-pat, and a cream-pat, and teaspoons.'

"'Preserve me!' quoth I, 'the lassie is surely wrang in the head! Hoo mony articles o' tea and cream hae ye there? The parritch kettle will do as weel as a tea-kettle—where can be the difference? Your tea-pats I ken naething aboot, and as for a cream-pat, set down the cream-bowie; and as for spoons, ye fool, they dinna sip tea—they drink it—just sirple it, as it were, oot o' the saucer.'

"'O sir,' said she; 'but they need a little spoon to stir it round to mak the sugar melt—and that is weel minded, ye'll also require a sugar-basin.'

"'Hoots! toots! lassie,' cried I, 'do ye intend to ruin me? By yer account o' the matter, it would be almost as expensive to set up a tea equipage, as a chariot equipage. No, no; just do as the miller's wife o' Newmills did.'

"'Why,' said I, 'she took such as she had, and she never[229] wanted! Just ye tak such as ye have—cogie, bowie, or tinniken, never ye mind—show ye your dexterity.'

"But, just to exemplify another trait in my wife's character, I will tell ye the upshot o' my cups and saucers. I confess that I was in a state of very considerable perturbation; not only on account o' what the lassie had told me about the want o' a tea-kettle, tea-pat, and so forth, but also that, including the minister, there were seven o' us, while I had but six cups; and I consoled mysel by thinking that, as Kirsty and I were now one, she might drink oot o' the cup and I wad tak the saucer, so that a cup and saucer would serve us baith; and I was trustin to the ingenuity o' the lassie to find substitutes for the other deficiencies, when she came ben to where we were sitting, and going forward to Kirsty, says she—'Mistress, I have had the twa ounces o' tea on boiling in a chappin o' water, for the last twa hoors—do ye think it will be what is ca'ed masked noo?'

"'Tea!' said my new-made wife, wi' a look o' astonishment; 'is the lassie talking aboot tea? While I am to be in this house—and I suppose that is to be for my life—there shall nae poisonous foreign weed be used in it, nor come within the door, unless it be some drug that a doctor orders. Take it off the fire, and throw the broo awa. My certes! if young folk like us were to begin wi' sic extravagance, where would be the upshot? Na, na, Willie,' said she, turning round to me, 'let us just begin precisely as we mean to end. At all events, let us rather begin meanly, than end beggarly. I hae seen some folk, no aboon oor condition in life, mak a great dash on their wedding-day; and some o' them even hire gigs and coaches, forsooth, to tak a jaunt awa for a dozen o' miles! Poor things! it was the first and last time that ony o' them was either in gig or coach. But there shall be nae extravagance o' that kind for[230] me. My faither and mither care naething about tea, for they hae never been used to it, and I'm sure that our friends here care as little; and, asking the minister's pardon, I am perfectly sure and certain, that tea can be nae treat to him, for he has it every day, and it will be standing ready for him when he gangs hame. The supper will be ready by eight o'clock, and those who wish it, may tak a glass o' speerits in the meantime—as it isna every day that they are at my wedding.'

"Her faither and mother looked remarkable proud and weel-pleased like at what she said, just as if they wished to say to me—'There's a wife for ye!' But I thought the minister seemed a good deal surprised, and in a few minutes he took up his hat, wished us much joy, and went away. For my part, I didna think sae much aboot my bride's lecture, as I rejoiced that she thereby released me from the confusion I should have experienced in exposing the poverty o' my tea equipage.

"It was on the very morning after oor marriage, and just as I was gaun oot to my wark—'Willie,' says she, 'I think we should single the turnips in the field west o' the hoose the day. The cotters' twa bondage lasses, and me, will be able to manage it by the morn's nicht.'

"'O, my dear,' quoth I, 'but I hae nae intention that ye should gang out into the fields to work, noo that ye are my wife. Let the servant-lass gang out, and ye can look after the meat.'

"'Her! the idle taupie!' said she, 'we hae nae mair need for her than a cart has for a third wheel. Mony a time it has grieved me to observe her motions, when ye were out o' the way—and there would she and the other twa wenches been standing, clashing for an hour at a time, and no workin' a stroke. I often had it in my mind to tell ye, but only I thought ye might think it forward in me, as I perceived ye had a kindness for me. But I can baith do all[231] that is to do in-doors, and work out-by also, and at the end o' the quarter she shall leave.'

"'Wi' a' my heart,' says I, 'if ye wish it;' for it struck me she micht be a wee thocht jealous o' the lassie; 'but there is no the sma'est necessity for you working out in the fields; for though she leaves, we can get a callant at threepence a-day, that would just do as muckle out-work as she does, and ye would hae naething to attend to but the affairs o' the hoose.'

"'O William!' replied she, 'I'm surprised to hear ye speak. Ye talk o' threepence a-day just as if it were naething. Hoo mony starving families are there, that threepence a-day would mak happy? It is my maxim never to spend a penny unless it be laid out to the greatest possible advantage. Ye should always keep that in view, every time ye put yer hand in your pocket. He that saves a penny has as mony thanks, in the lang run, as he that gies it awa. Threepence a-day, not including the Sabbath, is eighteenpence a-week; noo, you that are a scholar, only think how much that comes to in a twelvemonth. There are fifty-twa weeks in the year—that is fifty-twa shillings; and fifty-twa sixpences is—how much?'

"'Twenty-six shillings, my dear,' said I, for I was quite amused at her calculation—the thing had never struck me before.

"'Weel,' added she, 'fifty-two shillings and twenty-six shillings, put that together, and see how much it comes to.'

"'Oh,' says I, after half a minute's calculation, 'it will just be three pounds, eighteen shillings, to a farthing.'

"'Noo,' cried she, 'only think o' that!—three pounds eighteen shillings a-year; and ye would throw it away, just as if it were three puffs o' breath! Now, William, just listen to me and tak tent—that is within twa shillings o' four pounds. It would far mair than cleed you and me, out and out, frae head to foot, from year's end to year's end.[232] But at present the wench's meat and wages come to three times that, and therefore I am resolved, William, that while I am able to work, we shall neither throw away the one nor the other. It is best that we should understand each other in time: therefore, I just tell ye plainly, as I said yesterday, that as I wish to end, I mean to begin. This very day, this very morning and hour, I go out wi' the bondage lassies to single the turnips; and, at the end o' the quarter, the lazy taupie butt-a-house maun walk aboot her business.'

"'Weel, Kirsty, my darling,' says I, 'your way be it. Only I maun again say, that I had no wish or inclination whatever to see you toiling and thinning turnips beneath a burning sun, or maybe taking them up and shawing them, when the cauld drift was cutting owre the face keener than a razor.'

"'Weel, William,' quoth she, 'it is needless saying any more words about it—it is my fixed and determined resolution.'

"'Then, hinny,' says I, 'if ye be absolutely resolved upon that, it is o' no manner o' use to say ony mair upon the subject, of course—your way be it.'

"So the servant lassie was discharged accordingly, and Kirsty did everything hersel. Wet day and dry day, whatever kind o' wark was to be done, there was she in the middle o' it, by her example spurring on the bondagers. Even when we began to hae a family, I hae seen her working in the fields wi' an infant on her back; and I am certain that for a dozen o' harvests, while she was aye at the head o' the shearers, there was aye our bairn that was youngest at the time, lying rowed up in a blanket at the foot o' the rig, and playing wi' the stubble to amuse itsel.

"There were many that said that I was entirely under her thumb, and that she had the maister-skep owre me. But that was a grand mistake, for she by no means exercised[233] onything like maistership owre me; though I am free to confess, that I at all times paid a great degree o' deference to her opinions, and that she had a very particular and powerfu' way o' enforcing them. Yet, although I was in no way cowed by her, there wasna a bairn that we had, from the auldest to the youngest, that durst play cheep before her. She certainly had her family under great subjection, and their bringing up did her great credit. They were allowed time to play like ither bairns—but from the time that they were able to make use o' their hands, ye would hardly hae found it possible to come in upon us, and seen ane o' them idle. All were busy wi' something; and no ane o' them durst hae stepped owre a prin lying on the floor, without stooping doun to tak it up, or passed onything that was out o' its place without putting it right. For I will say for her again, that, if my Kirsty wasna a bonny wife, she was not only a thrifty but a tidy ane, and keepit every ane and every thing tidy around her.

"She was a strange woman for abhorring everything that was new-fangled. She was a most devout believer in, and worshipper o' the wisdom o' oor ancestors. She perfectly hated everything like change; and as to onything that implied speculation, ye micht as weel hae spoken o' profanation in her presence. She said she liked auld friends, auld customs, auld fashions; and was the sworn enemy o' a' the innovations on the practices and habits that had been handed doun frae generation to generation. I dinna ken if ever she heard the names Whig or Tory in her life; but if Tory mean an enemy o' change, then my Kirsty certainly was a Tory o' the very purest water.

"I dinna suppose that she believed there was such a word as improvement in the whole Dictionary. She would hae allooed everything to stand steadfast as Lot's wife, for ever and for ever. But, however, just to gie ye a specimen or twa o' her remarkable disposition:—I think it was about[234] sixteen years after we were married, that I took a tack o' an adjoining farm, which was much larger than the ane we occupied. I was conscious it would require every penny we had scraped thegither, and that we had saved, to stock it. My wife was by no means favourable to my taking it. She said we kenned what we had done, but we didna ken what we might do; and it was better to go on as we were doing, than to risk oor a'. I acknowledge that there was a vast deal o' truth in what she said; but, however, I saw that the farm was an excellent bargain, and I was resolved to tak it, say what she might; and therefore, though she was said to domineer owre me, yet, just to prove to every person round about that I was not under a wife's government, I did tak it. I had not had it twa years, when I began to find that thrashing wi' the flail would never answer. Often, when the markets were on the rise, and when I could hae turned owre many pounds into my ain pocket, I found it was a'thegither impossible for me to get my corn thrashed in time to catch the markets while they were high; and I am certain that, in the second year that I had the new farm, I lost at least a hundred pounds frae that cause alone—that is, I didna get a hundred pounds that I micht hae got, and that was much the same as losing it oot o' my pocket. Thrashing machines at that period were just beginning to come into vogue, but there was a terrible outcry against them; and mony a ane said that they were an invention o' the Prince o' Darkness; for my part I wish he would never do mair ill upon the earth, than invent sic things as thrashing-machines. Hooever, I saw plain and clearly the advantage that the machine had owre the flail, and I was determined to hae ane. But never did I see a woman in such a steer as the mention o' the thing put Kirsty in! She went perfectly wild aboot it.

"'What, William!' she cried, 'what do ye talk aboot? Losh me, man, have ye nae mair sense?—have ye nae discretion whatever? Will ye really rush upon ruin at a horse-race?[235] Ye talk aboot getting a machine! How, I ask ye, how do ye expect that ever ye could prosper for a single day after, if ye were to throw oor twa decent barn-men oot o' employment, and their families oot o' bread? I just ask ye that question, William. Does na the proverb say—'Live and let live;' and hoo are men to live, if, by an invention o' the Enemy o' mankind, ye tak work oot o' their hands, and bread oot o' their mouths?'

"'Dear me, Kirsty!' said I, 'hoo is it possible that a woman o' your excellent sense can talk such nonsense? Ye see very weel that, if I had had a machine, I micht hae made a hundred pounds mair than I did by last year's crops—that, certainly, would hae been a good turn to us—and, tak my word for it, it is neither in the power nor in the nature o' the Evil One to do a guid turn to onybody.'

"'Willie,' quoth she, 'ye talk like a silly man—like a very silly man, indeed. If the Enemy o' mankind hadna it in his power to do for us what we tak to be for oor guid, hoo in the warld do ye think he could tempt us to our hurt? I say, that thrashing-machines are an invention o' his, and that they are ane o' the instruments he is bringing up for the ruin o' this country. It is him, and him alone, that is putting it into your head to buy ane o' his infernal devices, in order that he may not only ruin you, baith soul and body, by filling ye wi' a desire o' riches, an' making ye the oppressor and the robber o' the poor, but that, through your oppression and robbery, he may ruin them also, and bring them to shame or the gallows!'

"'Forgie me, Kirsty,' said I, 'what in a' the world do ye mean? Hoo is it possible that ye can talk aboot me as likely to be either an oppressor or a robber o' the poor? I'll declare there never was a beggar passed either me or my door, that ever I saw, but I gied him something. I'm sure, guidwife, ye baith ken better o' me, and think better o' me than to talk sae.'[236]

"'Yes, William,' said she, 'I did think better o' ye; but I noo see distinctly that the Enemy is leading ye blindfolded to your ruin. First, through the pride o' your heart, he tempted ye to tak this big farm, that, as ye thocht, ye might hasten to be rich; and now he is seducing ye to buy ane o' his diabolical machines for the same end, and in order that ye may not only deprive honest men and their families o' bread, but, belike, rather than starve, tempt them to steal! And what ca' ye that but oppressing and robbing the poor? Hooever, buy a machine!—buy ane, and ye'll see what will be the upshot! If ye dinna repent it, say I'm no your wife.'

"I confess her words were onything but agreeable to me, and they rather set me a hesitating hoo to act. Hooever my mind was bent upon buying the machine. I had said to several o' my neebors that I intended to hae ane put up; and I was convinced that, if I drew back o' my word, it would be said that my wife wouldna let me get it, and I would be made a general laughing-stock—and that was a thing that I held in greater dread than even my wife's lectures, severe as they sometimes were; therefore, reason or nane, I got a machine put up. It caused a very general outcry amongst a' the 'datal' men and their wives for miles round. At ae time I even thocht that they would mob me and pull it to pieces. But all their clamour was a mere snaw-flake fa'ing in the sea, compared wi' the perpetual dirdum that Kirsty rang in my ears about it. She actually threatened that judgments would follow, and I didna ken a' what. But, on the morning o' the day that I yoked the horses into it, and began to thrash wi' it for the first time I declare to you that she took the six bairns wi' her, and absolutely went to her faither's, vowing to work for them until the blood sprang from her finger-ends, rather then live wi' a man that would be guilty o' such madness and iniquity.

"But having heard before dinner-time that I had had to employ a woman at sixpence a-day to feed into the machine[237] she came back as fast as her feet could carry her, wi' a' the bairns behint her, and ordering the stranger away, began to feed the machine hersel', and the bairns carried her the sheaves.

"I saw that out o' a spirit o' pure wickedness, she was distressing hersel' far beyond what there was the sma'est occasion for. It was as clear as day, that indignation was working in her heart, like barm fermenting in a bottle, and just about half an hour before we were to leave off thrashing for the nicht, she was seized with a very alarming pain in the breast. I saw and said it was a hysterical affection, and was altogether the consequence o' the passion that she had given way to on account o' the unlucky machine. She, however, denied that there were such diseases in existence as either hysterical or nervous affections. They were sham disorders, she said, that cam into the country wi' tea and spirit-drinking; and she assuredly was free from indulging in either the ane or the other. But she grew worse and worse, and was at last obliged to sit down upon some straw on the barn-floor. I ventured forward to her, and said—'Kirsty, woman, ye had better gang awa into the house. Ye will do yersel' mair ill by sittin there, for there is a current o' air through the loft, which, after you being warm with working, may gie ye your death o' cauld. Rise up, dear, and gang awa into the house, and try if a glass o' usquebae will do ye ony guid.'

but, certes, had he seen the look that she gied me as I then spoke to her, he would hae been satisfied that she had twa! I saw it was o' nae manner o' use for me either to offer advice or to express sympathy. The wife o' an auld man that was called John Neilson, and who for several years had been our barn-man, came into the machine-loft at the time, and wi' a great deal o' concern she asked my wife what was like the matter wi' her. Now this auld Peggy Neilson had[238] the reputation, for miles round, o' being an extraordinary skilly woman. There wasna a bairn in the parish took a sair throat, or got a burnt foot, or a cut finger, or took a dwam for a day or twa, but its mother said—'I maun hae Peggy Neilson spoken to aboot that bairn, before it be owre late.' Kirsty, therefore, told her hoo she was affected, when the other, wi' the confidence o' a doctor o' medicine brought up at the first college in the kingdom, said—'Then, ma'am, if that be the way ye feel, there is naething in the warld sae guid for ye as a blast o' the pipe. I aye carry a tinder-box and flint and steel wi' me, and ye are welcome to a whuff o' my cutty.'

"Now, Kirsty was a bitter enemy to baith smoking and snuffing in general; but she had great faith in the skill o' Peggy Neilson, and wad far rather hae done whatever she advised than followed the prescription o' the best doctor in a' the land. She took the auld woman's pipe, therefore, and began to blaw through a spirit o' pain and perverseness at the same moment. As I anticipated, it soon made her dizzy in the head, and she had to be led to the house. Hooever, in a short time, the pain she had been suffering was greatly abated, though whether the smoking contributed towards removing it or not, I dinna pretend to say. Just as she had been taen to the house, we were dune wi' thrashing for the day, and I was very highly gratified wi' the day's wark.

"But I was very tired, and as soon as I had had my sowens I went to bed. I several times thought, and remarked it, that there was a sort o' burnt smell about.

"'Ay,' said Kirsty, who by this time was a great deal better; 'they who will use the engines o' forbidden agents maun expect to smell them, as in the end they will feel them.'

"Being conscious it was o' nae use to reason wi' her, for she in general had the better o' me in an argument, I tried[239] to compose mysel' to sleep. But it was in vain to think o' closing my een, for the smell o' burning grew stronger and stronger, and I was rising again, saying—'There is something burning aboot somewhere, and I canna rest until I hae seen what it is.'

"Just at that moment, oor eldest dochter, who was as perfect a picture o' beauty as ever man looked upon wi' eyes o' admiration, and who being alarmed by the smell, as well as me, had gane oot to examine from what it proceeded came running oot o' breath, crying—'Faither! faither!-the barn and everything is on fire!'

"'O goodness!' cried I, as I threw on part o' my claes in the twinkling o' an ee; 'what wretch can hae been sae wicked as to do it!'

"'It's a judgment upon ye,' said Kirsty, 'for having such a thing about the place, after a' the admonitions ye had against it. I said ye would see what would be the upshot, and it hasna been lang o' coming.'

"'O ye tormenter o' my life!' cried I, as I ran oot o' the house; 'it's your handy-work!'

"'Mine!' exclaimed she. 'O ye heartless man that ye are, how dare ye presume either to say or think sic a thing!' and she followed me out.

"The whole stackyard was black wi' smoke—it was hardly possible to breathe—and a great sheet o' fire, like the mouth o' a fiery dragon, was rushing and roaring out at the barn-door. I didna ken what to do; I was ready to rush head foremost into the middle o' the flames, as if that I could hae crushed them out wi' the weight o' my body; and I am persuaded that I would hae darted right into the machine loft, where the flames were bursting through the very tiles, as frae the mouth o' a volcano, had not my wife, and our eldest daughter Janet, flewn after me and held me in their arms, the one crying—'Be calm, William—do naething rashly—let[240] us see to save what can be saved;' and the other saying—'Faither! faither! dinna risk your life.'

"Now, there was a hard frost owre the entire face o' the ground, and there wasna a drop o' water to be got within a quarter o' a mile; and the whole o' my year's crop, with, the exception o' what had that day been thrashed, was in the stackyard. I shouted at the pitch of my voice for assistance, but the devouring flames soon roared louder than I did. Kirsty, wi' her usual presence o' mind, began to clear away the straw from around the barn, to prevent the fire from spreading, and she called upon the bairns and me to follow her example. She also ordered a laddie to set the horses out o' the stables, and the nowt oot o' the 'courtine,' and drive them into a field, where they would be oot o' danger. A' our neighbours round aboot, in a short time arrived to our assistance; but a' our combined efforts were unavailing. The wood wark o' the machine was already on fire—the barn roof fell in, and up flew such a volley o' smoke and firmament o' fire as man had never witnessed. The sparks ascended in millions upon millions; and as they poured down again like a shower o' fire, every stack that I had broke into a blaze, and the whole produce o' my farm, corn, straw, and hay became as a burning fiery furnace. It became impossible for ony living thing to remain in the stackyard. From end to end, and round and round, it was one fierce and awful flame. The heat was scorching, and the dense smoke was baith blinding and suffocating. Every person was obliged to flee from it. The very cattle in the field ran about in confusion, and moaned wi' terror, and the horses neighed wi' fright, and pranced to and fro. I stood at a distance, as motionless as a dead man, gazing wi' horror upon the terrific scene o' desolation, beholding the destruction o' my property—the burning up, as I may say, o' a' my prospects. The teeth in my head chattered thegither, and every joint in my body seemed oot o' its socket; and the raging o' destruction[241] in the stackyard was naething to the raging o' misery in my breast; and especially because I coudna banish frae my brain the awfu' thought that the hand o' the wife o' my bosom had lighted the conflagration. While I was standing in this state o' speechless agony, and some around about me were pitying me, while others in whispers said—'He had nae business to get a thrashing machine, and the thing woudna hae happened,' Kirsty came forward to me, and takin' me by the hand, said—'William, dinna be silly—appear like a man before folk. Our loss is nae doubt great, but in time we may get ower it; and be thankfu' that it is nae waur than it is like to be—for your wife and bairns are spared to ye, and we have escaped unskaithed.'

"'William,' said she, calmly, 'what infatuation possesses ye, man?—dinna mak a fool o' yoursel'.'

"'Dear me!' I heard a neighbour remark to another; 'how gruffly he speaks to Kirsty! I aye thought that she had the upperhand o' him, but it doesna appear by his manner o' speaking to her.'

"Distracted, wretched, and angry as I was, I experienced a sort o' secret pleasure at hearing the observation. I had shewn them that I wasna a slave tied to my wife's apron-strings, as they supposed me to be. Kirsty left me wi' a look that had baith scorn and pity in it. But oor auldest lassie, my bonny fair-haired Janet—to look upon whose face I always delighted beyond everything on earth—came running forward to me; and throwing her arms about my neck, sobbed wi' her face upon my breast, and softly whispered—'Dinna stand that way, faither, a' body is looking at ye; and dinna speak harshly to my poor mother—she is distressed enough without you being angry wi' her.' I bent my head upon my bairn's shouther, and the tears ran doun my cheeks.[242]

"By this time, everything was oot o' the house; and the fire was prevented from reaching it, chiefly through the daring exertions o' a hafflins laddie, whose name was James Patrick, who was the son o' a neebor farmer, and who, though no aboon seventeen years o' age, I observed was very fond o' oor bonny Janet; for I had often observed the young creatures wandering in the loaning thegither; and when ye mentioned the name o' the ane before the other, the blood rose to their face.

"Next morning, the stackyard, barn, byres, and stables, presented a fearful picture o' devastation. There was naething to be seen but the still smoking heaps o' burnt straw and roofless buildings, wi' wreck and ruin to the richt hand and to the left. Some thought that the calamity would knock me aff my feet, and cause me to become a broken man—and I thought myself that that would be its effect. But Kirsty was determined that we should never sink while we had a finger to wag to keep us aboon the water. Cheap as she had always maintained the house, she now keepit it at almost no expense whatever. For more than two years, nothing was allowed to come into it but what the farm produced, and what we had within ourselves, neither in meat nor in claething.

"But though I witnessed all her exertions, nothing could satisfy my mind that she was not the cause o' the destruction o' the machine, and through it o' all that was in and about the stackyard. The idea haunted me perpetually, and rendered me miserable, and I could not look upon my wife without saving to mysel—'Is it possible that she could hae been guilty o' such folly and great wickedness.' I was the more confirmed in my suspicion, because she never again mentioned the subject o' the machine in my hearing, neither would she allow it to be spoken aboot by ony ane else.

"What gratified me maist, during the years that we had[243] to undergo privation, was the cheerfulness wi' which all the bairns submitted to it; and I couldna deny that it was solely to her excellent manner o' bringing them up. Our Janet, who was approaching what may be called womanhood, was now talked o' through the hale country-side for her beauty and sweet temper; and it pleased me to observe, that, during our misfortune, the attentions o' James Patrick (through whose skilful exertions oor house was saved frae the conflagration) increased. It was admitted, on all hands, that a more winsome couple were never seen in Nithsdale.

"Oor auldest son, David, who was only fifteen months younger than his sister, had also grown to be o' great assistance to me. Before he was seventeen he was capable o' man's work, which enabled me to do with a hind less than I had formerly employed. My landlord, also, was very considerate; and, the first year after the burning, he gave me back the half o' the rent, which I, with great difficulty, had been able to scrape thegether. But when I went hame, and, in the gladness o' my heart, began to count down the money upon the table before Kirsty and the bairns, and to tell them how good the laird had been—'Tak it up, William!' cried she, 'tak it up, and gang back wi' it—he would consider it an obligation a' the days o' our lives. I will be beholden to neither laird nor lord! nor shall ony ane belonging to me—sae, tak back the money, for it isna ours!'

"'Bless me!' thought I, 'but this is something very remarkable. This is certainly another proof that she really is at the bottom o' the fire-raising. It is the consciousness o' her guilt that makes her shudder at and refuse the kind kindness o' the laird.'

"'It is braw talking, Kirsty,' said I, 'but I see nae necessity for persons that hae been visited wi' a misfortune such as we met wi', and wha hae suffered sae much on[244] account o' it, to let their pride do them an injury or exceed their discretion. Consider that we hae a rising family to provide for.'

"'Consider what ye like,' quoth she, 'but, if ye accept the siller, consider what will be the upshot. Ye would hae to be hat in hand to him at all times and on all occasions. Yer very bairns would be, as it were, his bought slaves. No, William, tak back the money—I order ye!'

"'Ye order me!' cried I, 'there's a guid ane!—and where got ye authority to order me. If ye will hae the siller taen back, tak it back yersel.'

"Without saying another word, she absolutely whipped it off the table, every plack and bawbee, into her apron; and, throwing on her rockelay and hood, set aff to the laird's wi' it, where, as I was afterwards given to understand, she threw it down upon his table wi' as little ceremony as she had sweept it aft' mine.

"Ye may weel imagine that baith my astonishment and vexation were very considerable. I had seen a good deal o' Kirsty, but the act o' taking back the siller crowned a'!

"'Losh!' said I, in the pure bitterness o' my spirit, 'that caps a'!—that is even worse than destroying the machine, wi' the stacks and stabling into the bargain!'

"'What do ye mean about destroying the machine, faither?' inquired Janet and David, almost at the same instant—'who do ye say destroyed it?'

"'Naebody,' said I, angrily, 'naebody!'—for I found I had said what I ought not to hae said.

"'Really, faither,' said Janet, 'whatever it may be that ye think and hint at, I am certain that ye do my mother a great injustice if ye harbour a single thought to her prejudice. It may appear rather proud-spirited her takin back the siller, though I hae na doubt, in the lang run, but we'll a' approve o' it.[245]'

"'Oh, nae dout!' said I, 'nae dout o' that!—for she has ye sae learned, that everything she does, or that ony o' ye does, is always right; and whatever I do must be wrang!' and I went oot o' the house in a pet, driving the door behind me, and thinking about the machine and the loss o' the siller.

"Hooever, I am happy to say, that although Kirsty did tak back the money to the laird and leave it wi' him, yet, as I have already hinted to ye, through her frugal management, within a few years we got the better o' the burning. But there is a saying, that some folk are no sooner weel than they're ill again—and I'm sure I may say that at that time. I no sooner got the better o' the effects o' ae calamity, until another overtook me. Ye hae heard what a terrible dirdum the erecting o' toll-bars caused throughout the country, and upon the Borders in particular. Kirsty was one o' those who cried oot most bitterly against them. She threatened, that if it were attempted to place ane within ten miles o' oor farm, she would tear it to pieces with her ain hands.

"'Here's a bonny time o' day, indeed!' said she, 'that a body canna gang for a cart-load o' coals or peats, or tak their corn, or whatever it may be, to the market, but they must pay whatever a set o' Justices o' the Peace please to charge them for the liberty o' driving along the road. Na, na! the roads did for our faithers before us, and they will do for us. They went alang them free and without payment, and so will we; for I defy any man to claim, what has been a public road for ages, as his property. Only submit to such an imposition, and see what will be the upshot. But, rather than they shall mak sic things in this neighbourhood, I will raise the whole countryside.'

"Unfortunately in this, as in everything else, she verified her words. A toll-bar was erected within half-a-mile o'[246] oor door Kirsty was clean mad about it. She threatened not only to break the yett to pieces, but to hang the toll-keeper owre the yett-post if he offered resistance. I thought o' my machine, and said little; and the more especially because every ane, baith auld and young, and through the whole country, so far as I could hear, were o' the same sentiments as Kirsty. There never was onything proposed in this kingdom that was mair unpopular. And, I am free to confess, that, with regard to the injustice o' toll-bars, I was precisely o' the same way o' thinkin' as my wife—only I by no means wished to carry things to the extremes that she wished to bring them to.

"I ought to tell ye, that our laird was more than suspected o' being the principal cause o' us having a toll-bar placed so near us, so that we could neither go to lime, coals, nor market, without gaun through it. I was, therefore, almost glad that my wife had taken back the siller to him, lest—as I was against raising a disturbance about the matter—folk should say that my hands and tongue were tied wi' the siller which he had given me back; for, if I didna wish to be considered the slave o' my wife, as little did I desire to be thought the tool o' my landlord. But, ae day, I had been in at Dumfries in the month o' July, selling my wool; I had met wi' an excellent market, and a wool-buyer from Leeds and I got very hearty thegether. He had bought from me before; and, on that day, he bought all that I had. I knew him to be an excellent man, though a keen Yorkshireman—and, ye ken, that the Yorkshire folk and we Scotchmen are a gay tight match for ane anither—though I believe, after a', they rather beat us at keeping the grip o' the siller; but as I intended to say, I treated him, and he treated me, and a very agreeable day we had. I recollect when he was pressing me to hae the other gill, I sang him a bit hamely sang o' my ain composing. Ye shall hear it.[247]

Nay, dinna press, I winna stay,
For drink shall ne'er abuse me;
It's time to rise and gang away—
Sae neibors ye'll excuse me.

It's true I like a social gill,
A friendly crack wi' cronies;
But I like my wifie better still,
Our Jennies an' our Johnnies.

There's something by my ain fireside—
A saft, a haly sweetness;
I see, wi' mair than kingly pride,
My hearth a heaven o' neatness

Though whisky may gie care the fling,
It's triumph's unco noisy;
A jiffy it may pleasure bring,
But comfort it destroys aye.

But I can view my ain fireside
Wi' a' a faither's rapture;—
Wee Jenny's hand in mine will slide,
While Davy reads his chapter.

I like your company and yer crack,
But there's ane I loo dearer,
Ane wha will sit till I come back,
Wi' ne'er a ane to cheer her.

A waff o' joy comes owre her face
The moment that she hears me;
The supper—a' thing's in its place,
An' wi' her smiles she cheers me.

However, I declare to you, it was very near ten o'clock before I left the house we are sitting in at present, and put my foot in the stirrup. But, as my friend Robin says—

I feared for naething; and, though I had sixteen lang Scots miles to ride, I thought naething aboot it; for, as he says again—

But, just as I had reached within about half a mile o' the[248] toll-bar that had been erected near my farm, I saw a sort o' light rising frae the ground, and reflected on the sky. My heart sank within me in an instant. I remembered the last time I had seen such a light. I thought o' my burning stackyard, o' my ruined machine, and o' Kirsty! My first impulse was to gallop forward, but a thousand thoughts, a thousand fears cam owre me in an instant; and I thought that evil tidings come quick enough o' their ain accord, without galloping to meet them. As I approached the toll-bar, the flame and the reflection grew brighter and brighter; and I heard the sound o' human voices, in loud and discordant clamour. My forebodings told me, to use Kirsty's words, what would be the upshot. I hadna reached within a hundred yards o' the bar, when, aboon a' the shouting and the uproar, I heard her voice, the voice o' my ain wife, crying—'Mak him promise that it shall ne'er be put up again—mak him swear to it—or let his yett gang the gaet o' the toll-yett!'

"In a moment all that I had dreaded I found to be true. At the sound o' her voice, hounding on the enraged multitude, (though I didna altogether disapprove o' what they were doing,) I plunged my spurs into my horse, and galloped into the middle o' the outrageous crowd, crying—'Kirsty! I say, Kirsty! awa hame wi' ye! What right or what authority had ye to be there?'

"'Hear him! hear him!' cried the crowd, 'Willie has turned a toll-bar man, and a laird man, because the Laird once offered him the half o' his rent back again! Never mind him, Kirsty!—we'll stand yer friends!'

"'I thank ye, neighbours,' said she, 'but I require nae body to stand as friends between my guidman and me. I ken it is my duty to obey him, that is, when he is himsel', and comes hame at a reasonable time o' nicht; but not when he is in a way that he doesna ken what he's saying, as he is the nicht.'[249]

"'Weel done, Mistress Wastle!' cried a dozen o' them; 'we see ye hae the whip-hand o' him yet!'

"'The mischief tak ye!' cried I, 'for a wheen ill-mannered scoundrels; but I'll let every mother's son and dochter among ye ken whase hand the whip is in!'

"And, wi' that, I began to lay about me on every side; but, before I had brought the whip half-a-dozen o' times round my head, I found that the horse was out from under me; and there was I wi' my back upon the ground, while, on the one side, was a heavy foot upon my breast, and, on the other, Kirsty threatening ony ane that would injure a hair o' her husband's head; and my son David and James Patrick rushing forward, seized the man by the throat that had his foot upon my breast, and, in an instant, they had him lying where I had lain; for they were stout, powerfu' lads.

"But when I got upon my feet, and began to recover from the surprise that I had met wi', there did I see the laird himsel, standing trembling like an ash leaf in the middle o' the unruly mob—and, as ringleader o' the whole, my wife Kirsty shaking her hand in his face, and endeavouring to extort from him a promise, that there never should be another toll-bar erected upon his grounds, while he was laird!

"'No, William!' cried she, ' I am not mad, but I am standing out for our rights against injustice; and sorry am I to perceive that, at a time when everybody is crying out and raising their hand against the oppression that is attempted to be practised upon them, my guidman should be the only coward in the countryside.'

"'William Wastle!' said the terrified laird, whom some o' them were handling very roughly, (and principally, I must confess, at the instigation o' Kirsty,) 'I am glad to see that I have one tenant upon my estate who is a true man; and I ask your protection.'

"'Such protection as I can afford, sir,' said I, 'ye shall[250] have; but, after the rough handling winch I have experienced this very moment, I dout it is not much that is in my power to afford ye.'

"'Get yer faither awa to his bed, bairns!' cried my wife, as I was driving my way through the crowd to the assistance o' the laird; and I'll declare, if my son David, and James Patrick, didna actually come behind me, and, lifting me aff my feet, carried me shouther-high a' the way to my bedroom; and, in spite o' my threats, expostulations, and commands, locked me into it.

"Weel, thought I, as I threw myself down upon the bed, without taking aff my claes, (partly because I found my head wanted ballast to tak them aff,) I said unto mysel—'This comes o' having a wise and headstrong wife, and bairns o' her way o' bringing up. But if ever I marry again and hae a family, I shall ken better how to act.'

"Notwithstanding all that I had undergone and witnessed, in the space o' ten minutes, I fell fast asleep; and the first thing that I awoke to recollect—that is, to be conscious o'—was my daughter Janet rushing to my bedside, and crying—'Faither! faither! my mother is a prisoner!—my poor dear mother, and James Patrick also!—and I heard the laird saying that they would baith be transported, as the very least that could happen them for last night's work, which I understand will be punished more severely than even highway robbery!'

"I awoke like a man born to a consciousness o' horror, and o' naething but horror. All that I had seen and heard and encountered on the night before, was just as a dream to me, but a dismal dream I trow.

"'Where is yer mother?' I gasped, 'or what is it that ye are saying, hinny? and—where is James Patrick?'

"'Oh!' cried my darling daughter, 'before this time they are baith in Dumfries jail, for pu'ing down and burning the toll-yetts, and threatening the life o' the laird. But[251] everybody says it will gang particularly hard against my mother and poor James; for, though every one was to blame, they were what they ca' ringleaders.'

"I soon recollected enough o' the previous night's proceedings to comprehend what my daughter said. I hurried on my claes, and awa I flew to Dumfries. But I ought to tell ye, that the laird's servants had ridden in every direction for assistance; and having got three or four constables, and about a dozen o' the regular military, all armed wi' swords and pistols, they made poor Kirsty and James Patrick, wi' about a dozen others, prisoners, and conveyed them to Dumfries jail.

"When I was shewn into the prison, Kirsty and James, and the whole o' them, were together. 'O Kirsty, woman!' said I, in great distress, 'could ye no hae keepit at hame while my back was turned! Why hae ye brought the like o' this upon us? I'm sure ye kenned better! Was the destruction o' the machine and the stackyard no a warning to ye!'

"'William,' answered she, 'what is it that ye mean?—is this a time to cast upon me yer low-minded suspicions? Had ye last nicht acted as a man, we micht hae got the laird to comply wi' our request; but it is through you, and such as you, that everything in this unlucky country is gaun to destruction; and sorry am I to say that ill o' ye—for a kind, a good, and a faithfu' husband hae ye been to me, William.'

"'O sir!' said James Patrick, coming forward and taking me by the hand, 'may I just beg that ye will tak my respects to yer dochter Janet; and, I hope, that whatever may be the issue o' this awkward affair, that she will in no way look down upon me, because I happen to be as a sort o' prisoner in a jail.' My heart rose to my mouth, and I hadna a word to say to either my wife or him.

"'Weel," said I, as I left them, 'I must do the best I[252] can to bring baith o' ye aff; and, to accomplish it, the best lawyers in a' Scotland shall be employed.'

"But to go on—at a very great expense, I, and the faither o' James Patrick, had employed the very principal advocates that went upon the Dumfries circuit; and they tauld us that we had naething to fear, and that we might keep ourselves quite at ease.

"I was glad that my son David hadna been seized and imprisoned, as weel as his mother and James Patrick, for he also had been ane o' the ringleaders in the breaking doun and burning o' the toll-bars, and in the assault upon the laird. But he escaped apprehension at the time, and I suppose they thought that they had enough in custody to answer the ends o' justice and the law, and, therefore, he was permitted to remain unmolested.

"Now, sir, comes the most melancholy part o' my story. I had a quantity o' wool to deliver to the Yorkshire buyer, I hae already mentioned, upon a certain day. My son David was to drive the carts wi' it to Annan. It was sair wark, and he had but little sleep for a fortnight thegether. It caused him to travel night and day, load after load. Now, I needna tell ye, that at that period the roads were literally bottomless. The horse just went plunge, plunging, and the cart jerking, now to ae side, and now to another, or giein a shake sufficient to drive the life out o' ony body that was in it. Now, the one wheel was on a hill, and the other in a hollow; or, again, baith were up to the axle-tree in mud, or the horse half-swimming in water! And yet people cried out against toll-bars! But, as I hae been telling ye, my son David had driven wool to Annan for a fortnight, and he was sair worn out. The roads were in a dreadful state—worse than if, now-a-days, ye were to attempt to drive through a bog.

"Ae night, when he was expected hame, his sister Janet, and mysel' sat lang up waiting upon him, and wondering[253] what could be keeping him, when a stranger rode up to the door, and asked if 'one Mr William Wastle lived there?' I replied 'Yes!' And, oh! what think ye were his tidings, but that my name had been seen upon the carts, that the horses had stuck fast in the roads, and that my son David, who had fallen from the shafts, had either been killed, or drowned among the horses' feet!

"I thought his brothers and sisters, and especially Janet, would have gane oot o' their judgment. As for me, a' the trials I had had were but as a drap in a bucket when compared wi' this!

"But, after I had mourned for a night, the worst was to come. Hoo was I to tell his poor imprisoned mother!—imprisoned as she wis for opposing the very thing that would hae saved her son's life!

"Next day I went to Dumfries; but I declare that I never saw the light o' the sun hae sic a dismal appearance. The fields appeared to me as if I saw them through a mist. Even distance wasna as it used to be. I was admitted into the prison, but I winna—oh no! I canna repeat to ye the manner in which I communicated the tidings to his mother! It was too much for her then—it would be the same for me now! for naething in the whole coorse o' my life ever shook me so much as the death o' my poor David. But I remember o' saying to her, and I declare to you upon the word o' a man, unthinkingly—'O Kirsty, woman! had we had toll-bars, David might still hae been living!'

"'William, William!' she cried, and fell upon my neck, 'will ye kill me outright!' And, for the first time in my life, I saw the tears gushing down her cheeks. Those tears washed away the very remembrance o' the machine, and the burning o' the stacks. I pressed her to my heart, and my tears mingled wi' hers.

"I believe it was partly through our laird that baith Kirsty and James Patrick were liberated without being[254] brought to a trial. Her imprisonment, and the death o' our son, had wrought a great change upon my wife; and I think it was hardly three months after her being set at liberty, that we were baith sent for to auld John Neilson the barnman's, whose wife Peggy lay upon her death-bed. When we approached her bedside, she raised herself upon her elbow, and said—'The burning o' yer barn and stackyard has always been a mystery—hear the real truth from the words o' a dying and guilty woman. Yer machine had thrown my husband out o' employment, and when yer wife there gied me back the pipe, a whuff o' which I said would do her good, I let the burning dottle drap among the straw—nane o' ye observed it—ye were a' leaving the barn. Now, ye ken the cause—on my death-bed I make the confession.'

"I declare I thought my heart would hae louped out o' my body. I pressed my wife, against whom I had harboured such vile suspicions, to my breast. She saw my meaning—she read my feelings.

"'William,' said she, kindly, 'if ye hae onything on yer mind that ye wish to forget, so hae I; let us baith forget and forgie!'

"Within six months after this, James Patrick and our dochter Janet were married; and an enviable couple they then were, and such they are unto this day. And, as for my Kirsty, auld though she is, and though the sang says—

auld, I say, as she is, and wi' a' her faults, I would gie a' the buttons upon my coat for her still, and a' the siller that ever was in my pouch into the bargain."

THE STONE-BREAKER.

If any of our readers had had occasion to go out, for a couple of miles or so, on the road leading from Edinburgh to the village of Carlops, any time during the summer of the year 1836, they would have seen a little old man—very old—employed in breaking metal for the roads. The exact spot where we saw him, was at the turn of the eastern shoulder of the Pentland Hills; but the nature of his employment rendering him somewhat migratory, he may have been seen by others in a different locality. In the appearance of the old stone-breaker, there was nothing particularly interesting—nothing to attract the attention of the passer-by—unless it might be his great age. This, however, certainly was calculated to do so; and when it did, it must have been accompanied by a painful feeling at seeing one so old and feeble still toiling for the day that was passing over him; and toiling, too, at one of the most dreary, laborious, and miserable occupations which can well be conceived. Had the old man no children who could provide for the little wants of their aged parent, without the necessity of his still labouring for them—who could secure him in that ease which exhausted nature demanded? It appeared not. Perhaps it was a spirit of independence that nerved his weak arm, and kept him toiling so far beyond the usual term of human capability. Probably the proud-spirited old man would break no bread but that which he had earned by the sweat of his brow and the labour of his hands. Perhaps it was so. At any rate, this we know, that, at the early hour of five in the morning, as regularly as the morning came, the old stone-breaker had already commenced his monotonous labour. But this was not all. He had[256] also, by this early hour, walked upwards of four miles—for so far distant was the scene of his occupation from the place of his residence, Edinburgh. He must, therefore, have left home between three and four o'clock, and this was his daily round, without intermission, without variation, and without relaxation. A bottle of butter-milk and a penny loaf formed each day's sustenance. His daily earnings, labouring from five in the morning till six at night, averaged about ninepence! Hear ye this, ye who ride in emblazoned carriages! Hear ye this, ye loungers on the well-stuffed couch!—and hear it, ye revellers at the festive board, who have never toiled for the luxuries ye enjoy! Hear it, and think of it! But of this person we have other things to tell; and to these we proceed.

One morning, just after he had commenced the labours of the day, a young man, of about four or five and twenty years of age, accosted him, wished him a good morning, and seated himself on the heap of broken metal on which the old man was at work, and did so seemingly with the intention of entering into conversation with him. This was a proceeding to which the latter was much accustomed, it being a frequent practice with the humbler class of wayfarers. The advances of the stranger, therefore, in the present instance, did not for a moment interrupt his labours, or slacken his assiduity. He hammered on without raising his head, even while returning the greetings that were made him.

"A delightful view from this spot," said the young man, breaking in upon a silence which had continued for some time after the first salutations had passed between them.

"Yes," said the old man, drily; and, continuing his operations, he again relapsed into his usual taciturnity; for, in truth, he was naturally of a morose and uncommunicative disposition. Undeterred by his cold, repulsive manner, the stranger again broke silence, and said, with a deep-drawn sigh[257]—

"How I envy these little birds that hop so joyously from spray to spray! Their life is a happy one. Would to God I were one of them!"

The oddness of the expressions, and the earnestness with which they were pronounced, had an effect on the labourer which few things had. They induced him to pause in his work, to raise his head, and to look in the face of the speaker, which he did with a smile of undefinable meaning. It was the first full look he had taken of him, and it discovered to him a countenance open and pleasing in its expression, but marked with deep melancholy, and telling, in language not to be misunderstood, a tale of heart-sickness of the most racking and depressing kind.

"Has your lot been ill cast, young man, that ye envy the bits o' burds o' the air the freedom and the liberty that God has gien them?" said the old man, eyeing the stranger scrutinizingly, with a keen, penetrating grey eye, that had not even yet lost all its fire.

"It has," replied the latter. "I have been unfortunate in the world. I have struggled hard with my fate, but it has at length overwhelmed me."

The old man muttered something unintelligibly, and, without vouchsafing any other reply, resumed his labours. After another pause of some duration, which, however, he had evidently employed in thinking on the declaration of unhappiness which had just been made him—

"Some folly o' your ain, young man, very likely," said he, carelessly, and still knapping the stones, whose bulk it was his employment to reduce.

"No," replied the young man, blushing; but it was a blush which he who caused it did not see. "I cannot blame myself."

"Nae man does," interposed the stone-breaker; "he aye blames his neighbours."[258]

"Perhaps so," rejoined the stranger; "but you will allow that it is perfectly possible for a man to be unfortunate without any fault on his own part."

"I hae seldom seen't," replied the ungracious and unaccommodating old man; and he hammered on.

"Well, perhaps so," said the youth; "but I hope you will not deny that such things may be."

"Then let us drop the subject," said the stranger, smilingly. "Each will still judge of the world by his own experience. But, methinks, your own case, my friend, is a hard enough one. To see a man of your years labouring at this miserable employment, is a painful sight. Your debt to fortune is also light, I should believe."

"I hae aye trusted mair to my ain industry than to fortune, young man. I never pat it in her power to jilt me. I never trusted her, and therefore, she has never deceived me; so her and me are quits." And the old man plied away with his long, light hammer.

"I daresay not; but will you not take it amiss my offering this small addition to them?" And he tendered him a half-crown piece. "I have but little to spare, and that must be my apology for offering you so trifling a gift."

The man here again paused in his operations, and again looked full in the face of the stranger, but without making any motion towards accepting the proffered donation.

"I thocht ye said ye war in straits, young man," he said, and now resting his elbow on the end of his hammer.

"Then hoo come ye to be sportin yer siller sae freely? I wad hae thocht ye wad hae as muckle need o' a half-croon as I hae?"[259]

"Perhaps I may," replied the stranger; "but that's not to hinder me from feeling for others, nor from relieving their distresses so far as I can."

"Foolish doctrine, young man, an' no' for this warl. It's nae wunner that ye're in difficulties. I guessed the faut was yer ain, and noo I'm sure o't. Put up yer half-croon, sir. I dinna tak charity."

"Ou, I daresay—I'm no the least offended; but tak an auld man's advice, an' dinna let yer feelins hae the command o' yer purse-strings, otherwise ye'll never hae muckle in't."

And the churlish old stone-breaker resumed his labours, and again relapsed into taciturnity. Silent as he was, however, it was evident that he was busily thinking, although none but himself could possibly tell what was the subject of his thoughts; but this soon discovered itself. After a short time, he again spoke—

"What may the nature an' cause o' yer defeeculties be, young man, an' I may speer?" he said—"and I fancy I may, since ye hae been sae far free on the subject o yer ain accord."

"That's soon told," replied the stranger. "Three years ago, an aunt, with whom I was an especial favourite, left me two hundred and fifty pounds. "With this sum I set up in business in Edinburgh in the ironmongery line, to which I was bred. My little trade prospered, and gradually attained such an extent that I found I could not do without an efficient assistant, who should look after the shop while I was out on the necessary calls of business. In this predicament I bethought me of my brother, who was a year older than myself, and accordingly sent for him to Selkirkshire, where he resided with our father, assisting him in his small farming operations; this being the business[260] of the latter. My brother came; and, for some time, was everything I could have wished—sober, regular, and attentive; and we thus got on swimmingly. This, however, was a state of matters which was not long to continue. When my brother had about completed a year with me, I began to perceive a gradual falling off in his anxiety about the interests of our little business. I remonstrated with him on one or two occasions of palpable neglect; but this, instead of inducing him to greater vigilance, had the effect only of rendering him more and more careless. But I did not then know the worst. I did not then know that, in place of aiding, he was robbing me. This was the truth, however. He had formed an infamous connection with a woman of disreputable character, and the consequence was the adoption of a regular system of plunder on my little property, to answer the calls which she was constantly making on my unfortunate relative.

"About this time I took ill, and, not suspecting the integrity of my brother, although aware of his carelessness, I did not hesitate to trust him with the entire conduct of my affairs. Indeed, I could not help myself in this particular; he best knowing my business, and being, besides, the natural substitute for myself in such a case. For three months was I confined, unable to leave my own room; and, when I did come out, I found myself a ruined man. In this time, my brother had appropriated almost every farthing that had been drawn to his own purposes; and had, moreover, done the same by some of my largest and best outstanding accounts; and, to sum up all, he had fled, I knew not whither, on the day previous to that on which I made my first appearance in my shop after my recovery. That is about ten days since."

"Did the rascal harry ye oot an' oot?" here interposed the old stone-breaker, knapping away with great earnestness.[261]

"No; there was a little on which he could not lay his hands—some considerable accounts which are payable only yearly; there was also some stock in the shop; but these, of course, are now the property of my creditors."

"But could ye no get a settlement wi' them, an' go on?" inquired the other, still knapping away assiduously. "I'm sure if you stated your case, your creditors wadna be owre hard on ye."

"Perhaps they might not; but there is one circumstance that puts it out of my power to make any attempt at arrangement. There is one bill of fifty pounds, due to a Sheffield house, on which diligence has been raised, and on which I am threatened with instant incarceration. In truth, it is this proceeding that has brought me here so early this morning. I expected to have been taken in my bed, as the charge was out yesterday, and I am here to keep out of the way of the messengers. I am thus deprived of the power of helping myself—of taking any steps towards the adjustment of my affairs."

"An' could ye do any guid, think ye, if that debt wur paid, or in some way arranged?" inquired the other.

"I think I could;" said the party questioned. "My good outstanding debts are yet considerable, and so is the stock in the shop; so that, had a little time been allowed me, I could have got round. But all that is knocked on the head, by the impending diligence against me. That settles the matter at once, by depriving me of the necessary liberty to go about my affairs."

"It's a pity," said the man, drily. "Wha's the man o' business in Edinburgh that thae Sheffield folk hae employed to prosecute ye? What ca' ye him?"

"He cannot. His instructions are imperative, otherwise[262] he would, I am convinced; for he is an excellent sort of man, and knows all about me and my affairs. Indeed, so willing was he to have assisted me, that, when the bill was first put into his hands, he wrote to his clients, strongly recommending lenient measures and bearing testimony, on his own knowledge, to the hardship of my case; but their reply was brief and peremptory. It was to proceed against me instantly, and threatening him with the loss of their business if he did not. For this uncompromising severity they assigned as a reason, their having been lately 'taken in,' as they expressed it, to a large extent, by a number of their Scotch customers. So Mr. Langridge had no alternative but to do his duty, and let matters take their course."

"True," replied the monosyllabic stone-breaker. It was all he said, or, if he had intended to say more, which, however, is not probable, no opportunity was afforded him; for at this moment three labouring men of his acquaintance, who were on their way to their work, came up and began conversing. On this interruption taking place, the young man rose, wished him a good morning, which was merely replied to by a slight nod, and went his way.

At this point in our story, we change the scene to the writing chambers of Mr. Langridge, and the time we advance to the evening of the day on which our tale opens.

It will surprise the reader to find our old stone-breaker, still wearing the patched and threadbare clothes, the battered and torn hat, and the coarse, strong shoes, which had never rejoiced in the contact of blacking brush, in which he prosecuted his daily labours, ringing the door-bell of Mr Langridge's house, about eight o'clock in the evening. It will still more surprise him, perhaps, to find this man received, notwithstanding the homeliness, we might have said wretchedness, of his appearance, by Mr Langridge himself with great courtesy, and even with a slight air of deference.

On his entering the apartment in which that gentleman[263] was, the latter immediately rose from his seat, and advanced, with extended hand, towards him.

"Ah, Mr Lumsden," he exclaimed, "how do you do? I hope I see you well. Come, my dear sir, take a chair." And he ran with eager civility for the convenience he named, and placed it for the accommodation of his visiter.

"Well, my dear sir," said Mr Langridge, "I am sorry to say that your rents have not come so well in this last half-year as usual. We are considerably short." And the man of business hurried to a large green painted tin box, that stood amongst some others on a shelf, and bore on its front the name of Lumsden, and from this drew forth what appeared to be a list or rent roll, which he spread out on the table. "We are considerably short," he said. "There's six or eight of your folks who have paid nothing yet, and as many more who have made only partial payments."

"Ay," said the man, crustily, "what's the meanin' o that? Ye maun just screw them up, Mr Langridge; for I canna want my siller, and I winna want it. Hae thae folk Thamsons, paid yet?"

"Weel, then, Mr Langridge, ye maun just tak the necessary steps to recover; for I'm determined to hae my rent. I'm no gaun to aloo mysel' to be ruined this way. They wadna leave me a sark to my back, if I wad let them. Ye maun just sequestrate, Mr Langridge—ye maun just sequestrate, an' we'll help oorsels to payment, since they winna help us."

"Oh, surely, surely, my dear sir. All fair and right. But I would just mention to you, that though, latterly, they have been dilatory payers—I would say, shamefully so—they are yet decent, honest, well-meaning people, these Thomsons; and that, moreover, there is some reason for[264] their having been so remiss of late, although it is, certainly, none whatever why you should want your rent."

"No, certainly not," went on Mr Langridge, who seemed to know well how to manage his eccentric client; "but only, I would just mention to you, that the reason of the dilatoriness of the Thomsons, is the husband's having been unable, from illness, to work for the last three months, and that, in that time, they have also lost no less than two children. It is rather a piteous case."

"An' what hae I to do wi' a' that?" exclaimed the other, impatiently. "What hae I to do wi' a' that, I wad like to ken? Am I to be ca'ed on to relieve a' the distress in the world? That wad be a bonny set o't. Am I to be robbed o' my richts that others may be at ease? That I winna, I warrant you. See that ye recover me thae folk's arrears, Mr Langridge, by hook or by crook, and that immediately, though ye shouldna leave them a stool to sit upon. That's my instructions to you."

"And they shall be obeyed, Mr Lumsden," replied the man of business—"obeyed to the letter. I merely mentioned the circumstance to you, in order that you might be fully apprized of everything relating to your tenants, which it is proper you should know."

"Weel, weel, but there's nae use in troublin' me wi' thae stories. I dinna want to be plagued wi' folk makin' puir mouths. There's aye a design on ane's pouch below't. By the bye, Mr Langridge," continued he, after a momentary pause, "hae ye a young chield o' an airnmonger in your hauns enow about some bill or anither that he canna pay."

"Let me see—oh, ay—you will mean, I dare say, a young man of the name of John Reid, poor fellow?"

"Very likely," said the client; "Is he a young man, an airnmonger to business, and hae ye diligence against him enow on a fifty pound bill, due to a Sheffield hoose?"

"The same," replied Mr Longridge. "These are exactly the circumstances. How came you, Mr Lumsden," he added, smilingly, "to be so well informed of them?"

"I'll maybe explain that afterwards; but, in the meantime, will ye tell me what sort o' a lad this Mr Reid is? Is he a decent, weel-doin' young man?"

"Remarkably so," replied Mr Langridge, "remarkably so, Mr Lumsden. I can answer for that; for I have known him now for a good while, and have had many opportunities of estimating his character."

"Through the misconduct of a brother—entirely through the misconduct of a brother." And Mr Langridge proceeded to give precisely the same account of the young man's misfortunes, and of the present state of his affairs, that he himself had given to the old stone-breaker, as already detailed to the reader. When he had concluded—

"It seems to me rather a hard sort o' case," said the client. "But could you no help him a wee on the score o' lenity?"

"I would willingly do it if I could; but it's not in my power. My instructions are peremptory. I dare not do it but with a certainty of losing the business of the pursuers, the best clients I have."

"Nothing, nothing, I fear. My clients seem quite determined. They are enraged at some smart losses which they have lately sustained in Scotland, and will give no quarter."[266]

"Then I suppose if they war paid, they would be satisfied," said the stone-breaker.

"Ha, ha, ha! Mr Lumsden, no doubt of that," exclaimed Mr Langridge, laughing. "That would settle the business at once."

"I fancy sae," said the other, musingly. Then, after a pause—"An' think ye the lad wad get on if this stane were taen frae aboot his neck?"

"I have no doubt of it—not the least," replied Mr Langridge, "for I have every confidence in the young man's industry and uprightness of principle. But he has no friend to back him, poor fellow: no one to help him out of the scrape."

"Ye canna be quite sure o' that, Mr Langridge," said the old man. "What if I hae taen a fancy to help him mysel?"

"You, Mr Lumsden!—you!" exclaimed Mr Langridge in great surprise. "What motive on earth can you have for assisting him?"

"I didna say that I meant to assist him—I only asked ye, what if I took a fancy to do't?"

"Why, to that I can only say that, if you have, he is all right, and will get his head above water yet. But you surprise me, Mr Lumsden, by this interest in Reid. May I ask how it comes about?"

"I'll tell you a' that presently, but I'll first tell you that I do mean to assist the young man in his straits. I'll advance the money to pay that bill for him. Will ye see to that, then, Mr Langridge? Put me doon for the amount oot o' the funds in your hauns, and stay further proceedins."

Mr Langridge could not express the surprise he felt on this extraordinary intimation from a man who, although there were some good points in his character, notwithstanding of the outward crust of churlishness in which it was encased, he never believed capable of any very striking act of generosity. Mr Langridge, we say, could not express[267] the surprise which this unlooked-for instance of that quality in Mr Lumsden inspired, nor did he attempt it; for he justly considered that such expression would be offensive to the old man, as implying a belief that he had been deemed incapable of doing a benevolent thing. Mr Langridge, therefore, kept his feelings, on the occasion, to himself, and contented himself with promising compliance, and venturing a muttered compliment or two, which, however, were ungraciously enough received, on the old man's generosity.

"Why, that I cannot well tell you," replied Mr Langridge; "for I was informed, in the course of the day, by the messengers whom I employed to apprehend him, that he had left his lodging early in the morning, no doubt in order to avoid them, and they could not ascertain where he had gone to."

"I fear that will be difficult," replied Mr Langridge; "but I will call off the bloodhounds in the meantime, and terminate proceedings."

At this moment, a rap at the door of the apartment in which was Mr Langridge and his client, interrupted further conversation on the subject.

The door opened, and in walked two messengers, with Reid a prisoner between them. We leave it to the reader to conceive the latter's surprise, on beholding his acquaintance of the morning, the old stone-breaker, seated in an arm-chair in Mr Langridge's writing-chamber. But while he looked this surprise, he also seemed to feel acutely the[268] humiliation of his position. After a nod of recognition, he said, with an attempt at a smile, and addressing himself to the old man—

"You see they have got me after all, my friend. But it was my own doing. On reflection, I saw no use in endeavouring to avoid them, and gave myself up, at least, threw myself in their way, in order to encounter the worst at once, and be done with it."

"I daresay ye was richt, after a'," replied the stone-breaker; "it was the best way. Mr Langridge," he added, and now rising from his seat, "wad ye speak wi' me for a minnit, in another room?"

"No, remain where you are a moment, till I return;" and Mr Langridge led the way out of the apartment, followed by the old stone-breaker. When they had reached another room, and the door had been secured—

"Noo, Mr Langridge, anent what I was speaking to ye about regarding this young man wha has come in sae curiously upon us, juist whan we were wanting him—I dinna care to be seen in the matter, sae ye maun juist manag't for me yersel."

"Had ye no better enjoy the satisfaction of your own good deed in person, Mr Lumsden, by telling Mr Reid of the important service you intend doing him?"

"I'll do naething o' the kind," replied the old stone-breaker, testily. "I dinna want to be bothered wi't. Sae juist pay ye his bill and charges, Mr Langridge, an' keep an e'e on his proceedins afterwards, an' let me ken frae time to time hoo he's gettin on."

With these instructions Mr Langridge promised compliance; and, on his having done so, the stone-breaker proposed to depart; but, just as he was about doing so, he[269] turned suddenly round to his man of business, and said—

"About the Tamsons, Mr Langridge, ye needna, for a wee while, tak thae staps again them that I was speakin aboot. Let them alane a wee till they get roun a bit."

"I'll do so, Mr Lumsden," replied the worthy writer, who, the reader will observe, had accomplished his generous purpose dexterously. He knew his man, and acted accordingly.

"Ay, it's a heap o' siller—no to be fan at every dyke side. An' then, there's this half-year rinning on, an' very near due. That'll mak—hoo much?"

"Ay, exactly," replied the latter, who had been making a mental calculation of the amount, and had arrived, although more slowly than his experienced lawyer, at the same result. "A serious soom," added the client.

"No trifle, indeed, Mr Lumsden," said Mr Langridge; "but it's safe enough. They're honest people."

"Ye'r aye harpin on that string," replied the stone-breaker, surlily; "but what signifies their honesty to me, if they'll no pay me my rent?"

"See you an' get thae arrears, at ony rate, oot o' them, if ye can, Mr Langridge; an', if ye canna, I suppose we maun juist want them. Ye needna push owre hard for them either, since they're in the state ye say. But ye'll surely mak the present half-year oot o' them. That maun be paid. Mind that, at ony rate, maun be paid, Mr Langridge." And saying this, he placed his old tattered hat, which he had hitherto held in his hand, on his head, and left the house.[270]

On his departure, Mr Langridge hastily entered the apartment in which, he had left the messengers with their prisoner.

"We're just waiting marching orders, Mr Langridge," said the latter, on his entering, and making an attempt at playfulness, with which his spirit but ill accorded. "My friends here are getting tired of their charge, and anxious to be relieved of him."

"Why, then, we had best relieve them at once." Then turning to the principal officer—"Quit your prisoner, Maxwell—the debt is settled. Mr Reid, you are at liberty."

The blood rushed to poor Reid's face, and then withdrew, leaving it as pale as death, and yet he could express no part of the feelings which caused these violent alternations. At length—

"Mr Langridge," he said, "what is the meaning of this? How do I come to be liberated?"

"By the simplest and most effectual of all processes, Mr Reid," replied the worthy writer, smiling; "by the payment of the debt."

"No; but somebody else might. The short and the long of it is, Mr Reid, that a friend has come forward, and settled the claim on which diligence was raised against you. The bill, with interest and all expenses, is paid, and you are again a free man."

Again overwhelmed by his feelings, which were a thousand times more eloquently expressed by a flood of silent tears than they could have been by the most carefully rounded periods, it was some time before the young man could pursue the conversation, or ask for the further information which he yet intensely longed to possess. On recovering from the burst of emotion which had, for the moment, deprived him of the power of utterance[271]—

"Why, I do not know exactly whether I am at liberty to tell you, Mr Reid," replied Mr Langridge. "The friend you allude to declined transacting this matter personally with you, which seems to imply that he did not care that you should know who he was; yet, as he certainly did not expressly forbid me to disclose him, and as I think it but right that you should know to whom you are indebted, I will venture to tell you. Had you some conversation, at an early hour this morning, with an old stone-breaker, on the highway side, about three or four miles from town?"

"The same. Well, what would you think if he should have been the friend in question? Would you expect from his manner, that he would do such a thing? or, from his appearance and occupation, that he could?"

"Certainly not—certainly not. The old man—the poor old man, to whom I offered half-a-crown—who works for ninepence a-day—who never saw me in his life before this morning—who knows nothing of me! Impossible, Mr Langridge—impossible; he cannot be the man. You do not say that he is?"

"But I do though, Mr Reid, and that most distinctly. It is he, and no other, I assure you, who has done you this friendly service."

"Then, if it be so, I know not what to say to it, Mr Langridge. I can say nothing. I trust, however, I shall not be found wanting on the score of gratitude. I can say no more. But will you be so good as inform me, if you can, how the good man has come to do me so friendly a service? Who on earth, or what is he?"

"Sit down, sit down, Mr Reid, and I'll answer all your questions—I'll tell you all about him," replied Mr Langridge.[272]

"The history of the old stone-breaker, my good sir, is a very short and a very simple one. It contains no vicissitude, and to few, besides ourselves, would be found possessing any particular interest. Your friend was, in his youth, a soldier, and served, I believe, in the American war. At his return home on the conclusion of that war, he was discharged, still a young man, and shortly after married a woman with a fortune" (smilingly) "of some five-and-twenty or thirty pounds. With this sum the thrifty pair purchased two or three cows, and commenced the business of cowfeeders. They prospered; for they were both saving and industrious, and, in time, realized a considerable sum of money, which they went on increasing. This they invested in house property from time to time, till their possessions of this kind became very valuable.

"For upwards of forty years they continued in this way, when Mrs Lumsden died, leaving her husband a lonely widower; for they had no children. On the death of the former, the latter, who was now an old man, and unequal to conducting, alone, the business in which his wife's activity and industry had hitherto aided him, sold off his cows, and proposed to live in retirement on the rents of his property; and this he did for some time. Accustomed, however, to a life of constant labour and exertion, the old man soon found the idleness on which he had thrown himself, intolerably irksome. He became miserable from a mere want of having something to do. While in this state of ennui, chancing one day to stroll into the country, (this is what he told me himself,) he saw some labouring men knapping stones by the way-side; and strange as the fancy may seem, he was instantly struck with a desire of taking to this occupation. He did so, and has, from that day to the present, now upwards of ten years, pursued it with as much assiduity[273] as if it was his only resource for a subsistence. He has, as I already told you, no family of his own; neither has he, I believe, any relation living; or, if there be, they must be very remote; and, as he strictly confines his expenditure to his daily earnings as a stone-breaker—some ninepence a-day, I believe—his wealth is rapidly increasing, and is, at this moment, no trifle, I assure you. Now, my good sir, when I tell you that I am the law agent of this strange, eccentric person, and that I manage all his business for him, I have told you everything about him that is worth mentioning."

"There is just one thing, Mr Langridge," said Mr Reid, who had been an attentive listener to the tale just told him, "that wants explanation: can you give me the smallest shadow of a reason for the part he has acted towards me?"

"Nay, there you puzzle me; I cannot. It appears as unaccountable to me as to you, although I have known Mr Lumsden now for upwards of fifteen years."

"Never! and I must say candidly, that, although he is by no means deficient in kindness of heart, notwithstanding his rough exterior, I did not believe him capable of such an act of generosity."

"It is an extraordinary matter," said Mr Reid; "and although I can have but little right to inquire into the motives for an act by which I am so largely benefited—it seems ungracious to do so—yet would I give a good round sum, if I had it to spare, to know the real cause of this good man's friendship towards me."

"Why, that I suspect neither you nor I shall ever know. I question much, indeed, if the principal actor in this affair himself could give a reason for what he has done. It seems to me just one of those odd and unaccountable things which eccentric men, like Mr Lumsden, will sometimes do; and with this solution of the mystery, and the benefit it has produced[274] to you, I rather think, Mr Reid, you must be content. I would, however, add, in order to redeem Mr Lumsden's act of generosity from the character of a mere whim, that your case was one eminently calculated to excite any latent feeling of benevolence which he might possess; and that your manner and appearance—no flattery—are equally well calculated to second a claim so established. Yourself, and your peculiar circumstances, in short, had chanced to touch the right chord in a right man's breast, and hence the response on which we are speculating."

Having thus discussed the knotty point of the old stonebreaker's sudden act of generosity, Mr Langridge invited Mr Reid to put his affairs into his hands, promising that they should have the advantage, on his part, of something more than mere professional zeal. This friendly invitation the latter gladly accepted, and shortly after consigned all his business matters to the care of the worthy writer, who exerted himself in behalf of his client with an efficiency that soon placed the latter once more in the way of well-doing. And well he did; having subsequently realised a very handsome independency. In the success of the young man, no one rejoiced more than the old stone-breaker, who frequently visited him in his shop; sometimes merely for the purpose of seeing him; at others, to purchase some of those little articles of ironmongery which the due preservation of his dwelling-house property demanded. Let us state, too, that, amongst his purchases, were, at different times, the hammer-heads which he used in his occupation of stone-breaking.

In their first transaction in this way, there was something curiously characteristic of the old man's peculiarities of temper. Mr Reid, not yet perfectly aware of these peculiarities, declined, for some time, putting any price on a couple of hammer-heads which his friend had picked out. He would have made him a present of them; and, to the latter's inquiry as to their price, replied, evasively, and laughing[275] while he spoke, that he would tell him that afterwards.

"I tak nae credit, young man," said the stone-breaker, crustily, "tell me enow their cost." And he pulled out a small greasy leathern purse, and was undoing its strings, when Mr Reid laid his hand on his arm to prevent him, at the same time telling him that he would do him a favour by accepting the hammer-heads in a present. "What is such a trifle between you and me, Mr Lumsden—you to whom I owe everything?"

"You owe me a great deal mair than ye're ever likely to pay me, at ony rate, young man, if this be the way ye transact business," replied the other, with evident signs of displeasure. "Tell me the price o' thae hammer-heads at ance, an' be dune wi't. I hae nae broo o' folk that fling awa their guids as ye seem inclined to do."

Mr Reid blushed at the reproof, but, seeing at once how the land lay, with regard to his customer's temper, he now plumply named the price of the hammers, sevenpence each.

"Sevenpence!" exclaimed the old man. "I'll gie ye nae such price. Doonricht robbery! I can get them as guid in ony shop in the toon for saxpence ha'penny. If ye like to tak that price for them, ye may hae't. If no, ye can keep them."

Mr Reid, now knowing his man somewhat better than he did at first, demurred, but at length agreed to the abatement, and the transaction was thus brought to a close.

We need hardly add, that the £50 advanced by the old man to Mr Reid were subsequently repaid; but the call is more imperative on us to state, that, on the former's death, which took place about two years after, the latter found himself named in his will for a very considerable sum. One, somewhat larger, was bequeathed by the same document to Mr Langridge. The remainder was appropriated to various charities. And here, good reader, ends the story of the Stone-Breaker.

LAIRD RORIESON'S WILL.

In the little town of Maybole there lived, some fifty years ago or more, an old man of the name of George Rorieson, more commonly called Laird Rorieson. He had been a kind of general merchant, or trafficker in any kind of commodities which he thought would yield him a profit; and, by dint of great sagacity, had made some very fortunate hits, and realised a large sum of money. Having begun the world with a penny, he was emphatically the maker of his own fortunes—a circumstance he was very proud of, and loved to sound in the ears of certain individuals who envied him his riches. Having amassed his money by an accumulation of small sums, for a long course of years, he had gradually become narrower and narrower, as his wealth increased; and, by the time he arrived at the age of sixty, his penurious feelings had become so strong and deeprooted that he could scarcely afford himself the means of a comfortable subsistence.

It is almost needless to say that Laird Rorieson never had courage or liberality of sentiment sufficient to give him an impulse towards matrimony; and truly it was alleged that he never oven looked on womankind with any feelings different from those with which he contemplated his fellow-creatures generally; and these had always some connection, one way or another, with making profit of them. But, though he had no wife, he had a good store of nephews and nieces—somewhere about twenty—all poor enough, God knows! but all as hopeful as brides and bridegrooms of a great store of wealth and bliss being awaiting them on the death of Uncle Geordie.

The affection which these twenty nephews and nieces[277] shewed to Uncle George was remarkable; but, somehow or another, the good uncle hated them mortally, and, the bitterer he became, the more loving they waxed—so that it was very wonderful to see so much human love and sympathy thrown away upon an old churl who could have seen all the devoted creatures at the devil.

It was indeed alleged that this crabbed miser had no love for any one, all his affection being expended upon his money-bags: but we are bound to say that this is not quite the truth; for there was a neighbour of the name of Saunders Gibbieson, a bachelor, for whom the Laird really felt some small twinges of human kindness. Saunders Gibbieson was as true a Scotchman as ever threw the pawkie glamour of a twinkling grey eye over the open face of an English victim. He was, as already said, a bachelor; but unlike his friend Geordie, he loved the fair sex, and vowed he would marry the bonniest lass o' Maybole the moment he was able to sustain her "in bed, board, and washing." He had scraped together a few pounds, maybe to the extent of a hundred or two, and looked forward to making himself happy at no very distant period. He was a famous hand at a political argument; and there was not a man in Maybole who could touch him at driving a bargain.

As already said, Geordie had a kind of feeling towards Saunders, and there can be no doubt that Saunders had as strong an affection for the "auld rich grub," as he called him in his throat, as ever had any of the twenty nephews and nieces already alluded to. In the evenings he often went in and sat with him; and, by dint of curious jokes, "humorous lees," and political anecdotes, he contrived to wile, for a few minutes, the creature's heart from his money-bags, and unbend his puckered cheeks and lips into a species of compromise between a laugh and a grin. It was no wonder, then, that Geordie had a kind of liking for Saunders—seeing he got value in amusement from him,[278] without so much cost as even a piece of old dry cheese, of a waught of thin ale. On the other hand, it was difficult to see how Saunders could love the laird; and, indeed, it was a matter of gossip what could induce a man so much in request as Saunders Gibbieson to take so much pains in pouring into the "leather lugs" of an old miser the precious jokes that would have set the biggest table in Maybole in a roar.

Now the time came when Laird Rorieson began to feel the first touches of that big black angel who loves to hug so fondly the sons of men. He was ill—he was indeed very ill—and it would have done any man's heart good to see the kindness and sympathy which his twenty nephews and nieces paid him. Every hour one or other of them was calling at his house; and his ears were regaled by the sympathetic tones which their love for their dear uncle wrung from their tender hearts. Oh, it was beautiful to behold! Such things do credit to our fallen nature. But the old grub loved it not; and it was even said he cursed and swore in the very faces of the kind creatures, just as if they had had an eye on the heavy coffers of gold that lay in his house. This kindness on the part of his nephews and nieces was thus converted into a kind of poison; for every time they called, their uncle got into such a passion that his remaining strength was well-nigh worn out. But he had still enough left to sign his name; and the ungrateful creature resolved upon leaving all his gold to found an hospital. He sent for a man of the law, and had a consultation with locked doors, and all things seemed in a fair way for the poor nephews and nieces being sacrificed for ever.

This circumstance came to the ears of Saunders Gibbieson, who had not been an unattentive spectator of the extraordinary proceedings going on in the house of his neighbour. As soon as he heard the news, he retired and meditated, and communed with himself three hours on matters[279] of deep concernment to him and the generations that might descend from him. The result of all this study was a resolution alike remarkable for its eccentricity and sagacity; but Saunders' spirit dipped generally so deep in the wells of wisdom that there was no wonder it should come forth drunk, as it were, with the golden policy of cunning.

Now, all of a sudden, Saunders grew (as he said) very ill—as ill indeed, or nearly as ill, as Laird Rorieson himself, but, so full was he of brotherly love towards his neighbour, that his sudden illness did not prevent him calling upon the latter one night, when there seemed to be no great chance of their being disturbed by any of the sympathetic nephews and nieces. He found Geordie very weakly, and sat down by the bedside, to pour the balm of his friendship and consolation into the sick man's ear. The Laird received him kindly, and as was his custom, Saunders got him into a pleasant humour, by telling him something of a curious nature that had occurred, or had been supposed by Saunders to have occurred, during the day. He then began the more important part of his work.

"You are ill, Laird," said he; "but I question muckle if ye're sae ill as I am myself. For a long time I've been in a dwinin way, and, though I hae kept up a fair appearance and good spirits, I've been gradually getting thinner and weaker. I fear I'm in a fair way for anither warld."

"I'm sorry to hear't," replied the Laird. "It's a sad thing to dee." And he shook as he uttered the word.

"Ay, an' it's a sad thing," said Saunders, "to be tormented in your illness, wi' thae cursed corbies o' puir relations. The moment I began to complain I've been tormented wi' a host o' nephews and nieces, wha come and stare into my hollow een, as if they would count the draps o' blude that are yet left in my heart."

"Ay, ay, are you in that plight too, Saunders?" groaned the Laird. "The ravens have been croaking owre me for[280] twa lang years. They come and perch on the very bedposts, they croak, they whet their nebs, they look into my face, and peer into my very heart. It's dreadful—and there's nae remedy. I've tried to terrify them awa; but they come aye back again. They've worn me fairly out."

"I've had many a meditation on the subject, Laird," said Saunders; "and, between you and me, if there's a goose quill in a' Scotland, I'll hae a shot at them. I haena muckle i' the warld—a thousand or twa maybe, hard won, Geordie, as a' gowd is in thae hard times; but the deil a plack o't they'll ever touch."

"Na, na," answered Saunders. "I'll found nae beggar's palace. I've studied political economy owre lang to be ignorant o' the bad effects o' public charities. They relax the sinews o' industry, and mak learned mendicants. Besides, wha thanks the founder o' an hospital for his charity? Nane!—nane! A puff or twa in the newspapers about Gibbieson's mortification would be the hail upshot o' my reward; and sensible folk would set me doun as an auld curmudgeon, wha hadna heart to love and benefit a friend."

"There's some truth in that," muttered the Laird. "It's a pity a body canna tak his gear wi' him. Sair hae I toiled for it, and, oh! it's miserable! cruel! cruel! that I should be obliged to leav't to a thankless warld! But what are ye to do wi'fc, Saivjders?"

"Indeed, I'm just to leave it a' to you, Laird," said Saunders. "I have lang liked ye wi' a' the luve o' honest, leal friendship; and, after muckle meditation, I canna fix on a mortal creature wha is mair deservin o't than you, my guid auld freend. You have a fair chance o' recovering; I have nane. Ye may enjoy my gear lang after the turf has grown thegither owre my grave; and God bless the gift!"

"Kind, guid man!" cried the Laird, in a voice evincing[281] strong emotion, either of love or greed. "That is kindness—ay, very different frae the friendship o' my sisters' and brothers' bairns. After a', I believe yer richt, Saunders—an hospital has nae gratitude; and what have we to do wi' a cauld and heartless warld?"

"There's just ae difficulty I hae," said Saunders. "The will's written and signed; but I dinna weel ken whar to lay it; for, when I'm dead, thae deevils o' corbies may smell the bit paper and put it in the fire. Maybe you would tak the charge o't for me, Laird."

"Ou ay," answered the Laird. "I'll keep it. The deil o' are o' them will get it oot o' my clutches."

"Weel, weel, my dear friend," said Saunders. "I'll put it into a tin box; the key ye'll find, after my breath's out, in the little cupboard that's at the foot o' my bed—ye ken the place. They can mak naething o' the key without the box; and, if you canna find the key, you can force the box open. Oh, I would like to see you reading the will in the midst o' the harpies."

"I intend to do it instantly, Laird," replied the man. "I'll about it this moment." And he rose and went out of the house.

In a short time, Saunders returned, holding in his hand a small tin box. He laid it down upon the table, and, taking out a small key, opened it, and took out a paper, entitled—"Last Will and Testament."

"There it is, my good friend," he said; and, replacing the paper in the box, he locked it and placed it in an escritoire pointed out by the Laird. He then went away.

Next day, the lawyer came to carry into effect the charitable resolution of Laird Rorieson; but he found that a great change had taken place upon the old man's sentiments. He was now adverse to a mortification, and said[282] he was resolved upon leaving his fortune to one whom he considered to be a real friend, and, indeed, the only real friend he had upon earth. The lawyer was surprised when he ascertained that this friend was Saunders Gibbieson; but it was not his province to object—so he departed straightway to carry into effect the new resolution of the testator.

Two days afterwards, the Laird sent a message to Saunders to come and speak with him. Saunders obeyed; walking in to him slowly, and apparently with great effort, as if he had been labouring under a strong disease.

"I have been thinking again and again, Saunders," said the Laird, "o' yer great kindness. You are the first man that ever left me a farthing. The warld has rugged aff me since ever I had a feather to pick. Nane has ever offered me either a bite or a sup. You are the only friend I've ever met upon earth."

"I hae only obeyed the dictates o' my heart," replied Saunders; "and I am glad I have dune it, for I feel mysel very weakly, and fear the clock o' this world's time will be wound up wi' me in a very short period."

"Maybe no so sune as ye think, Saunders," replied the Laird. "But my purpose is executed. Saunders, you are my heir. Hand me that box there."

Saunders took up a small mahogany box that lay on the table, and handed it to him.

"Here," continued the Laird, taking out a paper; "here is my will. It's a' in your favour, Saunders—lands, houses, guids, and chattels, heritable and moveable. Say naething; you are my heir. Ha! ha! let the corbies croak. You've dune me a guid service; I winna be ahint ye. Tak the box into yer ain keeping. I'll keep the key. Awa wi't this instant. Ha! ha! let the corbies croak."

Saunders obeyed. He carried the box into his own house, placed it in his cupboard, locked the door, and put the key into his pocket.[283]

In about a month afterwards, old Laird Rorieson departed this life. On the day of his death, his nephews and nieces were in great commotion, and there was a terrible running to and fro, and much whispering, and wondering, and gossiping—all on the great subject of the death of Uncle Geordie. On the day of his funeral, they were all collected, to see whether there was any will. They, of course, wished that there should be none, because they, being his heirs, would succeed to all, if there was no disposition of the old man's effects. By some means, Saunders Gibbieson contrived to be present along with the expectants. Perhaps he was allowed to be among them in the character of a witness; but indeed, so certain were the nephews and nieces of having succeeded in their efforts to please the dear old man, that they could afford to allow the presence of any number of witnesses who could vouch for the sacred gravity of their countenances, and the deep sorrows of their bereaved hearts. Nor was Saunders less under the affection of lugubriousness himself; so that it was altogether one of those beautiful sights so often witnessed on such melancholy occasions, where every indication of selfishness is banished, and nothing can be observed save that Christian solemnity which proveth that "the devil hath been cast out of the heart of man, even when he did appear to be strong." The nephews and the nieces looked at Saunders, and Saunders looked at them, and so solemn were these looks, that though the writer was searching about for a will, no one seemed to care whether he found one or not. It has been said that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things;" but of a surety the adage could not have been spoken there, except with the determination to get it disproved for once in the world, and the blessed object of shewing to us sons of the seed of Abraham that we are not so wicked as we are called.

At length the ominous little box was laid hold of and[284] broken open, amidst a pretty nonchalance, and lo! there was indeed a paper, bearing the fearful word "Will," and the faces of the heirs turned as pale as the paper itself. It was opened; but it was a fair, clean sheet of paper, and not a drop of ink had stained its purity. "All safe, all safe," muttered the heirs.

"Here is another box," said Saunders Gibbieson, holding up the mahogany one; "let us try it." And he opened it, and took out Geordie's will. The writer read it aloud. Saunders was sole heir to all the old miser's possessions, amounting to £10,000. No one could tell the reason why there were two papers marked "Will," and one of them a blank sheet; and Saunders, simple man, did not trouble himself to give any explanation.

END OF VOL. XVIII.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This story will suggest the remembrance of a popular ballad, but the similarity is casual; for the circumstances are here true, if they may not be found of every-day occurrence somewhere about the temple of Mammon.—Ed.

[2] Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions; Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic; Scott's Letters on Witchcraft, &c.

[3] See "The Man-of-war's Man."

[4] Mr Allan Cunningham, in his Life of Burns, states the following particulars respecting Willie's wife:—viz., that "He was a farmer, who lived near Burns, at Ellisland. She was a very singular woman—tea, she said, would be the ruin of the nation; sugar was a sore evil; wheaten bread was only fit for babes; earthenware was a pickpocket; wooden floors were but fit for thrashing upon; slated roofs, cold; feathers good enough for fowls. In short, she abhorred change: and whenever anything new appeared—such as harrows with iron teeth—'Ay! ay!' she would exclaim, 'ye'll see the upshot!' Of all modern things she disliked china most—she called it 'burnt clay,' and said 'it was only fit for haudin' the broo o' stinkin' weeds,' as she called tea. On one occasion, an English dealer in cups and saucers asked so much for his wares, that he exasperated a peasant, who said, 'I canna purchase, but I ken ane that will. Gang there,' said he, pointing to the house of Willie's wife, 'dinna be blate or burd-moothed; ask a guid penny—she has the siller!' Away went the poor dealer, spread out his wares before her, and summed up all by asking a double price. A blow from her crummock was his instant reward, which not only fell on his person, but damaged his china. 'I'll learn ye,' quoth she, as she heard the saucers jingle, 'to come wi' yer brazent English face, and yer bits o' burnt clay to me!' She was an unlovely dame—her daughters, however, were beautiful."—Ed.

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		Page
Thomas of Chartres,	(Hugh Miller),	1
The Fugitive,	(John Mackay Wilson),	33
The Bride of Bramblehaugh,	(Alexander Leighton),	63
Gleanings of the Covenant,	(Professor Thomas Gillespie)—
XIV. James Renwick,		95
XV. Old Isbel Kirk,		105
XVI. The Curlers,		110
XVII. The Violated Coffin,		119
The Surgeon's Tales,	(Alexander Leighton)—
The Monomaniac,		127
The Foundling at Sea,	(Alexander Campbell),	159
The Assassin,	(Alexander Campbell),	178
The Prisoner of War,	(John Howell),	191
Willie Wastle's Account of His Wife,	(John Mackay Wilson),	223
The Stone-breaker,	(Alexander Campbell),	255
Laird Rorieson's Will,	(Alexander Leighton),	276

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 18

Wilson's

Tales of the Borders

AND OF SCOTLAND.

HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,

CONTENTS

WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS