*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75771 ***







[Frontispiece: "He visited again and again the fountain in the grove,
and at last won from the lady the acceptance of his suit."--_p._ 60.]




  THE

  FAA'S REVENGE

  And Other Tales



  By

  JOHN MACKAY WILSON,

  AND OTHERS.


  London:
  GALL AND INGLIS, 25 PATERNOSTER SQUARE,
  AND EDINBURGH.




Contents


THE FAA'S REVENGE . . . . . . .  J. M. Wilson

THE RIVAL NIGHTCAPS . . . . . .  Alexander Campbell

THE STORY OF CLARA DOUGLAS  . .  Walter Logan

COUNTRY QUARTERS  . . . . . . .  Theodore Martin

THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER . . . .  Alexander Campbell

MAY DARLING . . . . . . . . . .  J. F. Smith

MORTLAKE: A LEGEND OF MORTON  .  James Maidment

MAJOR WEIR'S COACH  . . . . . .  George Howell

WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER  . . . . . .  J. M. Wilson




THE

FAA'S REVENGE

OR THE

Laird of Clennel

BY JOHN MACKAY WILSON.

Brown October was drawing to a close--the breeze had acquired a
degree of sharpness too strong to be merely termed bracing--and the
fire, as the saying is, was becoming the best flower in the garden,
for the hardiest and the latest plants had either shed their leaves,
or their flowers had shrivelled at the breath of approaching
winter--when a stranger drew his seat towards the parlour fire of the
Three-Half-Moons Inn, in Rothbury.  He had sat for the space of
half-an-hour when a party entered, who, like himself (as appeared
from their conversation), were strangers, or rather visitors of the
scenery, curiosities, and antiquities in the vicinity.  One of them
having ordered the waiter to bring each of them a glass of brandy and
warm water, without appearing to notice the presence of the first
mentioned stranger, after a few remarks on the objects of interest in
the neighbourhood, the following conversation took place amongst
them:--

"Why," said one, "but even Rothbury here, secluded as it is from the
world, and shut out from the daily intercourse of men, is a noted
place.  It was here that the ancient and famous northern bard, and
unrivalled ballad writer, Bernard Rumney, was born, bred, and died.
Here, too, was born Dr Brown, who, like Young and Home, united the
characters of divine and dramatist, and was the author of
'_Barbarossa_,' '_The Cure of Saul_,' and other works of which
posterity and his country are proud.  The immediate neighbourhood,
also, was the birthplace of the inspired boy, the heaven-taught
mathematician, George Coughran, who knew no rival, and who bade fair
to eclipse the glory of Newton, but whom death struck down ere he had
reached the years of manhood."

"Why, I can't tell," said another; "I don't know much about what
you've been talking of; but I know, for one thing, that Rothbury was
a famous place for every sort of games; and, at Fastren's E'en times,
the rule was, every male inhabitant above eight years of age to pay a
shilling, or out to the foot-ball.  It was noted for its gamecocks,
too--they were the best breed on the Borders."

"May be so," said the first speaker; "but though I should be loath to
see the foot-ball, or any other innocent game which keeps up a manly
spirit, put down, yet I do trust that the brutal practice of
cock-fighting will be abolished, not only on the Borders, but
throughout every country which professes the name of Christian; and I
rejoice that the practice is falling into disrepute.  But, although
my hairs are not yet honoured with the silver tints of age, I am old
enough to remember, that, when a boy at school on the Scottish side
of the Border, at every Fastren's E'en which you have spoken of,
every schoolboy was expected to provide a cock for the battle, or
main, and the teacher or his deputy presided as umpire.  The same
practice prevailed on the southern Border.  It is a very old, savage
amusement, even in this country; and perhaps the preceptors of youth,
in former days, considered it classical, and that it would instil
into their pupils sentiments of emulation; inasmuch as the practice
is said to have taken rise from Themistocles perceiving two cocks
tearing at and fighting with each other, while marching his army
against the Persians, when he called upon his soldiers to observe
them, and remarked that they neither fought for territory, defence of
country, nor for glory, but they fought because the one would not
yield to, or be defeated by, the other; and he desired his soldiers
to take a moral lesson from the barn-door fowls.  Cock-fighting thus
became among the heathen Greeks a political precept and a religious
observance--and the _Christian_ inhabitants of Britain, disregarding
the _religious and political moral_, kept up the practice, adding to
it more disgusting barbarity, for _their amusement_.

"Coom," said a third, who, from his tongue, appeared to be a thorough
Northumbrian, "we wur talking about Rothbury, but you are goin' to
give us a regular sarmin on cock-fighting.  Let's hae none o' that.
You was saying what clever chaps had been born here--but none o' ye
mentioned Jamie Allan, the gipsy and Northumberland piper, who was
born here as weel as the best o' them.  But I hae heard that
Rothbury, as weel as Yetholm and Tweedmouth Moor, was a great resort
for the Faa or gipsy gangs in former times.  Now, I understand that
thae folk were a sort o' bastard Egyptians; and though I am nae
scholar, it strikes me forcibly that the meaning o' the word
_gipsies_ is just _Egypts_, or _Gypties_--a contraction and
corruption o' _Gyptian_!"

"Gipsies," said he who spoke of Rumney and Brown, and abused the
practice of cock-fighting, "still do in some degree, and formerly did
in great numbers, infest this county; and I will tell you a story
concerning them."

"Do so," said the thorough Northumbrian; "I like a story when it's
weel put thegither.  The gipsies were queer folk.  I've heard my
faither tell many a funny thing about them, when he used to whistle
'Felton Loanin,' which was made by awd piper Allan--Jamie's faither."
And here the speaker struck up a lively air, which, to the stranger
by the fire, seemed a sort of parody on the well-known tune of
"Johnny Cope."

The other then proceeded with his tale, thus:--

You have all heard of the celebrated Johnny Faa, the Lord and Earl of
Little Egypt, who penetrated into Scotland in the reign of James IV.,
and with whom that gallant monarch was glad to conclude a treaty.
Johnny was not only the king, but the first of the Faa gang of whom
we have mention.  I am not aware that gipsies get the name of Faas
anywhere but upon the Borders; and though it is difficult to account
for the name satisfactorily, it is said to have its origin from a
family of the name of _Fall_ or _Fa'_, who resided here (in
Rothbury), and that their superiority in their cunning and desperate
profession, gave the same cognomen to all and sundry who followed the
same mode of life upon the Borders.  One thing is certain, that the
name _Faa_ not only was given to individuals whose surname might be
_Fall_, but to the Winters and Clarkes--_id genus omne_--gipsy
families well known on the Borders.  Since waste lands, which were
their hiding-places and resorts, began to be cultivated, and
especially since the sun of knowledge snuffed out the taper of
superstition and credulity, most of them are beginning to form a part
of society, to learn trades of industry, and live with men.  Those
who still prefer their father's vagabond mode of life--finding that,
in the northern counties, their old trade of fortune-telling is at a
discount, and that thieving has thinned their tribe and is
dangerous--now follow the more useful and respectable callings of
muggers, besom-makers, and tinkers.  I do not know whether, in
etiquette, I ought to give precedence to the besom-maker or tinker;
though, as compared with them, I should certainly suppose that the
"muggers" of the present day belong to the Faa aristocracy; if it be
not that they, like others, derive their nobility from descent of
blood rather than weight of pocket--and that, after all, the mugger
with his encampment, his caravans, horses, crystal, and crockery, is
but a mere wealthy plebeian or _bourgeois_ in the vagrant
community.--  But to my tale.

On a dark and tempestuous night in the December of 1628, a Faa gang
requested shelter in the out-houses of the laird of Clennel.  The
laird himself had retired to rest; and his domestics being fewer in
number than the Faas, feared to refuse them their request.

"Ye shall have up-putting for the night, good neighbours," said
Andrew Smith, who was a sort of major-domo in the laird's household,
and he spoke in a tone of mingled authority and terror.  "But, sir,"
added he, addressing the chief of the tribe--"I will trust to your
honour that ye will allow none o' your folk to be making free with
the kye, or the sheep, or the poultry--that is, that you will not
allow them to mistake ony o' them for your own, lest it bring me into
trouble.  For the laird has been in a fearful rage at some o' your
people lately; and if onything were to be amissing in the morning, or
he kenned that ye had been here, it might be as meikle as my life is
worth."

"Tush, man!" said Willie Faa, the king of the tribe, "ye dree the
death ye'll never die.  Willie Faa and his folk maun live as weel as
the laird o' Clennel.  But, there's my thumb, not a four-footed
thing, nor a feather o' a bird, shall be touched by me or mine.  But
I see the light is out in the laird's chamber window--he is asleep
and high up amang the turrets--and wherefore should ye set human
bodies in byres and stables in a night like this, when your Ha' fire
is bleezing bonnily, and there is room eneugh around it for us a'?
Gie us a seat by the cheek o' your hearth, and ye shall be nae loser;
and I promise ye that we shall be off, bag and baggage, before the
skreigh o' day, or the laird kens where his head lies."

Andrew would fain have refused this request, but he knew that it
amounted to a command; and, moreover, while he had been speaking with
the chief of the tribe, the maid-servants of the household, who had
followed him and the other men-servants to the door, had divers of
them been solicited by the females of the gang to have futurity
revealed to them.  And whether it indeed be that curiosity is more
powerful in woman than in man (as it is generally said to be), I do
not profess to determine; but certain it is, that the laird of
Clennel's maid-servants, immediately on the hint being given by the
gipsies, felt a very ardent desire to have a page or two from the
sybilline leaves read to them--at least that part of them which
related to their future husbands, and the time when they should
obtain them.  Therefore, they backed the petition or command of King
Willie, and said to Andrew--

"Really, Mr Smith, it would be very unchristian-like to put poor
wandering folk into cauld out-houses on a night like this; and, as
Willie says, there is room enough in the Ha'."

"That may be a' very true, lasses," returned Andrew, "but only ye
think what a dirdum there would be if the laird were to waken or get
wit o't!"

"Fearna the laird," said Elspeth, the wife of King Willie--"I will
lay a spell on him that he canna be roused frae sleep, till I, at
sunrise, wash my hands in Darden Lough."

The sybil then raised her arms and waved them fantastically in the
air, uttering, as she waved them, the following uncouth rhymes by way
of incantation--

  "Bonny Queen Mab, bonny Queen Mab,
    Wave ye your wee bits o' poppy wings
  Ower Clennel's laird, that he may sleep
    Till I hae washed where Darden springs."


Thus assured, Andrew yielded to his fears and the wishes of his
fellow-servants, and ushered the Faas into his master's hall for the
night.  But scarce had they taken their seats upon the oaken forms
around the fire, when--

"Come," said the Faa king, "the night is cold, pinching cold, Mr
Smith; and, while the fire warms without, is there naething in the
cellar that will warm within?  See to it, Andrew, man--thou art no
churl, or thy face is fause."

"Really, sir," replied Andrew--and, in spite of all his efforts to
appear at ease, his tongue faltered as he spoke--"I'm not altogether
certain what to say upon that subject; for ye observe that our laird
is really a very singular man; ye might as weel put your head in the
fire there as displease him in the smallest; and though Heaven kens
that I would gie to you just as freely as I would tak to mysel, yet
ye'll observe that the liquor in the cellars is not mine, but
his--and they are never sae weel plenished but I believe he would
miss a thimblefu'.  But there is some excellent cold beef in the
pantry, if ye could put up wi' the like o' it, and the home-brewed
which we servants use."

"Andrew," returned the Faa king, proudly--"castle have I none, flocks
and herds have I none, neither have I haughs where the wheat, and the
oats, and the barley grow--but, like Ishmael, my great forefather,
every man's hand is against me, and mine against them--yet, when I am
hungry, I never lack the flesh-pots o' my native land, where the
moorfowl and the venison make brown broo together.  Cauld meat agrees
nae wi' my stomach, and servants' drink was never brewed for the lord
o' Little Egypt.  Ye comprehend me, Andrew?"

"Oh, I daresay I do, sir," said the chief domestic of the house of
Clennel; "but only, as I have said, ye will recollect that the drink
is not mine to give; and if I venture upon a jug, I hope ye winna
think o' asking for another."

"We shall try it," said the royal vagrant.

Andrew, with trembling and reluctance, proceeded to the cellar, and
returned with a large earthen vessel filled with the choicest
home-brewed, which he placed upon a table in the midst of them.

    "Then each took a smack
    Of the old black jack,
  While the fire burned in the hall."


The Faa king pronounced the liquor to be palatable, and drank to his
better acquaintance with the cellars of the laird of Clennel; and his
gang followed his example.

Now, I should remark that Willie Faa, the chief of his tribe, was a
man of gigantic stature; the colour of his skin was the dingy brown
peculiar to his race; his arms were of remarkable length, and his
limbs a union of strength and lightness; his raven hair was mingled
with grey; while, in his dark eyes, the impetuosity of youth and the
cunning of age seemed blended together.  It is in vain to speak of
his dress, for it was changed daily as his circumstances or
avocations directed.  He was ever ready to assume all characters,
from the courtier down to the mendicant.  Like his wife, he was
skilled in the reading of no book but the book of fate.  Now, Elspeth
was a less agreeable personage to look upon than even her husband.
The hue of her skin was as dark as his.  She was also of his age--a
woman of full fifty.  She was the tallest female in his tribe; but
her stoutness took away from her stature.  Her eyes were small and
piercing, her nose aquiline, and her upper lip was "bearded like the
pard."

While her husband sat at his carousals, and handing the beverage to
his followers and the domestics of the house, Elspeth sat examining
the lines upon the palms of the hands of the maid-servants--pursuing
her calling as a spaewife.  And ever as she traced the lines of
matrimony, the sybil would pause and exclaim--

"Ha!--money!--money!--cross my loof again, hinny.  There is fortune
before ye!  Let me see!  A spur!--a sword!--a shield!--a gowden
purse!  Heaven bless ye!  They are there!--there, as plain as a
pikestaff; they are a' in your path.  But cross my loof again, hinny,
for until siller again cross it, I canna see whether they are to be
yours or no."

Thus did Elspeth go on until her "loof had been crossed" by the last
coin amongst the domestics of the house of Clennel; and when these
were exhausted, their trinkets were demanded and given to assist the
spell of the prophetess.  Good fortune was prognosticated to the most
of them, and especially to those who crossed the loof of the reader
of futurity most freely; but to others, perils, and sudden deaths,
and disappointments in love, and grief in wedlock, were hinted,
though to all and each of these forebodings, a something like
hope--an undefined way of escape--was pended.

Now, as the voice of Elspeth rose in solemn tones, and as the mystery
of her manner increased, not only were the maid-servants stricken
with awe and reverence for the wondrous woman, but the men-servants
also began to inquire into their fate.  And as they extended their
hands, and Elspeth traced the lines of the past upon them, ever and
anon she spoke strange words, which intimated secret facts; and she
spoke also of love-makings and likings; and ever, as she spoke, she
would raise her head and grin a ghastly smile, now at the individual
whose hand she was examining, and again at a maid-servant whose
fortune she had read; while the former would smile and the latter
blush, and their fellow domestics exclaim--

"That's wonderfu'!--that dings a'!--ye are queer folk! hoo in the
world do ye ken?"

Even the curiosity of Mr Andrew Smith was raised, and his wonder
excited; and, after he had quaffed his third cup with the gipsy king,
he, too, reverentially approached the bearded princess, extending his
hand, and begging to know what futurity had in store for him.

She raised it before her eyes, she rubbed hers over it.

"It is a dark and a difficult hand," muttered she: "here are ships
and the sea, and crossing the sea, the great danger, and a way to
avoid it--but the gowd!--the gowd that's there!  And yet ye may lose
it a'!  Cross my loof, sir--yours is an ill hand to spae--for it's
set wi' fortune, and danger, and adventure."

Andrew gave her all the money in his possession.  Now, it was
understood that she was to return the money and the trinkets with
which her loof had been crossed; and Andrew's curiosity overcoming
his fears, he ventured to intrust his property in her keeping; for,
as he thought, it was not every day that people could have everything
that was to happen unto them revealed.  But when she had again looked
upon his hand--

"It winna do," said she--"I canna see ower the danger ye hae to
encounter, the seas ye hae to cross, and the mountains o' gowd that
lie before ye yet--ye maun cross my loof again."  And when, with a
woful countenance, he stated that he had crossed it with his last
coin--

"Ye hae a chronometer, man," said she--"it tells you the minutes now,
it may enable me to show ye those that are to come!"

Andrew hesitated, and, with doubt and unwillingness, placed the
chronometer in her hand.

Elspeth wore a short cloak of faded crimson; and in a sort of pouch
in it, every coin, trinket, and other article of value which was put
into her hands were deposited, in order, as she stated, to forward
her mystic operations.  Now, the chronometer had just disappeared in
the general receptacle of offerings to the oracle, when heavy
footsteps were heard descending the staircase leading to the hall.
Poor Andrew, the ruler of the household, gasped--the blood forsook
his cheeks, his knees involuntarily knocked one against another, and
he stammered out--

"For Heaven's sake, gie me my chronometer!--Oh, gie me it!--we are a'
ruined!"

"It canna be returned till the spell's completed," rejoined Elspeth,
in a solemn and determined tone--and her countenance betrayed nothing
of her dupe's uneasiness; while her husband deliberately placed his
right hand upon a sort of dagger which he wore beneath a large coarse
jacket that was loosely flung over his shoulders.  The males in his
retinue, who were eight in number, followed his example.

In another moment, the laird, with wrath upon his countenance, burst
into the hall.

"Andrew Smith," cried he, sternly, and stamping his foot fiercely on
the floor, "what scene is this I see?  Answer me, ye robber, answer
me;--ye shall hang for it!"

"O sir! sir!" groaned Andrew, "mercy!--mercy!--O sir!" and he wrung
his hands together and shook exceedingly.

"Ye fause knave!" continued the laird, grasping him by the neck--and
dashing him from him, Andrew fell flat upon the floor, and his terror
had almost shook him from his feet before--"Speak, ye fause knave!"
resumed the laird; "what means your carousin' w' sic a gang?  Ye
robber, speak!"  And he kicked him with his foot as he lay upon the
ground.

"O sir!--mercy, sir!" vociferated Andrew, in the stupor and wildness
of terror; "I canna speak!--ye hae killed me outright!  I am
dead--stone dead!  But it wasna my blame--they'll a' say that, if
they speak the truth."

"Out! out, ye thieves!--ye gang o' plunderers, born to the
gallows!--out o' my house!" added the laird, addressing Willie Faa
and his followers.

"Thieves! ye acred loon!" exclaimed the Faa king, starting to his
feet, and drawing himself up to his full height--"wha does the worm
that burrows in the lands o' Clennel ca' thieves?  Thieves, say
ye!--speak such words to your equals, but no to me.  Your forebears
came ower wi' the Norman, invaded the nation, and seized upon
land--mine invaded it also, and only laid a tax upon the flocks, the
cattle, and the poultry--and wha ca' ye thieves?--or wi' what grace
do ye speak the word?"

"Away, ye audacious vagrant!" continued the laird; "ken ye not that
the king's authority is in my hands?--and for your former
plunderings, if I again find you setting foot upon ground o' mine, on
the nearest tree ye shall find a gibbet."

"Boast awa--boast awa, man," said Willie; "ye are safe here for me,
and mine winna harm ye; and it is a fougie cock indeed that darena
craw in its ain barn-yard.  But wait until the day when we may meet
upon the wide moor, wi' only twa bits o' steel between us, and see
wha shall brag then."

"Away!--instantly away!" exclaimed Clennel, drawing his sword, and
waving it threateningly over the head of the gipsy.

"Proud, cauld-hearted, and unfeeling mortal," said Elspeth, "will ye
turn fellow-beings from beneath your roof in a night like this, when
the fox darena creep frae its hole, and the raven trembles on the
tree?"

"Out! out! ye witch!" rejoined the laird.

"Farewell, Clennel," said the Faa king; "we will leave your roof, and
seek the shelter o' the hill-side.  But ye shall rue!  As I speak,
man, ye shall rue it!"

"Rue it!" screamed Elspeth, rising--and her small dark eyes flashed
with indignation--"he shall rue it--the bairn unborn shall rue
it--and the bann o' Elspeth Faa shall be on Clennel and his kin,
until his hearth be desolate and his spirit howl within him like the
tempest which this night rages in the heavens!"

The servants shrank together into a corner of the hall to avoid the
rage of their master; and they shook the more at the threatening
words of the weird woman, lest she should involve them in his doom;
but he laughed with scorn at her words.

"Proud, pitiless fool," resumed Elspeth, more bitterly than before,
"repress your scorn.  Whom, think ye, ye treat wi' contempt?  Ken ye
not that the humble adder which ye tread upon can destroy ye--that
the very wasp can sting ye, and there is poison in its sting?  Ye
laugh, but for your want of humanity this night, sorrow shall turn
your head grey, lang before age sit down upon your brow."

"Off! off! ye wretches!" added the laird; "vent your threats on the
wind, if it will hear ye, for I regard them as little as it will.
But keep out o' my way for the future, as ye would escape the honours
o' a hempen cravat, and the hereditary exaltation o' your race."

Willie Faa made a sign to his followers, and without speaking they
instantly rose and departed; but, as he himself reached the door, he
turned round, and significantly striking the hilt of his dagger,
exclaimed--

"Clennel! ye shall rue it!"

And the hoarse voice of Elspeth without, as the sound was borne away
on the storm, was heard crying--"He shall rue it!" and repeating her
imprecations.

Until now, poor Andrew Smith had lain groaning upon the floor more
dead than alive, though not exactly "stone dead" as he expressed it;
and ever, as he heard his master's angry voice, he groaned the more,
until in his agony he doubted his existence.  When, therefore, on the
departure of the Faas, the laird dragged him to his feet, and feeling
some pity for his terror, spoke to him more mildly, Andrew gazed
vacantly around him, his teeth chattering together, and he first
placed his hands upon his sides, to feel whether he was still indeed
the identical flesh, blood, and bones of Andrew Smith, or his
disembodied spirit; and being assured that he was still a man, he put
down his hand to feel for his chronometer, and again he groaned
bitterly--and although he now knew he was not dead, he almost wished
he were so.  The other servants thought also of their money and their
trinkets, which, as well as poor Andrew's chronometer, Elspeth, in
the hurry in which she was rudely driven from the house, had, by a
slip of memory, neglected to return to their lawful owners.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the laird's anger at his domestics,
or farther to describe Andrew's agitation; but I may say that the
laird was not wroth against the Faa gang without reason.  They had
committed ravages on his flocks--they had carried off the choicest of
his oxen--they destroyed his deer--they plundered him of his
poultry--and they even made free with the grain that he reared, and
which he could spare least of all.  But Willie Faa considered every
landed proprietor as his enemy, and thought it his duty to quarter on
them.  Moreover, it was his boisterous laugh, as he pushed round the
tankard, which aroused the laird from his slumbers, and broke
Elspeth's spell.  And the destruction of the charm, by the appearance
of their master, before she had washed her hands in Darden Lough,
caused those who had parted with their money and trinkets to grieve
for them the more, and to doubt the promises of the prophetess, or to

  "Take all for gospel that the spaefolk say."


Many weeks, however, had not passed until the laird of Clennel found
that Elspeth the gipsy's threat, that he should "_rue it_," meant
more than idle words.  His cattle sickened and died in their stalls,
or the choicest of them disappeared; his favourite horses were found
maimed in the mornings, wounded and bleeding in the fields; and,
notwithstanding the vigilance of his shepherds, the depredations on
his flocks augmented tenfold.  He doubted not but that Willie Faa and
his tribe were the authors of all the evils which were besetting him:
but he knew also their power and their matchless craft, which
rendered it almost impossible either to detect or punish them.  He
had a favourite steed, which had borne him in boyhood, and in battle
when he served in foreign wars, and one morning when he went into his
park, he found it lying bleeding upon the ground.  Grief and
indignation strove together in arousing revenge within his bosom.  He
ordered his sluthhound to be brought, and his dependants to be
summoned together, and to bring arms with them.  He had previously
observed foot-prints on the ground, and he exclaimed--

"Now the fiend take the Faas, they shall find whose turn it is to rue
before the sun gae down."

The gong was pealed on the turrets of Clennel Hall, and the kempers
with their poles bounded in every direction, with the fleetness of
mountain stags, to summon all capable of bearing arms to the presence
of the laird.  The mandate was readily obeyed; and within two hours
thirty armed men appeared in the park.  The sluthhound was led to the
foot-print; and after following it for many a weary mile over moss,
moor, and mountain, it stood and howled, and lashed its lips with its
tongue, and again ran as though its prey were at hand, as it
approached what might be called a gap in the wilderness between
Keyheugh and Clovencrag.

Now, in the space between these desolate crags stood some score of
peels, or rather half hovels, half encampments--and this primitive
city in the wilderness was the capital of the Faa king's people.

"Now for vengeance!" exclaimed Clennel; and his desire of revenge was
excited the more from perceiving several of the choicest of his
cattle, which had disappeared, grazing before the doors or holes of
the gipsy village.

"Bring whins and heather," he continued--"pile them around it, and
burn the den of thieves to the ground."

His order was speedily obeyed, and when he commanded the trumpet to
be sounded, that the inmates might defend themselves if they dared,
only two or three men and women of extreme age, and some half-dozen
children, crawled upon their hands and knees from the huts--for it
was impossible to stand upright in them.

The aged men and women howled when they beheld the work of
destruction that was in preparation, and the children screamed when
they heard them howl.  But the laird of Clennel had been injured, and
he turned a deaf ear to their misery.  A light was struck, and a
dozen torches applied at once.  The whins crackled, the heather
blazed, and the flames overtopped the hovels which they surrounded,
and which within an hour became a heap of smouldering ashes.

Clennel and his dependants returned home, driving the cattle which
had been stolen from him before them, and rejoicing in what they had
done.  On the following day, Willie Faa and a part of his tribe
returned to the place of rendezvous--their city and home in the
mountains--and they found it a heap of smoking ruins, and the old men
and the old women of the tribe--their fathers and their
mothers--sitting wailing upon the ruins, and warming over them their
shivering limbs, while the children wept around them for food.

"Whose work is this?" inquired Willie, while anxiety and anger
flashed in his eyes.

"The Laird o' Clennel!--the Laird o' Clennel!" answered every voice
at the same instant.

"By this I swear!" exclaimed the king of the Faas, drawing his dagger
from beneath his coat, "from this night henceforth he is laird nor
man nae langer."  And he turned hastily from the ruins, as if to put
his threat in execution.

"Stay, ye madcap!" cried Elspeth following him, "would ye fling away
revenge for half a minute's satisfaction?"

"No, wife," cried he, "nae mair than I would sacrifice living a free
and a fu' life for half an hour's hangin'."

"Stop, then," returned she, "and let our vengeance fa' upon him, so
that it may wring his life away, drap by drap, until his heart be
dry; and grief, shame, and sorrow burn him up, as he has here burned
house and home o' Elspeth Faa and her kindred."

"What mean ye, woman?" said Willie, hastily; "if I thought ye would
come between me and my revenge, I would drive this bit steel through
you wi' as goodwill as I shall drive it through him."

"And ye shall be welcome," said Elspeth.  She drew him aside, and
whispered a few minutes in his ear.  He listened attentively.  At
times he seemed to start, and at length, sheathing his dagger and
grasping her hand, he exclaimed--"Excellent, Elspeth!--ye have
it!--ye have it!"

At this period the laird of Clennel was about thirty years of age,
and two years before he had been married to Eleanor de Vere, a lady
alike distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments.  They had an
infant son, who was the delight of his mother, and his father's
pride.  Now, for two years after the conflagration of their little
town, Clennel heard nothing of his old enemies the Faas, neither did
they molest him, nor had they been seen in the neighbourhood, and he
rejoiced in having cleared his estate of such dangerous visitors.
But the Faa king, listening to the advice of his wife, only "nursed
his wrath to keep it warm," and retired from the neighbourhood, that
he might accomplish, in its proper season, his design of vengeance
more effectually, and with greater cruelty.

The infant heir of the house of Clennel had been named Henry, and he
was about completing his third year--an age at which children are,
perhaps, most interesting, and when their fondling and their
prattling sink deepest into a parent's heart--for all is then beheld
on childhood's sunny side, and all is innocence and love.  Now, it
was in a lovely day in April, when every bird had begun its annual
song, and flowers were bursting into beauty, buds into leaves, and
the earth resuming its green mantle, when Lady Clennel and her infant
son, who then, as I have said, was about three years of age, went
forth to enjoy the loveliness and the luxuries of nature, in the
woods which surrounded their mansion, and Andrew Smith accompanied
them as their guide and protector.  They had proceeded somewhat more
than a mile from the house, and the child, at intervals breaking away
from them, sometimes ran before his mother, and at others sauntered
behind her, pulling the wild flowers that strewed their path, when a
man, springing from a dark thicket, seized the child in his arms, and
again darted into the wood.  Lady Clennel screamed aloud, and rushed
after him.  Andrew, who was coming dreaming behind, got but a glance
of the ruffian stranger--but that glance was enough to reveal to him
the tall, terrible figure of Willie Faa, the gipsy king.

There are moments when, and circumstances under which even cowards
become courageous, and this was one of those moments and
circumstances which suddenly inspired Andrew (who was naturally no
hero) with courage.  He, indeed, loved the child as though he had
been his own; and following the example of Lady Clennel, he drew his
sword and rushed into the wood.  He possessed considerable speed of
foot, and he soon passed the wretched mother, and came in sight of
the pursued.  The unhappy lady, who ran panting and screaming as she
rushed along, unable to keep pace with them, lost all trace of where
the robber of her child had fled, and her cries of agony and
bereavement rang through the woods.

Andrew, however, though he did not gain ground upon the gipsy, still
kept within sight of him, and shouted to him as he ran, saying that
all the dependants of Clennel would soon be on horseback at his
heels, and trusting that every moment he would drop the child upon
the ground.  Still Faa flew forward, bearing the boy in his arm, and
disregarding the cries and threats of his pursuer.  He knew that
Andrew's was not what could be called a heart of steel, but he was
aware that he had a powerful arm, and could use a sword as well as a
better man; and he knew also that cowards will fight as desperately,
when their life is at stake, as the brave.

The desperate chase continued for four hours, and till after the sun
had set, and the gloaming was falling thick on the hills.  Andrew,
being younger and unencumbered, had at length gained ground upon the
gipsy, and was within ten yards of him when he reached the Coquet
side, about a mile below this town, at the hideous Thrumb, where the
deep river, for many yards, rushes through a mere chasm in the rock.
The Faa, with the child beneath his arm, leaped across the fearful
gulf, and the dark flood gushed between him and his pursuer.  He
turned round, and, with a horrid laugh, looked towards Andrew and
unsheathed his dagger.  But even at this moment the unwonted courage
of the chief servant of Clennel did not fail him, and as he rushed up
and down upon one side of the gulf, that he might spring across and
avoid the dagger of the gipsy, the other ran in like manner on the
other side; and when Andrew stood as if ready to leap, the Faa king,
pointing with his dagger to the dark flood that rolled between them,
cried--

"See, fool! eternity divides us!"

"And for that bairn's sake, ye wretch, I'll brave it!" exclaimed
Andrew, while his teeth gnashed together; and he stepped back, in
order that he might spring across with the greater force and safety.

"Hold, man!" cried the Faa; "attempt to cross to me, and I will
plunge this bonny heir o' Clennel into the flood below."

"Oh, gracious! gracious!" cried Andrew, and his resolution and
courage forsook him; "ye monster!--ye barbarian!--oh, what shall I do
now!"

"Go back whence you came," said the gipsy, "or follow me another step
and the child dies."

"Oh, ye butcher!--ye murderer!" continued the other--and he tore his
hair in agony--"hae ye nae mercy?"

"Sic mercy as your maister had," returned the Faa, "when he burned
our dwellings about the ears o' the aged and infirm, and o' my
helpless bairns!  Ye shall find in me the mercy o' the fasting wolf,
o' the tiger when it laps blood!"

Andrew perceived that to rescue the child was now impossible, and
with a heavy heart he returned to his master's house, in which there
was no sound save that of lamentation.

For many weeks, yea months, the Laird of Clennel, his friends, and
his servants, sought anxiously throughout every part of the country
to obtain tidings of his child, but their search was vain.  It was
long ere his lady was expected to recover the shock, and the
affliction sat heavy on his soul, while in his misery he vowed
revenge upon all of the gipsy race.  But neither Willie Faa nor any
of his tribe were again seen upon his estates, or heard of in their
neighbourhood.

Four years were passed from the time that their son was stolen from
them, and an infant daughter smiled upon the knee of Lady Clennel;
and oft as it smiled in her face, and stretched its little hands
towards her, she would burst into tears, as the smile and the
infantine fondness of her little daughter reminded her of her lost
Henry.--They had had other children, but they had died while but a
few weeks old.

For two years there had been a maiden in the household named Susan,
and to her care, when the child was not in her own arms, Lady Clennel
intrusted her infant daughter; for every one loved Susan, because of
her affectionate nature and docile manners--she was, moreover, an
orphan, and they pitied while they loved her.  But one evening, when
Lady Clennel desired that her daughter might be brought her in order
that she might present her to a company who had come to visit them
(an excusable, though not always a pleasant vanity in mothers),
neither Susan nor the child were to be found.  Wild fears seized the
bosom of the already bereaved mother, and her husband felt his heart
throb within him.  They sought the woods, the hills, the cottages
around; they wandered by the sides of the rivers and the mountain
burns, but no one had seen, no trace could be discovered of either
the girl or the child.

I will not, because I cannot, describe the overwhelming misery of the
afflicted parents.  Lady Clennel spent her days in tears and her
nights in dreams of her children, and her husband sank into a settled
melancholy, while his hatred of the Faa race became more implacable,
and he burst into frequent exclamations of vengeance against them.

More than fifteen years had passed, and though the poignancy of their
grief had abated, yet their sadness was not removed, for they had
been able to hear nothing that could throw light upon the fate of
their children.  About this period, sheep were again missed from the
flocks, and, in one night, the hen-roosts were emptied.  There needed
no other proof that a Faa gang was again in the neighbourhood.  Now,
Northumberland at that period was still thickly covered with wood,
and abounded with places where thieves might conceal themselves in
security.  Partly from a desire of vengeance, and partly from the
hope of being able to extort from some of the tribe information
respecting his children, Clennel armed his servants, and taking his
hounds with him, set out in quest of the plunderers.

For two days their search was unsuccessful, but on the third the dogs
raised their savage cry, and rushed into a thicket in a deep glen
amongst the mountains.  Clennel and his followers hurried forward,
and in a few minutes perceived the fires of the Faa encampment.  The
hounds had already alarmed the vagrant colony, they had sprung upon
many of them and torn their flesh with their tusks; but the Faas
defended themselves against them with their poniards, and, before
Clennel's approach, more than half his hounds lay dead upon the
ground, and his enemies fled.  Yet there was one poor girl amongst
them, who had been attacked by a fierce hound, and whom no one
attempted to rescue, as she strove to defend herself against it with
her bare hands.  Her screams for assistance rose louder and more
loud; and as Clennel and his followers drew near, and her companions
fled, they turned round, and, with a fiendish laugh, cried--

"Rue it now!"

Maddened more keenly by the words, he was following on in pursuit,
without rescuing the screaming girl from the teeth of the hound, or
seeming to perceive her, when a woman, suddenly turning round from
amongst the flying gipsies, exclaimed--

"For your sake!--for Heaven's sake!  Laird Clennel! save my bairn."

He turned hastily aside, and, seizing the hound by the throat, tore
it from the lacerated girl, who sank, bleeding, terrified, and
exhausted, upon the ground.  Her features were beautiful, and her
yellow hair contrasted ill with the tawny hue of her countenance and
the snowy whiteness of her bosom, which in the struggle had been
revealed.  The elder gipsy woman approached.  She knelt by the side
of the wounded girl.

"O my bairn!" she exclaimed, "what has this day brought upon
me!--they have murdered you!  This is rueing, indeed; and I rue too!"

"Susan!" exclaimed Clennel, as he listened to her words, and his eyes
had been for several seconds fixed upon her countenance.

"Yes!--Susan!--guilty Susan!" cried the gipsy.

"Wretch!" he exclaimed, "my child!--where is my child?--is this"--and
he gazed on the poor girl, his voice failed him, and he burst into
tears.

"Yes!--yes!" replied she bitterly.  "it is her--there lies your
daughter--look upon her face."

He needed, indeed, but to look upon her countenance--disfigured as it
was, and dyed with weeds to give it a sallow hue--to behold in it
every lineament of her mother's, lovely as when they first met his
eye and entered his heart.  He flung himself on the ground by her
side, he raised her head, he kissed her cheek, he exclaimed, "my
child!--my child!--my lost one!  I have destroyed thee!"

He bound up her lacerated arms, and applied a flask of wine, which he
carried with him, to her lips, and he supported her on his knee, and
again kissing her cheek, sobbed, "my child!--my own!"

Andrew Smith also bent over her and said, "Oh, it is her! there isna
the smallest doubt o' that.  I could swear to her among a thousand.
She's her mother's very picture."  And, turning to Susan, he added,
"O Susan, woman, but ye hae been a terrible hypocrite!"

Clennel having placed his daughter on horseback before him,
supporting her with his arm, Susan was set between two of his
followers, and conducted to the hall.

Before the tidings were made known to Lady Clennel, the wounds of her
daughter were carefully dressed, the dye that changed the colour of
her countenance was removed, and her gipsy garb was exchanged for
more seemly apparel.

Clennel anxiously entered the apartment of his lady, to reveal to her
the tale of joy; but when he entered, he wist not how to introduce
it.  He knew that excess of sudden joy was not less dangerous than
excess of grief, and his countenance was troubled, though its
expression was less sad than it had been for many years.

"Eleanor," he at length began, "cheer up."

"Why, I am not sadder than usual, dear," replied she, in her wonted
gentle manner; "and to be more cheerful would ill become one who has
endured my sorrows."

"True, true," said he, "but our affliction may not be so severe as we
have thought--there may be hope--there may be joy for us yet."

"What mean ye, husband?" inquired she, eagerly; "have ye heard
aught--aught of my children?--you have!--you have!--your countenance
speaks it."

"Yes, dear Eleanor," returned he, "I have heard of our daughter."

"And she lives?--she lives?--tell me that she lives!"

"Yes, she lives."

"And I shall see her--I shall embrace my child again?"

"Yes, love, yes," replied he, and burst into tears.

"When--oh, when?" she exclaimed, "can you take me to her now?"

"Be calm, my sweet one.  You shall see our child--our long-lost
child.  You shall see her now--she is here."

"Here!--my child!" she exclaimed, and sank back upon her seat.

Words would fail to paint the tender interview--the mother's joy--the
daughter's wonder--the long, the passionate embrace--the tears of
all--the looks--the words--the moments of unutterable feeling.

I shall next notice the confession of Susan.  Clennel promised her
forgiveness if she would confess the whole truth; and he doubted not,
that from her he would also obtain tidings of his son, and learn
where he might find him, if he yet lived.  I shall give her story in
her own words.

"When I came amongst you," she began, "I said that I was an orphan,
and I told ye truly, so far as I knew myself.  I have been reared
amongst the people ye call gipsies from infancy.  They fed me before
I could provide for myself.  I have wandered with them through many
lands.  They taught me many things; and, while young, sent me as a
servant into families, that I might gather information to assist them
in upholding their mysteries of fortune-telling, I dared not to
disobey them--they kept me as their slave--and I knew that they would
destroy my life for an act of disobedience.  I was in London when ye
cruelly burned down the bit town between the Keyhaugh and Clovencrag.
That night would have been your last, but Elspeth Faa vowed more
cruel vengeance than death on you and yours.  After our king had
carried away your son, I was ordered from London to assist in the
plot o' revenge.  I at length succeeded in getting into your family,
and the rest ye know.  When ye were a' busy wi' your company, I
slipped into the woods wi' the bairn in my arms, where others were
ready to meet us; and long before ye missed us, we were miles across
the hills, and frae that day to this your daughter has passed as
mine."

"But tell me all, woman," cried Clennel, "as you hope for either
pardon or protection--where is my son, my little Harry?  Does he
live?--where shall I find him?"

"As I live," replied Susan, "I cannot tell.  There are but two know
concerning him--and that is the king and his wife Elspeth; and there
is but one way of discovering anything respecting him, which is by
crossing Elspeth's loof, that she may betray her husband; and she
would do it for revenge's sake, for an ill husband has he been to
her, and in her old days he has discarded her for another."

"And where may she be found?" inquired Clennel, earnestly.

"That," added Susan, "is a question I cannot answer.  She was with
the people in the glen to-day, and was first to raise the laugh when
your dog fastened its teeth in the flesh of your ain bairn.  But she
may be far to seek and ill to find now--for she is wi' those that
travel fast and far, and that will not see her hindmost."

Deep was the disappointment of the laird when he found he could
obtain no tidings of his son.  But, at the intercession of his
daughter (whose untutored mind her fond mother had begun to
instruct), Susan was freely pardoned, promised protection from her
tribe, and again admitted as one of the household.

I might describe the anxious care of the fond mother, as, day by day,
she sat by her new-found and lovely daughter's side, teaching her,
and telling her of a hundred things of which she had never heard
before, while her father sat gazing and listening near them,
rejoicing over both.

But the ray of sunshine which had penetrated the house of Clennel was
not destined to be of long duration.  At that period a fearful cloud
overhung the whole land, and the fury of civil war seemed about to
burst forth.

The threatening storm did explode; a bigoted king overstepped his
prerogative, set at nought the rights and the liberties of the
subject, and an indignant people stained their hands with blood.  A
political convulsion shook the empire to its centre.  Families and
individuals became involved in the general catastrophe; and the house
of Clennel did not escape.  In common with the majority of the
English gentry of that period, Clennel was a stanch loyalist, and if
not exactly a lover of the king, or an ardent admirer of his acts,
yet one who would fight for the crown though it should (as it was
expressed about the time) "hang by a bush."  When, therefore, the
parliament declared war against the king, and the name of Cromwell
spread awe throughout the country, and when some said that a prophet
and deliverer had risen amongst them, and others an ambitious
hypocrite and a tyrant, Clennel armed a body of his dependants, and
hastened to the assistance of his sovereign, leaving his wife and his
newly-found daughter with the promise of a speedy return.

It is unnecessary to describe all that he did or encountered during
the civil wars.  He had been a zealous partizan of the first Charles,
and he fought for the fortunes of his son to the last.  He was
present at the battle of Worcester, which Cromwell calls his
"crowning mercy," in the September of 1651, where the already
dispirited royalists were finally routed; and he fought by the side
of the king until the streets were heaped with dead; and when Charles
fled, he, with others, accompanied him to the borders of
Staffordshire.

Having bid the young prince an affectionate farewell, Clennel turned
back, with the intention of proceeding on his journey, on the
following day, to Northumberland, though he was aware, that, from the
part which he had taken in the royal cause, even his person was in
danger.  Yet the desire again to behold his wife and daughter
overcame his fears, and the thought of meeting them in some degree
consoled him for the fate of his prince, and the result of the
struggle in which he had been engaged.

But he had not proceeded far when he was met by two men dressed as
soldiers of the Parliamentary army--the one a veteran with grey
hairs, and the other a youth.  The shades of night had set in; but
the latter he instantly recognised as a young soldier whom he had
that day wounded in the streets of Worcester.

"Stand!" said the old man, as they met him; and the younger drew his
sword.

"If I stand!" exclaimed Clennel, "it shall not be when an old man and
a boy command me."  And, following their example, he unsheathed his
sword.

"Boy!" exclaimed the youth; "whom call ye boy?--think ye, because ye
wounded me this morn, that fortune shall aye sit on your arm?--yield
or try."

They made several thrusts at each other, and the old man, as an
indifferent spectator, stood looking on.  But the youth, by a
dexterous blow, shivered the sword in Clennel's hand, and left him at
his mercy.

"Now yield ye," he exclaimed; "the chance is mine now--in the morning
it was thine."

"Ye seem a fair foe," replied Clennel, "and loath am I to yield, but
that I am weaponless."

"Despatch him at once!" growled the old man.  "If he spilled your
blood in the morning, there can be no harm in spilling his the
night--and especially after giein' him a fair chance."

"Father," returned the youth, "would ye have me to kill a man in cold
blood?"

"Let him submit to be bound then, hands and eyes, or I will," cried
the senior.

The younger obeyed, and Clennel, finding himself disarmed, submitted
to his fate; and his hands were bound, and his eyes tied up, so that
he knew not where they led him.

After wandering many miles, and having lain upon what appeared the
cold earth for a lodging, he was aroused from a comfortless and
troubled sleep, by a person tearing the bandage from his eyes, and
ordering him to prepare for his trial.  He started to his feet.  He
looked around, and beheld that he stood in the midst of a gipsy
encampment.  He was not a man given to fear, but a sickness came over
his heart when he thought of his wife and daughter, and that, knowing
the character of the people in whose power he was, he should never
behold them again.

The males of the Faa tribe began to assemble in a sort of half circle
in the area of the encampment, and in the midst of them, towering
over the heads of all, he immediately distinguished the tall figure
of Willie Faa, in whom he also discovered the grey-haired
Parliamentary soldier of the previous night.  But the youth with whom
he had twice contended and once wounded, and by whom he had been made
prisoner, he was unable to single out amongst them.

He was rudely dragged before them, and Willie Faa cried--"Ken ye the
culprit?"

"Clennel o' Northumberland!--our enemy!" exclaimed twenty voices.

"Yes," continued Willie, "Clennel, our enemy--the burner o' our
humble habitations--that left the auld, the sick, the infirm, and the
helpless, and the infants o' our kindred to perish in the flaming
ruins.  Had we burned his house, the punishment would have been
death; and shall we do less to him than he would do to us?"

"No! no!" they exclaimed with one voice.

"But," added Willie, "though he would have disgraced us wi' a
gallows, as he has been a soldier, I propose that he hae the honour
o' a soldier's death, and that Harry Faa be appointed to shoot him."

"All! all! all!" was the cry.

"He shall die with the setting sun," said Willie, and again they
cried, "Agreed!"

Such was the form of trial which Clennel underwent, when he was again
rudely dragged away, and placed in a tent round which four strong
Faas kept guard.  He had not been alone an hour, when his judge, the
Faa king, entered, and addressed him---

"Now, Laird Clennel, say ye that I haena lived to see day about wi'
ye.  When ye turned me frae beneath your roof, when the drift was
fierce and the wind howled in the moors, was it not tauld to ye that
_ye would rue it!_--but ye mocked the admonition and the threat, and,
after that, cruelly burned us out o' house and ha'.  When I came
hame, I saw my auld mother, that was within three years o' a hunder,
couring ower the reeking ruins, without a wa' to shelter her, and
crooning curses on the doer o' the black deed.  There were my
youngest bairns, too, crouching by their granny's side, starving wi'
hunger as weel as wi' cauld, for ye had burned a', and haudin' their
bits o' hands before the burnin' ruins o' the house that they were
born in, to warm them!  That night I vowed vengeance on you; and even
on that night I would have executed it, but I was prevented; and glad
am I now that I was prevented, for my vengeance has been complete--or
a' but complete.  Wi' my ain hand I snatched your son and heir from
his mother's side, and a terrible chase I had for it; but revenge
lent me baith strength and speed.  And when ye had anither bairn that
was like to live, I forced a lassie, that some o' our folk had stolen
when an infant, to bring it to us.  Ye have got your daughter back
again, but no before she has cost ye mony a sad heart and mony a saut
tear; and that was some revenge.  But the substance o' my
satisfaction and revenge lies in what I hae to tell ye.  Ye die this
night as the sun gaes down; and, hearken to me now--the young soldier
whom ye wounded on the streets o' Worcester, and who last night made
you prisoner, was your son--your heir--your lost son!  Ha!
ha!--Clennel, am I revenged?"

"My son!" screamed the prisoner--"monster, what is it that ye say?
Strike me dead, now I am in your power--but torment me not!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" again laughed the grey-haired savage--"man, ye are
about to die, and ye know not that ye are born.  Ye have not heard
half I have to tell.  I heard that ye had joined the standard o' King
Charles.  I, a king in my ain right, care for neither your king nor
parliament; but I resolved to wear, for a time, the cloth o' old
Noll, and to make your son do the same, that I might hae an
opportunity o' meeting you as an enemy, and seeing _him_ strike you
to the heart.  That satisfaction I had not; but I had its equivalent.
Yesterday, I saw you shed his blood on the streets o' Worcester, and
in the evening he gave you a prisoner into my hands that desired you."

"Grey-haired monster!" exclaimed Clennel, "have ye no feeling--no
heart?  Speak ye to torment me, or tell me truly, have I seen my son?"

"Patience, man!" said the Faa, with a smile of sardonic triumph--"my
story is but half finished.  It was the blood o' your son ye shed
yesterday at Worcester--it was your son who disarmed ye, and gave ye
into my power; and best o' a'! now, hear me! hear me! lose not a
word!--it is the hand o' your son that this night, at sunset, shall
send you to eternity!  Now, tell me, Clennel, am I no revenged?  Do
ye no rue it?"

"Wretch! wretch!" cried the miserable parent, "in mercy strike me
dead.  If I have raised my sword against my son, let that suffice
ye!--but spare, oh, spare my child from being an involuntary
parricide!"

"Hush, fool!" said the Faa; "I have waited for this consummation o'
my revenge for twenty years, and think ye that I will be deprived o'
it now by a few whining words?  Remember, sunset!" he added, and left
the tent.

Evening came, and the disk of the sun began to disappear behind the
western hills.  Men and women, the old and the young, amongst the
Faas, came out from their encampment to behold the death of their
enemy.  Clennel was brought forth between two, his hands fastened to
his sides, and a bandage round his mouth, to prevent him making
himself known to his executioner.  A rope was also brought round his
body, and he was tied to the trunk of an old ash tree.  The women of
the tribe began a sort of yell or coronach; and their king, stepping
forward, and smiling savagely in the face of his victim, cried aloud--

"Harry Faa! stand forth and perform the duty your tribe have imposed
on you."

A young man, reluctantly, and with a slow and trembling step, issued
from one of the tents.  He carried a musket in his hand, and placed
himself in front of the prisoner, at about twenty yards from him.

"Make ready!" cried Willie Faa, in a voice like thunder.  And the
youth, though his hands shook, levelled the musket at his victim.

But, at that moment, one who, to appearance, seemed a maniac, sprang
from a clump of whins behind the ash tree where the prisoner was
bound, and, throwing herself before him, she cried--"Hold!--would you
murder your own father?  Harry Clennel!--would you murder your
father?  Mind ye not when ye was stolen frae your mother's side, as
ye gathered wild flowers in the wood?"

It was Elspeth Faa.

The musket dropped from the hands of the intended executioner--a
thousand recollections, that he had often fancied dreams, rushed
across his memory.  He again seized the musket, he rushed forward to
his father, but, ere he reached, Elspeth had cut the cords that bound
the laird, and placed a dagger in his hand for his defence, and, with
extended arms, he flew to meet the youth, crying--"My son!--my son!"

The old Faa king shook with rage and disappointment, and his first
impulse was to poniard his wife--but he feared to do so; for although
he had injured her, and had not seen her for years, her influence was
greater with the tribe than his.

"Now, Willie," cried she, addressing him, "wha rues it now?  Fareweel
for ance and a'--and the bairn I brought up will find a shelter for
my auld head."

It were vain to tell how Clennel and his son wept on each other's
neck, and how they exchanged forgiveness.  But such was the influence
of Elspeth, that they departed from the midst of the Faas unmolested,
and she accompanied them.

Imagination must picture the scene when the long-lost son flung
himself upon the bosom of his mother, and pressed his sister's hand
in his.  Clennel Hall rang with the sounds of joy for many days; and,
ere they were ended, Andrew Smith placed a ring upon the finger of
Susan, and they became one flesh--she a respectable woman.  And old
Elspeth lived to the age of ninety and seven years beneath its roof.




THE RIVAL NIGHTCAPS.

BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

In the neighbourhood of the suburban village of Bridgeton, near
Glasgow, there lived, a good many years ago, a worthy man, and an
excellent weaver, of the name of Thomas Callender, and his wife, a
bustling, active woman, but, if anything, a little of what is called
the randy.  We have said that Thomas's occupation was the loom.  It
was so; but, be it known, that he was not a mere journeyman
weaver--one who is obliged to toil for the subsistence of the day
that is passing over him, and whose sole dependence is on the labour
of his hands.  By no means.  Thomas had been all his days, a careful,
thrifty man, and had made his hay while the sun shone;--when wages
were good, he had saved money--as much as could keep him in a small
way, independent of labour, should sickness or any other casualty
render it necessary for him to fall back on his secret resources.
Being, at the time we speak of, however, suffering under no bodily
affliction of any kind, but, on the contrary, being hale and hearty,
and not much past the meridian of life, he continued at his loom,
although, perhaps, not altogether with the perseverance and assiduity
which had distinguished the earlier part of his brilliant career.
The consciousness of independence, and, probably, some slight
preliminary touches from approaching eild, had rather abated the
energy of his exertions; yet Thomas still made a fair week's wage of
it, as matters went.  Now, with a portion of the honest wealth which
he had acquired, Mr Callender had built himself a good substantial
tenement--the first floor of which was occupied by looms, which were
let on hire; the second was his own place of residence; and the third
was divided into small domiciles, and let to various tenants.  To the
house was attached a small garden, a kail-yard, in which he was wont,
occasionally, to recreate himself with certain botanical and
horticultural pursuits, the latter being specially directed to the
cultivation of greens, cabbages, leeks, and other savoury and useful
pot herbs.

But Thomas's mansion stood not alone in its glory.  A rival stood
near.  This was the dwelling of Mr John Anderson, in almost every
respect the perfect counterpart of that of Mr Thomas Callender--a
similarity which is in part accounted for by the facts that John was
also a weaver, that he too had made a little money by a life of
industry and economy, and that the house was built by himself.  By
what we have just said, then, we have shown, we presume, that Thomas
and John were near neighbours; and, having done so, it follows, of
course, that their wives were near neighbours also; but we beg to
remark, regarding the latter, that it by no means, therefore, follows
that they were friends, or that they had any liking for each other.
The fact, indeed, was quite otherwise.  They hated each other with
great cordiality--a hatred in which a feeling of jealousy of each
other's manifestations of wealth, whether in matters relating to
their respective houses or persons, or those of their husbands, was
the principal feature.  Any new article of dress which the one was
seen to display, was sure to be immediately repeated, or, if
possible, surpassed by the other; and the same spirit of retaliation
was carried throughout every department of their domestic economy.

Between the husbands, too, there was no great good will; for, besides
being influenced, to a certain extent, in their feelings towards each
other by their wives, they had had a serious difference on their own
account.  John Anderson, on evil purpose intent, had once stoned some
ducks of Thomas Callender's out of a dub, situated in the rear of,
and midway between the two houses; claiming said dub for the especial
use of his ducks alone; and, on that occasion, had maimed and
otherwise severely injured a very fine drake, the property of his
neighbour, Thomas Callender.  Now, Thomas very naturally resented
this unneighbourly proceeding on the part of John; and, further,
insisted that his ducks had as good a right to the dub as Anderson's.
Anderson denied the justice of this claim; Callender maintained it;
and the consequence was a series of law proceedings, which mulcted
each of them of somewhere about fifty pounds sterling money, and
finally ended in the decision that they should divide the dub between
them in equal portions, which was accordingly done.

The good-will, then, towards each other, between the husbands, was
thus not much greater than between their wives; but, in their case,
of course, it was not marked by any of those outbreaks and overt acts
which distinguished the enmity of their better halves.  The dislike
of the former was passive, that of the latter active--most
indefatigably active; for Mrs Anderson was every bit as spirited a
woman as her neighbour, Mrs Callender, and was a dead match for her
in any way she might try.

Thus, then, stood matters between these two rival houses of York and
Lancaster, when Mrs Callender, on looking from one of her windows one
day, observed that the head of her rival's husband, who was at the
moment recreating himself in his garden, was comfortably set off with
a splendid, new striped Kilmarnock nightcap.  Now, when Mrs Callender
saw this, and recollected the very shabby, faded article of the same
denomination--"mair like a dish-cloot," as she muttered to herself,
"than onything else"--which her Thomas wore, she determined on
instantly providing him with a new one; resolved, as she also
remarked to herself, not to let the Andersons beat her, even in the
matter of a nightcap.  But Mrs Callender not only resolved on
rivalling her neighbour, in the matter of having a new nightcap for
her husband, but in surpassing her in the quality of the said
nightcap.  She determined that her "man's" should be a red one; "a
far mair genteeler thing," as she said to herself, "than John
Anderson's vulgar striped Kilmarnock."  Having settled this matter to
her own satisfaction, and having dexterously prepared her husband for
the vision of a new nightcap--which she did by urging sundry reasons,
totally different from those under whose influence she really acted,
as she knew that he would never give in to such an absurdity as a
rivalship with his neighbour in the matter of a nightcap: this matter
settled then, we say, the following day saw Mrs Callender sailing
into Glasgow, to purchase a red nightcap for her husband--a mission
which, we need not say, she very easily accomplished.  Her choice was
one of the brightest hue she could find--a flaming article, that
absolutely dazzled Thomas with the intensity of its glare, when it
was triumphantly unrolled before him.

"Jenny," said the latter, in perfect simplicity of heart, and utter
ignorance of the true cause of his wife's care of his comfort in the
present instance--"Jenny, but that _is_ a bonny thing," he said,
looking admiringly at the gaudy commodity, into which he had now
thrust his hand and part of his arm, in order to give it all possible
extension, and thus holding it up before him as he spoke.

"Really it _is_ a bonny thing," he replied, "and, I warrant, a
comfortable."

"Isna't?" replied his wife, triumphantly.  And she would have added,
"How far prettier and mair genteeler a thing than John Anderson's!"
But as this would have betrayed secrets, she refrained, and merely
added, "Now, my man, Tammas, ye'll just wear't when ye gang about the
doors and the yard.  It'll mak' ye look decent and respectable--what
ye wasna in that creeshy cloot that ye're wearin', that made ye look
mair like a tauty bogle than a Christian man."

Thomas merely smiled at these remarks, and made no reply in words.

Thus far, then, Mrs Callender's plot had gone on swimmingly.  There
only wanted now her husband's appearance in the garden in his new red
nightcap, where the latter could not but be seen by her rival, to
complete her triumph; and this satisfaction she was not long denied.
Thomas, at her suggestion (warily and cautiously urged, however)
instantly took the field in his new nightcap; and the result was as
complete and decisive as the heart of woman, in Mrs Callender's
circumstances, could desire.  Mrs Anderson saw the nightcap, guessed
the cause of its appearance, and resolved to be avenged.  In that
moment, when her sight was blasted, her pride humbled, and her
spirits roused, which they were all at one and the same time by the
vision of Thomas Callender's new red nightcap, she resolved on
getting her husband to strike the striped cap, and mount one of
precisely the same description--better, if possible, but she was not
sure if this could be had.

Now, on prevailing on _her_ husband to submit to the acquisition of
another new nightcap, Mrs Anderson had a much more difficult task to
perform than her rival; for the cap that John was already provided
with, unlike Thomas's, was not a week out of the shop, and no earthly
good reason, one would think, could therefore be urged why he should
so soon get another.  But what will not woman's wit accomplish?
Anything!  As proof of this, if proof were wanted, we need only
mention that Mrs Anderson _did_ succeed in this delicate and
difficult negotiation, and prevailed upon John, first, to allow her
to go into Glasgow to buy him a new red nightcap, and to promise to
wear it when it should be bought.  How she accomplished this--what
sort of reasoning she employed--we know not; but certain it is that
it was so.  Thus fully warranted, eagerly and cleverly did Mrs
Anderson, on the instant, prepare to execute the mission to which
this warrant referred.  In ten minutes she was dressed, and in one
more was on her way to Glasgow, to make the desiderated purchase.
Experiencing of course as little difficulty in effecting this matter
as her rival had done, Mrs Anderson soon found herself in possession
of a red nightcap, as bright, every bit, as Mr Callender's; and this
cap she had the happiness of drawing on the head of her unconscious
husband, who, we need scarcely add, knew as little of the real cause
of his being fitted out with this new piece of head-gear as his
neighbour, Callender.

Thus far, then, with Mrs Anderson too, went the plot of the nightcaps
smoothly; and all that she also now wanted to attain the end she
aimed at, was her husband's appearance in _his_ garden, with his new
acquisition on.

This consummation she also quickly brought round.  John sallied out
with his red nightcap; and, oh, joy of joys!  Mrs Callender saw it.
Ay, Mrs Callender saw it--at once recognised in it the spirit which
had dictated its display; and deep and deadly was the revenge that
she vowed.

"Becky, Becky!" she exclaimed, in a tone of lofty indignation--and
thus summoning to her presence, from an adjoining apartment, her
daughter, a little girl of about ten years of age--"rin owre dereckly
to Lucky Anderson's and tell her to gie me my jeely can immediately."
And Mrs Callender stamped her foot, grew red in the face, and
exhibited sundry other symptoms of towering passion.  Becky instantly
obeyed the order so peremptorily given; and, while she is doing so,
we may throw in a digressive word or two, by the way of more fully
enlightening the reader regarding the turn which matters seemed now
about to take.  Be it known to him, then, that the demand for the
jelly pot, which was now about to be made on Mrs Anderson, was not a
_bonâ fide_ proceeding.  It was not made in good faith; for Mrs
Callender knew well, and had been told so fifty times, that the said
jelly pot was no longer in existence as a jelly pot; and, moreover,
she had been, as often as she was told this, offered full
compensation, which might be about three farthings sterling money of
this realm, for the demolished commodity.  Moreover, again, it was
three years since it had been borrowed.  From all this, the reader
will at once perceive what was the fact--that the sending for the
said jelly pot, on the present occasion, and in the way described,
was a mere breaking of ground previous to the performance of some
other contemplated operations.  It was, in truth, entirely a tactical
proceeding--a dexterously and ingeniously-laid pretext for a certain
intended measure which could not decently have stood on its own
simple merits.  In proof of this, we need only state, that it is
beyond all question that nothing could have disappointed Mrs
Callender more than the return of the desiderated jelly pot.  But
this, she knew, she had not to fear, and the result showed that she
was right.  The girl shortly came back with the usual reply--that the
pot was broken; but that Mrs Anderson would cheerfully pay the value
of it, if Mrs Callender would say what that was.  To the
inexpressible satisfaction of the latter, however, the message, on
this occasion, was accompanied by some impertinences which no woman
of spirit could tamely submit to.  She was told, for instance, that
"she made mair noise aboot her paltry, dirty jelly mug, a thousand
times, than it was a' worth," and was ironically, and, we may add,
insultingly entreated, "for ony sake to mak' nae mair wark aboot it,
and a dizzen wad be sent her for't."

"My troth, and there's a stock o' impidence for ye!" said Mrs
Callender, on her little daughter's having delivered herself of all
the small provocatives with which she had been charged.  "There's
impidence for ye!" she said, planting her hands in her sides, and
looking the very personification of injured innocence.  "Was the like
o't ever heard?  First to borrow, and then to break my jeely mug, and
noo to tell me, whan I'm seekin' my ain, that I'm makin' mair noise
aboot it than it's a' worth.  My certy, but she _has_ a brazen face.
The auld, wizzened, upsettin' limmer that she is!  Set _them_ up,
indeed, wi' red nichtcaps!"  Now, this was the last member of Mrs
Callender's philippic, but it was by no means the least.  In fact, it
was the whole gist of the matter--the sum and substance, and we need
not add, the real and true cause of her present amiable feeling
towards her worthy neighbours, John Anderson and his wife.  Adjusting
her _mutch_ now on her head, and spreading her apron decorously
before her, Mrs Callender intimated her intention of proceeding
instantly to Mrs Anderson's, to demand her jelly pot in person, and
to seek, at the same time, satisfaction for the insulting message
that had been sent her.  Acting on this resolution, she forthwith
commenced her march towards the domicile of John Anderson, nursing
the while her wrath to keep it warm.  On reaching the door, she
announced her presence by a series of sharp, open-the-door-instantly
knocks, which were promptly attended to, and the visitor courteously
admitted.

"Mrs Anderson," said Mrs Callender, on entering, and assuming a
calmness and composure of demeanour that was sadly belied by the
suppressed agitation, or rather fury, which she could not conceal,
"I'm just come to ask ye if ye'll be sae guid, _Mem_, as gie me my
jeely mug."

"Yer jeely mug, Mrs Callender!" exclaimed Mrs Anderson, raising
herself to her utmost height, and already beginning to exhibit
symptoms of incipient indignation.  "Yer jeely mug, Mrs Callender!"
she repeated, with a provokingly ironical emphasis.  "Dear help me,
woman, but ye _do_ mak' an awfu' wark aboot that jeely mug o' yours.
I'm sure it wasna sae muckle worth; and ye hae been often tell't that
it was broken, but that we wad willingly pay ye for't."

"It's no payment I want, Mrs Anderson," replied Mrs Callender, with a
high-spirited toss of the head.  "I want my mug, and my mug I'll hae.
Do ye hear that?"  And here Mrs Callender struck her clenched fist on
the open side of her left hand, in the impressive way peculiar to
some ladies when under the influence of passion.  "And, since ye come
to that o't, let me tell ye ye're a very insultin' ill-bred woman, to
tell me that it wasna muckle worth, after ye hae broken't."

"My word, lass," replied Mrs Anderson, bridling up, with flushed
countenance, and head erect, to the calumniator, "but ye're no blate
to ca' me thae names i' my ain house."

"Ay, I'll ca' ye thae names, and waur too, in yer ain house, or
onywhar else," replied the other belligerent, clenching her teeth
fiercely together, and thrusting her face with most intense ferocity
into the countenance of her antagonist.  "Ay, here or onywhar else,"
she replied, "I'll ca' ye a mean-spirited, impident woman--an
upsettin' impident woman!  Set your man up, indeed, wi' a red
nichtkep!"

"An' what for no?" replied Mrs Anderson with a look of triumphant
inquiry.  "He's as weel able to pay for't as you, and maybe, if a'
was kent, a hantle better.  A red nichtkep, indeed, ye impertinent
hizzy!"

"'Od, an' ye hizzy me, I'll te-e-eer the liver out o' ye!" exclaimed
the now infuriated Mrs Callender, at the same instant seizing her
antagonist by the hair of the head and mutch together, and, in a
twinkling, tearing the latter into a thousand shreds.  Active
hostilities being now fairly commenced, a series of brilliant
operations, both offensive and defensive, immediately ensued.  The
first act of aggression on the part of Mrs Callender--namely,
demolishing her opponent's head-gear--was returned by the latter by a
precisely similar proceeding; that is, by tearing her mutch into
fragments.

This preliminary operation performed, the combatants resorted to
certain various other demonstrative acts of love and friendship; but
now with such accompaniments of screams and exclamations as quickly
filled the apartment which was the scene of strife with neighbours,
who instantly began to attempt to effect a separation of the
combatants.  While they were thus employed, in came John Anderson,
who had been out of the way when the tug of war began, and close upon
his heels came Mr Callender, whose ears an alarming report of the
contest in which his gallant spouse was engaged, had reached.  Both
gentlemen were, at the moment, in their red nightcaps, and might thus
be considered as the standard bearers of the combatants.

"What's a this o't?" exclaimed Mr Anderson, pushing into the centre
of the crowd by which the two women were surrounded.

"Oh, the hizzy!" exclaimed his wife, who had, at the instant, about a
yard of her antagonist's hair rolled about her hand.  "It's a' aboot
your nichtkep, John, and her curst jeely mug.  A' aboot your
nichtkep, and the jeely mug."

Now, this allusion to the jelly pot John perfectly understood, but
that to the nightcap he did not, nor did he attend to it; but, as
became a dutiful and loving husband to do in such circumstances,
immediately took the part of his wife, and was in the act of
thrusting her antagonist aside, which operation he was performing
somewhat rudely, when he was collared from behind by his neighbour,
Thomas Callender, who, naturally enough, enrolled himself at once on
the side of his better half.

"Hauns aff, John!" exclaimed Mr Callender--their old grudge fanning
the flame of that hostility which was at this moment rapidly
increasing in the bosoms of both the gentlemen, as he gave Mr
Anderson sundry energetic tugs and twists, with a view of putting him
_hors de combat_.  "Hauns aff, neebor!" he said.  "Hauns aff, if ye
please, till we ken wha has the rich' o' this bisiness, and what it's
a' aboot."

"Pu' doon their pride, Tam!--pu' doon their pride!" exclaimed Mrs
Calender, who, although intently engaged at the moment in tearing out
a handful of her opponent's hair, was yet aware of the reinforcement
that had come to her aid.  "Pu' doon their pride, Tam.  Tak a claught
o' John's nichtkep.  The limmer says they're better able to afford
ane than we are."

While Mrs Callender was thus expressing the particular sentiments
which occupied her mind at the moment, John Anderson had turned round
to resent the liberty which the former had taken of collaring him;
and this resentment expressed, by collaring his assailant in turn.
The consequence of this proceding was a violent struggle, which
finally ended in a close stand-up fight between the male combatants,
who both showed great spirit, although, not a great deal of science.
John Anderson, in particular, had a fitting antagonist in Tom
Callender, and the battle was so even between them that the other
combatants with one consent paused to watch the struggle.  As
neither, however, seemed likely to be the conqueror, the fight again
became general--the wives having quitted their holds of each other,
and flown to the rescue of their respective husbands, now much in
need of some wifely comfort.  They were thus all bundled together in
one indiscriminate and unintelligible melée.  One leading object or
purpose, however, was discernible on the part of the female
combatants.  This was to get hold of the red nightcaps--each that of
her husband's antagonist; and, after a good deal of scrambling, and
clutching, and pouncing, they both succeeded in tearing off the
obnoxious head-dress, with each a handful of the unfortunate wearer's
hair along with it.  While this was going on, the conflicting, but
firmly united mass of combatants, who were all bundled, or rather
locked together in close and deadly strife, was rolling heavily,
sometimes one way, and sometimes another, sometimes ending with a
thud against a partition, that made the whole house shake, sometimes
with a ponderous lodgment against a door, which, unable to resist the
shock, flew open, and landed the belligerents at their full length on
the floor, where they rolled over one another in a very edifying and
picturesque manner.

But this could not continue very long, and neither did it.  A
consummation or catastrophe occurred, which suddenly, and at once,
put an end to the affray.  In one of those heavy lee-lurches which
the closely united combatants made, they came thundering against the
frail legs of a dresser, which was ingeniously contrived to support
two or three tiers of shelves, which, again, were laden with
stoneware, the pride of Mrs Anderson's heart, built up with nice and
dexterous contrivance, so as to show to the greatest advantage.  Need
we say what was the consequence of this rude assault on the legs of
the aforementioned dresser, supporting, as it did, this huge
superstructure of shelves and crockery?  Scarcely.  But we will.
Down, then, came the dresser; and down, as a necessary corollary,
came also the shelves, depositing their contents with an astounding
crash upon the floor--not a jug out of some eight or ten, of various
shapes and sizes, not a plate out of some scores, not a bowl out of a
dozen, not a cup or saucer out of an entire set, escaping total
demolition.  The destruction was frightful--unprecedented in the
annals of domestic mishaps.

On the combatants, the effect of the thundering crash of the
crockery, or smashables, as they have been sometimes
characteristically designated, was somewhat like that which has been
known to be produced in a sea-fight by the blowing up of a ship.
Hostilities were instantly suspended; all looking with silent horror
on the dreadful scene of ruin around them.  Nor did any disposition
to renew the contest return.  On the contrary, there was an evident
inclination, on the part of two of the combatants--namely, Mr
Callender and his wife--to evacuate the premises.  Appalled at the
extent of the mischief done, and visited with an awkward feeling of
probable responsibility, they gradually edged towards the door, and
finally sneaked out of the house without saying a word.

"If there's law or justice in the land," exclaimed Mrs Anderson, in
high excitation, as she swept together the fragments of her
demolished crockery, "I'll hae't on Tam Callender and his wife.  May
I never see the morn, if I haena them afore the Shirra before a week
gangs owre my head!  I hae a set aff, noo, against her jeely mug, I
think."

"It's been a bonny business," replied her husband; "but what on earth
was't a' aboot?"

"What was't a' aboot!" repeated his wife, with some asperity of
manner, but now possessed of presence of mind enough to shift the
ground of quarrel, which, she felt, would compromise her with her
husband.  "Didna I tell ye that already?  What should it be a' aboot
but her confounded jeely mug!  But I'll mak her pay for this day's
wark, or I'm sair cheated.  It'll be as bad a job this for them as
the duck dub, I'm thinkin."

"We hadna muckle to brag o' there, oursels, guidwife," interposed her
husband, calmly.

"See, there," said Mrs Anderson, either not heeding, or not hearing
John's remark.  "See, there," she said, holding up a fragment of one
of the broken vessels, "there's the end o' my bonny cheeny jug, that
I was sae vogie o', and that hadna its neebor in braid Scotland."
And a tear glistened in the eye of the susceptible mourner, as she
contemplated the melancholy remains, and recalled to memory the
departed splendours of the ill-fated tankard.  Quietly dashing,
however, the tear of sorrow aside, both her person and spirit assumed
the lofty attitude of determined vengeance; and, "_she'll_ rue this,"
she now went on, "if there be ony law or justice in the kingdom.
It'll be a dear jug to _her_, or my name's no what it is."

Equally indignant with his wife at the assault and battery committed
by the Callenders, but less talkative, John sat quietly ruminating on
the events of the evening, and, anon, still continuing to raise his
hand, at intervals, to his mangled countenance.  With the same
taciturnity, he subsequently assisted Mrs Anderson to throw the
collected fragments of the broken dishes into a hamper, and to carry
and deposit said hamper in an adjoining closet, where, it was
determined, they should be carefully kept, as evidence of the extent
of the damage which had been sustained.

In the meantime, neither Mrs Thomas Callender nor Mr Thomas Callender
felt by any means at ease respecting the crockery catastrophe.
Although feeling that it was a mere casualty of war, and an
unforeseen and unpremeditated result of a fair and equal contest,
they yet could not help entertaining some vague apprehension for the
consequences.  They felt, in short, that it might be made a question
whether they were not liable for the damage done, seeing that they
had intruded themselves into their neighbour's house, where they had
no right to go.  It was under some such awkward fear as this that Mr
Callender, who had also obtained an evasive account of the cause of
quarrel, said, with an unusually long and grave face to his wife, on
their gaining their own house, and holding at the same time a
handkerchief to his still bleeding and now greatly swollen proboscis--

"Yon was a deevil o' a stramash, Mirran.  I never heard the like o't.
It was awfu.  I think I hear the noise o' the crashin' plates and
bowls in my lugs yet."

"Deil may care!  Let them tak it!" replied Mrs Callender,
endeavouring to assume a disregard of consequences which she was
evidently very far from feeling.  "She was aye owre vain o' her
crockery; so that better couldna happen her."

"Ay," replied her husband; "but yon smashing o't was rather a serious
business."

"It was just music to my lugs, then," said Mrs Callender, boldly.

"Maybe," rejoined her husband, "but I doot we'll hae to pay the
piper.  They'll try't ony way, I'm jalousin."

"Let them.  There'll be nae law or justice in the country if they mak
that oot," responded Mrs Callender, and exhibiting, in this
sentiment, the very striking difference of opinion between the two
ladies, of the law and justice of the land.

The fears, however, which Mr Callender openly expressed, as above
recorded, and which his wife felt but concealed, were not groundless.
On the evening of the very next day after the battle of the
nightcaps, as Thomas Callender was sitting in his elbow chair, by the
fire, luxuriously enjoying its grateful warmth, and the ease and
comfort of his slippers and red nightcap, which he had drawn well
down over his ears, he was suddenly startled by a sharp, loud rap at
the door.  Mrs Callender hastened to open it, when two papers were
thrust into her hands by an equivocal-looking personage, who, without
saying a word, wheeled round on his heel the instant he had placed
the mysterious documents in her possession, and hastened away.

With some misgivings as to the contents of these papers, Mrs
Callender placed them before her husband.

"What's this?" said the latter, with a look of great alarm, and
placing his spectacles on his nose, preparatory to a deliberate
perusal of the suspicious documents.  His glasses wiped and adjusted,
Thomas unfolded the papers, held them up close to the candle, and
found them to be a couple of summonses, one for himself and one for
his wife.  These summonses, we need hardly say, were at the instance
of their neighbour, John Anderson, and exhibited a charge of assault
and battery, and claim for damages to the extent of two pounds
fourteen shillings sterling, for demolition of certain articles of
stoneware, &c., &c.

"Ay," said Thomas, laying down the fatal papers.  "Faith, here it is,
then!  We're gaun to get it ruch and roun', noo, Jenny.  I was dootin
this.  But we'll defen', we'll defen'," added Thomas, who was, or we
rather suspect imagined himself to be, a bit of a lawyer, ever since
the affair of the duck-dub, during which he had picked up some law
terms, but without any accompanying knowledge whatever of their
import or applicability.  "We'll defen', we'll defen'," he said, with
great confidence of manner, "and gie them a revised condescendence
for't that they'll fin gayan teuch to chow.  But we maun obey the
ceetation, in the first place, to prevent decreet in absence, whilk
wad gie the pursuer, in this case, everything his ain way."

"Defen'!" exclaimed Mrs Callender, with high indignation; "my faith,
that we wull, I warrant them, and maybe a hantle mair.  We'll maybe
no be content wi' defendin', but strike oot, and gar _them_ staun
aboot."

"Noo, there ye show yer ignorance o' the law, Jenny," said her
husband, with judicial gravity; "for ye see"--

"Tuts, law or no law," replied Mrs Callender, impatiently--"I ken
what's justice and common-sense; an' that's eneuch for me.  An'
justice I'll hae, Tam," she continued, with such an increase of
excitement as brought on the usual climax in such cases, of striking
one of her clenched hands on her open palm--"An' justice I will hae,
Tam, on thae Andersons, if it's to be had for love or money."

"We'll try't ony way," said her husband, folding up the summonses,
and putting them carefully into his breeches-pocket.  "Since it has
come to this, we'll gie them law for't."

In the spirit and temper of bold defiance expressed in the preceding
colloquy, Mr Callender and his wife awaited the day and hour
appointed for their appearance in the Sheriff-Court at Glasgow.  This
day and hour in due time came, and, when it did, it found both
parties, pursuers and defenders, in the awful presence of the judge.
Both the ladies were decked out in their best and grandest attire,
while each of their husbands rejoiced in his Sunday's suit.  It was a
great occasion for both parties.  On first recognising each other,
the ladies exchanged looks which were truly edifying to behold.  Mrs
Anderson's was that of calm, dignified triumph; and which, if
translated into her own vernacular, would have said, "My word, lass,
but ye'll fin' whar ye are noo."  Mrs Calender's, again, was that of
bold defiance, and told of a spirit that was unconquerable--game to
the last being the most strongly marked and leading expression, at
this interesting moment, of her majestic countenance.  Close beside
where Mrs Anderson sat, and evidently under her charge, there stood
an object which, from the oddness of its appearing in its present
situation, attracted a good deal of notice, and excited some
speculation amongst those present in the Court, and which
particularly interested Mrs Callender and her worthy spouse.  This
was a hamper--a very large one.  People wondered what could be in it,
and for what purpose it was there.  They could solve neither of these
problems; but the reader can, we dare say.  He will at once
conjecture--and, if he does so, he will conjecture rightly--that the
hamper in question contained the remains of the smashables spoken of
formerly at some length, and that it was to be produced in Court, by
the pursuers, as evidence of the nature and extent of the damage done.

The original idea of bringing forward this article, for the purpose
mentioned, was Mrs Anderson's; and, having been approved of by her
husband, it had been that morning carted to the Courthouse, and
thereafter carried to and deposited in its present situation by the
united exertions of the pursuers, who relied greatly on the effect it
would produce when its lid should be thrown open, and the melancholy
spectacle of demolished crockery it concealed exhibited.

The case of Mr and Mrs Anderson _versus_ Mr and Mrs Callender being
pretty far down in the roll, it was nearly two hours before it was
called.  This event, however, at length took place.  The names of the
pursuers and defenders resounded through the courtroom, in the slow,
drawling, nasal-toned voice of the crier.  Mrs Anderson, escorted by
her loving spouse, sailed up the middle of the apartment, and placed
herself before the judge.  With no less dignity of manner, and with,
at least, an equal stateliness of step, Mrs Callender, accompanied by
her lord and master, sailed up after her, and took her place a little
to one side.  The parties bong thus arranged, proceedings commenced.
Mrs Anderson was asked to state her case.  Mrs Anderson was not slow
to accept the invitation.  She at once began:--

"Ye see, my Lord, sir, the matter was just this--and I daur _her_
there" (a look of intense defiance at Mrs Callender) "to deny a word,
my Lord, sir, o' what I'm gaun to say; although.  I daur say she wad
do't if she could."

"My good woman," here, interposed the judge, who had a nervous
apprehension of the forensic eloquence of such female pleaders as the
one now before him, "will you have the goodness to confine yourself
strictly to a simple statement of your case?"

"Weel, my Lord, sir, I will.  Ye see, then, the matter is just this."

And Mrs Anderson forthwith proceeded to detail the particulars of the
quarrel and subsequent encounter, with a minuteness and
circumstantiality which, we fear, the reader would think rather
tedious were we here to repeat.  In this statement of her case, Mrs
Anderson, having the fear of her husband's presence before her eyes,
made no allusion whatever to the nightcaps, but rested the whole
quarrel on the jelly pot.  Now, this was a circumstance which Mrs
Callender noted, and of which she, on the instant, determined to take
a desperate advantage.  Regardless of all consequences, and, amongst
the rest, of discovering to her husband the underhand part she had
been playing in regard to the affair of the nightcap, she resolved on
publicly exposing, as she imagined, the falsehood and pride of her
hated rival, by stating the facts of the case as to the celebrated
nightcaps.  To this revenge she determined on sacrificing every other
consideration.  To return, however, in the meantime, to the
proceedings in Court.

The statements of the pursuers being now exhausted, the defenders
were called upon to give their version of the story.  On this
summons, both Mrs Callender and her husband pressed themselves into a
central position, with the apparent intention of both entering on the
defence at the same time.  And this proved to be the fact.  On being
specially and directly invited by the judge to open the case--

"Ye see, my Lord," began _Mr_ Thomas Callender; "and--"

"My Lord, sir, ye see," began, at the same instant _Mrs_ Thomas
Callender.

"Now, now," here interposed the judge, waving his hand impatiently,
"one at a time, if you please.  One at a time."

"Surely," replied Mr Callender.  "Staun aside, guidwife, staun
aside," he said; at the same time gently pushing his wife back with
his left hand as he spoke.  "_I'll_ lay doon the case to his
Lordship."

"Ye'll do nae sic a thing, Tammas, _I'll_ do't," exclaimed Mrs
Callender, not only resisting her husband's attempt to thrust her
into the rear, but forcibly placing _him_ in that relative position;
while she herself advanced a pace or two nearer to the bench.  On
gaining this vantage ground, Mrs Callender at once began, and with
great emphasis and circumstantiality detailed the whole story of the
nightcaps; carefully modelling it so, however, as to show that her
own part in the transaction was a _bonâ fide_ proceeding; on the part
of her rival, the reverse; and that the whole quarrel, with its
consequent demolition of crockery, was entirely the result of Mrs
Anderson's "upsettin pride, and vanity, and jealousy."  During the
delivery of these details, the Court was convulsed with laughter, in
which the Sheriff himself had much difficulty to refrain from joining.

On the husbands of the two women, however, they had a very different
effect.  Amazed, confounded, and grievously affronted at this
unexpected disclosure of the ridiculous part they had been made to
perform by their respective wives, they both sneaked out of Court,
amidst renewed peals of laughter, leaving the latter to finish the
case the best way they could.  How this was effected we know not, as
at this point ends our story of the Rival Nightcaps.




THE STORY OF CLARA DOUGLAS.

BY WALTER LOGAN.

  "The maid that loves,
  Goes out to sea upon a shattered plank,
  And puts her trust in miracles for safety."--_Old Play._


I am a peripatetic genius--a wanderer by profession--a sort of
Salathiel Secundus, "doomed for a term," like the ghost of Hamlet's
papa, "to walk the earth," whether I will or not.  Here, however, the
simile stops; for his aforesaid ghostship could traverse, if he
chose, amid climes far away, while the circuit of my peregrinations
is, has for sometime been, and must, for some short time more,
necessarily be confined to the northern extremity of "our tight
little island"--_vulgo vocato_--Scotland.  In my day I have seen many
strange sights, and met with many strange faces--made several
hairbreadth 'scapes, and undergone innumerable perils by flood and
field.  On the wings of the wind--that is, on the top of a
stage-coach--I have passed through many known and unknown towns and
villages; have visited, on foot and on horseback, for my own special
edification and amusement, various ancient ruins, foaming cataracts,
interesting rocks, and dismal-looking caves, celebrated in Scottish
story.  But better far than that, and dearer to my soul, my foot has
trod the floors of, I may say, all the haberdashers' shops north of
the Tweed: in short, most patient reader, I am a travelling bagman.

In this capacity, I have, for years, perambulated among the chief
towns of Scotland, taking orders from those who were inclined to give
them to me, and giving orders to those who were not inclined to take
them from me, unless with a _douceur_ in perspective--viz., coachmen,
waiters, barmaids, _et hoc gittus omne_.  From those of the third
class, many are the witching smiles lighting up pretty faces--many
the indignant glances shot from deep love-darting eyes, when their
under neighbours, the lips, were invaded without consent of
parties--which have saluted me everywhere; for the same varied
feelings, the same sudden and unaccountable likings and dislikings,
have place in the breasts of barmaids as in those of other women.  As
is the case too with the rest of their sex, there are among them the
clumsy and the handsome, the plain and the pretty, the scraggy and
the plump, the old and the young; but of all the barmaids I ever met
with, none charmed me more than did Mary of the Black Swan, at
Altonby.  In my eyes she inherited all the good qualities I have here
enumerated,--that is to say, she was handsome, pretty, plump, and
young, with a form neither too tall nor too short; but just the
indescribable happy size between, set off by a manner peculiarly
graceful.

It was on a delightful evening in the early spring, that I found
myself seated, for the first time, in a comfortable little parlour
pertaining to the Black Swan, and Mary attending on me--she being the
chief, nay, almost the only person in the establishment, who could
serve a table.  I was struck with her loveliness, as well as
captivated with her engaging manner, and though I had for thirty
years defied the artifices of blind Cupid, I now felt myself all at
once over head and ears in love with this village beauty.  Although
placed in so low a sphere as that in which I then beheld her, there
was a something about her that proclaimed her to be of gentle birth.
Whoever looked upon her countenance, felt conscious that there was a
respect due to her which it is far from customary to extend to girls
in waiting at an inn.  Hers were

  "Eyes so pure, that from their ray
  Dark vice would turn abashed away."

Her feet were small and fairy-like, from which, if her voice,
redolent of musical softness--that thing so desirable in woman--had
not already informed me, I should have set her down as being of
English extraction.

Several months elapsed ere it was again in my power to visit Altonby.
During all that time, my vagrant thoughts had been of Mary--sleeping
or waking, her form was ever present to my fancy.  On entering the
Black Swan, it was Mary who bounded forward to welcome me with a
delighted smile.  She seemed gratified at my return; and I was no
less so at the cordiality of my reception.  The month was July, and
the evening particularly fine; so, not having business of much
consequence to transact in the place, and Mary having to attend to
the comforts of others beside myself, then sojourning at the Black
Swan, I sallied forth alone--

  "To take my evening's walk of meditation."

When one happens to be left _per se_ in a provincial town, where he
is alike unknowing and unknown--where there is no theatre or other
place of amusement in which to spend the evening--it almost
invariably happens that he pays a visit to the churchyard, and
delights himself, for an hour or so, with deciphering the
tombstones,--a recreation extremely healthful to the body, and
soothing to the mind.  It was to the churchyard on that evening I
bent my steps, thinking, as I went along, seriously of Mary.

"What is she to me?" I involuntarily exclaimed; "I have no time to
waste upon women: I am a wanderer, with no great portion of worldly
gear.  In my present circumstances it is impossible I can marry her;
and to think of her in any other light were villanous.  No, no!  I
will no longer cherish a dream which can never be realised."

And I determined that, on the morrow, I should fly the fatal spot for
ever.  Who or what Mary's relations had been, she seemed to feel
great reluctance in disclosing to me.  All I could glean from her
was, that she was an orphan--that she had had a sister who had formed
an unfortunate attachment, and broken their mother's heart--that all
of her kindred that now remained was a brother, and he was in a
foreign land.

The sun was resting above the summits of the far-off mountains, and
the yew trees were flinging their dusky shadows over the graves, as I
entered the burial-place of Altonby.  The old church was roofless and
in ruins; and within its walls were many tombstones over the ashes of
those who, having left more than the wherewithal to bury them, had
been laid there by their heirs, as if in token of respect.  In a
distant corner, I observed one little mound over which no stone had
been placed to indicate who lay beneath: it was evidently the grave
of a stranger, and seemed to have been placed in that spot more for
the purpose of being out of the way than for any other.  At a short
distance from it was another mound, overtopped with grass of a
fresher kind.  As I stood leaning over a marble tombstone, gazing
around me, a figure slowly entered at the farther end of the aisle,
and, with folded arms and downcast eyes, passed on to those two
graves.  It was that of a young man of perhaps five-and-twenty,
though a settled melancholy, which overspread his countenance, made
him look five years older.  I crouched behind the stone on which I
had been leaning, fearful of disturbing him with my presence, or
rousing his attention by my attempting to leave the place.

After gazing with a vacant eye for a few moments upon the graves, he
knelt down between them.  His lips began to move, but I heard not
what he said.  I thought he was praying for the souls of the
departed; and I was confirmed in this by hearing him at last say,
with an audible voice:--

"May all good angels guard thee, Clara Douglas, and thou, my mother!"

As he uttered these last words, he turned his eyes to the newer
grave.  I thought he was about to continue his prayer; but, as if the
sight of the grave had awakened other feelings, he suddenly started
up, and, raising his hands to heaven, invoked curses on the head of
one whom he termed their "murderer!"  That done, he rushed madly from
the church.  All this was very strange to me; and I determined, if
possible, to ascertain whose remains those graves entombed.

On leaving the churchyard, I was fortunate enough to forgather with
an old man, from whom I learned the melancholy story of her who
occupied the older-looking grave.  She was young and beautiful.
Accident had deprived her father of that wealth which a long life of
untiring industry had enabled him to lay past for his children; and
he did not long survive its loss.  Fearful of being a burden to her
mother, who had a son and another daughter besides herself to provide
for out of the slender pittance which remained to her on her
husband's death, Clara Douglas accepted a situation as a governess,
and sought to earn an honourable independence by those talents and
accomplishments which had once been cultivated for mere amusement.
The brother of Clara, shortly afterwards, obtained an appointment in
the island of Madeira.  Unfortunately for Clara, a young officer, a
relative of the family in which she resided, saw her, and was smitten
with her charms.  He loved, and was beloved again.  The footing of
intimacy on which he was in the house, procured him many interviews
with Clara.  Suddenly his regiment was ordered to the Continent; and
when the young ensign told the sorrowful tidings to Clara, he
elicited from her a confession of her love.

Months passed away--Waterloo was fought and won--and Ensign Malcolm
was among those who fell.

When the death list reached Scotland, many were the hearts it
overpowered with grief; but Clara Douglas had more than one grief to
mourn: sorrow and shame were too much to bear together, and she fled
from the house where she had first met him who was the cause of all.
None could tell whither she had gone.  Her mother and sister were
agonised when the news of her disappearance reached them.  Every
search was made, but without effect.  A year all but two weeks passed
away, and still no tidings of her, till that very day, two boys
seeking for pheasants' nests upon the top of a hillock overgrown with
furze--which the old man pointed out to me at a short distance from
the place where we stood--accidentally stumbled upon an object
beneath a fir-tree.  It was the remains of a female in a kneeling
posture.  Beneath her garments, by which she was recognised as Clara
Douglas, not a vestige of flesh remained.  There was still some upon
her hands, which had been tightly clasped together; and upon her
face, which leant upon them.  Seemingly she had died in great agony.
It was supposed by some that she had taken poison.

"If your time will permit," added the old man, as he wiped away a
tear, "I will willingly show you the place where her remains were
found.  It is but a short distance.  Come."

I followed the old man in silence.  He led the way into a field.  We
climbed over some loose stones thrown together, to serve as a wall of
division at the farther extremity of it, and slowly began to ascend
the grassy acclivity, which was on both sides bordered by a thick
hedge, placed apart, at the distance of about thirty feet.  When half
way up, I could not resist the inclination I felt to turn and look
upon the scene.  It was an evening as fair as I had ever gazed on.
The wheat was springing in the field through which we had just
passed, covering it, as it were, with a rich green carpet.  Trees and
hills bounded the view, behind which the sun was on the point of
sinking, and the red streaks upon the western sky "gave promise of a
goodly day to-morrow."

If, thought I, the hour on which Clara Douglas ascended this hill was
as lovely as this evening, she must indeed have been deeply bent upon
her own destruction, to look upon the world so beautifully fair, and
not wish to return to it again.  We continued our ascent, passing
among thick tangled underwood, in whose kindly grasp the light
flowing garments of Clara Douglas must have been ever and anon caught
as she wended on her way.  Yet had she disregarded the friendly
interposition.  Along the margin of an old stone quarry we now
proceeded, where the pathway was so narrow that we were occasionally
compelled to catch at the furze bushes which edged it, to prevent
ourselves from falling over into the gulf beneath.  And Clara
Douglas, thought I, must have passed along here, and must have been
exposed to the same danger of toppling headlong over the cliff, yet
she had exerted herself to pass the fatal spot unharmed, to save a
life which she knew would almost the instant afterwards be taken by
her own hand.  Such is the inconsistency of human nature.

Our course lay once more through the midst of underwood, so thickly
grown that one would have supposed no female foot would dare to enter
it.

"Here," cried the old man, stopping beside a dwarfish fir-tree, "here
is the spot where we found the mortal remains of Clara Douglas."

I pressed forward, and, to my surprise, beheld one other being than
my old guide looking on the place.  It was the same I had noticed at
the grave of Clara Douglas, within the walls of the ruined church of
Altonby.  I thought it a strange coincidence.

Summer passed away, winter and spring succeeded, and summer came
again, and with it came the wish to see Mary once more.  However much
I had before doubted the truth of the axiom, that "absence makes the
heart grow fonder," I now felt the full force of its truth.  My
affection for Mary was, day after day, becoming stronger; and, in
spite of the dictates of prudence, my determination never to see her
again began to falter; and one evening I unconsciously found myself
in the yard of the Black Swan.  Well, since I had come there at any
rate, it would be exceedingly foolish to go away again without
speaking to Mary; so I called to the stable boy to put up my horse.
The boy knew me, for I had once given him a sixpence for running a
message, and he came briskly forward at my first call, no doubt with
some indistinct idea of receiving another sixpence at some no very
distant date.

"Eh!  Mr Moir," said the boy, while I was dismounting, in answer to
my question, "What news in the village?"  "Ye'll no guess what's gaun
to happen?  Our Mary, the folk say, is gaun to be married!"

Our Mary! thought I, can _our_ Mary be _my_ Mary?  And, to ascertain
whether they were one and the same personage, I inquired of the boy
who our Mary was.

"Ou!" replied he, "she's just barmaid at the inn here."

I started, now that this disclosure had unhinged my doubts; and
subduing, as well as I was able, my rising emotion, I boldly asked,
who was "the happy man."

"They ca' him a captain!" said the boy innocently; "but whether he's
a sea captain, an offisher in the army, or a captain o' police, I'm
no that sure.  At ony rate, he aye gangs aboot in plain claes.  He's
been staying for a month here, an' he gangs oot but seldom, an' that
only in the gloamin."

After thanking the boy, and placing the expected silver coin in his
hand, I turned the corner of the house in my way towards the
entrance, determined, with my own eyes and ears, to ascertain the
truth of the boy's statement.  The pace at which I was proceeding was
so rapid, that, ere I was aware of the vicinity of any one, I came
bump against the person of a gentleman, whom, to my surprise, I
instantly recognised as the mysterious visitant to the grave of Clara
Douglas, and to the spot where her relics were found.  He seemed to
regard me with a suspicious eye; for he shuffled past without
uttering a word.  His air was disordered, his step irregular, and his
whole appearance was that of a man with whom care, and pain, and
sorrow, had long been familiar.

Can this be the captain? was the thought which first suggested itself
to me.  It was a question I could not answer; yet I entered the Black
Swan half persuaded that it was.

"Ah!  Mr Moir," cried Mary, coming forward to welcome me in her usual
way, the moment she heard my voice, "you have been long a stranger.
I fancied that, somehow or other, I was the cause of it, for you went
away last time without bidding me good-bye."  I held her hand in
mine, I saw her eyes sparkle, and the blush suffuse her cheek, and I
muttered a confused apology.  "Well!  I am so glad to see you," she
continued.  "It was but yesterday I spoke of you to the captain."

"The captain," I repeated, while the pangs of jealousy, which had,
during the last five minutes, been gradually lulled over to sleep,
suddenly roused themselves.  "Who is the captain, Mary?"

"Oh?  I'm sure you will like him when you become acquainted with
him," said she, blushing.  "There is something so prepossessing about
him, that really I defy any one not to like him."  The animation with
which she gave utterance to these words made me miserable, and I
cursed the captain in my heart.

The next day passed over without my being able to obtain a sight of
my rival; and, when I walked out in the afternoon, he had not yet
risen.  Mary's assigned reason for this was, that he was an invalid;
but his was more the disease of the mind than of the body.  In his
memory there was implanted a deep sorrow, which time could never root
out.  In my walk, the churchyard and the venerable ruins of the
church were visited--I stood again beside the grave of the hapless
Clara Douglas, and her melancholy story afforded me a theme for sad
reflection, which, for a while, banished Mary and all jealous fears
from my mind.

It was evening when I reached "mine inn."  On passing the parlour
window, a sight met my eye which brought the colour to my cheeks.  A
tall, noble-looking man lay extended upon the sofa, while Mary leant
over him in kindly solicitude, and, with marked assiduity, placed
cushions for his head, and arranged his military cloak.  This, then,
must be the captain, and he and my mysterious friend were not the
same.  That was some consolation, however.

Thus as he lay, he held Mary's hand in his.  My breast was racked
with agony intense; for

  Oh! what a host of killing doubts and fears,
  Of melancholy musings, deep perplexities,
  Must the fond heart that yields itself to love
  Struggle with and endure."


Once I determined on flying from the scene, and leaving my rival in
undisputed possession of the village beauty; but, having been
resolved that no woman should ever have it in her power to say she
made me wretched, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and, on
seeing Mary leave the parlour, I shortly afterwards entered it.

The stranger scarcely noticed my entrance, so intently was his
attention fixed upon the perusal of a newspaper which he held in his
hand.  I sat down at the window, and, for want of something better to
do, gazed with a scrutinising eye upon the gambols of the ducks and
geese outside.

After some time, Mary came in to ask the captain what he would have
for supper.

"This is the gentleman I spoke of," she said, directing her
expressive glance towards me.

"Mr Moir must pardon my inattention!" said the stranger, laying down
the paper; "I was not aware that my pretty Mary's friend was in the
room."

His urbane manner, his soft winning voice, made me feel an
irresistible impulse to meet his advances.  He proposed that we
should sup together, and I sat down at the table with very different
feelings from those which had been mine on entering the parlour that
evening.  I felt inclined to encourage an intimacy with the man whom,
but a short while before, I had looked upon with aversion.

As the night wore on, I became more and more captivated with the
stranger.  His conversation was brilliant and intellectual; and, when
we parted for the night, I began to find fault with myself for having
for a moment harboured dislike towards so perfect a gentleman.  I
resolved to stay a few days longer at Altonby, for the purpose of
improving our acquaintance.  The stranger--or, as he was called at
the inn, "the captain," expressed delight when he was informed of my
resolution; and, although he seldom rose before the afternoon, we
spent many pleasant hours together.

On the evening of the third day of my sojourn, he expressed a wish
that I would accompany him in a short walk.  Notwithstanding his
erect and easy carriage, there was a feebleness in his gait, which he
strove in vain to contend against; and it was but too evident that a
broken spirit, added to a shattered constitution, would speedily
bring him to his grave.

Leading the way into the churchyard, to my surprise he stopped at the
resting-place of the ill-starred lady, the story of whose untimely
end I had so patiently listened to the last time I visited Altonby.

"I am exceedingly fortunate," said the captain, "in having met with
one so kind as you, to cheer the last moments of my earthly
pilgrimage.  You smile--nay, I can assure you that I feel I am not
long for this world.  The object of my visit to this spot to-night,
is to ask you to do me the favour, when I am dead, of seeing my
remains laid here--here, beside this grave, o'er which the grass
grows longer than on those around;" and he pointed to the grave of
Clara Douglas.  After a moment, he continued:--"Unlike other men, you
have never annoyed me by seeking to inquire of me who or what I am;
and, believe me, I feel grateful for it.  I would not wish that you
should ever know the history of the being who stands before you.
When the earth closes over my coffin, think of him no more."

Although the captain had done me the honour of calling me unlike
other men--a distinction most folks are so exceedingly desirous of
obtaining--I must own that I had hitherto felt no common degree of
curiosity concerning him; and now that there was no prospect of it
being gratified, its desire increased tenfold, and I would now have
given worlds, if I had had them, to have learned something of the
birth, parentage, and education of the captain.

"And now," he added, "I beseech you, leave me for a short time--I
would be alone."

In silence I complied, sauntering outside the ruins, and seeking to
find, in my old avocation of perusing the tombstones, the wherewithal
to kill the time during which the captain held communion with the
dead; for I could not help thinking that it was for such a cause he
had desired to be left to himself.

Ten--twenty minutes passed, and the captain did not appear.  I
retraced my steps, and again entered the ruins, by the farther end.
The gloom which prevailed around--the monuments which
intervened--and, above all, the distance at which I then was from the
grave of Clara Douglas--prevented me from descrying the captain.  I
had advanced a few paces when I heard voices in high altercation.  I
stopped; and, as I did so, one of the speakers, in whose clear
intonation I could recognise the captain, said--"On my word, I
returned here the instant my wounds were healed--I returned to marry
her--and my grief could not be equalled by yours when I heard of her
melancholy fate."

"Liar!" exclaimed the other; "you ne'er intended such.  My sister's
wrongs call out aloud for vengeance; and here--here, between her
grave and that of our sainted mother--your blood shall be offered up
in atonement."

This was instantly followed by the report of a pistol.  I rushed
forward, and beheld, O horror! the captain stretched upon the ground,
and the blood streaming from a wound in his breast.  I caught a
glimpse of his assassin, as he fled from the church; it was the
stranger whom I had seen, on a former visit, at the grave of Clara
Douglas, and beside the fir-tree where her remains had been found.  I
made a motion to follow him, but the captain waved me back--"Let him
go," said he; "I forgive him.  I have no wish that he should die upon
the scaffold."  So saying, he fell back exhausted; and, in my haste
to procure assistance for him, I quite forgot the assassin, until it
was too late.

The captain was conveyed to the Black Swan, where, with Mary to
attend to his every want, he was, no doubt, as comfortable as if he
had had a home to go to, and a beloved wife to smooth his dying
pillow.  Mary bestowed more than ordinary care and attention upon
him, which, although she had declared to me that she could never love
the captain so well as to marry him, should he ever condescend to
make the offer, brought back occasionally a pang of jealousy to my
heart.  I could not exactly understand the extent of her regard for
him.

Having business to transact at a neighbouring town, I left Altonby
the next day, with a determination to return, ere the lapse of a
week, to see the captain, I feared, for the last time.  I had been
but two days gone, when I received a note from Mary, informing me
that he was daily becoming worse, and that it was the fear of his
medical attendant that he could not live four-and-twenty hours.  With
the utmost speed, I therefore hastened back to the Black Swan, where,
indeed, I saw that the surgeon had had quite sufficient reason for
his prediction--the captain was greatly altered since I last saw him.
Wan and emaciated, he lay in resignation upon his couch, calmly
waiting the approach of death.  He seemed quite composed.

Taking my hand in his, he reminded me of his wish regarding his
burial-place.  I assured him that it should strictly be complied
with.  A smile lighted up his pale countenance for an instant, as I
pledged myself to this.  He then drew from under his pillow a parcel
of letters, tied together with a faded ribbon, and desired me to
consign them one by one to the flames.  With an eager eye, and a
countenance full of excitement, did he watch them as they consumed
away.  I did not dare to examine minutely the address on the letters,
but, from the glance I had of them, I could see they were all written
in an elegant female hand.  When all were gone--"And this," said he,
"is like to human life--a blaze but for an instant, and then all is
ashes."  He paused, and then continued, as he held a small packet in
his hand, more in soliloquy than if he were addressing me--"Here is
the last sad relic I possess--shall I?--Yes! yes! it shall go as the
others have gone.  How soon may I follow it?"  He stretched forth his
hand towards me.  I took the packet.  Instantly, as if the last tie
which bound him to the earth had been hastily snapped asunder, the
captain fell backwards upon his couch.  I thrust the packet into my
bosom, and ran to afford him assistance.  He was beyond human
help--he was dead!

The grief of Mary knew no bounds when the dismal tidings were
conveyed to her; she was like one distracted.  Mine was more
chastened and subdued.

The remains of the captain were duly consigned to that spot of earth
he had pointed out to me.  After his death, there was found a
conveyance of all his property, which was pretty considerable, to
Mary, accompanied with a wish that I would marry her.  To this
arrangement Mary was quite agreeable; and, accordingly, our nuptials
were solemnised in about six months after the death of the captain.
It was then that Mary confided to me that she was the sister of Clara
Douglas; but when I made inquiry at her concerning the nature of her
attachment to the captain, she always avoided answering, and seemed
not to wish that his name should be mentioned in her hearing.

Several years passed, and I had forgotten all about the packet which
the captain on his death-bed had placed in my hand, till one day, in
looking for something else, which, of course, I could not find--(no
one ever finds what he wants)--I accidentally stumbled upon the
packet.  Curiosity induced me to open it.  A lock of black hair, tied
with a piece of light-blue ribbon, and a letter, were its contents.
Part of the letter ran thus:--"Enclosed is some of my hair--I don't
expect you to keep it, for I have heard you say you did not like to
have any such thing in your possession.  I will not _ask_ you, lest I
might be refused; but if you give me some, I'll get it put into one
of my rings, and shall never, never part with it."  This letter bore
the signature of Clara Douglas!

Here, then, was a solution of all the mystery.  The captain was the
lover of Clara, and this had been the cause of Mary's intimacy with
him.

Of the fate of the brother I afterwards heard.  He was killed in a
street brawl one night in Paris, and Mary never knew that he was the
assassin of the captain.




BON GUALTIER'S TALES.

BY THEODORE MARTIN.


COUNTRY QUARTERS.

A pleasanter little town than Potterwell does not exist in that part
of her Majesty's dominions called Scotland.  On one side, the hand of
cultivation has covered a genial soil with richness and fertility.
The stately mansion, "bosomed high in tufted trees," occasionally
invites the eye, as it wanders over the landscape; while here and
there the river Wimpledown may be seen peeping out amid the luxuriant
verdure of wood and plain, and seeming to concentrate on itself all
the radiance of any little sunshine that may be going.  On the other
side, again, are nothing but impracticable mountains--fine bluff old
fellows--that evidently have an extensive and invincible contempt for
Time, and, like other great ones of the earth, never carry any change
about them.  Look beyond these, and the prospect is indeed a fine
one--a little monotonous, perhaps, but still a fine one--peak
receding behind peak in endless series, a multitudinous sea of
mountain tops, with noses as blue as a disappointed man's face, or
Miss Harriet Martineau's stockings.

With a situation presenting such allurements for the devotees of the
picturesque, is it wonderful that Potterwell became a favourite
resort?  By the best of good fortune, too, a spring close by, of a
peculiarly nauseous character, had, a few years before the period we
write of, attracted attention by throwing into violent convulsions
sundry cows that had been so far left to themselves as to drink of
it, besides carrying off an occasional little boy or so, as a sort of
just retribution for so far suppressing his natural tastes as to
admit it within his lips.  Dr Scammony, however, had taken the
mineral water under his patronage; and his celebrated pamphlet upon
the medicinal properties of the Potterwell Mephitic Assafœtida
Waters at once fixed their reputation, while it materially augmented
his own.  A general subscription was projected, with a view to the
erection of a pump-room.  The plan took amazingly; and, from being
left to work its way out, as best it might, through the diseased and
miserable weeds with which it was overgrown, the spring all at once
found itself established in a handsome apartment, fitted up with a
most benevolent attention to the wants of such persons as might
repair thither with the probable chance--however little they might be
conscious of the fact--of dying by a watery death.

It was a bright sparkling morning in August, and there was an
exhilarating freshness in the air, that caused the heart to leap up,
and make the spirit as unclouded as the blue sky overhead.  The
pump-room was thronged, and every one congratulated his neighbour on
the beauty of the morning.

"At your post as usual, Stukely!" said a smartly dressed young man
stepping up to Mr Stukeley--a well-known frequenter of the wells
since their first celebrity--and shaking him warmly by the hand.  "I
do believe you are retained as a check upon the pump woman, that you
keep such a strict look-out after her customers.  How many doses has
she administered to-day?  Come now, out with your notebook, and let
me see."

"Oh, my dear Frank, if you really want to know, I am the man for
you--Old Cotton of Dundee, four and a half and his daughter, took off
the balance of the six.  What do you think I heard him whisper to
her?--'Hoot, lassie, tak it aff, it's a' paid for;' and she, poor
soul, was forced to gulp it down, that he might have the satisfaction
of knowing that full value had been given for his penny.  Then there
was Runrig the farmer from Mid-Lothian, half-a-dozen.  The man has a
frame of iron, and a cheek as fresh as new-mown hay; but somebody had
told him the water would do him good, and he has accordingly taken
enough to make him ill for a fortnight.  Then there was Deacon
Dobie's rich widow--fat, fair, and forty--she got pretty well through
the seventh tumbler; but, it's a way with her, when she begins
drinking, not to know when to stop; which, by the way, may account
for her having been, for some time, as she elegantly expresses it,
'gey an nervish ways, whiles.'  After her came"----  And Stukeley was
going on to enumerate the different visitors of the morning, checking
them off upon his fingers as he proceeded, when his friend, Frank
Preston, stopped him.

"For mercy's sake, have done; and tell me, if you can, who those two
fops of fellows are at the foot of the room?  They only came a week
ago; and, though nobody knows who they are, they have made the
acquaintance of half the people here."

"I see nothing very odd in that.  I know nothing of the men; but they
dress well, and are moderately good-looking, and have just sufficient
assurance to pass off upon the uninitiated for ease of manner and
fashionable breeding.  A pair of parvenus, no doubt; but what is your
motive for asking so particularly about them?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing!  Only I am to meet them at the Cheeshams
to-night, and I wished to know something of them."

"So, so!  sets the wind in that quarter?  A rival, Master Frank?  It
is there the shoe pinches, is it?"

"A rival--nonsense!  What should I care whether the puppies are
attentive to Emily Cheesham or not?"

"Why more to her than to her sister Fanny?  I mentioned no names.
Ha!  Master Frank, you see I have caught you.  Come, come, tell me
what it is annoys you?"

"Well," stammered out Frank Preston,--"well, the fact is--the fact
is, one of them has been rather particular in his attentions to
Emily, and I am half-inclined to think she gives him encouragement."

"And, suppose she does, I see nothing in that but the harmless vanity
of a girl, pleased to have another dangler under her spell."

"That is all very well, but I don't like it a bit.  It may be so, and
it may not.  Her encouragement to him is very marked, and I don't
feel easy under it at all, I don't."

"Why, Frank, you must both have a very poor opinion of Miss Emily,
and be especially soft yourself, to give yourself any concern in the
matter.  If you have deemed her worthy of your regards, and she has
given you warrant for thinking you have a claim upon them, and yet
she now throws you off to make way for this newer lover, your course
is a clear one.  Turn from her at once, and fortify yourself with old
Wither's lines--

  'If she be not made for me,
  What care I for whom she be?'"


"Excellent philosophy, if one could but act upon it.  But what annoys
me about the business is, that I am sure these fellows are a pair of
snobs, and are playing themselves off for something greater than they
are."

"Very possibly; but that is just a stronger reason for taking my
advice.  If Miss Emily can be gratified with the attentions of such
persons, leave her to the full enjoyment of them.  Don't make
yourself miserable for her folly."

"Oh, I don't make myself miserable at all, not in the least; only, I
should like to find out who the fellows are."

The young men of whom Preston and Stukeley had been speaking, and who
now lounged up the room, describing semicircles with their legs at
every step they took, were certainly never meant for the ordinary
tear and wear of the hard-working every-day world.  Their dress had
too fine a gloss upon it for that, their hair much too gracefully
disposed.  They were both rather below the middle size, both dark in
the complexion, but one of them much more so than the other.  The
darker slip of humanity had cultivated the growth of his hair with
singular success.  It fell away in masses from his forehead and
temples, and curled, like the rings of the young vine, over the
velvet collar that capped a coat of symmetrical proportions.
Circling round the cheeks and below the chin, it somewhat obtruded
upon the space which is generally occupied by the face, so that his
head might truly be said to be a mass of hair, slightly interspersed
with features.  His friend, again, to avoid monotony, had varied the
style of his upper works, and his locks were allowed to droop in
long, lanky, melancholy tangles down his sallow cheeks; while,
perched upon either lip, might be seen a feathery looking object, not
to be accounted for, but on the supposition that it was intended to
seduce the public into a belief of its being a moustache.  Both were
showily dressed.  Both had stocks terminating in a cataract of satin
that emptied itself into tartan velvet waistcoats, worn probably in
honour of the country; both had gold chains innumerable, twisting in
a multiplicity of convolutions across these waistcoats; both had on
yellow kid gloves of unimpeachable purity, and both carried minute
canes of imitation ebony, with which, at intervals, they flogged, one
the right and the other the left leg, with the most painful ferocity.
They were a noble pair; alike, yet, oh, how different!

"Eugene, my boy," said the darker of the two, in a tone of voice loud
enough to let half the room hear the interesting communication, "we
must see what sort of stuff this here water is--we must, positively."

"Roost eggs, Adolph, whisked in bilge-water, with a rusty tenpenny
nail.  Faugh!  I'm smashed if I taste it."

"Not so bad that for you," returned Adolph, smiling faintly; "but you
must really pay your respects to the waters."

"'Pon my soul, I shawn't.  I had enough of that so't of thing in
Jummany, the time I was ova with Ned Hoxham."

"That was the time, wasn't it, that you brought me over that choice
lot of cigaws?"

"I believe it was," responded Eugene, with the most impressive
indifference, as if he wished it to be understood that he had been so
often there that he could not recall the particulars of any one visit.

"I know something of Seidlitz and Seltzer myself," resumed the darker
Adonis, "and soda water too, by Jove! for that matter, and they're
not bad things either, when one's been making a night of it; so I'll
have a try at this Potterwell fluid, and see how it does for a
change."

In this manner the two friends proceeded, to the infinite
enlightenment of those about them, who, being greatly struck with
their easy and facetious manners, stood admiringly by with looks of
evident delight!  The young men saw the impression they were making,
and, desirous of keeping it up, went on to ask the priestess of the
spring how often, and in what quantities, she found it necessary to
doctor it with Glauber salts, brimstone, and assafœtida.  The joke
took immensely.

Such of the bystanders as could laugh--for the internal agitation
produced by the cathartic properties of their morning draught, made
that a somewhat difficult and dangerous experiment--did so; and
various young men, of no very definite character, but who seemed to
support the disguise of gentlemen with considerable pain to
themselves, sidled up, and endeavoured to strike into conversation
with our Nisus and Euryalus, thinking to share by contact the glory
which they had won.  All they got for their pains, however, was a
stare of cool indifference.  The friends were as great adepts in the
art and mystery of _cutting_, as the most fashionable tailor could
be; and, after volunteering a few ineffectual efforts at
sprightliness, these awkward aspirants to fame were forced to fall
back, abashed and crestfallen, into the natural insignificance of
their character.

These proceedings did not pass unnoticed by Preston and his elderly
friend, who made their own observations upon them, but were prevented
from saying anything on the subject to each other by the entrance of
a party, which diverted their attention in a different direction.
These were no other than Mrs Cheesham and her two accomplished
daughters, Miss Emily and Miss Fanny Cheesham.  Mrs Cheesham's
personal appearance may be passed over very briefly; as no one, so
far as is known, ever cared about it but herself.  She was vain,
vulgar, and affected; fond of finery and display; and the one
dominant passion of her life was to insinuate herself and her family
into fashionable society, and secure a brilliant match for her
daughters.  They, again, were a pair of attractive, showy girls;
Emily flippant, sparkling, lively; Fanny demure, reserved, and cold.
Emily's eyes were dark and lustrous--you saw the best of them at
once; and her look, alert and wicked.  These corresponded well with a
well-rounded figure, a rosy complexion, and full pouting lips, that
were "ruddier than the cherry."  Fanny was tall and "stately in her
going;" pale, but without that look of sickliness which generally
accompanies such a complexion; and her eyes, beautiful as they were
when brought into play, were generally shrouded by the drooping of
her eyelids, like those of one who is accustomed to be frequently
self-inwrapt.  With Emily you might sport in jest and raillery by the
hour; but with Fanny you always felt, as it were, bound to be upon
your best behaviour.  They passed up the room, distributing nods of
recognition, and occasionally stopping to allow Mrs Cheesham to give
her invitations to a _soirée musicale_ which she intended to get up
that evening.

"Your servant, ladies," said old Stukeley, raising his hat, while his
friend followed his example.  "You are late.  I was afraid we were
not to have the pleasure of seeing you this morning.  Pray, Miss
Emily, what new novel or poem was it that kept you awake so late last
night that you have lost half this glorious morning?  Tell me the
author's name, that I may punish the delinquent, by cutting up his
book, in the next number of our Review?"

"Cut it up, and you will do more than I could; for I found myself
nodding over the second page, and I feel the drowsiness about me
still."

"The opiate--the opiate, Miss Emily?  Who was its compounder?  He
must be a charmer indeed."

"Himself and his printer knows.  Only some unhappy bard, who dubs us
women 'the angels of life,' and misuses us vilely through a dozen
cantos of halting verse.  The poor man has forgot the story

  'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
  Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
  Brought death into the world and all our woe,

or he would have christened us daughters of Eve by a very different
name."

"O you little rogue! you are too hard upon this devotee to your dear
deluding sex.  It is only his excess of politeness that has made him
forget his historical reading."

"His politeness!  Fiddlestick!  I would as soon have a troop of boys
inflict the intolerable tediousness of their calf-love upon me as
endure the rhapsodies of a booby, who strips us of our good flesh and
blood, frailties and all, to etherealize us into an incomprehensible
compound of tears, sighs, moonshine, music, love, flowers, and
hysterics."

"Emily, how you run on!" broke in Mrs Cheesham.  "My dear Mr
Stukeley, really you must not encourage the girl in her nonsense.  I
declare I sometimes think her tongue runs away with her wits."

"Better that, I'm sure, madam, than have it run away without them,"
responded Stukeley, in a deprecating tone, which threw Mrs Cheesham,
whose intellect was none of the acutest, completely out.

"Girls, there are Mr Blowze and Mr Lilylipz," said Mrs Cheesham,
looking in the direction of the friends, Adolph and Eugene; "you had
better arrange with them about coming this evening."

Emily advanced with her sister to the engaging pair, who received
them with that peculiar contortion of the body, between a jerk and a
shuffle, which young men are in the habit of mistaking for a bow, and
was soon deep in the heart of a flirtation with Adolph, while Fanny
stood listening to the vapid nothings of Eugene, a very model of
passive endurance.  Frank Preston was anything but an easy spectator
of this movement; nor was Emily blind to this; but, like a wilful
woman, she could not forbear playing the petty tyrant, and exercising
freely the power to torment which she saw that she possessed.

"You will be of our party to-night, gentlemen," continued Mrs
Cheesham.  "We are to have a little music.  You are fond of music, Mr
Stukeley, I know; and no pressing can be necessary to an ama_toor_
like you, Mr Francis.  I can assure you, you'll meet some very nice
people.  Mr and Mrs M'Skrattachan, highly respectable people--an old
Highland family, and with very high connections.  Mr M'Skrattachan's
mother's sister's aunt--no, his aunt's mother's sister--yes, that was
it--Mr M'Skrattachan's aunt's mother's sister; and yet I don't
know--I dare say I was right before--at all events, it was one or
other of them--married a second cousin--something of that kind--of
the Duke of Argyle, by the mother's side They had a large estate in
Skye a Ross-shire--I am not sure which, but it was somewhere
thereabout."

Stukeley and Preston were glad to cover their retreat by acceptance
of Mrs Cheesham's invitation; and, leaving her to empty the dregs of
the details which she had begun into the willing ears of some of her
more submissive friends, they made their escape from the pump-room.

Slopbole Cottage, where the Cheeshams were domiciliated during their
sojourn at Potterwell, was situated upon the banks of the Wimpledown,
at a distance of somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the
burgh.  It had, at one time, been a farm-house; but, within a few
years, it had been recast; and, by the addition of a bow window, a
trellised door, and a few of the usual _et ceteras_, it had been
converted into what is by courtesy termed a cottage ornée.  It was an
agreeable place for all that, shaded by the remnants of a fine old
wood--the rustling of whose foliage made pleasant music, as it
blended with the ever-sounding plash and rushing of the stream.

When Frank Preston arrived at Slopbole Cottage that evening, he found
the drawing-room already well stocked with the usual components of a
tea-party.  The two exquisites of the morning he saw, to his dismay,
were already there.  Adolph was assiduously sacrificing to the charms
and wit of Miss Emily, while his shadow, Eugene, was--but Preston did
not care about that--as much engaged in Macadamising his great
conceptions into small talk suitable for the intellectual capacity of
Miss Fanny.  Mrs Cheesham regarded these proceedings with entire
satisfaction.  The friends, to her mind, were men of birth, fashion,
and fortune, and the very men for her daughters.  Besides, there was
a mystery about them that was charming.  Nobody knew exactly who they
were, although everybody was sure they were somebody.  None but great
people ever travel incog.  They were evidently struck by her
daughters.  Things were in a fair train; and, if she could but make a
match of it, Mrs Cheesham thought she might then fold her hands
across, and make herself easy for life.  Her daughters would be the
wives of great men, and she was their mother, and every one knows
what an important personage a wife's mother is.

"Two very fine young men, Mr Francis," said Mrs Cheesham.  "Extremely
intelligent people.  And so good looking!  Quite _distingue_, too.
It is not every day one meets such people."

Frank Preston threw in the necessary quantity of "yes's,"
"certainly's," and so forth, while Mrs Cheesham continued--

"They seem rather taken with my girls, don't they?  Mr Blowze is
never away from Emily's side.  His attentions are quite marked.
Don't you think, now, they'd make a nice pair?  They're both so
lively--always saying such clever things.  I never knew Emily so
smart either; but that girl's all animation--all spirit.  I always
said Emily would never do but for a rattle of a husband--a man that
could talk as much as herself.  It does not do, you know, really it
does not do, for the wife to have too much of the talk to herself.  I
make that a principle; and, as I often tell Cheesham, I let him have
it all his own way, rather than argue a point with him."

This was, of course, an exceedingly agreeable strain of conversation
to the lover, to whom it was no small relief, when Mrs Cheesham
quitted his side to single out her musical friends for the
performance of a quartette.  At her summons, these parties were seen
to emerge from the various recesses where they had been concealing
themselves, in all the majesty of silence, as is the way with musical
amateurs in general.  Miss Fanny, who was really an accomplished
performer, was called to preside at the pianoforte, and Mr Lilylipz
rushed before to adjust the music-stool and turn over the leaves for
her.  Mr Blewitt got out his flute, and, after screwing it together,
commenced a series of blasts upon it, which were considered necessary
to the process of tuning.  Mr Harrower, the violoncello player,
turned up the wristbands of his coat, placed his handkerchief on his
left knee, and, after a preliminary flourish or two of his hands,
began to grind his violoncello into a proper sharpness of pitch.  Not
to be behind the rest, Mr Fogle screwed his violin strings first up,
and then he screwed them down, and then he proceeded to screw them up
again, with a waywardness of purpose that might have been extremely
diverting, if its effects had not been so very distressing to the
ears.  Having thus begot a due degree of attention in their audience,
the performers thought of trying how the results of their respective
preparations tallied.

"Miss Fanny, will you be kind enough to sound your A?" lisped Mr
Blewitt.

Miss Fanny did sound her A, and again a dissonance broke forth that
would have thrown Orpheus into fits.  It was then discovered that the
damp had reduced the piano nearly a whole tone below pitch, and Mr
Blewitt's flute could not be brought down to a level with it by any
contrivance.  The musicians, however, were not to be baulked in their
purpose for this, and they agreed to proceed with the flute some half
a tone higher than the other instruments.  But there was a world of
preliminary work yet to be gone through; tables had to be adjusted,
and books had to be built upon music stands.  But the tables would
not stand conveniently, and the books would fall, and then all the
work of adjustment and library architecture had to be gone over
again.  At last these matters were put to rights, and after a few
more indefinite vagaries by Messrs Blewitt, Harrower and Fogle, the
junto made a dash into the heart of one of Haydn's quartettes.  The
piano kept steadily moving through the piece.  Miss Fanny knew her
work, and she did it.  The others did not know theirs, and they _did
for_ it.  After a few faint squeaks at the beginning, Mr Blewitt's
flute dropped out of hearing altogether, and, just as everybody had
set it down as defunct, it began to give token of its existence by a
wail or two rising through the storm of sounds with which the
performance closed, and then made up its leeway by continuing to
vapour away for some time after the rest had finished.

"Bless my heart, are you done?" cried Mr Blewitt, breaking off in the
middle of a solo, which he found himself performing to his own
astonishment.

Mr Harrower and Mr Fogle threw up their eyes with an intensity of
contempt that defies description.  To be sure, neither of them had
kept either time or tune all the way through.  Mr Harrower's
violoncello had growled and groaned, at intervals, in a manner truly
pitiable; and Mr Fogle's bow had done nothing but dance and leap, in
a perpetual staccato from the first bar to the last, to the entire
confusion of both melody and concord.  But they had both managed to
be in at the death, and were therefore entitled to sneer at the
unhappy flutist.  Mr Eugene Lilylipz, who had annoyed Miss Fanny
throughout the performance, by invariably turning over the leaf at
the wrong place, now broke into a volley of raptures, of which the
words "Devaine" and "Chawming," were among the principal symbols.  A
buzz of approbation ran round the room, warm in proportion to the
relief which the cessation of the Dutch concert afforded.  Mr
Harrower and his coadjutors grew communicative, and vented an
infinite quantity of the jargon of dilettanteism upon each other, and
upon those about them.  They soon got into a discussion upon the
merits of different composers, whose names served them to bandy to
and fro in the battledore and shuttlecock of conversation.  Beethoven
was cried up to the seventh heaven by Mr Harrower for his grandeur
and sublimity, and all that sort of thing.

"There is a Miltonic greatness about the man!" he exclaimed, throwing
his eyes to the ceiling, in the contemplation of a visionary demigod.
"A vastness, a massiveness, an incomprehensible--eh, eh?--ah, I can't
exactly tell what, that places him far above all other writers."

"Every man to his taste," insinuated Mr Blewitt; "but I certainly
like what I can understand best.  Now I don't understand Beethoven;
but I _can_ understand Mozart, or Weber, or Haydn."

"It is very well if you do!" retorted the violoncellist, reflecting
probably on the recent specimen Mr Blewitt had given of his powers.
"It is more than everybody does, I can tell you."

"Od, gentlemen, but it's grand music onyhow, and exceeding justice
you have done it, if I may speak my mind.  But ye ken I'm no great
shakes of a judge."

This was the opinion volunteered by Mr Cheesham, who saw the
musicians were giving symptoms of that tendency to discord for which
they are proverbial, and threw out a sop to their vanity, which at
once restored them to order.  As he said himself, Mr Cheesham was no
great judge of music, nor, indeed, of any of the fine arts.  He had
read little, and thought less; and yet, since he had become
independent of the world, he was fond of assuming an air of
knowledge, that was exceedingly amusing.  There was nothing, for
instance, that he liked better to be talking about than history; and,
nevertheless, that Hannibal was killed at the battle of Drumclog, and
Julius Cæsar beheaded by Henry the Eight, were facts which he would
probably have had no hesitation in admitting, upon any reasonable
representation.

By this time, Mr Stukeley had joined the party, and was going his
rounds, chatting, laughing, quizzing, and prosing, according to the
different characters of the people whom he talked with.  When he
reached Mr Cheesham, he found him in earnest conversation with Mr
Lilylipz regarding the ruins of Tinglebury, an abbey not far from
Potterwell, of which the architecture was pronounced by Mr Lilylipz
to be "_suttinly_ transcendent beyond anything.  It is of that pure
Græco-Gothic, which was brought over by William the Conqueror, and
went out with the Saxons."

Stukeley encouraged the conversation, drawing out the presumptuous
ignorance of Mr Lilylipz and the rusty nomeanings of the parent
Cheesham into strong relief.

"Gentlemen, excuse me for breaking up your _tête-à-tête_.  Have you
got upon 'Shakspeare, taste, and the musical glasses?'" said Miss
Emily, joining the trio.  "Mr Lilylipz, your friend tells me you
sing.  Will you break the dulness, and favour us?"

"Oh, I never do sing; and besides, I am suffering from hoarseness."

"Come, come," replied Miss Emily, "none of these excuses, or we shall
expect to find a very Braham, at least."

"Now, _re_ally," remonstrated Mr Lilylipz.

"Oh, never mind his nonsense, Miss Cheesham," exclaimed Mr Blowze,
from the other side of the room.  "Lilylipz sings an uncommonly good
song when he likes.  Give us 'the Rose of Cashmere,' or 'She wore a
wreath of Roses.'  Come away, now--no humbug!"

"Oh, that will be delightful!--pray, do sing!" were the exclamations
of a dozen voices at least.  "Mr Lilylipz' song!" shouted the elderly
gentlemen of the party; and, forthwith, an awful stillness reigned
throughout the apartment.  Upon this, Mr Lilylipz blew his nose,
coughed thrice, and, throwing himself back in his chair, riveted his
eyes, with the utmost intensity, upon a corner of the ceiling.  Every
one held back his breath in expectation, and the interesting young
man opened upon the assemblage with a ballad all about an Araby maid,
to whom a Christian knight was submitting proposals of elopement,
which the lady appeared to be by no means averse to, for each stanza
ended with the refrain, "Away, away, away!" signifying that the
parties meant to be off somewhere as fast as possible.  Mr Lilylipz
had just concluded verse the first, and the "Away, away, away!" had
powerfully excited the imagination of the young ladies present, when
the door opened, and the clinking of crystal ware announced the
inopportune entrance of a maidservant, bearing a trayful of glasses
filled with that vile imbroglio of hot water and sugar, coloured with
wine, which passes in genteel circles by the name of negus.  All eyes
turned towards the door, and Mrs Cheesham exclaimed, "Sally, be
quiet!" but Mr Eugene was too much enrapt by his own performance to
feel the disturbance, and he tore away through verse the second with
kindling enthusiasm.  "Away, away, away!" sang the vocalist, when a
crash and a scream arrested his progress.  The servant maid had
dropped the tray, and the glasses were rolling to and fro upon the
floor in a confusion of fragments, while the delinquent, Sally,
shrieking at the top of her voice, was making her way out at the door
with all the speed she was mistress of.

"What can that be?" cried one.  "The careless slut!" screamed
another.  "Such thoughtlessness!" suggested a third.  "What the deuce
could the woman mean?" asked a fourth.  "It's the last night she sets
foot in my house!" exclaimed Mrs Cheesham, thrown off her dignity by
the sudden shock.

"Bless me, you look unwell!" said Mr Cheesham to Mr Lilylipz, who had
turned deadly pale, and was altogether looking excessively unhappy.

"Oh, it is nothing.  Only a constitutional nervousness.  The start,
the surprise, that sort of thing, you know; but it will go off in a
moment.  I shall just take a turn in the air for a little, and I'll
be quite better."

The ladies were engaged in the contemplation of the wreck at the
other end of the room, and Mr Lilylipz, accompanied by his friend,
stepped out at one of the drawing-room windows, which opened out upon
the lawn.  Frank Preston looked after them, and saw them in the
moonlight, passing down the banks of the river among the trees,
apparently engaged in earnest conversation.

"What do you think of this business, eh?" said Stukeley, rousing him
from a reverie by a tap upon the shoulder.  "Queerish a little, isn't
it?"

"Queerish not a little, I think; and blow me if I don't get to the
bottom of it, or a devil's in it.  That girl knows something of Mr
Eugene, I'll be sworn.  We must get out of her what it is."

"Oh, no doubt she does.  It wasn't the song that threw her off,
although it was certainly vile enough for anything; it was himself;
that is as clear as day.  Let us off, hunt out the wench, and get the
secret from her."

They left the room by the open window, and passing round the house to
the servants' entrance, walked into the kitchen, where they found
Sally labouring under strong excitement, as she narrated the incident
which had led to her precipitate retreat from the drawing-room.

"To think of seeing him here; the base deceitful wretch!  Cocked up
in the drawing-room, forsooth, as if that were a place for him or the
likes of him.  Set him up, indeed--a pretty story.  But I know'd as
how he'd never come to no good!"

"Who is he, my dear?" inquired Stukeley.

"Who is he, sir!--who should he be but Tom Newlands, the son of Dame
Newlands of our village."

"Oh, you must certainly be mistaken."

"Never a bit mistaken am I, sir.  I have too good reason for
remembering him, the wretch!  Oh, if I had him here, I wouldn't give
it him, I wouldn't?  I'd sarve him out, the deludin' scoundrel.  But
he never was good for nothing since he went into the haberdashery
line."

"A haberdasher, is he?  Capital!--capital!  The man of fashion, eh,
Frank?"

"The young man of _distingue_ appearance!"

"And who's his friend, Sally?"

"What! the other chap?  Oh, I don't know anything about him, except
that he's one of them man millinery fellows; and a precious bad lot
they are, I know."

"Glorious!--glorious!" cried Stukeley, crying with delight, as he
walked out of the place with his friend.  "Here's a discovery for
some folks, isn't it?  The brilliant alliance, the high family, _et
cetera, et cetera_, all dwindled into a measurer of tapes.  Aren't
you proud of having had such a rival?"

"Oh, come, don't be too hard upon me on that point.  Mum, here we are
at the drawing-room again.  Not a word of what we have heard.  If
these scamps have made themselves scarce, as I think they have, good
and well.  But if they venture to show face here again, I shall
certainly feel it to be my duty to pull their noses, and eject them
from the premises by a summary process."

"Oh, never fear, they will not put you to the trouble.  They are off
for good and all, or I am no prophet."

Stukeley was right.  The evening passed on, and the friends returned
not.  Infinite were the surmises which their absence occasioned, but
the general conclusion was, that the interesting Mr Lilylipz had
found himself worse, and had retired to his inn for the night, along
with his faithful Achates.  Morning came, but the friends did not
make their appearance at the pumproom as usual.  They were not at
their inn; they were not in Potterwell.  Whither they had wended, no
one knew; but, like the characters in the ballad, which had been so
oddly broken off, they were "away, away, away."  They had come like
shadows, and like shadows they had departed.

Some months afterwards, Mrs Cheesham and her daughter Emily entered
one of the extensive drapery warehouses of Edinburgh, to invest a
portion o' their capital in the purchase of _mousseline de laine_.
They had seen an advertisement which intimated that no lady ought, in
justice to herself, to buy a dress of this description without first
inspecting that company's stock of the article.  They were determined
to do themselves justice, and they went accordingly.

"Eugene," said the superintendent of the place, "show these ladies
that parcel of goods.  A very superior article, indeed."  Eugene!
Eugene! the ladies had good reason to remember the name; and what was
their surprise, on looking round, to see the exquisite of Potterwell
bending under a load of dress pieces!  If their surprise was great,
infinitely greater was his dismay.  His knees shook; his eyes grew
dim; his head giddy.  His hands lost their power, and, dropping the
bundle, the unhappy Eugene stumbled over it in a manner painfully
ignoble.  Mrs and Miss Cheesham turned to quit the shop, when there,
behind them, stood the dashing Adolph.  "The enemy!" he exclaimed,
and, ducking dexterously under the counter, disappeared among sundry
bales that were piled beyond it.  The lesson was not lost.  Mrs
Cheesham had had quite enough of quality-hunting to satisfy her; and
Miss Emily found out that it was desirable to be wise as well as
witty, and gave her hand to Frank Preston, who forgave her temporary
apostacy, not only because it had been smartly punished by the
result, but for the sake of the many estimable qualities which Miss
Cheesham really possessed.  Miss Fanny still roams, "in maiden
meditation, fancy free;" but she cannot do so long, or there is no
skill in man.  At all events, when she does want a husband, she will
not go in search of him to COUNTRY QUARTERS.




THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER.

BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

On the western skirts of the Torwood--famous in Scottish story for
its association with the names of Wallace and Bruce--there stood, in
the middle of the sixteenth century, a farm-house of rather superior
appearance for the period.

This house was occupied at the time of which we speak by a person of
the name of Henderson, who farmed a pretty extensive tract of land in
the neighbourhood.

Henderson was a respectable man; and although not affluent, was in
tolerably easy circumstances.

The night on which our story opens, which was in the September of the
year 1530, was a remarkably wild and stormy one.  The ancient oaks of
the Torwood were bending and groaning beneath the pressure of the
storm; and, ever and anon, large portions of the dark forest were
rendered visible, and a wild light thrown into its deepest recesses
by the flashing lightning.

The night, too, was pitch-dark; and to add to its dismal character, a
heavy drenching rain, borne on the furious blast, deluged the earth,
and beat with violence on all opposing objects.

"A terrible night this, goodwife," said Henderson to his helpmate, as
he double-barred the outer door, while she stood behind him with a
candle to afford him the necessary light to perform this operation.

"I wish these streamers that have been dancing all night in the north
may not bode some ill to poor Scotland.  They were seen, I mind, just
as they are now, eight nights precisely before that cursed battle of
Flodden; and it was well judged by them that some serious disaster
was at hand."

"But I have heard you say, goodman," replied David Henderson's
better-half, who--the former finding some difficulty in thrusting a
bar into its place--was still detained in her situation of
candle-holder, "that the fight of Flodden was lost by the king's
descending from his vantage-ground."

"True, good wife," said David; "but was not his doing so but a means
of fulfilling the prognostication?  How could it have been brought
about else?"

The door being now secured, Henderson and his wife returned without
further colloquy into the house; and shortly after, it being now
late, retired to bed.

In the meantime, the storm continued to rage with unabated violence.
The rush of the wind amongst the trees was deafening; and at first
faintly, but gradually waxing louder, as the stream swelled with the
descending deluge of rain, came the hoarse voice of the adjoining
river on the blast as it boiled and raged along.

Henderson had been in bed about an hour--it was now midnight--but had
been kept awake by the tremendous sounds of the tempest, when, gently
jogging his slumbering helpmate--

"Goodwife," he said, "listen a moment.  Don't you hear the voice of
some one shouting without?"

They now both listened intently; and loudly as the storm roared, soon
distinguished the tramp of horses' feet approaching the house.

In the next moment, a rapid succession of thundering strokes on the
door, as if from the butt end of a heavy whip, accompanied by the
exclamations of--

"Ho! within there! house, house!" gave intimation that the rider
sought admittance.

"Who can this be?" said Henderson, making an attempt to rise; in
which, however, he was resisted by his wife, who held him back,
saying--

"Never mind them, David; let them just rap on.  This is no time to
admit visitors.  Who can tell who they may be?"

"And who cares who they may be?" replied the sturdy farmer, throwing
himself out of bed.  "I'll just see how they look from the window,
Mary;" and he proceeded to the window, threw it up, looked over, and
saw beneath him a man of large stature, mounted on a powerful black
horse, with a lady seated behind him.

"Dreadful night, friend," said the stranger, looking up to the window
occupied by Henderson, and to which he had been attracted by the
noise made in raising it.  "Can you give my fellow-traveller here
shelter till the morning?  She is so benumbed with cold, so drenched
with wet, and so exhausted by the fatigue of a long day's ride, that
she can proceed no further; and we have yet a good fifteen miles to
make out."

"This is no hostel, friend, for the accommodation of travellers,"
replied the farmer.  "I am not in the habit of admitting strangers
into my house, especially at so late an hour of the night as this."

"Had I been asking for myself," rejoined the horseman, "I should not
have complained of your wariness; but surely you won't be so churlish
as refuse quarters to a lady on such a night as this.  She can scarce
retain her seat on the saddle.  Besides, you shall be handsomely paid
for any trouble you may be put to."

"Oh do, good sir, allow me to remain with you for the night, for I am
indeed very much fatigued," came up to the ear of Henderson, in
feeble but silvery tones, from the fair companion of the horseman,
with the addition, after a short pause, of "You shall be well
rewarded for the kindness."

At a loss what to do, Henderson made no immediate reply, but,
scratching his head, withdrew from the window a moment to consult his
wife.

Learning that there was a lady in the case, and judging from this
circumstance that no violence or mischief of any kind was likely to
be intended, the latter agreed, although still with some reluctance,
to her husband's suggestion that the benighted travellers should be
admitted.

On this resolution being come to, Henderson returned to the window,
and thrusting out his head, exclaimed, "Wait there a moment, and I
will admit you."

In the next instant he had unbarred the outer door, and had stepped
out to assist the lady in dismounting; but was anticipated in this
courtesy by her companion, who had already placed her on the ground.

"Shall I put up your horse, sir?" said Henderson, addressing the
stranger, but now with more deference than before; as, from his dress
and manner, which he had now an opportunity of observing more
closely, he had no doubt he was a man of rank.

"Oh no, thank you, friend," replied the latter.  "My business is
pressing, an I must go on; but allow me to recommend this fair lady
to your kindest attention.  To-morrow I will return and carry her
away."

Saying this, he again threw himself on his horse--a noble-looking
charger--took bridle in hand, struck his spurs into his side, and
regardless of all obstacles, and of the profound darkness of the
night, darted off with the speed of the wind.

In an instant after, both horse and rider were lost in the gloom; but
their furious career might for some time be tracked, even after they
had disappeared, by the streams of fire which poured from the fierce
collision of the horse's hoofs with the stony road over which he was
tearing his way with such desperate velocity.

Henderson in the meantime had conducted his fair charge into the
house, and had consigned her to the care of his wife, who had now
risen for the purpose of attending her.

A servant having been also called up, a cheerful fire soon blazed on
the hearth of the best apartment in the house--that into which the
strange lady had been ushered.

The kind-hearted farmer's wife now also supplied her fair guest with
dry clothing and other necessaries, and did everything in her power
to render her as comfortable as possible.

To this kindness her natural benevolence alone would have prompted
her; but an additional motive presented itself in the youth and
extreme beauty of the fair traveller, who was, as the farmer's wife
afterwards remarked to her husband, the loveliest creature her eyes
ever beheld.  Nor was her manner less captivating; it was mild and
gentle, while the sweet silvery tones of her voice imparted an
additional charm to the graces of her person.

Her apparel, too, the good woman observed, was of the richest
description; and the jewellery with which she was adorned, in the
shape of rings, bracelets, etc., and which she deposited one after
another on a table that stood beside her, with the careless manner of
one accustomed to the possession of such things, seemed of great
value.

A purse, also, well stored with golden guineas, as the sound
indicated, was likewise thrown on the table with the same indifferent
manner.

The wealth of the fair stranger, in short, seemed boundless in the
eyes of her humble, unsophisticated attendant.

The comfort of the young lady attended to in every way, including the
offer of some homely refreshment, of which, however, she scarcely
partook, pleading excessive fatigue as an apology, she was left alone
in the apartment to retire to rest when she thought proper; the room
containing a clean and neat bed, which had always been reserved for
strangers.

On rejoining her husband, after leaving her fair guest, a long and
earnest conversation took place between the worthy couple as to who
or what the strangers could be.  They supposed, they conjectured,
they imagined, but all to no purpose.  They could make nothing of it
beyond the conviction that they were persons of rank; for the natural
politeness of the "guidwife" had prevented her asking the young lady
any questions touching her history, and she had made no communication
whatever on the subject herself.

As to the lady's companion, all that Henderson, who was the only one
of the family who had seen him, could tell, was, that he was a tall,
dark man, attired as a gentleman, but so muffled up in a large cloak,
that he could not, owing to that circumstance and the extreme
darkness of the night, make out his features distinctly.

Henderson, however, expressed some surprise at the abruptness of his
departure, and still more at the wild and desperate speed with which
he had ridden away, regardless of the darkness of the night and of
all obstacles that might be in the way.

It was what he himself, a good horseman, and who knew every inch of
the ground, would not have done for a thousand merks; and a great
marvel he held it, that the reckless rider had got a hundred yards
without horse and man coming down, to the utter destruction of both.

Such was the substance of Henderson's communications to his wife
regarding the horseman.  The latter's to him was of the youth and
exceeding beauty of his fair companion, and of her apparently
prodigious wealth.  The worthy man drank in with greedy ears, and
looks of excessive wonderment, her glowing descriptions of the
sparkling jewels and heavily laden purse which she had seen the
strange lady deposit on the table; and greatly did these descriptions
add to his perplexity as to who or what this lady could possibly be.

Tired of conjecturing, the worthy couple now again retired to rest,
trusting that the morning would bring some light on a subject which
so sadly puzzled them.

In due time that morning came, and, like many of those mornings that
succeed a night of storm, it came fair and beautiful.  The wind was
laid, the rain had ceased, and the unclouded sun poured his cheerful
light through the dark green glades of the Torwood.

On the same morning another sun arose, although to shine on a more
limited scene.  This was the fair guest of David Henderson of
Woodlands, whose beauty, remarkable as it had seemed on the previous
night under all disadvantages, now appeared to surpass all that can
be conceived of female perfection.

Mrs Henderson looked, and, we may say, gazed on the fair stranger
with a degree of wonder and delight, that for some time prevented her
tendering the civilities which she came for the express purpose of
offering.  For some seconds she could do nothing but obey a species
of charm, for which, perhaps, she could not have very well accounted.
The gentle smile, too, and melodious voice of her guest, seemed still
more fascinating than on the previous evening.

In the meantime the day wore on, and there was yet no appearance of
the lady's companion of the former night, who, as the reader will
recollect, had promised to Henderson to return and carry away his
fair lodger.

Night came, and still he appeared not.  Another day and another night
passed away, and still he of the black charger was not forthcoming.

The circumstance greatly surprised both Henderson and his wife; but
it did not surprise them more than the lady's apparent indifference
on the subject.  She indeed joined, in words at least, in the wonder
which they once or twice distantly hinted at the conduct of the
recreant knight; but it was evident that she did not feel much of
either astonishment or disappointment at his delay.

Again and again, another and another day came and passed away, and
still no one appeared to inquire after the fair inmate of Woodlands.

It will readily be believed that the surprise of Henderson and his
wife at this circumstance increased with the lapse of time.  It
certainly did.  But however much they might be surprised, they had
little reason to complain, so far, at any rate, as their interest was
concerned, for their fair lodger paid them handsomely for the trouble
she put them to.  She dealt out the contents of her ample and
well-stocked purse with unsparing liberality, besides presenting her
hostess with several valuable jewels.

On this score, therefore, they had nothing to complain of; and
neither needed to care, nor did care, how long it continued.

During all this time the unknown beauty continued to maintain the
most profound silence regarding her history,--whence she had come,
whither she was going, or in what relation the person stood to her
who had brought her to Woodlands, and who now seemed to have deserted
her.

All that the most ingeniously-put queries on the subject could elicit
was, that she was an entire stranger in that part of the country; and
an assurance that the person who brought her would return for her one
day, although there were reasons why it might be some little time
distant.

What these reasons were, however, she never would give the most
remote idea; and with this measure of information were her host and
hostess compelled to remain satisfied.

The habits of the fair stranger, in the meantime, were extremely
retired.  She would never go abroad until towards the dusk of the
evening; and when she did she always took the most sequestered
routes; her favourite, indeed only resort on these occasions, being a
certain little retired grove of elms, at the distance of about a
quarter of a mile from Woodlands.

The extreme caution the young lady observed in all her movements when
she went abroad, a good deal surprised both Henderson and his wife;
but, from a feeling of delicacy towards their fair lodger, who had
won their esteem by her affable and amiable manners, they avoided all
remark on the subject, and would neither themselves interfere in any
way with her proceedings, nor allow any other member of their family
to do so.

Thus was she permitted to go out and return whensoever she pleased
without inquiry or remark.

Although, however, neither Henderson nor his wife would allow of any
one watching the motions of their fair but mysterious lodger when she
went abroad, there is nothing to hinder us from doing this.  We shall
therefore follow her to the little elm grove by the wayside, on a
certain evening two or three days after her arrival in Woodlands.

Doing this, we shall find the mysterious stranger seated beside a
clear sparkling fountain, situated a little way within the grove,
that, first forming itself into a little pellucid lake in the midst
of the greensward, afterwards glided away down a mossy channel eked
with primroses.

All alone by this fountain sat the young lady, looking, in her
surpassing features and the exquisite symmetry of her light and
graceful form, the very nymph of the crystal waters of the
spring--the goddess of the grove.

As she thus sat on the evening in question--it being now towards the
dusk--the bushes, by which the fountain was in part shut in, were
suddenly and roughly parted, and in the next moment a young man of
elegant exterior, attired in the best fashion of the period, and
leading a horse behind him by the bridle, stood before the
half-alarmed and blushing damsel.

The embarrassment of the lady, however, was not much greater than
that of the intruder, who appeared to have little expected to find so
fair and delicate a creature in such a situation, or indeed to find
any one else.  He himself had sought the fountain, which he knew
well, and had often visited, merely to quench his thirst.

After contemplating each other for an instant with looks of surprise
and embarrassment, the stranger doffed his bonnet with an air of
great gallantry, and apologised for his intrusion.

The lady, smiling and blushing, replied, that his appearance there
could be no intrusion, as the place was free to all.

"True, madam," said the former, again bowing low; "but your presence
should have made it sacred, and I should have so deemed it, had I
been aware of your being here."

The only reply of the young lady to this gallant speech, was a
profound curtsey, and a smile of winning sweetness which was natural
to her.

Unable to withdraw himself from the fascinations of the fair
stranger, yet without any apology for remaining longer where he was,
the young man appeared for a moment not to know precisely what he
should say or do next.  At length, however, after having vainly
hinted a desire to know the young lady's name and place of residence,
his courtesy prevailed over every other more selfish feeling, and he
mounted his horse, and, bidding the fair wood-nymph a respectful
adieu, rode off.

The young gallant, however, did not carry all away with him that he
brought,--he left his heart behind him; and he had not ridden far
before he found that he had done so.

The surpassing beauty of the fair stranger, and the captivating
sweetness of her manner, had made an impression upon him which was
destined never to be effaced.

His, in short, was one of those cases in the matter of love, which,
it is said, are laughed at in France, doubted in England, and true
only of the warm-tempered sons and daughters of the sunny
south,--love at first sight.

It was so.  From that hour the image of the lovely nymph of the grove
was to remain for ever enshrined in the inmost heart of the young
cavalier.

He had met with no encouragement to follow up the accidental
acquaintance he had made.  Indeed, the lady's reluctance to give him
any information whatever as to her name or residence, he could not
but consider as an indirect intimation that she desired no further
correspondence with him.

But, recollecting the old adage, that "faint heart never won fair
lady," he visited again and again the fountain in the grove, and at
last won from the lady the acceptance of his suit.

Having brought our story to this point, we shall retrace our steps a
little way, and take note of certain incidents that occurred in the
city of Glasgow on the day after the visit of him of the black
charger at Woodlands.

Early on the forenoon of that day, the Drygate, then one of the
principal streets of the city above named, exhibited an unusual
degree of stir and bustle.

The causeway was thronged with idlers, who were ever and anon dashed
aside, like the wave that is thrown from the prow of a vessel, by
some prancing horseman, who made his way towards an open space formed
by the junction of three different streets.

At this point were mustering a band of riders, consisting of the
civil authorities of the city, together with a number of its
principal inhabitants, and other gentlemen from the neighbourhood.

The horsemen were all attired in their best,--hat and feathers, long
cloaks of Flemish broad-cloth, and glittering steel-handed rapiers by
their sides.

Having mustered to about the number of thirty, they formed themselves
into something like regular order, and seemed now to be but awaiting
the word to march.  And it was indeed so; but they were also awaiting
he who was to give it.  They waited the appearance of their leader.
A shout from the populace soon after announced his approach.

"The Provost! the Provost!" exclaimed a hundred voices at once, as a
man of large stature, and of a bold and martial bearing, mounted on a
"coal-black steed," came prancing alongst the Drygate-head, and made
for the point at which the horsemen were assembled.

On his approach, the latter doffed their hats respectfully--a
civility which was gracefully returned by him to whom it was
addressed.

Taking his place at the head of the cavalcade, the Provost gave the
word to march, when the whole party moved onwards; and after
cautiously footing it down the steep and ill-paved descent of the
Drygate, took, at a slow pace, the road towards Hamilton.

The chief magistrate of Glasgow, who led the party of horsemen on the
present occasion, was Sir Robert Lindsay of Dunrod--a powerful and
wealthy baron of the neighbourhood, who had been chosen to that
appointment, as all chief magistrates were chosen in those wild and
turbulent times, on account of his ability to protect the inhabitants
from those insults and injuries to which they were constantly liable
at the hands of unprincipled power, and from which the laws were too
feeble to shield them.

And to better hands than those of Sir Robert Lindsay, who was a man
of bold and determined character, the welfare of the city and the
safety of the citizens could not have been entrusted.

In return for the honour conferred on him, and the confidence reposed
in him, he watched over the interests of the city with the utmost
vigilance.  But it was not to the general interest alone that he
confined the benefits of his guardianship.  Individuals, also, who
were wronged, or threatened to be wronged, found in him a ready and
efficient protector, let the oppressor or wrongdoer be whom he might.

Having given this brief sketch of the leader of the cavalcade, we
resume the detail of its proceedings.

Holding on its way in a south-easterly direction, the party soon
reached and passed Rutherglen Bridge; the road connecting Hamilton
with Glasgow being then on the south side of the Clyde.  But a little
way farther had they proceeded, when the faint sound of a bugle was
heard, coming apparently from a considerable distance.

"There he comes at last," said Sir David Lindsay, suddenly checking
his I horse to await the coming up of his party, of which he had been
riding a little way in advance, immersed in a brown study.  "There he
comes at last," he exclaimed, recalled from his reverie by the sound
of the bugle.  "Look to your paces gentlemen, and let us show some
order and regularity as well as respect."

Obeying this hint, the horsemen, who had been before jogging along in
a confused and careless manner, now drew together into a closer body;
the laggards coming forward, and those in advance holding back.

In this order, with the Provost at their head, the party continued to
move slowly onwards; but they had not done so for many minutes, when
they descried, at the farther extremity of a long level reach of the
road, a numerous party of horse approaching at a rapid, ambling pace,
and seemingly straining hard to keep up with one who rode a little
way in their front.

The contrast between this party and the Provost's was striking enough.

The latter, though exceedingly respectable and citizen-like, was of
extremely sober hue compared to the former, in which flaunted all the
gayest dresses of the gayest courtiers of the time.  Long plumes of
feathers waved and nodded in velvet bonnets, looped with gold bands;
and rich and brilliant colours, mingling with the glitter of steel
and silver, gave to the gallant cavalcade at once an imposing and
magnificent appearance.  In point of horsemanship, too, with the
exception of Sir Robert Lindsay himself, and one or two other men of
rank who had joined his party, the approaching cavaliers greatly
surpassed the worthy citizens of St Mungo,--coming on at a showy and
dashing pace, while the latter kept advancing with the sober, steady
gait assimilative of their character.

On the two parties coming within about fifty paces of each other, Sir
Robert Lindsay made a signal to his followers to halt, while he
himself rode forward, hat in hand, towards the leader of the opposite
party.

"Our good Sir Robert of Dunrod," said the latter, who was no other
than James V., advancing half-way to meet the Provost, and taking him
kindly and familiarly by the hand as he spoke.  "How did'st learn of
our coming?"

"The movements of kings are not easily kept secret," replied Sir
Robert, evasively.

"By St Bridget, it would seem not," replied James, laughingly.  "My
visit to your good city, Sir Robert, I did not mean to be a formal
one, and therefore had mentioned it only to one or two.  In truth,
I--I"--added James, with some embarrassment of manner--"I had just
one particular purpose, and that of a private nature, in view.  No
state matter at all Sir Robert--nothing of a public character.  So
that, to be plain with you, Sir Robert, I could have dispensed with
the honour you have done me in bringing out these good citizens to
receive me; that being, I presume, your purpose.  Not but that I
should have been most happy to meet yourself, Sir Robert; but it was
quite unnecessary to trouble these worthy people."

"It was our bounden duty, your Grace," replied Sir Robert, not at all
disconcerted by this royal damper on his loyalty.  "It was our
bounden duty, on learning that your Grace was at Bothwell Castle, and
that you intended visiting our poor town of Glasgow, to acknowledge
the favour in the best way in our power.  And these worthy gentlemen
and myself could think of no better than coming out to meet and
welcome your Grace."

"Well, well, since it is so, Sir Robert," replied the king,
good-humouredly, "we shall take the kindness as it is meant.  Let us
proceed."

Riding side by side, and followed by their respective parties, James
and the Provost now resumed their progress towards Glasgow, where
they shortly after arrived, and where they were received with noisy
acclamations by the populace, whom rumour had informed of the king's
approach.

On reaching the city, the latter proceeded to the Bishop's
Castle,--an edifice which has long since disappeared, but which at
this time stood on or near the site of the Infirmary,--in which he
intended taking up his residence.

Having seen the king within the castle gates, his citizen escort
dispersed, and sought their several homes; going off, in twos and
threes, in different directions.

"Ken ye, Sir Robert, what has brought his Grace here at present?"
said an old wealthy merchant, who had been one of the cavalcade that
went to meet James, and whom the Provost overtook as he was leisurely
jogging down the High Street, on his way home.

"Hem," ejaculated Sir Robert.  "Perhaps I have half a guess, Mr
Morton.  The king visits places on very particular sorts of errands
sometimes.  His Grace didn't above half thank us for our attendance
to-day.  He would rather have got somewhat more quietly into the
city; but I had reasons for desiring it to be otherwise, so did not
mind his hints about his wish for privacy."

"And no doubt he had his reasons for the privacy he hinted at," said
Sir Robert's companion.

"You may swear that," replied the latter, laughingly.  "Heard ye
ever, Mr Morton, of a certain fair and wealthy young lady of the name
of Jessie Craig?"

"John Craig's daughter?" rejoined the old merchant.  "The same," said
Sir Robert.  "The prettiest girl in Scotland, and one of the
wealthiest too."

"Well; what if the king should have been smitten with her beauty,
having seen her accidently in Edinburgh, where she was lately? and
what, if his visit to Glasgow just now should be for the express
purpose of seeing this fair maiden? and what, if I should not exactly
approve of such a proceeding, seeing that the young lady in question
has, as you know, neither father nor mother to protect her, both
being dead?"

"Well, Sir Robert, and what then?" here interposed Mr Morton,
availing himself of a pause in the former's suppositious case.

"Why, then, wouldn't it be my bounden duty, worthy sir, as Provost of
this city, to act the part of guardian towards this young maiden in
such emergency, and to see that she came by no wrong?"

"Truly, it would be a worthy part, Sir Robert," replied the old
merchant; "but the king is strong, and you may not resist him openly."

"Nay, that I would not attempt," replied the Provost.  "I have taken
quieter and more effectual measures.  Made aware, though somewhat
late, through a trusty channel, of the king's intended visit and its
purpose, I have removed her out of the reach of danger, to where his
Grace will, I rather think, have some difficulty in finding her."

"So, so.  And this, then, is the true secret of the honour which has
just been conferred on us!" replied Sir Robert's companion, with some
indignation.  "But the matter is in good hands when it is in yours,
Provost.  In your keeping we consider our honours and our interests
are safe.  I wish you a good day, Provost."  And the interlocutors
having by this time arrived at the foot of the High Street, where
four streets joined, the old merchant took that which conducted to
his residence, Sir Robert's route lying in an opposite direction.

From the conversation just recorded, the reader will at once trace a
connection between Sir Robert Lindsay of Dunrod and he of the black
charger who brought to Woodlands the fair damsel whom we left there.
They were the same; and that fair damsel was the daughter of John
Craig, late merchant of the city of Glasgow, who left an immense
fortune, of which this girl was the sole heir.

In carrying the young lady to Woodlands, and leaving her there, Sir
Robert, although apparently under the compulsion of circumstances,
was acting advisedly.  He knew Henderson to be a man of excellent
character and great respectability; and in the secrecy and mystery he
observed, he sought to preclude all possibility of his interference
in the affair ever reaching the ears of the king.  What he had told
to old Morton, he knew would go no further; that person having been
an intimate friend of the young lady's father, and of course
interested in all that concerned her welfare.

The palace of a bishop was not very appropriate quarters for one who
came on such an errand as that which brought James to Glasgow.  But
this was a circumstance that did not give much concern to that merry
and somewhat eccentric monarch; and the less so, that the bishop
himself happened to be from home at the time, on a visit to his
brother of St Andrews.

Having the house thus to himself, James did not hesitate to make as
free use of it as if he had been at Holyrood.  It was not many hours
after his arrival at the castle, that he summoned to his presence a
certain trusty attendant of the name of William Buchanan, and thus
schooled him in the duties of a particular mission in which he
desired his services.

"Willie," said the good-humoured monarch, "at the further end of the
Rottenrow of this good city of Glasgow--that is, at the western end
of the said row--there stands a fair mansion on the edge of the brae,
and overlooking the strath of the Clyde.  It is the residence of a
certain fair young lady of the name of Craig.  Now, Willie, what I
desire of you to do is this: you will go to this young lady from me,
carrying her this gold ring, and say to her that I intend, with her
permission, doing myself the honour of paying her a visit in the
course of this afternoon.

"Make your observations, Willie, and let me know how the land lies
when you return.  But, pray thee, keep out of the way of our worthy
knight of Dunrod; and if thou shouldst chance to meet him, and he
should question thee, seeing that you wear our livery, breathe no
syllable of what thou art about, otherwise he may prove somewhat
troublesome to both of us.  At any rate, to a certainty, he would
crop thy ears, Willie; and thou knowest, king though I be, I could
not put them on again, nor give thee another pair in their stead.  So
keep those thou hast out of the hands of Sir Robert Lindsay of
Dunrod, I pray thee."

Charged with his mission, Willie, who had been often employed on
matters of this kind before, proceeded to the street with the
unsavoury name already mentioned; but, not knowing exactly where to
find the house he wanted, he looked around him to see if he could see
any one to whom he might apply for information.  There happened to be
nobody on the street at the time; but his eye at length fell on an
old weaver--as, from the short green apron he wore, he appeared to
be--standing at a door.

Towards this person Willie now advanced, discarding, however, as much
as possible, all appearance of having any particular object in view;
for he prided himself on the caution and dexterity with which he
managed all such matters as that he was now engaged in.

"Fine day, honest man," said Willie, approaching the old weaver.
"Gran wather for the hairst."

"It's just that, noo," replied the old man, gazing at Willie with a
look of inquiry.  "Just uncommon pleesant wather."

"A bit nice airy place up here," remarked the latter.

"Ou ay, weel aneuch for that," replied the weaver.  "But air 'll no
fill the wame."

"No very substantially," said Willie.  "Some gran hooses up here,
though.  Wha's in that?" and he pointed to a very handsome
mansion-house opposite.

"That's the rector o' Hamilton's," replied the weaver.

"And that ane there?"

"That's the rector o' Carstairs'."

"And that?"

"That's the rector o' Erskine's."

"'Od, but ye do leeve in a godly neighbourhood here," said Willie,
impatient with these clerical iterations.  "Do a' the best houses
hereawa belang to the clergy?"

"Indeed, the maist feck o' them," said the weaver.  "Leave ye them
alane for that.  The best o' everything fa's to their share."

"Yonder's anither handsome hoose, noo," said Willie, pointing to one
he had not yet indicated.  "Does yon belang to the clergy too?"

"Ou no; yon's the late Mr Craig's," replied the weaver; "ane o' oor
walthiest merchants, wha died some time ago."

"Ou ay," said Willie, drily; "just sae.  Gude mornin', friend."  And
thinking he had managed his inquiries very dexterously, he sauntered
slowly away--still assuming to have no special object in
view--towards the particular house just spoken of, and which, we need
not say, was precisely the one he wanted.

It was a large isolated building, with an extensive garden behind,
and stretching down the face of what is now called the Deanside Brae.
On the side next the street, the entrance was by a tall, narrow, iron
gate.  This gate Willie now approached, but found it locked hard and
fast.  Finding this, he bawled out, at the top of his voice, for some
one to come to him.  After a time, an old woman made her appearance,
and, in no very pleasant mood, asked him what he wanted.

"I hae a particular message, frae a very particular person, to the
young leddy o' this hoose," replied Willie.

"Ye maun gang and seek the young leddy o' this hoose ither whars than
here, then," said the old dame, making back to the house again,
without intending any further communication on the subject.

"Do you mean to say that she's no in the hoose?" shouted Willie.

"Ay, I mean to say that, and mair too," replied the old crone.  "She
hasna been in't for a gey while, and winna be in't for a guid while
langer; and sae ye may tell them that sent ye."

Saying this, she passed into the house; and by doing so, would have
put an end to all further conference.

But Willie was not to be thus baffled in his object.  Changing his
tactics from the imperative to the wheedling, in which last he
believed himself to be exceedingly dexterous--

"Mistress--I say, Mistress," he shouted, in a loud, but coaxing tone;
"speak a word, woman--just a word or two.  Ye maybe winna fare the
waur o't."

Whether it was the hint conveyed in the last clause of Willie's
address, or that the old woman felt some curiosity to hear what so
urgent a visitor had to say, she returned to the door, where,
standing fast, and looking across the courtyard at Willie, whose sly
though simple-looking face was pressed against the iron bars of the
outer gate, she replied to him with a--

"Weel, man, what is't ye want?"

"Tuts, woman, come across--come across," said Willie, wagging her
towards him with his forefinger.  "I canna be roarin' out what I hae
to say to ye a' that distance.  I might as weel cry it oot at the
cross.  See, there's something to bring ye a wee nearer."

And he held out several small silver coin through the bars of the
gate.  The production of the cash had the desired effect.  The old
woman, who was lame, and who walked by the aid of a short thick stick
with a crooked head, hobbled towards him, and, having accepted the
proffered coin, again asked, though with much more civility than
before, what it was he wanted?

"Tuts, woman, open the yett," said Willie in his cagiest manner, "and
I'll 'ell ye a' aboot it.  It's hardly ceevil to be keeping a body
speakin' this way wi' his nose thrust through atwixt twa cauld bars
o' airn, like a rattin atween a pair o' tangs."

"Some folks are safest that way.  though," replied the old woman,
with something like an attempt at a laugh.  "Bars o' airn are amang
the best freens we hae sometimes.  But as ye seem a civil sort o' a
chiel, after a', I'll let ye in, although I dinna see what ye'll be
the better o' that."

So saying, she took a large iron key from her girdle, inserted it in
the lock, and in the next moment the gate grated on its hinges;
yielding partly to the pressure of Willie from without, and partly to
the co-operative efforts of the old woman from within.

"Noo," said Willie, on gaining the interior of the courtyard--"Noo,"
he said, affecting his most coaxing manner, "you and me'll hae a bit
crack thegither, guidwife."

And, sitting down on a stone bench that ran along the front of the
house, he motioned to the old lady to take a seat beside him, which
she did.

"I understand, guidwife," began Willie, who meant to be very cunning
in his mode of procedure, "that she's just an uncommon bonny leddy
your mistress; just wonderfu'."

"Whaever tell't ye that, didna misinform ye," replied the old woman
drily.

"And has mints o' siller?" rejoined Mr Buchanan.

"No ill aff in that way either," said the old woman.

"But it's her beauty--it's her extraordinar beauty--that's the
wonder, and that I hear everybody speakin' aboot," said Willie.  "I
wad gie the price o' sax fat hens to see her.  Could ye no get me a
glisk o' her ony way, just for ae minute?"

"Didna I tell ye before that she's no at hame?" said the old dame,
threatening again to get restive on Willie's hands.

"Od, so ye did; I forgot," said Mr Buchanan, affecting obliviousness
of the fact.  "Whaur may she be noo?" he added in his simplest and
_couthiest_ manner.

"Wad ye like token?" replied the old, lady with a satirical sneer.

"'Deed wad I; and there's mae than me wad like to ken," replied
Willie; "and them that wad pay handsomely for the information."

"Really," said the old dame, with a continuation of the same sneer,
and long ere this guessing what Willie was driving at.  "And wha may
they be noo, if I may speer?"

"They're gey kenspeckled," replied Mr Buchanan; "but that doesna
matter.  If ye canna, or winna tell me whaur Mistress Craig is, could
ye no gie's a bit inklin' o' whan ye expect her hame?"

"No; but I'll gie ye a bit inklin' o' whan ye'll walk out o' this,"
said the old woman, rising angrily from her seat; "and that's this
minute, or I'll set the dug on ye.  Hisk, hisk--Teeger, Teeger!"

And a huge black dog came bouncing out of the house, and took up a
position right in front of Willie; wagging his tail, as if in
anticipation of a handsome treat in the way of worrying that worthy.

"Gude sake, woman," said Willie, rising in great alarm from his seat,
and edging towards the outer gate--"What's a' this for?  Ye wadna set
that brute on a Christian cratur, wad ye?"

"Wadna I?  Ye'd better no try me, frien', but troop aff wi' ye.
Teeger," she added, with a significant look.  The dog understood it,
and, springing on Willie, seized him by one of the skirts of his
coat, which, with one powerful tug, he at once separated from the
body.

Pressed closely upon by both the dog and his mistress, Willie
keeping, however, his face to the foe, now retreated towards the
gate, when, just at the moment of his making his exit, the old lady,
raising her staff, hit him a parting blow, which, taking effect on
the bridge of his nose, immediately enlarged the dimensions of that
organ, besides drawing forth a copious stream of claret.  In the next
instant the gate was shut and locked in the sufferer's face.

"Confound ye, ye auld limmer," shouted Willie furiously, and shaking
his fist through the bars of the gate as he spoke, "if I had ye here
on the outside o' the yett, as ye're in the in, if I wadna baste the
auld hide o' ye.  But my name's no Willie Buchanan if I dinna gar ye
rue this job yet, some way or anither."

To these objurgations of the discomfited messenger the old lady
deigned no word of answer, but merely shaking her head, and indulging
in a pretty broad smile of satisfaction, hobbled into the house,
followed by Tiger, wagging his tail, as much as to say, "I think
we've given yon fellow a fright, mistress."

Distracted with indignation and resentment, Willie hastened back to
the castle, and, too much excited to think of his outward appearance,
hurried into the royal presence with his skirtless coat and
disfigured countenance.  which he had by no means improved by sundry
wipes with the sleeve of his coat.  On Willie making his appearance
in this guise, the merry monarch looked at him for an instant in
silent amazement, then burst into an incontrollable fit of laughter,
which the grave, serious look of Willie showed he by no means
relished.  There was even a slight expression of resentment in the
manner in which the maltreated messenger bore the merry reception of
his light-hearted master.

"Willie, man," at length said James, when his mirth had somewhat
subsided, "what's this has happened thee?  Where gottest thou that
enormous nose, man?"

"Feth, your Majesty, it may be a joke to you, but it's unco little o'
ane to me," replied Willie, whose confidential duties and familiar
intercourse with his royal master had led him to assume a freedom of
speech which was permitted to no other, and which no other would have
dared to attempt.

"I hae gotten sic a worryin' the day," he continued, "as I never got
in my life before.  Between dugs and auld wives, I hae had a bonny
time o't.  Worried by the tane and smashed by the tither, as my nose
and my coat-tails bear witness."

"Explain yourself, Willie.  What does all this mean?" exclaimed
James, again laughing.

Willie told his story, finishing with the information that the bird
was flown--meaning Jessie Craig.  "Aff and awa, naebody kens, or 'll
tell whaur."

"Off--away?" exclaimed the king, with an air of mingled
disappointment and surprise.  "Very odd," he added, musingly; "and
most particularly unlucky.  But we shall wait on a day or two, and
she will probably reappear in that time; or we may find out where she
has gone to."

On the day following that on which the incidents just related
occurred, the curiosity of the good people in the neighbourhood of
the late Mr Craig's house in Rottenrow was a good deal excited by
seeing a person in the dress of a gentleman hovering about the
residence just alluded to.

Anon he would walk to and fro in front of the house, looking
earnestly towards the windows.  Now he would descend the Deanside
Brae, and do the same by those behind.  Again he would return to the
front of the mansion, and taking up his station on the opposite side
of the street, would resume his scrutiny of the windows.

The stranger was thus employed, when he was startled by the
appearance of some one advancing towards him, whom, it was evident,
he would fain have avoided if he could.  But it was too late.  There
was no escape.  So, assuming an air of as much composure and
indifference as he could, he awaited the approach of the unwelcome
intruder.  This person was Sir Robert Lindsay.

Coming up to the stranger with a respectful air, and with an
expression of countenance as free from all consciousness as that
which had been assumed by the former--

"I hope your Grace is well?" he said, bowing profoundly as he spoke.

"Thank you, Provost--thank you," replied James; for we need hardly
say it was he.

"Your Grace has doubtless come hither," said the former gravely, "to
enjoy the delightful view which this eminence commands.

"The precise purpose, Sir Robert," replied James, recovering a little
from the embarrassment which, after all his efforts, he could not
entirely conceal.  "The view is truly a fine one, Provost," continued
the king.  "I had no idea that your good city could boast of anything
so fair in the way of landscape.  Our city of Edinburgh hath more
romantic points about it; but for calm and tranquil beauty, methinks
it hath nothing superior to the scene commanded by this eminence."

"There are some particular localities on the ridge of the hill here,
however," said Sir Robert, "that exhibit the landscape to much better
advantage than others, and to which, taking it for granted that your
Grace is not over familiar with the ground, it will afford me much
pleasure to conduct you."

"Ah! thank you, good Sir Robert--thank you," replied James.  "But
some other day, if you please.  The little spare time I had on my
hands is about exhausted, so that I must return to the castle.  I
have, as you know, Sir Robert, to give audience to some of your
worthy councillors, who intend honouring me with a visit.

"Amongst the number I will expect to see yourself, Sir Robert."  And
James, after politely returning the loyal obeisance of the Provost,
hurried away towards the castle.

On his departure, the latter stood for a moment, and looked after him
with a smile of peculiar intelligence; then muttered, as he also left
the spot--

"Well do I know what it was brought your Grace to this quarter of the
town; and knowing this, I know it was for anything but the sake of
its view.  Fair maidens have more attractions in your eyes than all
the views between this and John o' Groat's.  But I have taken care
that your pursuit in the present instance will avail thee little."
And the good Provost went on his way.

For eight entire days after this did James wait in Glasgow for the
return of Jessie Craig; but he waited in vain.  Neither in that time
could he learn anything whatever of the place of her sojournment.
His patience at length exhausted, he determined on giving up the
pursuit for the time at any rate, and on quitting the city.

The king, as elsewhere casually mentioned, had come last from
Bothwell Castle.  It was now his intention to proceed to Stirling,
where he proposed stopping for two or three weeks; thence to
Linlithgow, and thereafter returning to Edinburgh.

The purpose of James to make this round having reached the ears of a
certain Sir James Crawford of Netherton, whose house and estate lay
about half-way between Glasgow and Stirling, that gentleman sent a
respectful message to James, through Sir Robert Lindsay, to the
effect that he would feel much gratified if his Grace would deign to
honour his poor house of Netherton with a visit in passing, and
accept for himself and followers such refreshment as he could put
before them.

To this message James returned a gracious answer, saying that he
would have much pleasure in accepting the invitation so kindly sent
him, and naming the day and hour when he would put the inviter's
hospitality to the test.

Faithful to his promise, the king and his retinue, amongst whom was
now Sir Robert Lindsay, who had been included in the invitation,
presented themselves at Netherton gate about noon on the day that had
been named.

They were received with all honour by the proprietor, a young man of
prepossessing appearance, graceful manners, and frank address.

On the king and gentlemen of his train entering the house, they were
ushered into a large banqueting ball, where was an ample table spread
with the choicest edibles, and glittering with the silver goblets and
flagons that stood around it in thick array.  Everything, in short,
betokened at once the loyalty and great wealth of the royal party's
entertainer.

The king and his followers having taken their places at table, the
fullest measure of justice was quickly done to the good things with
which it was spread.  James was in high spirits, and talked and
rattled away with as much glee and as entire an absence of all kingly
reserve as the humblest good fellow in his train.

Encouraged by the affability of the king, and catching his humour,
the whole party gave way to the most unrestrained mirth.  The joke
and the jest went merrily round with the wine flagon; and he was for
a time the best man who could start the most jocund theme.

It was while this spirit prevailed that Sir Robert Lindsay, after
making a private signal to Sir James Crawford, which had the effect
of causing him to quit the apartment on pretence of looking for
something he wanted, addressing the king, said--

"May I take the liberty of asking your Grace if you have seen any
particularly fair maidens in the course of your present
peregrinations?  I know your Grace has a good taste in these matters."

James coloured a little at this question and the remark which
accompanied it but quickly regaining his self-possession and
good-humour--

"No, Sir Robert," he said laughingly, "I cannot say that I have been
so fortunate on the present occasion.  As to the commendation which
you have been pleased to bestow on my taste, I thank you, and am glad
it meets with your approbation."

"Yet, your Grace," continued Sir Robert, "excellent judge as I know
you to be of female beauty, I deem myself, old and staid as I am,
your Grace's equal, craving your Grace's pardon; and, to prove this,
will take a bet with your Grace of a good round sum, that you have
never seen, and do not know, a more beautiful woman than the lady of
our present host."

"Take care, Provost," replied James.  "Make no rash bets.  I know the
most beautiful maiden the sun ever shone upon.  But it would be
ungallant and ungracious to make the lady of our good host the
subject of such a bet on the present occasion."

"But our host is absent, your Grace," replied the Provost
pertinaciously; "and neither he nor any one else, but your Grace's
friends present, need know anything at all of the matter.  Will your
Grace take me up for a thousand merks?"

"But suppose I should," replied James, "how is the thing to be
managed? and who is to decide?"

"Both points are of easy adjustment, your Grace," said Sir Robert.
"Your Grace has only to intimate a wish to our host, when he returns,
that you would feel gratified by his introducing his lady to you; and
as to the matter of decision, I would, with your Grace's permission
and approval, put that into the hands of the gentlemen present.  Of
course, nothing need be said of the purpose of this proceeding to
either host or hostess."

"Well, be it so," said James, urged on by the madcaps around him, who
were delighted with the idea of the thing.  "Now, then, gentlemen,"
he continued, "the lady on whose beauty I stake my thousand merks is
Jessie Craig, the merchant's daughter of Glasgow, whom, I think, all
of you have seen."

"Ha! my townswoman," exclaimed Sir Robert, with every appearance of
surprise.  "On my word, you have made mine a hard task of it; for a
fairer maiden than Jessie Craig may not so readily be found.
Nevertheless, I adhere to the terms of my bet."

The Provost had just done speaking, when Sir James Crawford entered
the apartment, and resumed his seat at table.  Shortly after he had
done so, James addressing him said--

"Sir James, it would complete the satisfaction of these gentlemen and
myself with the hospitality you have this day shown us, were you to
afford us an opportunity of paying our respects to your good lady;
that is, if it be perfectly convenient for and agreeable to her."

"Lady Crawford will be but too proud of the honour, your Grace,"
replied Sir James, rising.  "She shall attend your Grace presently."

Saying this, the latter again withdrew; and soon after returned,
leading a lady, over whose face hung a long and flowing veil, into
the royal presence.

It would require the painter's art to express adequately the looks of
intense and eager interest with which James and his party gazed on
the veiled beauty, as she entered the apartment and advanced towards
them.  Their keen and impatient scrutiny seemed as if it would pierce
the tantalizing obstruction that prevented them seeing those features
on whose beauty so large a sum had been staked.  In this state of
annoying suspense, however, they were not long detained.  On
approaching within a few paces of the king, and at the moment Sir
James Crawford said, with a respectful obeisance, "My wife, Lady
Crawford, your Grace," she raised her veil, and exhibited to the
astonished monarch and his courtiers a surpassingly beautiful
countenance indeed; but it was that of Jessie Craig.

"A trick! a trick!" exclaimed James, with merry shout, and amidst a
peal of laughter from all present, and in which the fair cause of all
this stir most cordially joined.  "A trick, a trick, Provost! a
trick!" repeated James.

"Nay, no trick at all, your Grace, craving your Grace's pardon,"
replied the Provost gravely.  "Your Grace betted that Jessie Craig
was mere beautiful than Lady Crawford.  Now is it so?  I refer the
matter, as agreed upon, to the gentlemen around us."

"Lost! lost!" exclaimed half-a-dozen gallants at once.

"Well, well, gentlemen, since you so decide," said James, "I will
instantly give our good Provost here an order upon our treasurer for
the sum."

"Nay, your Grace, not so fast.  The money is as safe in your hands as
mine.  Let it there remain till I require it.  When I do, I shall not
fail to demand it."

"Be it so, then," said James, when, placing his fair hostess beside
him, and after obtaining a brief explanation--which we will, in the
sequel, give at more length--of the odd circumstance of finding
Jessie Craig converted into Lady Crawford, the mirth and hilarity of
the party were resumed, and continued till pretty far in the
afternoon, when the king and his courtiers took horse,--the former at
parting having presented his hostess with a massive gold chain which
he wore about his neck, in token of his good wishes,--and rode off
for Stirling.

To our tale we have now only to add the two or three explanatory
circumstances above alluded to.

In Sir James Crawford the reader is requested to recognise the young
man who discovered Jessie Craig, then the unknown fair one, by the
side of the fountain in the little elm grove at Woodlands.

Encouraged by and acting on the adage already quoted,--namely, that
"faint heart never won fair lady,"--he followed up his first
accidental interview with the fair fugitive from royal importunity
with an assiduity that in one short week accomplished the wooing and
winning of her.

While the first was in progress, Sir James was informed by the young
lady of the reasons for her concealment.  On this and the part Sir
Robert Lindsay had acted towards her being made known to him, he lost
no time in opening a communication with that gentleman, riding
repeatedly into Glasgow himself to see him on the subject of his fair
charge; at the same time informing him of the attachment he had
formed for her, and finally obtaining his consent, or at least
approbation, to their marriage.  The bet, we need hardly add, was a
concerted joke between the Provost, Sir James, and his lady.

When we have added that the circumstance of Sir Robert Lindsay's
delay in returning for Jessie Craig, which excited so much surprise
at Woodlands, was owing to the unlooked-for prolongation of the
king's stay in Glasgow, we think we have left nothing unexplained
that stood in need of such aid.




MAY DARLING, THE VILLAGE PRIDE.

BY J. F. SMITH.

It is a lovely spot, Grassyvale--"beautiful exceedingly."  But its
beauty is of a quiet, unimposing description; the characteristic
feature of the landscape which would strike the eye of a spectator
who surveyed it from the highest neighbouring eminence, is
simply--repose.  There are no mountains, properly so called, within a
circuit of many miles--none of those natural pyramids which, in
various parts of our beloved land of mountain and of flood, of battle
and of song, rise in majestic grandeur, like columns of adamant to
support the vault of heaven.  The nearest are situated at such a
distance that they appear like clouds, and might readily be mistaken
for such, but for their deathlike stillness, and the everlasting
monotony of their outline.  No waterfalls hurl their bolts of liquid
crystal into dark, frowning, wave-worn chasms, which had echoed to
the thunder of their fall since the birth of time.  There is no
far-spreading forest--no yawning ravine, with "ebon shades and
low-browed rocks"--no beetling cliff or precipice, "shagged" with
brushwood, as Milton hath it.  There is nothing of the grand, the
sublime, the terrible, or the magnificent--there is only quiet; or,
if the terms do not sound dissonant to "ears polite," modest,
unassuming beauty, such as a rainbow, were it perpetually present in
the zenith, might form a characteristic and appropriate symbol of.
Nature has not here wrought her miracles of beauty on a Titanic
scale.  What, then, is so attractive about Grassyvale? it will be
asked.  We are not sure but we may be as much stultified with this
question, as was the child in Wordsworth's sweet little poem, "We are
seven" (which the reader may turn up at leisure, when the propriety
of the comparison will be seen), and may be forced, after an
unsuccessful attempt to justify ourselves for holding such an
opinion, to maintain, with the same dogmatic obstinacy--it is
beautiful.  But the length of our story compels us to exclude a
description of the landscape, which we had prepared.

* * * *

The village of Grassyvale, which is situated on the margin of a small
stream, consists of about one hundred scattered cottages, all neatly
whitewashed, and most of them adorned in front with some flowering
shrub--wild brier, honeysuckle, or the like--whilst a "kail-yard" in
the rear constitutes no inappropriate appendage.  There is one of
those dwellings conspicuous from the rest by its standing apart from
them, and by an additional air of comfort and neatness which it
wears, and which seems to hallow it like a radiant atmosphere.  It is
literally covered with a network of ivy, honeysuckle, and jasmine,
the deep green of whose unvarnished leaf renders more conspicuous
"the bright profusion of its scattered stars."  The windows are
literally darkened by a multitude of roses, which seem clustering and
crowding together to gain an entrance, and scatter their "perfumed
sweets" around the apartment.  Near the cottage, there is also a
holly planted--that evergreen tree which seems providentially
designed by nature to cheer the dreariness of winter, and, when all
is withered and desolate around, to remain a perpetual promise of
spring.  But we have more to do with this beautiful little dwelling
than merely to describe its exterior.

Behind Grassyvale, the ground begins to swell, undulating into
elevations of mild acclivity, on the highest of which stands the
parish church, like the ark resting on Ararat--faith's triumph, and
mercy's symbol.  Numerous grassy hillocks scattered around indicate
the cemetery where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
Amongst those memorials which are designed to perpetuate the
recollection of virtue for a few generations--and which, with their
appropriate emblems and inscriptions, preach so eloquently to the
heart, and realize to the letter Shakspeare's memorable words,
"sermons in stones"--there is one which always attracts attention.
It is not a "storied urn, an animated bust"--one of those profusely
decorated marble hatchments with which worldly grandeur mourns, in
pompous but vain magnificence, over departed pride.  No; it is only a
small, unadorned slab, of rather dingy-coloured freestone; and the
inscription is simply--"To the memory of May Darling, who was removed
from this world to a better, at the early age of nineteen.  She was
an affectionate daughter, a loving sister, and a sincere Christian.

  'Weep not for her whose mortal race is o'er;
  She is not lost, but only gone before.'"

Ah! there are few, few indeed, for many miles round, who would pass
that humble grave without heaving a sigh or shedding a tear for her
who sleeps beneath--her who was so beloved, so admired by every one,
as well as being the idol and pride of her own family, and whose
romantic and untimely fate (cut off "i' the morn and liquid dew of
youth") was the village talk for many a day.

John Darling, the father of our heroine, was, what is no great
phenomenon amongst the peasantry of Scotland, a sober, industrious,
honest man.  In early life he espoused the daughter of an opulent
farmer, whose marriage portion enabled him to commence life under
very favourable auspices.  But, in spite of obedience to the natural
laws, the mildew of misfortune will blight our dearest hopes, however
wisely our plans for the future may be laid, and however assiduously
and judiciously they may be pursued.  Untoward circumstances, which
it would unnecessarily protract our narrative to relate, had reduced
him, at the period to which our tale refers, to the condition of a
field labourer.  Death had, likewise, been busy singling out victims
from amongst those who surrounded his humble, but cheerful fireside;
and, of a large family, there only remained three, and he was a
widower besides.  May was the oldest; and, accordingly, the
superintendence of the household devolved upon her.  The deceased
parent was of a somewhat haughty and reserved turn of mind, for the
recollection of former affluence never forsook her; and this
circumstance kept her much aloof from the less polished and
sophisticated matrons of the village, and also rendered her a strict
family disciplinarian.  She concentrated her mind almost entirely
upon the affairs of her own household; and her children were
accordingly watched with a more vigilant eye, and brought up with
more scrupulous care, than was usual with those around her.  It was
her pride, and "let it be her praise," to see them arrayed in more
showy habiliments than those worn by their associates; and, to
accomplish this darling object, what serious transmutation did her
finery of former days undergo, as the mutilated robes descended from
child to child, turned upside down, inside out, and otherwise
suffering a metamorphosis at every remove!  The dress of May, in
particular--her first-born bud of bliss, the doted on of her
bosom--was always attended to with special care; nor was the
cultivation of her mind in any way overlooked.  She very early
inspired her with a love of reading, which increased with the
development of her faculties, and many a day survived her by whom the
passion had been awakened.

In person, May was slender; but her light, airy, sylph-like form was
eminently handsome.  Hair and eyes of intense depth of black
contrasted admirably with a countenance which may be designated as
transparent--it was nearly colourless; and only on occasions of
unusual bodily exertion, or when some mental emotion suffused the
cheek with a damask blush, would a tint of rosy red fluctuate over
her pure skin.  It can scarcely be called pale, however--it had
nothing about it of that death-in-life hue which indicates the
presence of disease.

  "Oh, call it _fair_, not pale!"


The expression was at once amiable and intellectual--mellowed or
blended, however, with a pensiveness which is usually but most
erroneously called melancholy.  Melancholy had nothing to do with a
"mind at peace with all below--a heart, whose love was innocent."
The countenance, in general, affords an index of the mental
character--it takes its "form and pressure," as it were, from the
predominant workings of that inward principle which is the source of
thought and feeling.  It is there that thought and feeling, those
subtle essences, are made visible to the eye--it is there that mind
may be seen.  The most casual observer could not fail to perceive
that the soul which spoke eloquently in the eye, "and sweetly
lightened o'er the face" of May Darling, was a worshipper of nature,
of poetry, and of virtue; for they are often combined--they have a
natural relation to each other; and, when they exist simultaneously
in one individual, a mind so constituted has a capacity for enjoying
the most exalted pleasure of which humanity is susceptible.  May
Darling was indeed imaginative and sanguine in a very high degree;
and books of a romantic or dramatic character were mines of "untold
wealth" to her.

  "Many are poets who have never penned
  Their inspirations."

And, although the name of this rural beauty, this humble
village-maiden, will be looked for in vain in the rolls of fame, she
enjoyed hours of intense poetical inspiration.  In short, both in her
mental character, and in the style of her personal attractions, she
rose far above her companions of the village.  Need it be told that
often, of a fine evening, she would steal away from her gay, romping,
laughing associates, and, with a favourite author in her hand, and
wrapt in a vision of "_sweet_ coming fancies," follow the course of
the stream which intersected her native vale, flowing along, pure and
noiseless, like the current of her own existence?

The favourite haunt in which she loved to spend her leisure hours was
a beautiful dell, distant about half-a-mile from the village.  It was
a place so lonely, so lovely, so undisturbed, that there--(but then
all these fine old rural deities, those idols shrined for ages in
Nature's own hallowed pantheon, have been expelled their temples, or
broken by science--why should this be?)--there, if anywhere, the
Genius of Solitude might be supposed to have fixed his abode.  It was
a broken piece of ground, intersected by several irregular banks,
here projecting in hoar and sterile grandeur (not on an Alpine scale,
however), and there, clothed with tufts of the feathery willow or old
gnarled thorn.  The earth was carpeted with its usual covering of
emerald turf; and interwoven with it, in beautiful irregularity, were
numerous wild flowers: the arum, with its speckled leaves and lilac
blossoms; the hyacinth, whose enameled blue looks so charmingly in
the light of the setting sun; and oxlips, cowslips, and the
like--throwing up their variegated tufts, like nosegays presented by
nature for some gentle creature, like May Darling, to gather up and
lay upon her bosom.  The air, of course, was permanently impregnated
with the perfume which they breathed out--the everlasting incense of
the flowers rising from the altars of Nature to her God.  Such was
the sanctuary in which May gleaned from books the golden thoughts of
others, or held communion with her own; and well was it adapted for
nursing a romantic taste, and giving a tenderer tone to every tender
feeling.

The personal attractions of this sweet and lovely creature increased
with her years, and she became the reigning belle of Grassyvale and
all the country round.  It followed, as a matter of course, that her
admirers outnumbered her years; and that the possession of her
affections was, with many a rustic Adonis, a subject which troubled
the little kingdom of the soul, like the Babylonish garment.  At
every village fete--a wedding, a harvest home, or other rural
festival--hers was the step most buoyant in the dance, hers the hand
most frequently solicited, hers the form and face that riveted all
eyes, and thrilled the heart of the ardent admirer "too much
adoring."  Amongst the other accomplishments of our heroine, skill in
music was not the least prominent.  Not that she excelled in those
intricate graces which are often had recourse to by vocalists to
conceal a bad voice, and atone for want of feeling and expression;
but her "wood-note wild" was eminently characterised by the latter
qualities of singing; and the effect which she produced was,
accordingly, calculated to be lasting.

It must not be supposed, however, that the flattering unction of
adulation, at best like the love of Kaled to Lara, "but
half-concealed," had any pernicious influence over her mind.  She was
neither puffed up with vain conceit, nor display of haughty reserve
and distance towards those who numbered fewer worshippers than
herself; still humility of heart, which was "native there and to the
manner born," characterised her deportment--nor was there any
relaxation in the discharge of the household duties which devolved
upon her; and the comfort of her father, and the proper care and
culture of the younger branches of the family, were as faithfully
attended to as if her deformity, instead of her beauty, had been
proverbial.  She folded the little flutterers under her wing, like a
mother bird; and, if there was one thing more than another that she
took delight in, it was the training of their young minds to the love
and practice of virtue and religion, the only fountains whence
happiness, pure and uncontaminated, can be drawn in this life.

  "So passed their life--a clear united stream
  By care unruffled; till, in evil hour"--

But we anticipate.

It was on a fine summer morning that May, with one of her little
sisters, set out to visit the annual fair of the county town.  Such
an event naturally excites considerable interest over all the country
round; and old and young, blind and cripple, male and female, pour
along the public ways--not in "weary," but in light-hearted
"droves"--full of eagerness and expectation, like the Jews to the
pool of Bethesda, when the angel was expected to make his annual
descent, and impart a healing virtue to its waters; for there there
is to be found variety of amusement for every mind--from the
Katerfelto wonderer, "wondering for his bread," down to the more
humble establishment of the halfpenny showman, with his "glorious
victory of Waterloo," his "golden beetle," or "ashes from the burning
mountains."  But, on the occasion to which we refer, there was an
exhibition in the shape of a theatrical booth, which presented
extraordinary attractions for May Darling; and, accordingly, after
deliberately balancing the gratification which she anticipated, with
the expense which it would cost (her exchequer was, of course, not
very rich), she at length found herself comfortably seated near the
front of the stage.  The tragedy of "George Barnwell" was going off
with prodigious _eclat_; and the performers had arrived at that scene
where the hero is about to assassinate his uncle, when the insecure
props that supported the gallery began to indicate a disposition to
disencumber themselves of their burden, and, at last, finally gave
way.  The confusion which now ensued, not to mention the shrieks and
other vocal notes of terror and dismay, it is needless to
describe--these have nothing to do with our tale.  Barnwell, instead
of imbruing his hands in innocent blood, even "in jest," became the
most active agent in rescuing his hapless audience from their
perilous situation.  He was a tall, handsome young man, of a very
prepossessing exterior, and appeared to great advantage in his showy
stage habiliments.  The general rush was towards the door, the most
likely avenue of escape which presented itself to the astonished
rustics; but a few, amongst whom was our heroine, with more collected
judgment and presence of mind, found a place of security on the
stage.  May was slightly bruised in her endeavours to shelter her
young charge; and, although not much injured, her forlorn yet
interesting appearance drew the attention of the histrionic
Samaritan, and he kindly conducted her into the back settlements of
the theatre.  The affair was not of such a serious nature as might
have been anticipated.  A few dilapidated seats, and a score or two
of trifling contusions, made up the sum total of the damage.  A hat
or two might have changed owners in the confusion; but these are
things beneath the dignity of a tragedian to look after; and as soon
as matters were adjusted on the grand theatre of commotion, he
returned to the object of his first solicitude.  She was seated on a
stool, in what was dignified with the sounding appellation of a
green-room--looking paler, and lovelier, and more loveable than ever.
He quieted her apprehensions with respect to the catastrophe; for he
was an adept in the art of imitation, and politely requested the
honour of conducting her to her place of residence.  It is not
difficult to conceive what was the first impression which the request
made upon the mind of May Darling; but the scruples of modest virgin
innocence yielded at last to the importunities of the actor, and they
left the scene of mirth and confusion together.

On their journey homewards, the conversation naturally turned upon
the drama; and many a fine passage, which May admired, was recited to
her with all the eloquence and stage artifice which the actor was
master of.  And he would speak feelingly of "the gentle lady married
to the Moor;" her love--the love of Desdemona--pure, exalted,
all-enduring--such as death alone could quench; her woe and her fate,
so replete with all that can agonize the human soul, and awaken its
profoundest sympathies;--of Ophelia--"the fair Ophelia," the young,
the beautiful, and the gentle--her devoted, childlike affection, her
mournful distraction, and her untimely doom;--of Miranda, the island
bride--the being of enchantment--half earthly, half heavenly--around
whom the spirits of the air hovered, and ministered unto as
vassals;--of Imogen, the fair and faithful--the patient,
long-suffering, and finally fortunate Imogen;--of Cordelia--she of
the seraph-spirit, pure and peaceful--whose love for a father
surpassed that of the Roman daughter;--of Perdita--"the prettiest
low-born lass that ever ran on the greensward"--the shepherdess and
the princess;--of Juliet--the martyr of passion--she who drew poison
from earth's sweetest flower--love--and died thereby, by love's own
flame "kindled she was and blasted."  These, and many other creations
of fancy, which omnipotent genius has rendered almost real historical
personages--not shadow but substance--were the topics of discourse
which were handled by our hero of the buskin, until the cottage of
John Darling was reached.  From the description which has been given
of May's character, it need be no matter of surprise that the
impression made upon her gentle bosom was profound; and, on taking
leave of her, a request, on the part of Mr Henry Wilkinson (such was
the tragedian's name) to be permitted to visit her on some future
occasion, made under cover of a pretext to inquire after the state of
her health, was acceded to.  Again and again Mr Wilkinson visited the
cottage, and poured into the ear of the humble, unsuspecting, and
happy inmate, many a story of love, and hope, and joy--such as his
knowledge of the drama, which was great, supplied him with.

          "These things to hear
  Would Desdemona seriously incline;
  But still the house affairs would draw her thence:
  Which ever as she could with haste dispatch
  She'd come again, and, with a greedy ear.
  Devour up his discourse."


Substitute the name of May Darling for that of Desdemona, and the
description becomes perfect of our heroine's situation, whilst the
result was similar: in a short time, the happiness of our village
maiden was entirely at the disposal of Mr Wilkinson.  Hitherto her
heart had slept, like some untroubled lake, reflecting only heaven,
and nature grand and beautiful around; but now its waters were
darkened and disturbed by one single image--and that was her lover's.
Her ears were no longer open to the murmurs of her native stream, or
the gush of song from the fairy-winged and fairy-plumaged birds, whom
she almost knew one from another: she only heard the music of her
lover's voice.  Her secluded dell was no longer visited alone; her
walks were no longer solitary, or, if they were, it was only to meet
him whom her heart loved, and to see if his speed "kept pace with her
expectancy."  Everything was beheld through one all-hallowing
atmosphere--and that was love.  It lay upon her soul like the shadow
on the sundial, and time was measured by it.  How, it will be asked,
was all this looked upon by her father?  With no favourable eye--nay,
with many suspicious forebodings and prophetic fears.

It was about three months after the catastrophe which took place in
the provincial theatre, that Mr Wilkinson made proposals of a union
to May, which being accepted, the consent of her parent was next
applied for.  The advances of the actor were for a time checked by an
uncompromising refusal; but May's father gradually became less
peremptory, until there remained only one objection, but that was
insurmountable--namely, the profession of Mr Wilkinson--one, in
general, very obnoxious to a Scottish peasant.  It was, however,
finally obviated by the actor's promising to abandon it, and become a
teacher of elocution in the town of H--.  The father's consent was
obtained at last, though with reluctance, and the day of their
nuptials was fixed.

It was a beautiful evening, that which preceded the day when May
Darling was to give her hand to the man for whom her heart cherished
a love as deep, intense, and concentrated, as ever was awakened and
nursed in woman's gentle bosom.  The sun--just sinking through those
vast masses of clouds which usually attend his exit, and assume, as
he descends, various wild and fantastical shapes, and catch every
hue, from the intense purple to the scarcely perceptible
yellow--showered on the face of nature a stream of rich but mellowed
radiance, which softened without obliterating the outlines of
objects, and produced that "clear obscure, so softly dark, so darkly
pure," which is so favourable to indulgence in tender emotions.

  "Sweet hour that wakes the wish and melts the heart!"--

sweet hour, when reflection is deepest and feeling most
profound--when the mind, abroad all day, busied with the concerns of
this work-a-day world, comes home to itself, and broods, and sleeps,
and dreams golden dreams--sunny, hope-illuminated dreams!--sweet
hour, when the ties of social being which the day had severed are
reunited, and around the household hearth the "old familiar faces"
are assembled!--sweet hour, when the shades of evening, gradually
deepening, are sufficient to conceal the blush which might mantle
beauty's cheek, too warmly, fondly pressed, as, in a voice half
sighs, half whispers, she confesses the secret of her love; and when,
in the arms which gently enfold her yielding form, she seems, in the
fine language of Rogers, to become less and less earthly,

  "And fades at last into a spirit from heaven!"


'Twas at this enchanting hour that Wilkinson and his betrothed set
out on one of those charming walks during which they had so often
exchanged vows of mutual and eternal love.  The road which they at
first took was sufficiently retired to admit of their conversing
aloud with unreserved confidence; but, continuing their journey,
unconscious where they were going, they found themselves at last in
the vicinity of the high road which leads to the town of H--.
Turning to strike down a narrow hedge-row path, a moving spectacle
presented itself to their observation.  Upon a grassy knoll lay a
female fast asleep, with a child at her breast, vainly attempting to
force its little fingers within the folds of the handkerchief which
concealed the bosom of its mother.  May uttered a faint exclamation,
somewhat between pity and fear; for she was taken by surprise.  But
her lover's astonishment was still greater than hers; for, after he
had contemplated the careworn features of the wayfarer, he started,
and, had not the increasing gloom of evening prevented any change of
countenance from being perceptible, May might have seen his face turn
ashy pale; but she felt the arm in which hers was fondly locked to
tremble distinctly.

"This touches your feelings, Henry," said May; "but can we not, love,
do something to alleviate the sufferings of this, no doubt,
unfortunate female?  Had I not better awake her, and conduct her to
my father's, where refreshment and rest can be procured?"

"Nay, dearest love," said Wilkinson--"sleep is to the wretched the
greatest boon that can be bestowed: let us leave her alone, nor
deprive her of the only comfort which, possibly, she is capable of
enjoying."

So saying, he hastily retired, bearing May, somewhat reluctantly,
homewards; for her sympathy was much excited, and she would fain have
carried her generous purpose into effect; but gave way to the
entreaties of her lover, who had some miles to walk ere he could
reach his place of residence.  After seeing May safely beneath the
domestic roof, Wilkinson bade farewell for the night to his betrothed
bride, and took his departure, with the intention, he said, of
immediately returning to H--.  He did not proceed directly home,
however; but, making a retrograde movement, he fell back upon the
place where the fatigued traveller had been seen.  She was gone when
he arrived; and whether the circumstance gave him pleasure or the
reverse, we have never been able to ascertain; but, at all events, he
now set out in good earnest for H--.  What should have interested
Wilkinson so much in this apparently wandering mendicant?

On the evening which we have described, let the reader picture to
himself two aged crones, comfortably seated upon a rough slab of
wood, elevated two feet or so above the ground, by a massive block of
granite which supported either end.  This, together with the cottage
wall against which their backs reclined, might, even with individuals
more fastidious than its present occupants, have appeared a luxury
little inferior to a sofa, especially in that bland and beautiful
hour when daylight dies along the hills, and our feelings, partaking
of the softness of the scene and hour, dispose us to be pleased, we
ask not why and care not wherefore.  On either hand was situated a
door, over which hung suspended a very homely signboard.  From one of
these, the wayfarer might learn that good entertainment for man and
beast could be supplied within, by Janet Baird, who, it appeared,
was, by special permission of government, permitted to retail
spirits, porter, ale, and other items.  Lest any mistake should occur
as to the nature of the invitation (or, perhaps, it was a _ruse_ to
provoke the alimentary faculties), there was a painting of the
interior, representing a table, which seemed to groan under the
weight of bottles, glasses, porter and ale cans, bread, cheese, and
what not; whilst two jolly companions, with rubicund faces, where an
infinity of good nature predominated, sat round it, each with a cup
in hand, and both evidently sublimed by their potations far above
this "dirty planet, the earth."  At the entrance to the apartment was
seen the landlady, who, with one hand pushed open the door, whilst
the other, projecting forwards, supported a huge tankard, charged
with the favourite beverage, which mantled or effloresced at the top,
like a cauliflower.  The neighbouring sign had fewer attractions for
the weary traveller or the droughty villager, throwing out merely
hints as to the condition of the reader's linen, by intimating that
clothes might here undergo purification, and be mangled by the hour
or _peace_ (such was the orthography) by Nelly Gray.

The two neighbours lived on terms of the utmost harmony; for there
was no rivalry of interests.  Their callings were antipodes to each
other--one being devoted to the decoration and comfortable appearance
of the human exterior, whilst the other took special cognizance of
the internal condition of the animal economy.  They, of course,
carried on a mutual traffic; but it was on the primitive principle of
barter--the weekly account for washing and dressing which Janet owed,
being duly balanced by her accommodating Nelly with a certain potent
nostrum, which we shall not name, but merely describe as a sovereign
remedy for aching bones and pains, and other complaints of the
stomach, to which this petticoat Diogenes (for she likewise practised
in a tub) was very subject, especially after washing a whole day, or
impelling her crazy creaking machine for the same space of time.  It
was their invariable practice to spend an hour or two every evening
in what is termed in the vernacular a "twa-handed crack," either
seated out doors, or snugly immured in Janet's back parlour--a small
dark room, encumbered with sundry articles of retail The subject of
their conversation, on the present occasion, will immediately become
apparent.

"They say he's gaun to learn folk ellykeashun," said Janet, in
reference to May's lover.

"An' what's that, Janet?" asked the other.

"Ne'er a bit o' me kens very weel," rejoined Janet, "but, I'm thinkin
it's the way the gentry speak, eghin an' owin, and sichin and sabbin,
an' makin yer voice gang up an doun, like daft Jock playin on the
fife."

"Hech, sirs, that's an idle kind o' way o' making ane's bread,"
sighed Janet.  "It's naething else than begging.  He'd better pit a
napping hammer in his hand an' tak the roadside for an honest
livelihood."

"'Deed, Nelly, it's my opinion he's been on the road before,
following anither trade," said Janet.  "I'm sair mistaen if he's no a
hempie; an' we'll maybe hear mair aboot him yet than some folks wad
like to ken o'.  I never liked your land-loupers an' spoutin gentry
a' my days.  They're nae better than tinklers, that carry off
whatever they lay their han's on, nae matter whether it's beast or
body.  It cowes the gowan hoo sae sensible a man as John Darling wad
e'er hae looten his dochter tak up wi' sic like clamjamfrey.  But he
was aye owre easy wi' his family, an' gied them owre muckle o' their
ain wull frae the first.  But the mother was sair to blame in pittin
sic daft-like notions intil a bairn's head as to read playactorin
books an' novels.  Wae am I to say sae, noo that she's whar the Lord
wull."

"Is't true, Janet, that they're to be coupled i' the kirk?" asked
Nelly.  "They say the minister's taen an unco likin' to the lad; an',
to mak' things look as genteel as possible, he's offered the use o'
the kirk for marrying them in; an's to gie them a ploy forbye, after
it's a' owre."

"Guid faith, it's a true saying--'The fat sow gets a' the draff,'"
rejoined Janet.  "It wad be lang or he did a turn like that for ony
puir body like oorsels.  The birkie doesna stand in need o' cash; for
he gies saxpence to this ane, an' a shilling to the ither ane, for
gauging errans.  He micht hae provided something for the waddin folks
doun at Michael Crummie's, whase tred's no sae brisk noo, sin' that
kick-up wi' him an' the Mason Lodge folk, wha swore he gied them up
ill whusky--an' that was, maybe, nae lee.  He ne'er, since ever I
mind, keepit the real stuff, like that o' mine.  But see, Nelly,
whatna puir, waebegone looking creature's that coming alang the road,
scarcely able to trail ae leg after anither?--an' a bairn, too, help
us a'!"

The object which drew the attention of the honest ale-wife was, as
the reader may have already sagaciously conjectured, the same forlorn
being whom May Darling and her lover had accidentally encountered.
With a slow and faltering step, she approached the village dames, and
inquired of them how far it was from the town of H--.

"Five miles guid," said Janet Baird, and continued--"but ye'll no'
think o' gaun there the nicht; it's gettin dark, an' ye've mair need
o' a while's rest; an', maybe, ye wa'dna be the waur o' something to
support nature; for, wae's me! ye do look thin an' hungert like!
Tak' her in by, Nelly, an' I'll fetch her some cordial, as weel as a
morsel to eat."

So saying, she proceeded to her shop, for the purpose of making good
her word, whilst Nelly followed up that part of the duty of relieving
the stranger which devolved upon her, and conducted the "wearied one"
into the interior of her humble domicile.

"Ye'll hae travelled a gey bit the day, na, I sudna wonder?" said
Nelly.

"Yes," said the stranger, whom we shall now designate as Mrs B.
"Since morning, I have prosecuted my journey with all the speed which
want and weariness would permit of.  But these were nothing, did I
only know how it was to terminate."

Meantime, Janet had returned, bearing in her apron an ample stock of
provisions; and, having heard the latter part of Mrs B.'s reply to
Nelly, her curiosity was not a little excited to know something of
her history.  This she set about with the characteristic _pawkiness_
(there is no purely English word sufficiently expressive) of the
Scotch--that style of speaking which is half asking, half answering a
question; and she was successful in her endeavours.

"It'll be the guidman that ye're gaun to meet at H--?" said Janet.
"He'll be in the manufacturing line, nae doot; for there's little
else done there; an', indeed, that itsel has faun sair aff sin' that
dirt o' machinery was brought in to tak' the bread out o' the puir
man's mouth."

"Yes--no; he is not in that line, nor do I know, indeed, if he is to
be found there at all; but--but--excuse me, kind friends, for showing
a little reserve touching one who"--

Here, however, her feelings overcame her; and, turning round to gaze
on the helpless being that clung to her bosom, tears from her
suffused eyes began to find a ready passage down her pale emaciated
cheek--a channel with which they appeared to be familiar.

"He never saw thee, my little Henry, my sweet boy!  Methinks, that
cherub smile of innocence which lies upon that countenance, would be
powerful enough to melt the icy feelings of his soul, and recall--.
Pardon me, kind friends," she continued; "but the name of husband is
associated in my mind with all that human nature can suffer of
unmitigated, hopeless wretchedness.  You see before you the victim
of--.  But you shall hear all."

She then commenced her history, recounting every circumstance of a
tale of misery but too common.  As it is, in some measure, connected
with that of May Darling, we shall give a few of of its leading facts.

She was the daughter of a respectable farmer in the north of England,
and, being an only child, received an accomplished education; and,
from her engaging manners, personal attractions, and skill in music,
she was much courted even by those who moved in the higher circles.
At the house of a neighbouring clergyman, Mr G--, she was a very
frequent visitor; and her charms captivated the heart of Dr G--, a
young medical gentleman, and the nephew of the clergyman.  On her
part, however, there was no attachment, although the ardour with
which Dr G-- pressed his suit might have captivated a bosom less
stubborn than hers.  But another idol was shrined and secretly
worshipped there.  This was a Mr Henry Bolton, a fellow-student of Dr
G--'s, who, in calling at the house of Mr G--, to see his friend the
Doctor, was induced to spend a few days with him.  His stay was
protracted to weeks, months--in short, till the farmer's daughter and
he, having come to an understanding with respect to the all important
matter of love, agreed to join hands for better for worse.  The
marriage took place at a neighbouring town, where the couple remained
for several months, living in a state of great privacy, for no one
was in the secret of their union, not even the lady's father.  The
finances of Mr Bolton became exhausted; and a letter from his father
having shut out all hope of succour from that quarter, he was thrown
into a state of extreme dejection.  His temper soured, and harshness
towards his wife soon followed; for an application on her part to her
father, to whom she was compelled by necessity to reveal her
situation, met with a reception similar to the other.  One day he
dressed himself with more than usual care, packed up in a small
parcel the principal part of his body clothes, and having told his
wife that he meant to go as far as ----, naming a considerable town,
which was situated at some miles distance, parted from her, like Ajut
in "The Rambler," never to return.  The sun arose and set, and arose
again and again, and week after week, but still he came not; nor was
she ever able to obtain the faintest trace of him.  Her health began
to droop, and, in the depth of her humiliation and misery, like the
prodigal of old, she was compelled to seek for shelter under the
paternal roof.  Her father received her even with kindness; for time,
the softener of affliction, the soother of wrath, had not passed over
his head without exercising its due influence upon his feelings.
Here she gave birth to a child, the baby which now lay at her breast.
Time passed away, and still no intelligence of her runaway husband
reached her, till, "about a week back," she said, "communication was
made me by letter, that, if I would repair to the town of H--, I
would hear something of my lost husband.  Without the knowledge of my
father, I have undertaken the journey; and God alone knows whether
the information, so mysteriously conveyed to me, be true or
false--whether my hopes will be disappointed or realised.  A few
hours, however, will be sufficient to set my mind at rest.  I have
wearied you, I fear; but my present wretched appearance required some
explanation on my part--for, oh, it is difficult to lie under the
suspicion of being a vagrant or vagabond, as heaven knows I am
neither."  And, clasping her hands and raising her eyes, she remained
for a few minutes in that reverential but death-like attitude which
is assumed when a human soul prays in agony.

Her painful narrative had its due influence upon the minds of those
to whom it was addressed; and, although both admitted the propriety
of proceeding to the town of H--, yet they earnestly exhorted her to
remain with them for a night; and to this proposal she acceded.
After breakfast next morning, Mrs B. (who must now be looked upon as
one of the principal of our _dramatis personæ_) set out for the town
of H--.  What the nature of her reflections were, as she drew near
the termination of her journey, may be readily conceived; but of
their intensity no idea can be formed by any one except by the
broken-hearted female who has passed through the same fiery ordeal of
desertion and despair.  She had arrived within a short distance of
the town, when a chaise, driving rapidly down the principal entrance
to it, attracted her attention.  It approached; and from the favours
which profusely adorned the driver, his team, and his vehicle, it was
evident that some happy pair were destined soon to become its
occupants.  The blinds were all drawn up; but, as the chaise passed
her, one of them was partially let down, and she heard some one from
within instruct the driver to proceed to the manse by a road more
retired than that usually taken.  There was something in the tone of
the voice (though indistinctly heard from the rattling of the wheels)
which startled Mrs B. from a reverie in which she had been indulging,
and made every fibre of her body to thrill, as if an electric
discharge had shot through it.  In mute astonishment, not unmingled
with thick coming fancies, horrible forebodings, which, without
assuming any definite form, were prophetic of woe, she fixed her eyes
upon the retiring vehicle, and, rooted to the spot where she stood,
motionless as a Niobe of stone, gazed and gazed till her eyeballs
ached.  "Can it be?" she at last exclaimed, with wild emotion--"can
it be?--No--no--'tis but fancy; yet the place!--gracious powers!"
Her eyes continued to follow the retiring wheels, fixed upon them she
knew not by what mysterious power; and long she might have remained
in this position, had not some person from behind softly addressed
her.  She turned round, and her eyes fell upon her former suitor, Dr
G--.  Let her astonishment be imagined--we will not attempt to give
words to her feelings.

"It is to you, then," she said, after recovering from her
surprise--"it is to you, Dr G--, that I am indebted for information
regarding my lost husband."

"It is," he replied; "but not a moment is to be lost.  Things are in
a worse condition than they were when I dispatched my letter to you.
But let us proceed instantly to Grassyvale.  On the way I will inform
you of all that has come to my knowledge regarding that monster--it
were a profanation of language to call him husband."  So saying, they
commenced their journey, which we shall leave them to prosecute
whilst we bring up some parts of our narrative necessarily left in
the rear.

We need hardly say that the morning of her marriage was an anxious
and a busy one to May Darling.  It is true that she had plenty of
assistance afforded her by the village matrons, and by a few youthful
associates, whom she had singled out as especial favourites from
amongst many who were regarded by her with affection.  But still a
fastidiousness of taste always seizes people on those occasions when
they are desirous of appearing to the best advantage.  Besides, when
there are a number of lady's maids, all busily engaged in decorating
a single individual, a difference of opinion relative to the various
items of dress always takes place, and occasions much delay.  One of
them is clear that such and such a colour of ribbon will best suit
the complexion of the wearer; another holds out strongly for an
opposite hue; and a third silences them both by asserting that
neither answer the colour of the bonnet.  What sort of flowers would
most fittingly ornament the hair, was also a subject of protracted
debate; and half-an-hour was wasted in determining whether the ribbon
which was to circle her waist like a zone, should hang down or not.
Matters, however, were at last adjusted--the bride was arrayed, the
hour of twelve was struck by a small wooden clock which ticked behind
the door; and with the hour there arrived at the cottage a sort of
rude palanquin, fashioned of birch-tree boughs, which intertwisted
with each other, and were interwoven with branches of flowering
shrubs; and upon this some of the kindest and blithest-hearted of the
villagers had agreed to bear May to the kirk.  Some modest scruples
required to be overcome before she would be induced to avail herself
of this mode of conveyance; and, after being seated, with the
bridesmaid walking on one side, and John Darling on the other, the
cavalcade began to move.  Many hearty good wishes for the happiness
of the bride from the elder people, and many joyous shouts from the
younger part of the villagers, greeted the ears of the marriage
party; whilst a pretty long train which drew itself out in the rear,
sent up its rejoicings on the wind from a distance.  But one step
must bring us to the altar of Hymen.  Side by side stood the
bridegroom and the bride; and a more interesting, handsome, and
apparently well-matched pair, never were seen in the same situation,
as we are informed by the clergyman who officiated on the occasion.
The ceremony proceeded with due formality--one moment more would have
joined their hands, when a person who had just entered the church
called to the clergyman to stay the nuptials; and, at the same
moment, a shriek from a female who had entered along with him, rose
so wild, thrilling, and distracted, that every bosom shook beneath
its glittering attire.

"Base, inhuman miscreant!" shouted Dr G--, addressing himself to
Wilkinson (which name must now be supplanted by his real one,
Bolton), at the same time rushing forward to seize the bridegroom.

He, however, had ere this dropped the hand of May Darling--that hand
which, till now, like Desdemona's, had "felt no age, nor known no
sorrow"--and, unsheathing a dagger which was concealed about his
person (doubtless one of his theatrical weapons), he threatened to
make a ghost of any one who disputed his retreat from the church.
His menacing attitude and wild gesticulations terrified every
beholder, and even Dr G-- gave way, allowing him unmolested to quit
the sacred place which he was about to profane, and possibly might
have stained with blood.  Only one attempted to arrest him, and, for
a short time, succeeded.  It was his wife--she who the night
previously had kindled up in his soul the fires of conscience, as she
lay asleep, unsheltered save by heaven's blue canopy, and apparently
an abandoned outcast.

"Henry," she said, holding up their child, and stretching forth her
arms--"Henry, look on this dear pledge of our affection, the child of
love, though born in bitterness and tears, the offspring of your
choice--look on him, Henry, and let the voice of conscience in your
breast, which must be heard now or hereafter, plead in his behalf.
The helpless darling innocent--of what crime has he been guilty, that
his natural protector should cast him forth to meet the buffetings of
fate without a shield--that he should be launched upon the sea of
life without an oar?  If not for my sake, at least for the sake of
little Henry--for he bears your name--restore us both to honour and
society, by returning to the path of duty.  The arms that have so
often embraced you, will again encircle the neck to which they have
clung so often and so fondly.  O Henry.  Henry! reflect for an
instant on my destitute, outcast condition--without you, I am a weed
cast from the rock, to be driven whithersoever the storm sets
wildest.  Think what my sufferings have been and must be!--God alone
can estimate them.  Henry, hear me."  And, taking her child in one
arm, she stretched out the other to detain him; but the heartless
villain shook her rudely from him, and darted from the church.

What were May Darling's feelings during this heart-rending scene?
She was not a spectator of it.  The moment that the dreadful truth
flashed upon her mind, she sank into the arms of her father, dead to
consciousness and time.  By the same conveyance which had brought her
in triumph to the church, she was borne to her father's cottage, a
wretched but a gentle maniac.

Days, weeks, months passed away, and she remained the same listless,
mild, and inoffensive creature--a baby-woman, a human being ripe in
years and an infant in thought, feeling, and everything mental.  'Tis
painful to contemplate the situation of an individual overwhelmed by
such a calamity under any circumstances; but, under the present, how
terrible indeed!  To be struck down at the altar, arrayed in bridal
robes, and with all her hopes blooming around her--how does it humble
human pride, set at nought all calculations of human happiness, and
assign narrow limits to human hope!  And yet there was mercy in the
dispensation.  Better unconscious almost of existence itself, than
alive to all the horrors of a doom like that of May Darling.  Better
the vacant stare, and the look of silent indifference on all beneath
the sun, than the wild gesticulations of violent grief, the shriek of
woe, or the agony of despair, for the alleviation of which "hope
never comes that comes to all."

Every means were had recourse to for rousing her from the dismal
trance into which she had fallen, to dispel from her thoughts the
gloomy, the dead images by which they were haunted; but in vain.
Sometimes she would sit amongst her gay companions; and, whilst they
laughed, chatted, and sung, as in former happy days, a faint smile
would rekindle about her lips, so rosy once, so wan and withered now,
and for a moment playing like a mental coruscation, would suddenly
expire, and then she would droop again into the gloom of moody
madness, and weep amidst all the gaiety that surrounded her--weep
even like a child.  If spoken to, she made no reply; but, lifting up
her dark streaming eyes, sparkling through the humid medium in which
they were suffused, like a star in motionless water, she would sing
snatches of old songs about disappointed love, blighted hopes, and
broken hearts.  And the melancholy tones of her voice would sadden
all around her, as if some powerful spell had suddenly passed over
their minds like a cold wind, and frozen up the fount of joyous
feeling; and they would weep, too--weep along with her; for she was
so beloved, so good, so beautiful, so happy once, and so woe-begone
and wretched now.  Then would the gentle maniac start up on a sudden,
as if some one had hastily summoned her, and, rushing towards home,
would mutter, in a quick tone of voice--"I am coming--I am coming!  I
knew we would be in time!--I knew we would be in time!  He is
there!--he--he!--Who?"  She was silent now.  Many an eye was filled
with tears as she passed through the straggling village of Grassyvale.

Winter had passed away--the vernal eruption of spring had been
matured into the bloom, and the promise which spring gives of autumn,
when May Darling, one evening, wandered forth from her father's
cottage, attended only by a little sister.  Striking into that
beautiful and unfrequented path where she had last walked with him
who, on the following day, was to have become her husband, she had
arrived at the very spot where lay asleep, on the grassy bank, by the
hedge-side, the wife of Bolton.  A train of thought seemed suddenly
to rush through her mind; for she sat, or rather dropped gently down.
'Twas the recollection of former events which had begun to be
reanimated within her; and, though faint, it was sufficient to cause
a temporary suspension of muscular energy: her sight became dim, only
vague images being presented to the eye; and she might probably have
fallen backwards, had not a person sprung through the hedge, and,
putting his arms around her slender form, maintained her in an erect
position.  The individual who had thus so opportunely come to her
assistance was closely wrapped up in a greatcoat, although the warmth
of the weather rendered such a covering scarcely necessary.  The
upper part of his countenance was concealed by a slouched hat drawn
pretty far down; but from what of it was visible, it was plain that
care, remorse, and dissipation had gone far to modify its natural
expression.

May gradually revived from her partial swoon; and the stranger,
uncovering his head, and fixing his eyes upon the languid features
which began to assume the hue of life and the expression of conscious
being, said, in a low, trembling voice--

"May Darling, hear me--do not curse me--I am miserable enough without
the malison of her whom"--But his feelings for a moment choked his
utterance.  "Through a thousand dangers and difficulties have I
sought this interview, only that I might obtain your forgiveness, and
acceptance of this small gift."  Here he flung a purse down by her
side.  "Say you forgive me, May--breathe but the word, and, in a few
days, an ocean shall roll between us."

But he spoke to ears which heard not.  The moment that May recognised
Bolton, reason was restored, but animation fled, and she sank dead
for a time in his arms.  He was about to take measures for her
restoration, when the rapid trampling of horses' hoofs drew his
attention in another direction; and, looking over the hedge-row, he
perceived two horsemen, at a very little distance, advancing towards
the village.  He seemed to be aware of their errand and the cause of
their speed; for, no sooner had he cast his eyes on them, than his
head instinctively slunk down behind the hedge.  But his precaution
was too late.  He had been seen; and, that night, he was led, a
fettered man, to the gaol of H--, charged with highway robbery.  We
may as well conclude his history, as well as that of the other
individuals who have been interwoven with our tale, before returning
to May Darling.

Mr Henry Bolton was found guilty of the crime with which he was
charged, and condemned to perish on the scaffold, although it was
only his first offence, and, to do him justice, he had committed the
crime for the purpose of having it in his power, in some measure, to
requite May Darling for the injury which she had received at his
hands.  How wonderful are the ways of Providence in punishing the
guilty!  Actuated by a motive unquestionably virtuous, Bolton commits
a capital crime, and the woman whom he had wronged becomes,
unconsciously to herself, the ultimate cause of his punishment!
However, by powerful intercession on the part of his friends, the
sentence was commuted to transportation for life.  But it was
destined that he should end his days miserably.  "Whoso sheddeth
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."  Bolton was virtually a
murderer, as we shall see; and the curse could not be eluded by the
decision of any earthly tribunal.  'Twas vain to attempt to fly from
it.  The vengeance of Heaven would have pursued him through all the
regions of space; and, screened by the closest envelope of darkness
and disguise, would have struck its victim down.  In a skirmish with
the natives of the place to which he had been transported, he was
taken prisoner, and by them put to a cruel and lingering death.

After the painful interview with her husband in the church of
Grassyvale, Mrs Bolton returned to her father, secluding herself from
the world, and devoting her time to household duties and the
education of her son.  Rumours of the death of her husband penetrated
at last to the remote part of the country where she resided, and, on
its being officially authenticated, Dr G--, who had commenced
practice in a neighbouring town, became a frequent visitor at the
farm-house.  His former courtship was renewed; and, when the days of
mourning were over, and time had done much to alleviate grief, to
restore the faded charms of Mrs Bolton, and to throw the events of
the past into dimness and distance, they were united; and are still,
according to the last accounts, living happily together, surrounded
by a family of thriving children.  Nelly Gray and Janet Baird still
pursue their respective callings in Grassyvale; the latter never
failing, on every possible occasion, to boast of her sagacity in
detecting the real character of Mr Henry Wilkinson, _alias_ Bolton.
But let us return to the suffering May Darling.

She was borne to her cottage home insensible, in which state she
remained all that night, and next day revived only to know that she
was dying.  Yes--the arrow that had pierced her was poisoned; but the
venom, though fatal, worked slow.  Gold is refined by fire, and the
more intense the heat applied, the purer will the metal become.  So
is it with the human soul.  It is made perfect through suffering; and
the more it is destined to endure, the fitter will it become for
taking a part with the choirs of saints and angels, when it shall
have thrown aside the garment of mortality and mounted on high, like
the unshadowed moon, through parted clouds.  But May was happy,
notwithstanding.  In all her looks and movements were disclosed the
peace of mind which passeth understanding.  It was diffused, like
light from heaven, over her countenance; it was heard, like a rich
chord of music, in the tones of her voice; her every word and action
betrayed its presence and all-prevailing power.  Her Bible, although
always a favourite study, became now her sole one; and by its
all-hallowing influence, her mind looking down with calm complacency
on all terrestrial things, had an early foretaste of immortality, in
many a delightful contemplation of that abode and that felicity which
shall reward the just.

"It was a delightful evening, about the middle of autumn," says the
worthy clergyman to whom we have been indebted for many of the facts
of the foregoing narrative, "that I was hastily summoned, by John
Darling, to visit his daughter, who, he believed, was dying.  I lost
no time in proceeding to his cottage, and found that his conjecture
was but too true.  In an easy chair, placed at an open window which
faced the west, reclined the victim of a broken heart.  On her pale
cheek death had impressed his seal, though there the deceitful rose
tint fluctuated, which was not so in her days of health and hope.
Her words, when she spake, and that was seldom, seemed to come forth
without her breath; and the lightest down that ever was wafted
through summer's air might have slept unfluttered on her lips.  I
kneeled down and prayed that the gentle spirit which was about to be
released from its mortal bonds, might receive a welcome to the realms
of life and light.  She understood distinctly that she was dying; and
in token that her mind was at perfect ease, she faintly uttered, when
I had finished--"Yes! oh, yes!--Heaven! he--!"  The words died
unfinished on her tongue, and her spirit rose to its native sky.




MORTLAKE: A LEGEND OF MERTON.

BY JAMES MAIDMENT.

"Pray, sir, will you condescend to inform me by what title you
presume to set your foot on my grounds?  Have I not already warned
you; and if I use you now severely, the blame must rest with
yourself."

These words were addressed by Sir Thomas Bruce Vavasour, in an
evident state of excitement, to a young lad apparently about
nineteen, but in reality not much above sixteen, whom he met
traversing the grounds of Merton.  Tom Vallance did not condescend to
inform his interrogator why he had presumed to intrude where his
presence seemed far from welcome, or explain why, on the present
occasion, he happened to have in his hand a gun, which suspicious
folks might be apt to suppose was intended to create some little
confusion among the game on this well-preserved estate.  He returned
no very distinct answer; but some inarticulate sounds issued from his
mouth, which, no doubt, were intended to deprecate the rage of the
hasty and irritable baronet; but which seemed to have the effect only
of heightening his ire, as he turned round to his keeper, who, with
one of the servants, was at his back, and bade them secure the
fowling-piece with which the youth was furnished--a command which was
instantly obeyed; and the lad, not prepared for the sudden attack,
was without difficulty disarmed.

"Now, my lad," quoth Sir Thomas, "you had better be off, unless you
wish me to use violence; for I will not allow my property to be
trespassed upon, and my game destroyed, by you and the like of you."

Tom stood firm, scowling on the baronet.  At length he gained nerve
enough to say--

"Give me back my gun.  You have no right to rob me, nor shall you."

"But you shall submit, my little cock-sparrow.  Don't suppose I want
to keep your twopenny-halfpenny pop gun.  Here, John, just take
Master Tom by the shoulders, and turn him off my grounds; and you,
Peter, carry this rubbishy thing to Mrs Vallance, and tell her it
would better become her to keep her son behind the counter of her
shop, to serve her customers with farthing candles and brown soap,
than allow him to vagabondize about the country poaching.  If he does
not mend his manners, I've a pretty good guess that some of those
days he'll either take a voyage at the expense of his country, or get
his neck thrust into a noose."

This was certainly impertinent.  It was, moreover, unjust and
uncalled for; as whatever might be laid to the charge of Tom
Vallance, on account of his predilection for field sports, no
impeachment lay otherwise to his moral character.  But Sir Thomas was
in a passion; and, like all persons in that state, spoke without
reflection.  Naturally of a hasty and irritable temper, he had
received a letter that morning which excited his ire excessively, and
as, upon issuing from the mansion, the lad Vallance crossed his path,
the first burst of his wrath fell on his devoted head.  Tom felt
deeply the insult.  He had been accustomed to a shake of the head,
and sometimes a sharp word; but Sir Thomas, upon the whole, used him
well enough; for, as his mother had been housekeeper in the family
during the lifetime of Sir Marmaduke Vavasour, who had married the
heiress of Merton, the lad was looked upon, or rather he looked upon
himself, as a sort of licensed person on the grounds.  To be deprived
of his gun was bad, but to insinuate moral turpitude was worse; and,
forgetful of the rank of his tormentor, he exclaimed--

"I am no thief--I am as honest as yourself, Sir Thomas; and bitterly,
bitterly, shall you rue this day.  When I set my foot next time on
your grounds, it will be for no good to you."

Saying this he turned on his heel, and extricating himself suddenly
from the hands of the servants, cleared a ditch which opposed his
retreat, and was speedily out of reach.

The passion of Sir Thomas was not lessened by this unexpected reply,
followed as it was by the speedy evasion of the speaker; and, as Tom
was out of his reach, he transferred his wrath to the attendants, who
were scolded in the most exemplary style, for not knocking the young
rascal down.  After indulging some time in this agreeable relaxation,
he returned to the house, looking all the while, as his men said,
"like a bear wi' a sair head."

Sir Thomas Bruce Vavasour was the third son of an English baronet of
ancient lineage, who, by intermarriage with Isabella, daughter, and
afterwards sole heiress of Reginald Bruce of Merton, in the county of
Roxburgh, eventually carried that estate into his family.  He had
three brothers, two elder and one younger than himself.  By the
marriage contract, the English estate, which was considerable, was
destined to the elder son, the Scotch one to the second son.  Thomas
got a commission, went abroad, and, after much battling about,
attained the rank of General, when, by the death of his brother
William, he succeeded to Merton; and, a few years afterwards, the
demise of the eldest brother, who broke his neck whilst fox-hunting,
gave him the extensive manor of Vavasour Castle, and the title of a
baronet.  The younger brother married an heiress, by whom he had one
son, who, after his demise, he left under the guardianship of Sir
Thomas--excluding Mrs Vavasour from all control.  The uncle carefully
superintended the education of his ward, became much attached to him,
and, during the holidays, frequently took him to Merton, to the
infinite displeasure of Mrs Richard Vavasour, who cordially hated her
brother-in-law.  When he grew up, those visits were discontinued,
partly as he was studying for the bar, and partly to please his
mother, whom he considered he was in duty bound to propitiate as much
as he could--rather a difficult task, as she was a capricious fine
lady, with violent and vindictive feelings.  Edward was about
four-and-twenty, and had formed an attachment to a lady--his equal in
birth and fortune--but who did not meet with the mother's
approbation.  She demanded that the match should be broken
off--Edward remonstrated--she persisted; and, after a war of words,
matters remained precisely as they originally were, he avowing a
fixed determination to make himself happy, notwithstanding Mrs
Vavasour's threats of vengeance.  This he accordingly did, and his
mother, bursting a bloodvessel, soon afterwards died, leaving a
sealed letter to be sent, after her demise, to Sir Thomas, whom she
hated.

Three weeks had elapsed from the date of this interview, when, one
evening early in the month of September, a party of farmers--for it
was market day--were sitting after dinner in the public inn of the
county town, when the landlord suddenly entered, exclaiming--

"Gracious!--a dreadful murder has just been committed.  The laird of
Merton has been killed in his own house!"

This announcement was received with equal astonishment and horror by
those assembled; and the intruder had every possible question to
answer as to the time, place, and person, that the half-muddled
brains of those present could devise; and, such a babel of voices
arose in sweet discord, that a gentleman, who sat in the parlour
alone, and who had arrived by that day's mail, was so much disturbed
as to ring violently to know why his meditations were thus so
unharmoniously interrupted.

"Waiter!" said he, "why this disturbance?  Cannot your farmers dine
here without kicking up a riot?"

"O sir!--it's the murder!"

"What murder?"

"The General, sir, who lives at Merton, sir, found stabbed in his own
sitting-room, sir!"

"Stabbed! do you say?  It cannot be?"

"Quite true, sir, as I'm a waiter!  And they have got the murderer in
custody."

"Murderer!--impossible!  What mean you?" exclaimed the traveller,
hastily.

"Why, sir, the fellow that killed Sir Thomas is taken redhand, I
think they call it."

"Who is he?"

"Just Tom Vallance, sir--an idle fellow to be sure, but the last
person that I would have thought would do such a thing."

"What! the son of the old housekeeper?"

"Yes--do you know him, sir?"

"Not I--but I've heard of his mother.  What inducement could he have
to commit so dreadful a crime?"

"Revenge, sir!--The General, some two or three weeks since, seized
his gun, and, poor gentleman, abused Tom fearfully, for he was in one
of his terrifics; and Tom told him the next time he was on his
grounds he would do for him--at least so it is said."

"Dreadful!--and what was this Tom Vallance, as I think you call him?"

"Nothing, sir!  His mother is an industrious woman; and the lad was
not that bad fellow, neither--but dreadfully idle.  He had a good
education; but his father dying two years since, Tom left school; and
his mother, in place of sending him back, kept him at home: she was
so fond of him that she let him do whatever he liked."

"How can she afford to maintain him?"

"She is very industrious, sir; and, as she was daft fond of him,
every penny she could scrape together went into his pockets."

"Where is the accused?"

"Tom, sir, do you mean?--Why, before the Sheriff, making his
declaration."

"Who succeeds the late baronet?"

"His nephew--a very nice chap.  He was often at Merton when a lad;
but he has not been here for many years.  He'll be better liked than
his uncle, though the old fellow was not so bad neither.  But I must
go, sir, for I hear the bell ringing in the travellers' room."  So
saying, he whipped his napkin under his arm, and withdrew with
praiseworthy celerity.

The unknown traveller paced slowly up and down the room, apparently
very much perplexed in his mind.  He muttered--"Strange!--very
strange!--caught in the room--a previous threat--all concurs."
Shortly afterwards he again rang the bell, ordered in and paid his
bill; and, taking a post-chaise to the next town, waited there only
until the mail from Edinburgh to London stopped to change horses,
and, having procured a seat, arrived in due time in the metropolis.

The investigation of facts connected with the death of Sir Thomas
proceeded, and a strong case was made out against the accused.  The
two servants swore to the threat; and, although not giving exactly
the waiter's version of it, made it pretty nearly as bad; for, not
having heard the precise words, they supplied the defect in hearing
by generalizing.  "He threatened," they said, "to be revenged, and
that he would come to the grounds for that purpose;" or used some
such words, shewing a determined resolution of getting "_amends_" of
their master.  That the General met his death by a stab in the heart
was plain enough; and that the servants found Tom beside him,
grasping a bloody knife, was equally so.  Presumptions were,
therefore, strongly against him; nor did his declaration nor judicial
statement help him much; for he admitted, after some little
hesitation, that he had slipped into the grounds to redeem his threat
of revenge by carrying off some very fine peaches, of which the
General was very proud, and which he intended as a present to a
neighbouring nobleman.  Knowing that Sir Thomas was accustomed to
take his siesta immediately after dinner, which was usually at
five--for he followed a fashion of his own in this respect, which
has, since his time, become popular--and that the gardener left at
six, he lurked about the grounds till after that period, and then,
easily getting into the garden, thought it prudent to see how the
land lay before he proceeded to his labour of love.

The house of Merton was an old-fashioned building, or rather series
of buildings, erected at different times; and the present possessor,
who had a fancy for horticulture, had added an apartment, which
opened by a glass door upon a terrace from which, by descending a few
steps, he entered the garden.  This room was, necessarily, remote
from the rest of the mansion, and here Sir Thomas uniformly dined,
summer and winter.  After dinner was removed, and the dessert and
wine placed on the table, the servants withdrew, and were forbidden
to enter till seven o'clock, when coffee was served.  Of all this Tom
was perfectly cognizant.

Now Tom asserted that, as a precautionary measure, he resolved to
peep into the room in question, to ascertain whether Sir Thomas was
asleep before he took his boyish revenge; and seeing the glass door
which led into the garden open, he proceeded, cautiously and slowly,
till he got there, when, looking in, he observed his old enemy lying
on the floor on his face.  Astonished at this, and forgetting all
sense of personal risk, he advanced to raise the baronet, when he
discovered that he was dead, and a knife lying beside the body, which
he picked up.  Fear tied up his tongue for some few seconds, and he
had barely time to give utterance to an exclamation of horror, when,
the door opening, the servant gave the alarm, and before he had time
to collect his scattered senses he was a prisoner.  All this might
have been true, and perhaps the story would have been treated with
more consideration than it obtained, had it not been for the
_previous threat_, which naturally induced a strong suspicion against
Tom.  The result was that, after the ordinary form had been gone
through, the unhappy youth was fully committed to take his trial for
the murder of Sir Thomas Vavasour Bruce Vavasour of Vavasour and
Merton, Baronet.

The heir, at this eventful period, was in England, whither the body
was transmitted, and deposited in the Vavasour mausoleum.

Meanwhile, Tom remained for some weeks in the county jail in a
condition far from enviable.  All attempts to induce a confession of
guilt were abortive; he persisted in his declaration of innocence;
but, as parties accused are not usually in the habit of confessing
their crimes, these protestations were not considered worth much.
Indeed, the only person he could convince was his poor mother, who
gave implicit confidence to his assertions.

A change, and one for the better, had come over the accused in
prison.  How bitterly did he regret his former idle moments--how
deeply did he lament the burden he had been on his mother.  Many a
vow did he make, that if he could get quit of this charge, he would
eschew his former course of life, and be all a fond parent could ask.
About the tenth day before the approaching sittings, Tom was visited
by a gentleman, who proffered his assistance as his adviser.  He had
heard, he said, of the case; and was anxious, on his mother's
account, to afford his aid: but he required a full and ample
statement, without any concealment.  Tom answered he had nothing to
conceal; and he recapitulated everything he had formerly stated.

The stranger listened attentively and, after his client had
concluded, shook his head.  "Tom! you may be innocent--there is the
impress of truth in what you state, and I can hardly doubt you; but
still the evidence against you is so strong, that if you go to trial,
I am fearful--very fearful of the result."

Tom's face, which had brightened as the stranger commenced, became
clouded ere the remarks were finished; and, when they terminated, he
burst into tears.  "O sir!" he sobbed, "have pity on a poor misguided
lad, who never meant evil to any one--who is as innocent of the crime
of which he is accused as you are.  Save me, sir!  O save me! if not
on my own account, at least on that of my poor mother, who will break
her heart if I am condemned."

"I would willingly save you if I could," was the rejoinder; "but I
cannot influence juries--I cannot sway the Court."

"And must I die, then?  Must I, before my time, go down to my grave
dishonoured and disgraced?  O sir! if it had pleased Heaven to visit
me with a deadly sickness, I would have left the world without one
sigh except for my mother.  But to be degraded as a felon--to be
branded as a murderer--it is too--too much."  He became so agitated
that grief choked his utterance.

The stranger, obviously affected, look his hand.  "Tom, have you
firmness?  There is a way, perhaps."

"How!" exclaimed the lad, eagerly.

"This room is only one storey from the ground, and escape is
possible."

"Escape!  No! no!  The windows are barred with iron; besides, if I
escape, it looks like guilt, and I cannot bear that."

"But, will staying behind prove your innocence?  Will your suffering
the last penalty of the law convince the world that you did not
commit the murder?"

"True--very true!  If I live, my innocence may yet be proved--but how
to get through the window."

"That can be easily managed, if you will act like a man.  It is now
early.  I will be with you again before the prison shuts.  Remember!
not one word to your mother.  You may console her by saying that your
agent--for such I am--has given you hopes.  Nothing more.  Remember!"
So saying, he departed.

* * * * * *

It was rather late when the stranger, who called himself Mortlake,
returned.  Tom had kept his promise; and, by affording his mother
hopes of an acquittal, contrived to infuse a happiness to which her
bosom had been for many a week a stranger.

"Now, Tom!" said Mr Mortlake, in a low tone, "attend to me.  I have
brought you a file, some aquafortis, and a silken ladder.  Apply the
liquid to the bars, and it will gradually eat into the iron--then use
your file, and the first impediment to your flight will be removed.
Next fix the silken ladder firmly, and your descent is easy.  Do not
begin your operations until the inmates of the jail are asleep.  You
may get everything ready by the evening of the day after the morrow.
As the clock strikes twelve, assistance will be at hand, and descend
with the first stroke, if all is right.  Some one will be waiting for
you.  He will whisper into your ear 'follow,' and you must follow as
speedily as possible.  But, again, I caution you to keep this a
secret from your mother.  Buoy her up with hopes; talk confidently of
your acquittal; that you are to have a learned barrister from
Edinburgh.  This will get wind, and prevent any suspicion of your
intended escape.  Once safe, your mother will receive due notice; and
be assured she shall not be allowed to suffer one moment more of
suspense than is absolutely necessary.  You will not see me again in
prison, I hope."

Tom's feelings were overcome.  He seized Mortlake's hand, and pressed
it to his lips, while tears flowed in torrents from his eyes.  He
could not speak.

Mortlake was affected.  "And yet, poor kind-hearted boy," he said,
"people could deem you guilty of a murder--how little did they know
you.  But away with tears.  Be a man.  You have a difficult part
before you.  See you flinch not!"  Then changing his tone, and
speaking loudly, "Well!  I'm off to Edinburgh, where I shall see
Andrew Crosbie.  I have great faith in him; and, as he is not a
greedy man, I dare say, Tom, I may get him to come here."

At this moment the jailer entered, saying it was time to leave; and
Mortlake, pressing Tom's hand, bade him farewell, until his return
from Edin burgh.

Tom treasured every word in his heart--not one syllable escaped his
lips, that might induce the most suspicious person to imagine he
contemplated flight.  He spoke sensibly of his case; inducing his
mother, and one or two persons, whom curiosity had prompted to visit
him, to suppose that he was very sanguine of acquittal; and, as the
fame of Andrew Crosbie extended over Scotland as a shrewd man and an
able lawyer, this result was not thought by any means chimerical.

When the evening came, Tom commenced operations.  He applied the
liquid as directed, which soon corroded the iron at the bottom.  The
sides and top were more difficult, but their partial destruction was
in time accomplished; and, when the eventful evening came, he had
little difficulty in removing the grating.  It was, of course, only
injured at the ends; and, as the window was oblong, by altering the
position of the grating, he obtained a substance sufficiently strong
to which he attached the rope-ladder.  Getting up to the window, he
placed the grating reversed in the inside, and threw the ladder on
the outside.  To soften the fall of the iron after he had descended,
he placed his mattress and bedclothes below; and, having thus made
every preliminary arrangement, with the first stroke of twelve he
commenced his descent; and, ere the last had died upon the breeze,
the ground was reached in safety.

A figure, enveloped in a cloak, approached hurriedly, and whispered
"follow!"  He tossed a bundle to the fugitive, then turned to the
left.  The order was obeyed; and, after the lapse of an hour and
a-half, Tom found himself in a wood, and the stranger opening a dark
lantern--sliding shades at the side of which had previously been
pulled down--disclosed to the eyes of Vallance the features of his
agent, Mortlake.

The bundle was untied, and Tom found it to contain a capacious
wrapper, a shawl, and bonnet with a veil.  Those Tom was required to
put on, and this matter being accomplished, the journey was resumed,
and in about two hours they arrived at a small hamlet or village,
where they found a gig waiting for them.  Mortlake then addressed his
companion:--"My dear Emily! be more composed--never mind your
father--I will write to him, and all will yet be put to rights."

Tom, who had been previously instructed, spoke "small like a woman;"
and, after some affected coyness, entered the carriage, when the
parties drove off, leaving the man who had taken charge of the
vehicle under the evident conviction that the strange man was a sad
blackguard, and that the veiled lady was some unfortunate young woman
who had been deluded away by his devices.

The news of Tom's escape excited universal astonishment, and no means
were left untried to trace his footsteps; but every exertion was in
vain, and his pursuers were completely at fault.  It was universally
admitted that some one must have furnished him with the implements
that had procured his liberation; and his mother was, as a matter of
course, the first one on whom suspicion lighted.  The poor old woman,
when the fact was announced, was equally amazed and pleased; but she
could furnish no clue.  Tom had seen a few people in prison, yet it
was evident they had nothing to do with the escape.  It was at last
resolved that the agent was the accessory; but here the good people
were at fault again, for no one, except the jailer, remembered having
seen him, and he could give but a very imperfect description of him.
He might be tall or so--rather think he was, but not sure--wore
powder, and had, he believes, a black coat, but did not think he
would know him again.  This was all that could be elicited.

A reward of fifty pounds was offered by the magistrates for the
capture of Tom; and Sir Edward Bruce Vavasour increased it to one
hundred and fifty, expressing, at same time, his anxiety that the
accused should be retaken.

Whilst all were in a state of excitement, fresh fuel was added to the
flame by the following letter, bearing the Liverpool post-mark, which
Mrs Vallance received from her son:--


"DEAREST MOTHER,--I am well, and as happy as one unjustly accused can
be.  Though fate has sundered us, you are ever in my thoughts.  I
have found a protector--fear not for me.  You shall regularly hear
from

"Your affectionate son," &c.


Beneath was written:--"Your son will yet be a blessing to you.
Accept this trifle."  And a twenty pound note was found enclosed.

"What a fool!" said the wise ones, "only to think of letting us know
where he is."  And, upon the hint, away trotted the officers with a
criminal warrant, to be backed, as it is termed, by an English
justice in Liverpool, where, to their great vexation, he was not to
be found.

Meanwhile, the object of their pursuit was out of all danger.  His
friend and he at last found themselves on the road to Wooler.

"Tom!" said Mortlake, when they alighted at the inn, "you must pass
for my wife.  I have everything provided for that purpose in my
portmanteau; meanwhile, keep down your veil, and wrap your cloak
about you."

He then took out a complete suit of female apparel, and speedily his
protegée was metamorphosed into a tall and handsome, although
somewhat masculine, female.  We need not tire our readers with a
detail of the subsequent journey southward, and may only mention that
Mortlake left the horse and gig at Wooler, where, obtaining a seat
for himself and his companion in the mail, they arrived in safety at
Barnet.  Here Tom resumed his sex; and, in a new suit of clothes,
appeared, as he really was, a good and intelligent looking young man.

From Barnet, the travellers proceeded in a chaise to London, where
Mortlake took lodgings, and, after the lapse of a few days, disclosed
to the youth his ulterior purposes.

"Mr Vallance!" said he.

"Do not call me 'Mr'--if you do, I shall think I have offended you."

"Well, Tom, then.  Listen to what I have to say.  You have been my
companion now for nearly three weeks.  During that time I have
studied you, and the opinion I have formed is favourable.  You
possess good qualities and excellent talents: these have been
obscured but not extinguished by your recent follies, not to give
them a harsher name.  By giving way to passion and using threats,
which, from you, were ill-judged and ill-timed, you have barely
escaped an ignominious death.  Far be it from me to say that the late
owner of Merlon was justified in the intemperate language he used;
but you know that at times he had no control over himself, and you
should have made allowances for what was really a disease.  Of your
innocence I have not the slightest doubt, otherwise I would never
have aided your escape from jail.  I think the lesson you have had is
one you can never forget; and I prophesy that Thomas Vallance may yet
assume that position in society which good conduct and perseverance
ever secure."

Tom heard this eulogium, qualified as it was, with great delight.
"Try me!  O try me, my best friend!--give me an opportunity of
evincing, by the propriety of my conduct, how much I feel your
benevolence.  To please you shall be the study of my future life."

"Well, Tom, you shall have a trial; but you must leave me, and cross
the seas.  It is not safe for either of us that you remain here."

Tom's countenance fell.  "And must I leave _you_--the only being in
the world, save my mother, whom I love? but your commands are to me
as laws, and they shall be obeyed."

"Well, then--the family with which I am connected have large
possessions in Antigua, and there is a wealthy mercantile
establishment over which I have no inconsiderable control--so much
so, that any recommendation from me or mine will meet with immediate
attention.  I shall place you there as a clerk; and if you discharge
the duties of the office satisfactorily, means shall be afforded of
advancing you: in one word, everything shall be made to depend upon
your good behaviour.  Preparations have already been making for your
departure, and I have procured from the senior partner of Mortlake,
Tresham, & Co., an order for your appointment, with a letter of
recommendation to Mr Tresham, the resident partner, whose good graces
I sincerely wish you may acquire."

"Mortlake!--is he a relation of yours?"

"Yes! but you must ask no questions--seek to know nothing beyond what
I choose to disclose.  You must renounce your name.  You will
therefore, in future, be known as Thomas Mortlake, the son of a
distant relation of mine.  Such is the legend that must be
circulated.  Now, write to your mother.  Would to heavens! I could
permit an interview, but that cannot be.  Give me the letter, sealed
if you choose, as I have a particular mode of transmitting it to her;
and I wish it to appear, as the former one did, that it came from
Liverpool.  Be cautious and guarded in what you communicate, but
mention that, in future, she shall have such an allowance as will
make her easy for life.  Now, farewell for a few hours, and be sure
to have your letter ready when I return."

Tom was left to his own reflections.  The letter to Mrs Vallance was
written; and, by the time that Mortlake returned, Tom was
sufficiently composed to veil his feelings, and meet him as of old.

"Everything is arranged," said Mortlake; "in a few days you sail from
the Thames by the brig _Tresham_.  You will have every accommodation
afforded that a gentleman can require: a suitable wardrobe is
preparing: in short, my dear young friend, you shall appear to these
West Indians as their equal, and in such guise as suits the proud
name of Mortlake.  One thing more, and I have done.  The present
Baronet of Vavasour has, through his mother, property in Antigua, and
is distantly related to the elder partner of the firm.  You will,
therefore, seem as if you knew him not; and even in regard to myself,
I wish little or nothing said.  That curiosity will be excited, I
doubt not, but I leave you to baffle it."

Time passed with unusual rapidity--so, at least, Mr Thomas Mortlake
opined; and the day of his departure having at length arrived, he was
not a little startled when his friend made a very early appearance,
accompanied by a young lady.  Advancing towards him, she said--"Mr
Mortlake!  I am happy to have had this opportunity of seeing you
previous to your departure, and of personally wishing you every
success in the calling in which you are about to engage.  Your friend
has no secrets from me, and I am acquainted with every particular of
your singular history."

"Yes!" exclaimed his protector; "I conceal nothing from this lady,
and she feels as much interest in you as I do myself.  We propose to
accompany you to the ship."

Tom felt somewhat confused by this unexpected introduction; but that
natural sense of propriety which is inherent in some minds, and which
others vainly endeavour to acquire, enabled him to acquit himself in
a manner that gave equal satisfaction to both visitors.  The party
then proceeded to the vessel, where Mortlake and the lady satisfied
themselves that due provision had been made for the accommodation of
their protegé.

"Mr Mortlake!" said the lady at parting, "I have used the freedom of
an old friend, and placed in your cabin a small collection of books,
which, I have no doubt, will materially help to deprive your voyage
of half its tedium; and, when you arrive at the place of your
destination, if you could devote any leisure hours to their study, be
assured the benefit will be incalculable."

"Believe me," he answered, "my kind patrons, whatever may be my fate,
I never can forget the wondrous acts of kindness that have been
lavished on me.  If an anxious desire to discharge the duties of my
office--if a determination to surmount difficulties, coupled with a
firm resolution to act fairly and honourably by my neighbours--can be
taken as an earnest of my anxiety to please, on this you may rely;
and if my exertions be crowned with success, the pleasure will be
doubled when I remember it is all owing to you."

"Tom," said Mr Mortlake, "you are eloquent; but time flies, and we
must part."

"I have but one request more--no doubt it is needless.  Be kind!  O
be kind to my poor mother!"

"On that," replied the lady, "you may depend.  And now, farewell!"

Tom took her hand, and pressed it respectfully to his lips; then,
turning to his friend, tried to give utterance to "farewell!"  The
word would not pass his lips.  Forgetting all difference of rank, he
threw his arms around Mortlake's neck, and wept.  In a moment, as if
ashamed of his freedom, or want of manliness, he hastily withdrew
from his embrace.

Mortlake was moved.  He pressed the lad affectionately to his
breast--"God bless you, my dear fellow; in me you have ever a steady
friend.  And now, farewell!"

They separated; and years elapsed ere Mortlake and his friend again
met.

* * * *

Young Mortlake--for so he must in future be termed--suffered the
usual inconveniences of a sea voyage; and if ever his boyish
inclination, influenced by a perusal of the fascinating fiction of
"Robinson Crusoe," had given him a fancy for the pleasures of a
seafaring life, they yielded speedily to the irresistible effects of
sea-sickness.

The vessel reached the island in about six weeks, and Tom presented
his credentials to Mr Tresham, from whom he met a favourable
reception.  He had an apartment assigned to him in the house, and was
treated as one of the family.  To the duties of the counting-house,
irksome in the outset, he soon became reconciled.  His anxiety to
please was not overlooked by his master, who, finding him able and
apt, gradually raised both his rank and his salary.  Before five
years had elapsed, he was head clerk in the establishment.
Favourites are not much liked; but Tom bore his honours so meekly,
and was so obliging, without being obsequious, that his rise neither
excited envy nor surprise--indeed, it was looked upon as a matter of
course; and the astonishment would have been, not that he had risen,
but that he had not risen in the establishment.

When he first arrived, he was pestered with questions as to birth,
parentage, and education.  These ordinary, but impertinent queries,
he parried with equal good humour and tact.  All that could be
extracted from him was, that he was protected by Mr Mortlake, and
that that was his own name.  Mr Tresham, however, put no questions.
Sir Edward Vavasour was rarely mentioned.  Little was known of him,
excepting that several thousands a-year were annually remitted to
England as the produce of his estates.  Latterly, Tom observed that
these returns were made to account of Lord Mortlake.  This puzzled
him; and, upon a question to Tresham being hazarded, he coldly
answered--

"The possessions of Sir Edward Vavasour belong now to Lord Mortlake;
but remember the request of your benefactor--to ask no questions."

Other matters of more importance now occupied our hero's mind, and he
gave himself no farther thoughts on the subject.  The firstfruits of
his labour were piously remitted to his mother, through his English
correspondent.  From her he (through the same channel) learned that
Sir Edward Vavasour had given her a nice little cottage and garden,
on the Vavasour estate, in England, rent-free, and that she had sold
off everything in Merton, as the recollections there were
unpleasant--the reason assigned being her former services as
housekeeper in the family.  No attempt had been made by him to elicit
a confession of her son's residence.  She farther stated, that she
regularly received twenty pounds every half-year from some unknown
person; and that she was, therefore, as happy as she could be in the
absence of her son.

The letters from his patron were warm and affectionate.  Some little
presents Tom had ventured to make; and a few of those lovely tropical
shells, transmitted to the unknown young lady, were cordially
accepted, not so much for their value, as for the indications they
afforded of the unabated regard of the giver.  Tom devoted a certain
portion of each day to study.  His early education had been, so far
as it went, good; and he was enabled, by severe application, to
master the Roman authors, and enjoy their beauties.

The death of his mother, during the fourth year of his residence in
the tropics, was a heavy blow to him.  He had lived in hopes of
coming back to Britain with a fortune sufficient to support her in
affluence; but his pious intention was frustrated.  One consolation
he had, that the kind lady who, with his patron, took such an
especial interest in his affairs, had watched over her dying moments,
and afforded her every comfort.

In the tenth year of his sojourn, a great revolution in his fortunes
took place.  One morning, Mr Tresham called him into his private room.

"Mortlake," said he, "you have been now ten years in our service;
and, during that time, I have never had cause to find the slightest
fault with you.  The demise of the senior partner compels me to visit
England.  Your patron has written me urgently to admit you as a
partner; now, although his recommendation must have weight with me, I
can assure you that I need no solicitation to do an act of justice.
I rejoice, by adding your name to the firm, to show you how much I
esteem you, and what unbounded confidence I have in you."

Tom justly felt gratified by this communication.  He was grateful for
the never-slumbering care of his English patron, and equally so for
the personal regard of Tresham, who, having thus removed a
considerable portion of the burdens of commerce upon his younger
partner, left the island, and safely arrived in London, where, for
several months, he was engaged in adjusting the company's accounts,
and effecting a settlement with the representatives of the deceased.
The business, meanwhile, went on under the name of Tresham, Mortlake,
& Co., and was managed with as much prudence and profit by the junior
partner as it had previously been by the senior one.

Tresham having realized a fortune, at the age of fifty resolved to
return to England to enjoy it.  Upon this occasion, his nephew, who
had come out sometime after Tom, became a partner; and, just twenty
years from the period of his advent, did Thomas Mortlake, Esq.,
resolve, at the age of thirty-six, to return to his native land,
leaving the affairs of the company to be exclusively managed by young
Tresham, who was fully adequate to the task.

He embarked in a vessel of the company's; and having had a fair wind,
in a few weeks beheld the chalky cliffs of Old Albion.  He found his
patron and Tresham awaiting his landing, and a carriage ready to bear
him away.  The meeting was cordial.  Twenty years had not affected
his patron much.  He was about forty-five years of age, but looked
perhaps a little younger.  There was a dignity about his manner which
Tom had never previously remarked; but there was no lack of kindness;
on the contrary, it was obvious at a glance that his return was most
acceptable to his friend.  Nor was Tresham less friendly.

As Tom stepped into the carriage, he was thunderstruck to observe a
coat of arms on the panels, with a _baron's_ coronet.

"Bless me, Mr Tresham, have you been raised to the Peerage?"

Tresham smilingly replied--

"Not yet.  We don't know, however, what may happen.  Irish peerages
may be had cheap.  The carriage is not mine: it belongs to one of our
best customers, Lord Mortlake."

"Bless me!--how kind of his lordship!" was the rejoinder.  "Is he,
sir, a friend of yours?" turning to his patron.

"I think," was the answer, "I should know him better than most
people; but come, tell me how affairs are going on in Antigua."

A desultory conversation followed, which lasted nearly the whole
period of their journey.  At last the vehicle approached a
magnificent baronial seat, through a long avenue of lime trees, then
in full blossom.

"Here we are!" said the older Mortlake.  Upon leaving the carriage,
Tom and his companions entered a spacious hall of the olden time, the
proprieties of which had been carefully preserved, and which was
pretty much in the same state as it had been during the reign of
Elizabeth.  Taking Tom by the hand, his friend welcomed him to his
family residence, and told him that a lady up stairs--an old friend
of his--was waiting to receive him.  "But," added he, "you will
perhaps require to go to your apartments."

Tom having put himself to rights, was led by Mortlake to the
drawing-room, where he beheld his mysterious female visitant and a
young lady of about nineteen, who, from her resemblance, it was not
difficult to discover was the daughter of his host.  Two fine-looking
aristocratic lads, the one aged perhaps sixteen, and the other nearly
eighteen, were standing beside their sister, chatting and laughing
with Mr Tresham.

The lady rose to receive her guest, when Tresham interposing,
exclaimed:--

"Allow me--Lady Mortlake, Mr Mortlake; Mr Mortlake, Lady Mortlake."

Tom was confused, certainly; but his good manners did not forsake
him, and he expressed his gratification at again beholding the lady,
in appropriate and feeling terms.

"Mr Mortlake," said she, "I am happy--very happy--to receive you at
Vavasour, which, I trust, you will consider as your home."  Turning
to her daughter--"Emily, my love, this is Mr Mortlake, whom you have
heard your father and myself talk of so frequently."  He was then
introduced to the sons, by whom he was received with equal kindness.
His patron next took Tom aside.

"The mystery," said he, "will soon be explained; in me you behold
Lord Mortlake; but, on that account, not less your sincere friend.
No one, not even Tresham, but believes you to be a relation of the
family, except Lady Mortlake and myself; so be collected, and assume
a character which, some day or other, I hope confidently may be yours
legally."

The latter words sounded strangely in our hero's ears; but this was a
day of wonders, and when they were to end he could not conjecture.

"Sir Edward Vavasour?" he whispered.

"Is no more!" was the reply.

A week passed happily, and Mortlake, in the society he esteemed and
respected, was superlatively blessed.  One morning after breakfast,
Lord Mortlake took him into the library, and, locking the door, bade
him be seated.

"Mortlake," said his lordship, "the time for explanation is at hand;
it ought not any longer to be delayed; but, before disclosing much
that may astonish you, be assured that I make the disclosure without
seeking any pledge of secrecy from you.  I shall leave it entirely to
yourself, when you have heard all, to take what course you may judge
expedient."

"My Lord! do not think so meanly of the creature of your bounty as to
suppose that, whatever may be the nature of your communication, I
shall ever use it to your prejudice."

"Make no rash promises, Mr Mortlake.  Here me, and decide.  I told
you Sir Edward Vavasour was no more and yet he is only so in one
sense--his title is merged in a higher one: he is now Lord Mortlake!"

"Gracious Providence!  Sir Edward Vavasour Lord Mortlake?  Can it be
possible?"

"It _is_ possible; Lord Mortlake is before you.  But hear me out.
You are probably aware that the late Sir Thomas Vavasour had a
younger brother Richard; and it has perhaps come to your knowledge
that he was married to Miss Mortlake, a lady of birth and fortune,
the daughter of an extensive proprietor in Antigua.  Mrs Vavasour was
a Creole by birth, and a woman of violent passions.  Her husband led
a very unenviable life--but let me pass that over.  Of that marriage
I was the sole offspring, and was named heir by my grandfather to his
large estates, after the demise of my parents.  This equitable
arrangement of his property created a prejudice in my mother's mind
against me, as she could not brook the idea of being interfered with
in the use of that which she thought she was entitled to enjoy
without control.  When my father died, I was placed under the
superintendence of my uncle, Sir Thomas, who, himself a proud and
passionate man, had a great contempt for his equally proud and
passionate sister-in-law; hence a new seed of enmity was sown.

"My mother wished to make a fine gentleman of me: my uncle detested
the whole tribe of 'puppies,' and determined to make a man of me.  He
carefully provided for my education; and, at the proper time, sent me
to the Temple, where I studied jurisprudence for a few years with
considerable success.  The heir of a large estate, my uncle never
wished me to do more than acquire habits of industry and application.
My mother did all she could to unsettle me--but in vain.  I had a
will of my own, and was by no means disposed to be come her vassal.

"She was descended, through the intermarriage of one of the Mortlakes
with a co-heiress, of the ancient Baron: de Mortuo or Malo Lacu, who
figured during the reign of the Edwards.  This Mortlake was heir-male
of the last baron; but his stock had come off before the family were
ennobled.  Now, Mrs Vavasour had a very intense desire to become
Baroness de Malo Lacu, or Mortlake; and as she had a legal
claim--being the undoubted representative of a co-heiress--it
required political influence only to accomplish her object.  My uncle
could have effected this; but he gave the most decided opposition.
He had no idea that the Vavasour name should be entombed, even in the
sepulchre of the peerage.  In his estimation, the Vavasours, who had
fought with Cœur de Lion in the Holy Land, who had perished by
dozens in the wars of the Roses, who had bled with Richmond at
Bosworth, and who had taken up arms against the omnipotent Cromwell,
were worth all the Mortlakes that ever breathed.

"For this opposition my uncle was never forgiven by Mrs Vavasour.
She vowed vengeance, and she kept her vow.  She presented a petition
to the king, which was referred to the peers; and, after incurring
enormous expense in proving her pedigree, she succeeded in obtaining
a decision finding the barony in abeyance amongst the co-heirs of the
last Lord Mortlake, and that she was the representative of the eldest
co-heir.  Thus far she got, but not one step farther.  The desired
writ of summons was withheld.  Meanwhile, she got entangled in
pecuniary difficulties.  In this situation, she, to my surprise,
applied to Sir Thomas for a loan.  The result of this application may
be anticipated; for, while refusing her request, my uncle took the
opportunity of reading her a severe lecture upon her extravagance and
ambition.  She was in a towering rage upon receipt of his answer;
but, as I was of age, I thought it my duty, especially as the Peerage
proceedings were to my ultimate advantage, to raise a sum of money
upon my eventual interest, by which means her debts were paid off.
The consequence of this was that, whilst I propitiated my mother on
the one hand, I offended my uncle on the other.

"I was at this time in love with the present Lady Mortlake.  She was
well connected, had fortune, and was sufficiently accomplished; but
she did not come within my mother's list of advantageous wives.  She
was neither fashionable, nor cared about fashion; and could not
disguise her contempt of idle and silly women of quality.  My mother
placed her interdict upon my nuptials.  I remonstrated, but to no
purpose; and, although under no obligation to consult my relatives, I
wished at least to have the countenance of Sir Thomas, and I took the
bold step of writing to him.  To my gratification and surprise, I
received a gracious answer; and, I presume, my mother's opposition
was itself, in the estimation of my uncle, a sufficient
recommendation.  Acting upon his consent and approbation, I married;
but the result was fatal to Mrs Vavasour, who, upon learning what had
taken place, got into one of her tremendous passions, and burst a
bloodvessel.  After lingering a few weeks, she died, leaving behind
her a letter, which was fated to be the cause of both our troubles.
A few days after its transmission, I received an epistle from my
uncle, which, from its incoherency, indicated, as I supposed,
positive insanity.  I resolved to lose no time in visiting him; but,
as I wished my intended journey to be kept quiet, I gave out that I
was merely going to Liverpool for a few days, where my wife had some
relations.  I arrived at Jedburgh; and, as Merton was not far off, I
resolved to walk there; and I calculated that I should arrive about
the time that my uncle was taking his evening _siesta_.  Leaving my
portmanteau at the inn, I proceeded on my way; and, as I was familiar
with every inch of ground, took a by-path, which led into the policy,
and which terminated in a door that opened into the garden.  This
door was kept open until the gardeners left their work, when it was
locked for the night.  I passed through, towards the stairs which
descended from the terrace into the garden; and, in a few minutes,
found myself in the presence of Sir Thomas.

"My uncle was not a little startled at my unexpected appearance.  He
had apparently partaken freely of wine--at least was in a state of
excitement.

"'By what right do you come here'?  was the first inquiry.

"'Why, my dear uncle, I was surprised at your late letter, and came
personally to ascertain what you meant.'

"'Mean! and do you pretend, sir, to be ignorant of my meaning?'

"'Indeed, uncle, I am.'

"'Uncle--don't uncle me, sir--I am no uncle of yours.'

"I now thought his insanity undoubted.

"'Be composed, my dear sir,' I rejoined; 'do you not know Edward
Vavasour, your attached nephew?'

"He rose--his eyes had a peculiar expression--one I had never
witnessed before: naturally of a dark-grey, they seemed to take the
hue of a fiery red, and they glared fearfully.

"'The house of Vavasour is doomed--its last hour has come;' and,
saying these words, he drew from his pocketbook a letter, which he
threw towards me.  I seized it; and judge of my horror when I
perceived this paper."

Lord Mortlake then took from his escritoire the following letter:--

"SIR THOMAS,--You have had your triumph--my triumph comes now.  The
despised Mortlake rejoices in the extinction of the proud Vavasour.
Know, haughty man, Edward is not the son of your brother!"

"It is not possible to describe my feelings, Tom, at this instant--my
head turned round.  That the statement was false, I doubted not; for
I knew better than Sir Thomas the deep feeling of hatred my mother
could entertain, and did entertain, against us both.

"'Uncle, this letter is the legacy of an enemy--allow me to retain
it, and I will bring positive evidence to disprove the assertion it
contains.'

"My uncle was too much excited to listen to me.  In a hoarse and
angry voice, he muttered--

"'Give me the letter, you villain!'

"I endeavoured to pacify him, but without success; when, suddenly
rising, he seized a knife, and, rushing forward, made a thrust at me
with it.  I avoided the blow, and retreated.  He, incautiously
advancing, lost his footing, and fell with the knife underneath.  I
hastily stepped forward to raise him, but had not strength to do so;
for, by one of those strange and unaccountable accidents, which not
unfrequently give the air of romance to real life, the point of the
knife had been turned towards his body, and, passing between his
ribs, had pierced his heart.  He died in an instant.  I endeavoured
again to raise the body, but in vain.  I drew out the knife, and
blood then came with it.  To describe my situation at this terrible
moment is impossible: my uncle dead at my feet--no one to witness how
the accident happened--I might be dragged as a felon to trial for his
supposed murder.  My grief for his unhappy end was soon absorbed in
fears for my own safety--for, here was I, the apparent heir,
discovered with the man to whom I was to succeed, a bleeding corpse
beside me; then the quarrel between us--the stigma thrown upon me by
my vindictive parent, which, for aught I knew, Sir Thomas might have
bruited abroad--all this made me tremble.  Even if acquitted, still
the suspicious circumstances of the case would be greedily seized
upon by the public, which never judges favourably, and a stain would
have been cast upon the family name never to be effaced.  My uncle
was past all human assistance, and my remaining could not aid him.  I
therefore fled, unobserved by any one; and barely three hours had
elapsed from my leaving the inn, until I was again its inmate.  At a
late hour I heard a noise of voices, which accorded ill with my
morbid state of feeling.  I rang to know the cause; and the answer to
my inquiry was the announcement that a dreadful murder had been
committed upon Sir Thomas Vavasour, and that you, Tom, had been taken
into custody, under such circumstances as warranted the strongest
presumption of your guilt.

"My astonishment could only be equalled by the horror I felt at
having caused an innocent fellow-creature to be placed in hazard of
his life.  However, I was sufficiently collected; and, having learned
that you could not be brought to trial for some time, I left the
place with the firm resolution that, be the consequences what they
might, not one hair of your head should be injured.

"I had no secrets from my wife, and to her I disclosed everything.
After some deliberation, we agreed that it was best, if possible, to
procure your escape from prison; as, if that could be accomplished,
there would be no necessity for any disclosures to gratify the
inquisitive and malicious.  I resolved to act by myself, without the
assistance of any one.  My first object was to prevent any
interference with yourself by any of the country writers; and this I
accomplished easily enough, by creating an impression, that they
would give offence to the new Baron of Merton if they ventured to
assist you.  Thus I deprived you of the advice of these worthies,
which, after all, was no great loss.  I should have regretted your
imprisonment, had I not been informed that you were a _mauvais
sujet_, and that the restraint would do you no harm, as it might
induce you to reflect.

"With my wife's assistance, I procured a female dress, bonnet, and
cloak.  I also bought a file, a rope-ladder, and some aquafortis, as
I thought it would be no very difficult matter to help you out of an
old Scotch county jail.  Lady Mortlake had an uncle resident a mile
or two from Liverpool.  This fact presented an ostensible object for
a trip, and we set off together.  I left her with her relative; and,
crossing the country, I got to Jedburgh in good time.  I was quite
unknown, as, prior to my last eventful visit, many years had passed
by since I had been in the county of Roxburgh.  I gave myself out to
be an Edinburgh writer, which was believed.

"I thus got free access to you, and the result I need not repeat.
The gig I bought for the purpose, as well as the horse.  I had them
in readiness at a village at some distance, having given the landlord
of the inn to believe that it was merely an ordinary case of
elopement.  In order to mystify the folks of Jedburgh, your letter
was enclosed under cover to my wife, who herself drove to the
post-office, and put it in the box, in this way destroying every
possibility of detection.  I caused the body of Sir Thomas to be
interred at Vavasour, where his two brothers had previously been
buried.  This prevented the necessity of my personal presence at
Merton, where perchance I might have been recognised as the person
who left the counting-house so hurriedly on the day of the supposed
murder.  I have never lived at Merton since; it is occupied by the
factor, and, in virtue of the deed of entail, the Scottish estates
belong now to my second son.  I induced your mother to reside on the
English estate, where my wife could personally attend to her comfort.
The rest you know.  Our travels made me intimately acquainted with
you, and I found you had talent, tolerable acquirements, and an
affectionate heart; and I was determined to aid you, if you would be
but true to yourself.  Your vices were the result of idleness, and
the foolish indulgence of a fond mother.  Do not think me harsh when
I say so; but, Tom, had you not been removed from her, you would have
been lost.  Oh, what have parents to answer for, by allowing their
children to take their own way!  From my connection with Antigua, I
had no difficulty in providing for you.  My cousin, Mr Edward
Mortlake, managed my East India estates--a source of revenue to the
company of which he was senior partner.  I had merely to signify my
wishes to place a young friend in his counting-house, and it was
granted.  Neither he nor Tresham knew your real history--they both
thought you some off-shoot of the Mortlakes.  The latter was
expressly desired to conceal my name, and to avoid notice of the
Vavasour family as much as possible.  And he kept the secret well.
My accession to the Vavasour estates brought without any trouble that
which my misguided mother so much coveted; for, as my political
support was not to be despised, ministers induced the king to
terminate the abeyance, and I received my summons as Baron Mortlake.
The story imposed upon my poor uncle by Mrs Vavasour was, as I was
from the first assured, a malicious fiction of her own; for, luckily,
I was able to trace out the whole circumstances connected with my
birth; and the testimony of the nurse and medical man, which I
obtained in a quiet way, were perfectly conclusive.  Indeed, legally,
my mother's declaration availed nothing; but I was anxious, morally,
to satisfy myself, as far as I could, that I was the son of her
marriage with Mr Richard Vavasour.  I have now told you all.  As I
was the accidental cause of your perilous situation and loss of
character, it was but common justice to assist you as far as lay in
my power.  You have raised yourself to respectability and affluence,
partly by my recommendation, but principally by your own exertions.
You owe me, therefore, nothing; and, on the contrary, I am still
considerably your debtor.  If, after reflection, you think a
disclosure necessary to clear the reputation of Tom Vallance, you
have my full permission to make it."

"Never, my dear lord--or, if you will allow me to term you, my dear
friend--shall I make the slightest use of your confidence.  You have,
from a worthless and idle vagabond, metamorphosed me into a reputable
and honest man.  Tom Vallance has ceased to exist; but the heart of
Tom Mortlake is too deeply attached to his benefactor ever to do
anything that would cause him the slightest pain."

"You are a noble fellow, Tom, and well deserve your fortune."

Several months after this conversation, the public journals announced
that "Thomas Mortlake, Esq., of the firm of Tresham, Mortlake, &
Tresham, was married, by special licence, at Vavasour, to Emily,
eldest daughter of the Right Honourable Edward Lord Mortlake."  If an
accomplished and sweet-tempered wife, a fine family, an attached
friend, good health, and a competent fortune, could make any one
happy, then was Tom Mortlake the happiest of men.




MAJOR WEIR'S COACH: A LEGEND OF EDINBURGH.*

BY GEORGE HOWELL.


* A legend similar to that here given was current in Glasgow a number
of years ago, and for ages before.  The hero's name was Bob Dragon,
whose income, when alive, was said to have been one guinea a minute.
His coachman and horses were said, as those of the Major, to want the
heads.  The most curious trait of the Glasgow goblin horses, was that
they went to the river to drink, although they had no heads.  The
superstitions of most European countries have a similar origin; the
Germans have their spectre huntsman; the coaches and horses of Major
Weir and Bob Dragon are of the same character.  The antiquary will
find the trial of Major Weir in Pitcairn's "Criminal Trials;" and the
lover of such stories may consult "Satan's Invisible World
Discovered."


It was towards the end of September, early in the seventies of the
last century, or it might be the end of the sixties--it matters not
much as to the year--but it was in the month of September, when
parties and politics had set the freemen and burgesses of the Royal
Burghs by the ears--when feasting and caballing formed almost their
whole employment.  The exaltation of themselves or party friends to
the civic honours engrossed their whole attention, and neither money
nor time was grudgingly bestowed to obtain their objects.  The
embellishment and improvement of the city of Edinburgh were keenly
urged and carried on by one party, at the head of which was Provost
Drummond.  He was keenly opposed by another, which, though fewer in
number, and not so well organized, was not to be despised; for it
only wanted a leader of nerve to stop or utterly undo all that had
been done, and keep the city, as it had been for more than a century,
in a position of stately decay.  The wild project of building a
bridge over the North Loch was keenly contested; and ruin and
bankruptcy were foretold to the good town, if the Provost and his
party were not put out of the Council before it was begun to be
carried into execution.

The heavens were illuminated by a glorious harvest moon, far in her
southings; the High Street was deep in shade, like a long dark
avenue; the dim oil lamps, perched high upon their wooden posts, few
and far between, gleamed in the darkness like glow-worms--as two
portly figures were seen in earnest discourse, walking, not with
steady step, up the High Street.

"By my troth, Deacon!" said one of them, "I fear Luckie Bell has had
too much of our company this night.  I had no idea it was so late.
There is the eighth chime of St Giles: what hour will strike?"

"Deil may care for me, Treasurer Kerr!" hiccuped the Deacon.

"Preserve me, Deacon!" replied the Treasurer, "it has struck twelve!
What shall I say to the wife?  It's to-morrow, Deacon! it's
to-morrow!"

"Whisht, man, whisht! and no speak with such a melancholy voice,"
said the other.  "Are you afraid of Kate?  What have we to do with
to-morrow?  It is a day we shall never see, were we to live as long
as Methusalem; for, auld as he was, he never saw 'to-morrow.'  It's
always to come with its cares or joys."  And the Deacon stood and
laughed aloud at his conceit.  "Let to-morrow care for itself, Tom,
say I.  What can Kate say to you?  What the deil need you care?  Have
we not had a happy evening?  Have we not been well employed?"  And
they again moved on towards the Castlehill, where the Deacon resided.

Thomas Kerr was treasurer of the incorporation, and hoped at this
election to succeed his present companion, whose influence in the
incorporation was great, and to secure which he was, for the time,
his humble servant, and assiduous in his attentions to him--so much
so, that, although his own domicile was in St Mary's Wynd, at the
other extremity of the High Street, his ambition had overcome his
fears of his better half, and, still ascending the long street, he
resolved to accompany the Deacon home; not, however, without some
strong misgivings as to what he might encounter on his return.  Both
were in that happy state of excitement when cares and fears press
lightly on the human mind; but the Deacon, who had presided at the
meeting, and spoken a good deal, was much more overcome than his
Treasurer; and the liquor had made him loquacious.

"Tom, man," again said the Deacon, "you walk by my side as douce as
if you were afraid to meet Major Weir in his coach, on your way down
the wynd to Kate.  Be cheerful, man, as I am.  Tell her she will be
Deaconess in a fortnight, and that will quiet her clatter, or I know
not what will please her; they are all fond of honours.  We have done
good work this night--secured two votes against Drummond; other three
would graze him.  Pluck up your spirit, Tom, and be active; if we
fail, the whole town will be turned upside down--confound him, and
his wild projects, of what he calls improvements!  The deil be in me
if I can help thinking--and it sticks in my gizzard yet--that he was
at the bottom of the pulling down of my outside stair, by these
drunken fellows of masons; the more by token that, when, after much
trouble, I discovered them, and had them all safe in the guardhouse,
he took a small bail, and only fined them two shillings a-piece, when
it caused me an expense of ten good pounds to repair the mischief
they had done; and, more than that, I was forced to erect it inside
the walls; for they would not allow me to put it as it was, or grant
me a Dean of Guild warrant on any other terms.  They said it cumbered
the foot-pavement, although, as you know, it had stood for fifty
years.  From that day to this, I have been his firm opponent, in and
out of the Council.  Tom, are you asleep?  Where are your eyes?  What
high new wall is this?  See, see, man!"

"This beats all he has done yet!" said the Treasurer; "a high white
wall across the High Street, and neither slap nor style that I can
see!  Wonderful, wonderful!  A strange man that Provost!"

"He has done it to vex me, since I came down to Luckie Bell's,"
replied the Deacon.  "It was not there in the early part of the
evening.  He must have had a hundred masons at it.  But I'll make him
repent this frolic to-morrow in the Council, or my name is not Deacon
Dickson!"

"What can he mean by it, Deacon?" rejoined the other.  "I see no
purpose it can serve, for my part."

"But it does serve a purpose," hiccuped the Deacon; "it will prevent
me from getting home.  It was done through malice against me, for the
efforts I am making to get him and his party out of the Council."

During the latter part of this discourse, they had walked, or rather
struggled, from side to side of the street.  Between the pillars
that, before the great fires in Edinburgh, formed the base of the
high tenement standing there, and St Giles' Church, being the
entrance into the Parliament Square, and between St Giles' and the
Exchange buildings, the full moon threw a stream of light, filling
both the openings, and leaving all above and below involved in deep
shade.  It was the moon's rays thus thrown upon the ground, and
reaching up to the second windows of the houses, that formed the wall
which the two officials observed.

"Deil tak' me," ejaculated the Deacon, "but this is a fine trick to
play upon the Deacon of an incorporation in his own town!  Were it
not for exposing myself at this untimeous hour, I would raise the
town, and pull it down at the head of the people.  Faith, Tom, I will
do it!"  And he was on the point of shouting aloud at the pitch of
his voice, when the more prudent Treasurer put his hand upon the
mouth of the enraged Deacon.

"For mercy's sake, be quiet!" said he.  "What are you going to be
about?  Is this a time of night for a member of Council to make a
riot, and expose himself in the High Street?  To-morrow will be time
enough to pull it down by force, if you cannot get a vote of the
Council to authorize it.  No doubt that is a round about way and a
sair climb; but just, like a wise and prudent man, as you always are,
put up with it for one night, and come along down the Fishmarket
Close, up the Cowgate, and climb the West Bow, to the Deaconess, who,
I have no doubt, is weary waiting on you."

"Faith, Tom, I am in part persuaded you advise well for once,"
replied the Deacon; "so I will act upon it, although I am your
Deacon, and all advice ought to come from me."

And away they trudged.  Both were corpulent men; but the Deacon
having been several times in the Council, was by much the heavier of
the two.  Down they went by the Fishmarket Close, and up the Cowgate,
the Deacon, sulky and silent, meditating all the way vengeance
against the Provost; but, in ascending the steep and winding Bow, his
patience entirely left him; he stopped, more than once, to wipe the
perspiration from his brow, recover his breath, and mutter curses on
the head of the official.  At length they reached the Deacon's home,
where his patient spouse waited his arrival.  Without uttering a
word, he threw himself upon a chair, placing his hat and wig upon a
table.  It was some minutes before he recovered his breath
sufficiently to answer the questions of his anxious wife, or give
vent to the anger that was consuming him.  At length, to the fifty
times put questions of--

"Deacon, what has vexed you so sorely? what has happened to keep you
so late?" he broke forth--

"What vexes me? what has kept me so late?  You may with good reason
inquire that, woman.  Our pretty Provost is the sole cause.  You may
be thankful that you have seen my face this night."  And he commenced
and gave an exaggerated account of the immense wall that the Provost
had caused to be built, from the Crames to the Royal Exchange,
reaching as high as the third storey of the houses; and the great
length of time he had been detained in examining it, to discover a
way to get over or through it--all which the simple Deaconess
believed, and heartily joined her husband in abusing the Provost.

"Had a wall been built across the Castlehill," she said, "when the
Highlandmen were in the town, and the cannon balls flying down the
street, I could have known the use of it; but to build a wall between
the Crames and the Royal Exchange, to keep the Lawnmarket and
Castlehill people from kirk and market--surely the man's mad!"

The Treasurer had been for some time gone ere the worthy couple
retired to rest, big with the events that were to be transacted on
the morrow, for the downfall of the innovating Provost.  The morning
was still grey, the sun was not above the horizon, when the
Deaconess, as was her wont, arose to begin her household duties; but,
anxious to communicate the strange conduct of the Provost, in raising
the wall of partition in the city, she seized her water stoups, and
hurried to the public well at the Bow-head, to replenish them, and
ease her overcharged mind of the mighty circumstance.  Early as the
hour was, many of the wives of the good citizens were already there,
seated on their water stoups, and awaiting their turn to be
supplied--their shrill voices mixing with those of the more sonorous
tones of the Highland water-carriers, and rising in violent
contention on the stillness of the morning, like the confusion of
Babel.

The sensation caused by the relation of the Deaconess of her
husband's adventure of the preceding evening, was nothing impaired by
the story being related at second-hand.  Arms were raised in
astonishment as she proceeded with her marvellous tale of the high
wall built in so short a space by the Provost.  After some time spent
in fruitless debate, it was agreed that they should go down in a body
and examine this bold encroachment upon the citizens--and away they
went, with the indignant Deaconess at their head.

For some hundred feet down the Lawnmarket, the buildings of the jail
and Luckenbooths hid that part of the street from the phalanx of
Amazons; but, intent to reconnoitre where the wall of offence was
said to stand, they reached the Luckenbooths, and a shout of laughter
and derision burst from the band.  The Deaconess stood petrified, the
image of shame and anger.  No wall was there--everything stood as it
had done for years!

"Lucky Dickson," cried one, "ye hae gien us a gowk's errand.  I trow
the Deacon has been fu' yestreen.  Where is the fearfu' wa' ye spak'
o', that he neither could get through nor owre?  Ha! ha! ha!"

"Did ye really believe what he told you, Mrs Dickson?" screamed
another.  "It was a silly excuse for being owre late out with his
cronies.  He surely thinks you a silly woman to believe such tales.
Were my husband to serve me so, I would let him hear of it on the
deafest side of his head."

"You need not doubt but that he shall hear of it," responded the
Deaconess; "and that before long.  But, dear me, there must have been
some witchcraft played off upon him and the Treasurer last night;
for, as true as death, they baith said they saw it with their een.
There's been glamour in it.  I fear Major Weir is playing more tricks
in the town than riding his coach.  There was no cause to tell me a
lie as an excuse, for I am always happy to see him come hame safe at
ony hour."

By this time they had returned to the well, where they resumed their
water vessels and hurried home, some to report the strange adventure
the Deacon had encountered the evening before, and the Deaconess to
tell her better half of the delusion he had been under.  Before
breakfast time, the story was in everyone's mouth, from the Castle to
the Abbey-gate, and as far as the town extended.  On a clear
moonlight night, for many years afterwards, Deacon Dickson's dike was
pointed out by the inhabitants; and at jovial parties, we have heard
it said--"Sit still a little longer; we are all sober enough to get
over Deacon Dickson's wall."

The Treasurer, who was not so muddled by the effect of the evening's
entertainment as the Deacon, yet still impressed by the idea of the
wall, proceeded homewards by the same route whereby he had reached
the Deacon's, but now much refreshed by the walk, and night, or
rather morning air--for it was nearly one o'clock.  As he approached
the Bow-foot Well, the sobbing of a female broke the stillness of the
night: he paused for a few minutes, and, looking towards the spot
from whence the sound came, urged by `humanity, he
drew more near, till he perceived an aged female almost concealed by
the dark shade of the well, against which she leaned to support
herself.  As soon as he saw her distinctly, with an emotion of grief
and surprise he exclaimed--

"Mrs Horner!--what has happened?  Why are you here at this untimeous
hour?  What's the cause of your grief?"

"Thomas Kerr," replied she, "I am a poor unfortunate woman, whom God
alone can help.  Pass on, and leave me to my misery."  And she buried
her face in her hands, while the large drops of anguish welled
through her withered fingers.

"I cannot leave you here in such a state," said he again.  "Come
home, my good woman, and I shall accompany you."

"I have no home," washer sad reply.  "Alas!  I have no home, but the
grave.  I am a poor, silly, undone woman, in my old age.
Comfortable, and even rich as I was, I am now destitute.  I have
neither house nor hall to cover my grey hairs.  Oh, if I were only
dead and buried out of this sinful world, to hide the shame of my own
child.  An hour is scarce passed since I thought my heart would burst
in my bosom before I would be enabled to reach the Greyfriars'
Churchyard, to lay my head upon Willie Horner's grave, and the graves
of my innocent babes, that sleep in peace by his side.  I feared my
strength would fail; for all I wish, is to die there.  I did reach
the object of my wish, and laid myself upon the cold turf, and prayed
for Death to join as he had separated us; but my heart refused to
break, and tears that were denied me before, began to stream from my
eyes.  The fear of unearthly sights came strong upon me, stronger
even than my grief.  Strange moaning and sounds came on the faint
night wind, from Bloody Mackenzie's tomb, and the bright moonlight
made the tombstones look like unearthly things.  I rose and fled.  I
will tarry here, and die in sight of the gallows stone; for it was
here my only brother fell, killed by a shot from cruel Porteous' gun;
and on the fatal tree which that stone is meant to support, my
grandfather cheerfully gave his testimony for the covenanted rights
of a persecuted kirk.  Leave me, Thomas Kerr--leave me to my destiny.
I can die here with pleasure; and it is time I were dead.  To whom
can a mother look for comfort or pity, when her own son has turned
her out upon a cold world?  I am as Rachel mourning for her children.
I will not be comforted."  And the mourner wrapped her mantle round
her head with the energy of despair, and, bending it upon the well,
burst anew into an agony of sobs and tears.

The Treasurer felt himself in an awkward situation.  He paused, and
began to revolve in his mind what was best to be done at the
moment--whether to obey the widow or the dictates of humanity.  His
better feeling prompted him to stay and do all in his power for the
mourner, whom he had known in happier times; but his caution and
avarice, backed by the dread of his spouse, urged him, with a force
he felt every moment less able to resist, to leave her and hurry
home.  As he stood irresolute, the voice of the stern monitor sounded
in the auricles of his heart like the knell of doom, and roused into
fearful energy feelings he had long treated lightly, or striven to
suppress when they rose upon him with great force.  He ran like a
guilty criminal from the spot.  The wailings of the crushed and
pitiable object he had left, had given them a force he had never
before known, and he urged his way down the Cowgate-head as if he
wished to fly from himself--the traces of the evening's enjoyments
having fled, and their place being supplied by the pangs of an
awakened conscience.  There was, indeed, too much cause for his
agitation, often hinted at by his acquaintance, but in its full
extent only known in his own family--a striking similarity between
the situation of his own mother and that of Widow Horner.  The cases
of the two aged individuals agreed in all points, save that he had
not yet turned her out of doors; and conscience told him that even
that result had been prevented, more by the patient endurance of his
worthy parent herself, than any kindly feeling upon the part of her
son.

The father of the Treasurer, and the husband of Widow Horner, had
both been industrious, and, for their rank in life, wealthy burgesses
of the city.  At their death, they had left their widows with an only
child to succeed them and be a comfort to their mothers, who had
struggled hard to retain and add to the wealth, until their sons were
of age to succeed and manage it for themselves.  Their sole and rich
reward, as they anticipated, would be the pleasure of witnessing the
prosperity of their sons.  That they would be ungrateful, was an idea
so repugnant to their maternal feelings, that, for a moment, it was
never harboured in their bosoms.  A cruel reality was fated to
falsify their anticipations.

The Treasurer had, before he was twenty-five years of age, married a
woman whom his fond mother had thought unworthy of her son; and to
prevent the marriage she had certainly done all that lay in her
power.  Her endeavours and remonstrances had only served to hasten
the event she wished so much to retard and hinder from taking place;
the consequence was, that the hated alliance was completed several
weeks before she was made aware of it by the kindness of a gossiping
neighbour or two.  Much as she felt, and sore as her heart was wrung,
she, like a prudent woman, shed her tears of bitter anguish at the
want of filial regard in her son, in secret.  She at once resolved to
pardon this act of ingratitude, and, for her son's sake, to receive
her unwelcome daughter-in-law with all the kindness she could assume
on the trying occasion.  Not so her daughter-in-law, who was of an
overbearing, subtile, and vindictive turn of mind.  The mother of her
husband had wounded her pride: she resolved never to forget or
forgive; and, before she had crossed her threshold, a deep revenge
was vowed against her as soon as it was in her power to execute it.
The first meeting was embarrassing on both sides; each had feelings
to contend against and disguise; yet it passed off well to outward
appearance--the widow, from love to her son, striving to love his
wife--the latter, again, with feigned smiles and meekness, affecting
to gain her mother-in-law's esteem; and so well did she act her part,
that, before many days after their first interview had passed, Thomas
was requested to bring his wife into the house, to reside in the
family, and to save the expense of a separate establishment.  From
that hour the house of Widow Kerr began to cease to be her own, for
the first few months almost imperceptibly.  Thomas, although a
spoiled child, was not naturally of an unfeeling disposition, but
selfish and capricious from over-indulgence.  Amidst all his faults,
there was still a love and esteem of his mother, which his wife,
seeing it would be dangerous openly to attack, had resolved to
undermine, and therefore laid her wicked schemes accordingly.  In the
presence of her husband, she was, for a time, all smiles and
affability; but, in his absence, she said and did a thousand little
nameless things to tease and irritate the good old dame.  This
produced complaints to her son, who, when he spoke to his wife of
them, was only answered by her tears and lamentations, for the misery
she suffered in being the object of his mother's dislike.  To himself
she referred, if she did not do all in her power to please his
mother.  These scenes had become of almost daily occurrence, and were
so artfully managed, that the mother had the appearance of being in
the fault.  Gradually the son's affection became deadened towards his
parent; she had ceased to complain, and now suffered in silence.  For
her there was no redress--for, in a fit of fondness, she had made
over to her son all she possessed in the world; she was thus in his
power; yet her heart revolted at exposing his cruelty.  The revenge
of the wife was not complete even after the spirit of the victim was
completely crushed, and she had ceased to complain.  Often the
malignant woman would affect lowness of spirits, and even tears,
refusing to tell the cause of her grief until urged by endearments,
and obtaining an assurance that he would not regard her folly in
yielding to her feeling; but she could not help it--were it not for
her love to him, she knew not in what she had ever offended his
mother, save in preferring him to every other lover who had sought
her hand.  Thus, partly by artifice, but more by her imperious turn
of mind, which she had for years ceased to conceal, the Treasurer was
completely subdued to her dictation; and, by a just retribution, he
was punished for his want of filial affection, for he was as much the
sufferer from her temper as his mother was the victim of her malice.
With a crushed heart, the old woman ate her morsel in the kitchen,
moistened by her tears.  Even her grandchildren were taught to insult
and wound her feelings.  So short-sighted is human nature, the
parents did not perceive that by this proceeding they were laying
rods in pickle for themselves, which, in due time, would be brought
into use, when the recollection of their own conduct would give
tenfold poignancy to every blow.

On the occasion to which we have alluded, the situation and wailing
of Widow Horner still rung in the ears of the Treasurer.  All his
acts of unkindness to his parent passed before him like a hideous
phantasmagoria as he hurried down the Cowgate.  He even became afraid
of himself, as scene after scene arose to his awakened
conscience--all the misery and indignities that had been heaped upon
his parent by his termagant wife, he himself either looking on with
indifference, or supporting his spouse in her cruelty.  Goaded by
remorse, he still hurried on.  The celerity of his movements seemed
to relieve him.  He had formed no fixed resolution as to how he was
to act upon his arrival at home.  A dreamy idea floated in his
tortured mind that he had some fearful act to perform to ease it, and
do justice to his parent; yet, as often as he came to the resolution
to dare every consequence, his courage would again quail at the
thought of encountering one who had, in all contentions ever been the
victor, and riveted her chains the more closely around him on every
attempt he had made to break them.  In this pitiable state, he had
got as far towards home as the foot of the College Wynd, when the
sound of a carriage approaching rapidly from the east roused him and
put all other thoughts to flight.  With a start of horror and alarm,
he groaned--"The Lord have mercy upon me!  The Major's coach!  If I
see it, my days are numbered."  And, with an effort resembling the
energy of despair, he rushed into a stair-foot, and, placing both his
hands upon his face to shut out from his sight the fearful object,
supported himself by leaning upon the wall.  As the sound increased,
so did the Treasurer's fears; but what words can express his agony
when it drew up at the foot of the very stair in which he stood, and
a sepulchral voice issued from it--

"Is he here?"

"Just come," was the reply in a similar tone.

"Then all's right."

"O God! have mercy on my sinful soul!" screamed the Treasurer, as he
sank senseless out of the foot of the stair upon the street.

How long he remained in this state, or what passed in the interval,
he could give no account.  When he awoke to consciousness, he found
himself seated in a carriage jolting along at a great speed,
supported on each side by what appeared to him headless trunks; for
the bright moonlight shone in at the carriage window, and exhibited
two heads detached from their bodies dangling from the top.  The
glance was momentary.  Uttering a deep groan, he shut his eyes to
avoid the fearful sight.  He would have spoken; but his palsied
tongue refused to move, even to implore for mercy.  Wringing his
hands in despair, he would have sunk to the bottom of the coach upon
his knees, but was restrained by the two figures.  He felt their
grasp upon his arms, firm as one of his own vices.  The same fearful
voice he had first heard fell again on his ear--"Sit still.  Utter no
cry.  Make a clean breast, as you hope for mercy at the Major's
tribunal.  He knows you well, but wishes to test your truth.
Proceed!"

With a memory that called up every deed he had ever done, and sunk to
nothingness any of the actions he had at one time thought good, he
seemed as if he now stood before his Creator.  All his days on earth
appeared to have been one long black scene of sin and neglected
duties.  His head sunk upon his breast, and the tears of repentance
moistened his bosom.  When he had finished his minute confession, a
pause ensued of a few minutes.  The moon, now far in the west, was
sinking behind a dense mass of clouds.  The wind began to blow
fitfully, with a melancholy sound, along the few objects that
interrupted its way, and around the fearful conveyance in which he
sat, more dead than alive.  The measured tramp of the horses, and
rattling of the carriage, fell on his ear like the knell of death.
He felt a load at his heart, as if the blood refused to leave it and
perform its functions.  Human nature could not have sustained itself
under such circumstances much longer.  The carriage stopped; the door
opened with violence; his breathing became like a quick succession of
sobs; his ears whizzed, almost producing deafness.  Still he was
fearfully awake to every sensation; a painful vitality seemed to
endow every nerve with tenfold its wonted activity; all were in
action at the moment; his whole frame tingled; and the muscles seemed
to quiver on his bones.  The same hollow voice broke the silence.

"Thomas Kerr, your sincerity and contrition has delivered you from my
power this once.  Beware of a relapse.  Go; do the duty of a son to
your worthy parent.  You have been a worse man than ever I was on
earth.  I have my parents' blessing with me in the midst of my
sufferings; and there is a soothing in it which the wretched can
alone feel."

Quick as thought he was lifted from the coach and seated upon the
ground.  With the speed of a whirlwind, as it ap peared to him, the
carriage disappeared and the sound died away.  For some time he sat
bewildered, as if he had fallen from the clouds.  Gradually he began
to breathe more freely, and felt as if a fearful nightmare had just
passed away.  Slowly the events of the night rose in regular
succession.  The forlorn and desolate widow; the hideous spectres in
the coach, that, without heads, spake and moved with such energy--the
whole now passed before him so vividly that he shuddered.  At first
he hoped all had been a fearful dream; but the cold, damp ground on
which he sat banished the fond idea.  He felt, in all its force, that
he was now wide awake, as he groped with his hands and touched the
damp grass beneath him.  All around was enveloped in impenetrable
darkness.  Not one star shone in the murky sky.  How much of the
night had passed, or where he at present was, he had no means to
ascertain.  The first use he made of his restored faculties was to
rise upon his knees, and pour out his soul to God, imploring pardon
and protection in this hour of suffering.  He rose with a heart much
lightened, and felt his energies restored.  Stumbling onwards, he
proceeded, he knew not whither, until, bruised by falls and faint
from exhaustion, he again seated himself upon a stone, to wait
patiently the approach of dawn.  Thus, melancholy and pensive, he
sat, eager to catch the faintest sound; but all was silent as the
grave, save the faint rustling of the long grass waving around him in
the night breeze that was chilling his vitals, as it, in fitful
gusts, swept past him.  The hope of surviving the night had almost
forsaken him, when the distant tramp of a horse fell on his longing
ears.  Then the cheerful sound of a popular air, whistled to cheer
the darkness, gladdened his heart.  In an ecstasy of pleasure, he
sprung to his feet.  The rolling of wheels over the rugged road was
soon added to the cheering sounds.  With caution he approached them
over hedge and ditch, until, dark as it was, he could discern the
object of his search almost before him--a carrier's cart, with the
driver seated upon the top, whistling and cracking his whip to the
time.

"Stop friend, for mercy's sake, and take me up beside you."

"Na, na," replied the carrier; "I will do no such foolish action.
Hap, Bassie! hap!"  And, smacking his whip, the horse increased its
speed.  "Come not near my cart, or I will make Cæsar tear you in
pieces.  Look to him, Cæsar!"  And the snarling of a dog gave fearful
warning to the poor Treasurer to keep at a distance; but, rendered
desperate by his situation, he continued to follow, calling out--

"Stop, if you are a Christian; for mercy's sake, stop and hear me.  I
am a poor lost creature, sick and unable to harm, but rich enough to
reward you, if you will save my life.  I am no robber, but a decent
burgess and freeman of Edinburgh; and where I am at present I cannot
tell."

"Woo, Bassie! woo!" responded the carrier.  "Silence, Cæsar!
Preserve us from all evil!  Amen!  Sure you cannot be Thomas Kerr,
whose shop is in Saint Mary's Wynd?"

"The very same; but who are you that know my voice?"

"Who should I be," rejoined he, "but Watty Clinkscales, the Berwick
carrier, on my way to the town; for you may know well enough that
Wednesday morning is my time to be in Edinburgh; but come up beside
me, man, and do not stand longer there.  If you have lost yourself,
as you say, I will with pleasure give you a ride home this dark
morning; but tell me how, in all the world, came you to be standing
at the Figgate Whins, instead of being in your warm bed?  I am
thinking, friend Kerr, you have been at a corporation supper last
night."

While the carrier was speaking, the Treasurer mounted the cart, and
took his seat beside him.  They moved slowly on.  To all the
questions of the carrier, evasive answers were returned; the
Treasurer felt no desire to be communicative.  As they reached the
Watergate, the first rays of morning shone upon Arthur's Seat and the
Calton Hill.  Before they entered, the Treasurer dismounted, having
first rewarded the carrier for his trouble, and proceeded to his home
by the South Back of the Canongate, faint and unwell.  When he
reached his own door, he was nearly exhausted.  It was opened to him
by his anxious mother, who had watched for him through the whole
night.  Alarmed by his haggard and sickly appearance, timidly she
inquired what had happened to him, to cause such an alteration in his
looks in so short a time.  The tears started into his eyes as he
looked at her venerable form, degraded by her attire.  He took her
hand in both his, and, pressing it to his lips, faltered out--

"Oh, my mother! can you pardon your undutiful son?  Only say you will
forgive me."

"Tammy, my bairn," she replied, "what have I to pardon?  Is not all
my pleasure in life to see you happy?  What signifies what becomes of
me the few years I have to be on earth?  But you are ill, my son--you
are very ill!"

"I am indeed very unwell, both in body and mind," said he.  "Say you
pardon me, for the manner in which I have allowed you to be treated
since my marriage; and give me your blessing, lest I die without
hearing you pronounce it."

"Bless you, my Thomas, and all that is yours, my son! with my
blessing, and the blessing of God, which is above all riches!  But go
to your bed, my bairn, and do not let me make dispeace in the family."

At this moment his spouse opened the door of the bedroom, and began,
in her usual manner, to rate and abuse him for keeping untimeous
hours.  Still holding his mother's hand in his, he commanded her, in
a voice he had never before assumed to her, to be silent.  She looked
at him in amazement, as if she had doubted the reality of his
presence; and was on the point of becoming more violent, when his
fierce glance, immediately followed by the sunken, sickly look which
one night of suffering had given him, alarmed her for his safety, and
she desisted, anxiously assisting his mother to undress and put him
to bed.

He soon fell into a troubled sleep, from which he awoke in the
afternoon, unrefreshed and feverish.  His wife was seated by his bed
when he awoke.  Turning his languid eye towards her, he inquired for
his mother.  A scene of angry altercation would have ensued; but he
was too ill to reply to the irritating language and reproaches of his
spouse.  The anger increased his fever, and delirium came on towards
the evening.  A physician was sent for, who at once pronounced his
life to be in extreme danger; and, indeed, for many days it was
despaired of.

The horrors of that night were the theme of his discourse while the
fever raged in his brain.  The smallest noise, even the opening of a
door, made him shriek and struggle to escape from those who watched
him.  His efforts were accompanied by cries for mercy from Major
Weir; his bed was the coach, and his wife and mother the headless
phantoms.  Clinkscales had told the manner and where he had found
him, on the morning he was taken ill.  The sensation this excited
through the city became extreme.  Deacon Dickson told the hour in
which he left his house, and the language of the sufferer filled up
the space until he was met by the carrier.  The nocturnal apparition
of the Major's carriage had, for many years, been a nursery tale of
Edinburgh.  Many firmly believed in its reality.  There were not
awanting several who affirmed they had seen it; and scarce an
inhabitant of the Cowgate or St Mary's Wynd, but thought they had
heard it often before the present occurrence.

That the Treasurer had by some means been transported to the Figgate
Whins in the Major's coach, a great many firmly believed; for two of
the incorporation, on the same night, had been alarmed by a coach
driving furiously down the Cowgate; but they could not describe its
appearance, as they had hid themselves until it passed, fearful of
seeing the spectre carriage and its unearthly attendants.  It was at
least certain that, of late, many had been aroused out of their sleep
by the noise of a carriage; and, the report gaining ground, the
terror of the citizens became so great that few chose to be upon any
of the streets after twelve at night, unless urged by extreme
necessity.  This state of foolish alarm, as the magistrates called
it, could not be allowed to continue within their jurisdiction; and
they resolved to investigate the whole affair.  Several were examined
privately; but the Treasurer was too ill to be spoken to, even by his
friend the Deacon.  There was a strange harmony in the statements of
several who had really distinctly heard the sounds of horses' feet,
and the rumbling of a carriage, and the ravings of the unfortunate
Treasurer.  The authorities were completely at a stand how to
proceed.  Several shook their heads, and looked grave; others
proposed to request the ministers of the city to watch the Major's
carriage, and pray it out of the city.  But the Provost's committee
sent for the captain of the train bands, and consulted with him: he
agreed to have twelve of the band and six of the town-guard in
readiness by twelve at night, to waylay the cause of annoyance,
should it make its appearance, and unravel the mystery.  That there
was some unlawful purpose connected with it, several of the Council
had little doubt.  These meetings were private, and the proceedings
are not on record to guide us.  It was with considerable difficulty
the captain could get the number of his band required for the duty;
they chose rather to pay the fine, believing it to be a real affair
of diabeleria; for their earliest recollections were associated with
the truth of the Major's night airings.  For several nights the watch
was strictly kept by many of the citizens; but in vain.  No
appearance disturbed the usual stillness of the night in the city;
not even the sound of a carriage was heard.  The whole affair
gradually lost its intense interest, and ceased to be the engrossing
theme of conversation.  The sceptics triumphed over their believing
acquaintance, and the mysterious occurrence was allowed to rest.

The election week for Deacon of the Crafts at length arrived.  All
was bustle among the freemen; the rival candidates canvassing and
treating, and their partisans bustling about everywhere.  City
politics ran high; but the Treasurer, although recovered, was still
too weak to take an active part in the proceedings.  Deacon Dickson,
on this account, redoubled his exertions--for the indisposition of
his Treasurer had deranged his plans; and it was of great importance,
in his eyes, to have one of his party elected in his place.  Had Kerr
been able to move about, to visit and flatter his supporters, his
election was next to certain, so well had the whole affair been
managed.  Kerr was accordingly dropped by him, and a successor
pitched upon, who could at this eventful period aid him in his
efforts against the candidate of the Drummondites, as the supporters
of the Provost were called.

On the Thursday, when the long lists were voted, the Deacon carried
his list, and every one of the six were tried men, and hostile to the
innovations of the Provost and his party.  The Deacon was in great
spirits, and told the Treasurer, whom he visited as soon as his
triumph was secure, that, if not cut off the list, in shortening the
leet, his election was sure.  On the list coming down from the
Council, neither Kerr nor the person Dickson wished were on the leet;
both had been struck off; and the choice behoved to fall upon one of
three, none of whom had hoped, at this time, to succeed to office.
Their joy was so much the greater, and the election dinner not less
substantial.

It was the evening of the election, closely bordering upon the
morning--for all respected the Sabbath Day, and, even on this joyous
occasion, would not infringe upon it--that a party of some ten or
twelve were seen to issue from one of the narrow closes in the High
Street, two and two, arm in arm, dressed in the first style of
fashion, with bushy wigs, cocked hats, and gold-headed canes.  At
their head was, now Old Deacon Dickson, and his successor in office.
They were on their way, accompanying their new Deacon home to his
residence, near the foot of Saint Mary's Wynd in the Cowgate, and to
congratulate the Deaconess on her husband's elevation to the Council.
None of them were exactly tipsy; but in that middle state when men do
not stand upon niceties, neither are scared by trifles.  The fears of
the Major's coach were not upon them; or, if any thought of it came
over them, their numbers gave them confidence.  Leaving the High
Street, they proceeded down Merlin's Wynd to the Cowgate.  Scarce had
the head of the procession emerged from the dark thoroughfare, when
the sound of a carriage, in rapid advance, fell on their astonished
ears.  The front stood still, and would have retreated back into the
Wynd, but could not; for those behind, unconscious of the cause of
the stoppage, urged on and forced them out into the street.  There
was not a moment for reflection, scarce to utter a cry, before the
fearful equipage was full upon them.  Retreat was still impossible;
and those in front, by the pressure from behind, becoming desperate
by their situation, the two Deacons seized the reins of the horses,
to prevent their being ridden over.  In a second, the head of the
coachman (held in his hand!) was launched at Deacon Dickson, with so
true an aim that it felled him to the ground, with the loss of his
hat and wig.  Though stunned by the blow, his presence of mind did
not forsake him.  Still holding on by the reins, and dragged by the
horses, he called lustily for his companions to cut the traces.  The
head of the coachman, in the meantime, had returned to his hand, and
been launched forth with various effect, on the aggressors.  Other
heads flew from the windows on each side, and from the coach-box, in
rapid, darting motions.  The cries of the assailants resounded
through the stillness of the night; fear had fled their bosoms; there
was scarce one but had received contusions from the flying heads, and
rage urged them to revenge.  Candles began to appear at the windows,
exhibiting faces pale with fear.  Some of the bolder of the male
inhabitants, recognising the voice of some relative or acquaintance
in the cries of the assailants, ran to the street and joined the
fray.  Dickson, who had never relinquished his first hold, recovered
himself, severely hurt as he was by the feet of the horses, which
were urged on, short as the struggle was, up to the College Wynd, in
spite of the resistance.  At the moment the carriage reached the foot
of the wynd, the door on the left burst open, and two figures leaped
out, disappearing instantly, although closely pursued.  In the
confusion of the pursuit, the coachman also disappeared.  No one
could tell how, or in what manner he had fled: he appeared to fall
from the box among the crowd; and, when several stooped to lift and
secure him, all that remained in their hands was a greatcoat with
basket work within the shoulders, so contrived as to conceal the head
and neck of the wearer, to which was fastened a stout cord, the other
end of which was attached to an artificial head, entangled in the
strife between the horses and the pole of the coach.  Two similar
dresses were also found inside.  The coach was heavily laden; but
with what, the authorities never could discover, although envious
persons said that several of the tradesmen's wives in the Cowgate
afterwards wore silk gowns that had never before had one in their
family, had better and stronger tea at their parties, and absolutely
abounded in tobacco for many weeks.  But whether these were the
spoils of the combat with the infernal coach, or the natural results
of successful industry, was long a matter of debate.

As for the coach and horses, they became the prize of Deacon Dickson
and his friends, never having been claimed by the Major.  The
sensation created on the following day by the exaggerated reports of
the fearful recountre and unheard of bravery of the tradesmen, was in
proportion to the occasion.  Several of the assailants were reported
to have been killed, and, among the rest, the Deacon.  For several
days, the inn-yard of the White Hart was crowded to excess to view
the carriage and horses.  As for the Deacon, no doubt, he was
considerably bruised about the legs; but the glory he had acquired
was a medicine far more efficacious to his hurts than any the Faculty
could have prescribed.  At the first toll of the bells for church, he
was seen descending from the Castle Hill towards the Tron Church,
limping much more, many thought, than there was any occasion for,
supported by his golden-headed cane on one side, and holding by the
arm of the Deaconess on the other.  With an affected modesty, which
no general after the most brilliant victory could better have
assumed, he accepted the congratulations he had come out to receive.
When he entered the church, a general whisper ran through it, and all
eyes were upon him, while the minister had not yet entered.  This was
the proudest moment of his life.  He had achieved, with the
assistance of a few friends, what the train-bands and city guard had
failed to accomplish; that it was more by accident and against his
will he had performed the feat, he never once allowed to enter his
mind, and stoutly denied when he heard it hinted at by those who
envied him the glory he had acquired.

As soon as the afternoon service was over, he proceeded to the
Treasurer's house, to congratulate him on his re-election to the
treasurership, and give a full account of his adventure.  To his
exaggerated account, Kerr listened with the most intense interest; a
feeling of horror crept over his frame as the Deacon dwelt upon the
blow he had received from the coachman's head, and the efficacious
manner in which the two inside phantoms had used theirs, concluding
with--

"It was a fearful and unequal strife--devils against mortal men."

"Do you really think they were devils, Deacon?  Was it really their
own heads they threw about?" said the Treasurer.

"I am not clear to say they were devils," replied the other; "but
they fought like devils.  Severe blows they gave, as I feel at this
moment.  They could not be anything canny; for they got out from
among our hands like a flash of light."

The Deacon's vanity would have tempted him to say he believed them to
be not of this earth; but the same feeling restrained him.  Where
there had been so many actors in the affair, he had as yet had no
opportunity of learning their sentiments; and, above all things, he
hated to be in a minority, or made an object of ridicule.  Turning
aside the direct question of the Treasurer, he continued--

"Whatever they were, the horses are two as bonny blacks as any
gentleman could wish to put into his carriage.  By my troth, I have
made a good adventure of it.  I mean to propose, and I have no doubt
I shall carry my motion, that they and the Major's coach be sold, and
the proceeds spent in a treat to the incorporation.  Make haste, man,
and get better.  You are as welcome to a share as if you had been one
of those present; although, indeed, I cannot give you a share of the
glory of putting Major Weir and his devils to the rout--and no small
glory it is, on the word of a deacon, Treasurer."

The load that had for many days pressed down the Treasurer's spirits
gradually passed off as the Deacon proceeded, and a new light shone
on his mind; his countenance brightened up.

"Deacon," he said, "the truth begins to dawn upon me, and I feel a
new man.  Confess at once that the whole has been a contrivance of
the smugglers to run their goods, availing themselves of the real
Major's coach.  It was a bold game, Deacon, and, like all unlawful
games, a losing one in the end.  Still, it is strange what inducement
they could have had for their cruel conduct to me on that miserable
night, or how I was enabled to survive, or retained my reason.  I
have been often lost in fearful misery upon this subject since the
fever left me; but you, my friend, have restored peace to my mind."

And they parted for the evening.  The Treasurer's recovery was now
most rapid.  In a few days, all traces of his illness were nearly
obliterated, and he went about his affairs as formerly.  An altered
man--all his wife's influence for evil was gone for ever; calmly and
dispassionately he remonstrated with her; for a few days she
struggled hard to retain her abused power; tears and threatened
desertion of his house were used--but he heard her unmoved, still
keeping his stern resolve with a quietness of manner which her
cunning soon perceived it was not in her power to shake.  She ceased
to endeavour to shake it.  His mother was restored to her proper
station, and all was henceforth peace and harmony.

Several years had rolled on.  The deaconship was, next election,
bestowed upon Treasurer Kerr.  He had served with credit, and his
business prospered.  The adventure with the Major's coach was only
talked of as an event of times long past, when, one forenoon, an
elderly person, in a seaman's dress, much soiled, entered his
workshop, and, addressing him by name, requested employment.  Being
very much in want of men at the time, he at once said he had no
objections to employ him, if he was a good hand.

"I cannot say I am now what I once was in this same shop," he
replied.  "It is long since I forsook the craft; but, if you are
willing to employ me, I will do my best."

The stranger was at once engaged, and gave satisfaction to his
employer--betraying a knowledge of events that had happened to the
family, and that were only traditionary to his master.  His curiosity
became awakened; to gratify which, he took the man home, one evening,
after his day's work was over.  For some time after they entered the
house, the stranger became pensive and reserved--his eyes, every
opportunity, wandering to the mother of his master with a look of
anxious suspense.  At length, he arose from his seat, and said, in a
voice tremulous with emotion--

"Mistress! my ever-revered mistress! have you entirely forgot Watty
Brown, the runaway apprentice of your husband?"

"Watty Brown, the yellow-haired laddie," ejaculated she, "I can never
forget.  He was always a favourite of mine.  You cannot be him; your
hair is grey."

"My good mistress, old and grey-headed as you see me," said he, "I am
Watty Brown; but much has passed over my once yellow head to bleach
it white as you see.  My master here was but an infant in your arms
when I left Edinburgh.  Often have I rocked him in his cradle.  After
all that has passed, I am here again, safe.  I am sure there is no
one present would bring me into trouble for what is now so long past."

"How time flies!" said she.  "The Porteous mob is in my mind as if it
had happened last week.  O Watty! you were always a reckless lad.
Sore, sore you have rued, I do not doubt, that night.  Do tell us
what has come of you since."

"Well, mistress, you recollect there was little love between the
apprentices of Edinburgh and Captain Porteous.  All this might have
passed off in smart skirmishes on a king's birthday, or so; but his
brutal behaviour at poor Robinson's execution, and slaughter of the
townsmen, could not be forgiven by lord or tradesman.  Well, as all
the land knows, he was condemned, and all were satisfied; for the
guilty was to suffer.  But his pardon came; the bloodshedder of the
innocent was to leave the jail as if he had done nothing wrong!  Was
this to be endured?  Murmurs and threats were in every tradesman's
mouth; the feuds of the apprentices were quelled for a time; all
colours joined in hatred of the murderer.  Yet no plan of operations
was adopted.  In this combustible frame of mind, the drums of the
city beat to arms.  I rushed from this very house to know the cause,
and saw the trades' lads crowding towards the jail.  I inquired what
was their intention.

"'To execute righteous judgment!'" a strange voice said, in the crowd.

"I returned to the shop; and, taking the forehammer as the best
weapon I could find in my haste, with good will joined, and was at
the door amongst the foremost of those who attempted to break it
open.  Numbers had torches.  Lustily did I apply my hammer to its
studded front.  Vainly did I exert myself, until fire was put to it,
when it at length gave way.  As I ceased from my efforts, one of the
crowd, carrying a torch, put a guinea into my hand, and said--

"'Well done, my good lad.  Take this; you have wrought for it.  If
you are like to come to trouble for this night's work, fly to
Anstruther, and you will find a friend.'"

"While he spoke, those who had entered the jail were dragging
Porteous down the stairs.  My heart melted within me at the piteous
sight.  My anger left me, as his wailing voice implored mercy.  I
left the throng, who were hurrying him up towards the Lawnmarket, and
hastened back to the workshop, where I deposited the hammer, and
threw myself upon my bed; but I could not remain.  The image of the
wretched man, as he was dragged forth, appeared to be by my side.
Partly to know the result, partly to ease my mind, I went again into
the street.  The crowds were stealing quietly to their homes.  From
some neighbour apprentices I learned the fatal catastrophe.  I now
became greatly alarmed for my safety, as numbers who knew me well had
seen my efforts against the door of the jail.  Bitterly did I now
regret the active part I had taken.  My immediate impulse was to fly
from the city; but in what direction I knew not.  Thus irresolute, I
stood at the Netherbow Port, where the same person that gave me the
guinea at the jail-door approached to where I stood.  Embracing the
opportunity, I told him the fear I was in of being informed upon,
when the magistrates began to investigate and endeavour to discover
those who had been active in the affair.

"'Well, my good fellow, follow me.  It will not serve your purpose
standing there.'

"There were about a dozen along with him.  We proceeded to the beach
at Fisherrow--going round Arthur's Seat, by Duddingston--and were
joined by many others.  Two boats lay for them, on the beach, at a
distance from the harbour.  We went on board, and set sail for Fife,
where we arrived before morning dawned.  I found my new friend and
acquaintance was captain and owner of a small vessel, and traded to
the coast of Holland.  He scrupled not to run a cargo upon his own
account, without putting the revenue officers to any trouble, either
measuring or weighing it.  He had been the intimate friend of
Robinson, and often sailed in the same vessel.  I joined his crew;
and, on the following day, we sailed for Antwerp.  But why should I
trouble you with the various turns my fortunes have taken for the
last thirty-seven years?  At times, I was stationary, and wrought at
my trade; at others, I was at sea.  My home has principally been in
Rotterdam; but my heart has ever been in Auld Reekie.  Many a time I
joined the crew of a lugger, and clubbed my proportion of the
adventure; my object being--more than the gain--to get a sight of it;
for I feared to come to town, being ignorant as to how matters stood
regarding my share in the Porteous riot.  We heard, in Holland, only
of the threats of the Government; but I was always rejoiced to hear
that no one had been convicted.  Several years had passed before it
was safe for me to return; and, when it was, I could not endure the
thought of returning to be a bound apprentice, to serve out the few
months of my engagement that were to run when I left my master.
Years passed on.  I had accumulated several hundred guilders, with
the view of coming to end my days in Edinburgh, when I got acquainted
with a townsman deeply engaged in the smuggling line.  I
unfortunately embarked my all.  He had some associates in the
Cowgate, who disposed of, to great advantage, any goods he succeeded
in bringing to them.  His colleagues on shore had provided a coach
and horses, with suitable dresses, to personate Major Weir's
carriage, agreeably to the most approved description.  The coach and
horses were furnished by an innkeeper, whom they supplied with
liquors at a low rate.  My unfortunate adventure left the port, and I
anxiously waited its return for several months; but neither ship nor
friend made their appearance.  At length he came to my lodgings in
the utmost poverty--all had been lost.  Of what use was complaint?
He had lost ten times more than I had--everything had gone against
him.  His narrative was short.  He reached the coast in safety, and
landed his cargo in port, when he was forced to run for it, a revenue
cutter coming in sight.  After a long chase, he was forced to run his
vessel on shore, near St Andrew's, and got ashore with only his
clothes, and the little cash he had on board.  He returned to where
his goods were deposited--all that were saved.  The coach was rigged
out, and reached the Cowgate in the usual manner, when it was
attacked and captured, in spite of stout resistance, by a party of
citizens.  What of the goods remained in the neighbourhood of
Musselburgh were detained for the loss of the horses and coach.  I
was now sick of Holland, and resolved to return, poor as I left it,
to the haunts of my happiest recollections.  To be rich, and riches
still accumulating, in a foreign land, the idea of what we can at any
time enjoy--a return--makes it bearable.  But poverty and
disappointment sadden the heart of the exile; and make the toil that
would be counted light at home, a burden that sinks him early in a
foreign grave.

"Did your partner make no mention of carrying off one of the townsmen
in the coach?" said the Treasurer.

"Excuse me, master, for not mentioning it," replied Walter.  "He did
give me a full account of all that happened to you, and all you said;
and regretted, when he heard of your illness, what, at the time, he
was forced to do in self-preservation.  When you fell out of the
stair he meant to enter, he knew not who you were--a friend he knew
you could not be, for only other two in the city had his secret.
That you were a revenue officer, on the look-out for him, was his
first idea.  He was as much alarmed as you, until he found you were
insensible.  Not a moment was to be lost.  The goods were hurried
out, and you placed in the carriage, which was on its way from town,
before you showed any symptoms of returning consciousness.  His first
intention was to carry you on board his lugger, and convey you to
Holland, then sell you to the Dutch East India Company, that you
might never return to tell what you had been a witness of that night.
The terror you were in, the sincerity of your confession, and belief
that you were in the power of the Major, saved you from the miserable
fate he had fixed for you.  Pity struggled against the caution and
avarice which urged him to take you away.  Pity triumphed--you had
been both play and school-fellows in former years.  You were
released--you know the rest."

The wife and mother scarce breathed, while Wattie related the danger
the Treasurer had been in; he himself gave a shudder.  All thanked
God for his escape.  Wattie Brown continued in his employ, as foreman
over his work, and died about the year 1789.  Widow Horner did not
long survive that night of intense anguish--she died of a broken
heart in her son's house.  It was remarked by all, that, while Thomas
Kerr prospered, Walter Horner, who was at one time much the richer
man, gradually sank into the most abject circumstances, and died a
pensioner on his incorporation, more despised than pitied.  And thus
ends our tale of Major Weir's famous night airings in Edinburgh.




WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER.

By JOHN MACKAY WILSON.

When the glass, the laugh, and the social "crack" go round the
convivial table, there are few who may not have heard the words,
"_We'll have another!_"  It is an oft-repeated phrase--and it seems a
simple one; yet, simple as it appears, it has a magical and fatal
influence.  The lover of sociality yieldeth to the friendly
temptation it conveys, nor dreameth that it is a whisper from which
scandal catcheth its thousand echoes--that it is a phrase which has
blasted reputation--withered affection's heart--darkened the fairest
prospects--ruined credit--conducted to the prison-house, and led to
the grave.  When our readers again hear the words, let them think of
our present story.

Adam Brown was the eldest son of a poor widow who kept a small shop
in a village near the banks of the Teviot.  From his infancy, Adam
was a mild retiring boy, and he was seldom seen to join in the sports
of his schoolmates.  On the winter evenings, he would sit poring over
a book by the fire, while his mother would say--"Dinna stir up the
fire, bairn; ye dinna mind that coals are dear; and I'm sure ye'll
hurt yoursel' wi' pore, poring ower your books--for they're never out
o' your hand."  In the summer, too, Adam would steal away from the
noise of the village to some favourite shady nook by the river side;
and there, on the gowany brae, he would, with a standard author in
his hand, "crack wi' kings," or "hold high converse with the mighty
dead."  He was about thirteen when his father died; and the Rev. Mr
Douglas, the minister of the parish, visiting the afflicted widow,
she said "she had had a sair bereavement, yet she had reason to be
thankfu' that she had ae comfort left, for her poor Adam was a great
consolation to her; every night he had read a chapter to his younger
brithers--and, oh, sir," she added, "it wad make your heart melt to
have heard my bairn pray for his widowed mother."  Mr Douglas became
interested in the boy, and finding him apt to learn, placed him for
another year at the parish school at his own expense.  Adam's
progress was all that his patron could desire.  He became a frequent
visitor at the manse, and was allowed the use of the minister's
library.  Mr Douglas had a daughter who was nearly of the same age as
his young _protegé_.  Mary Douglas was not what could be called
beautiful, but she was a gentle and interesting girl.  She and Adam
read and studied together.  She delighted in a flower-garden, and he
was wont to dress it, and he would often wander miles, and consider
himself happy when he obtained a strange root to plant in it.

Adam was now sixteen.  It was his misfortune, as it has been the ruin
of many, to be _without an aim_.  His mother declared that she "was
at a loss what to make him; but," added she, "he is a guid scholar,
that is ae thing, and CAN DO is easy carried about."  Mr Douglas
himself became anxious about Adam's prospects: he evinced a dislike
to be apprenticed to any mechanical profession, and he was too old to
remain longer a burden upon his mother.  At the suggestion of Mr
Douglas, therefore, when about seventeen, he opened a school in a
neighbouring village.  Some said that he was too young; others, that
he was too simple, that he allowed the children to have all their own
way; and a few even hinted that he went too much back and forward to
the manse in the adjoining parish to pay attention to his school.
However these things might be, certain it is the school did not
succeed; and, after struggling with it for two years, he resolved to
try his fortune in London.

He was to sail from Leith, and his trunk had been sent to Hawick to
be forwarded by the carrier.  Adam was to leave his mother's house
early on the following morning; and, on the evening preceding his
departure, he paid his farewell visit to the manse.  Mr Douglas
received him with his wonted kindness; he gave him one or two letters
of recommendation, and much wholesome advice, although the good man
was nearly as ignorant of what is called the world, as the youth who
was about to enter it.  Adam sat long and said little, for his heart
was full and his spirit heavy.  He had never said to Mary Douglas, in
plain words, that he loved her--he had never dared to do so; and he
now sat with his eyes anxiously bent upon her, trembling to bid her
farewell.  She, too, was silent.  At length he rose to depart; he
held out his hand to Mr Douglas; the latter shook it affectionately,
adding--"Farewell, Adam!--may Heaven protect you against the numerous
temptations of the great city."  He turned towards Mary--he
hesitated, his hands dropped by his side--"Could I speak wi' you a
moment?" said he, and his tongue faltered as he spoke.  With a tear
glistening in her eyes, she looked towards her father, who nodded his
consent, and she arose and accompanied Adam to the door.  They walked
towards the flower-garden--he had taken her hand in his--he pressed
it, but he spoke not, and she offered not to withdraw it.  He seemed
struggling to speak; and, at length, in a tone of earnest fondness,
he nervously said, "Will you not forget me, Mary?"

A half-smothered sob Was her reply, and a tear fell on his hand.

"Say you will not," he added, yet more earnestly.

"O Adam!" returned she, "how can you say _forget_!--never!--never!"

"Enough! enough!" he continued, and they wept together.

It was scarce daybreak when Adam rose to take his departure, and to
bid his mother and his brethren farewell.  "Oh!" exclaimed she, as
she placed his breakfast before him; "is this the last meal that my
bairn's to eat in my house?"  He ate but little; and she continued,
weeping as she spoke--"Eat, hinny, eat; ye have a lang road before
ye;--and, O Adam, aboon everything earthly, mind that ye write to me
every week; never think o' the postage--for, though it should tak' my
last farthing, I maun hear frae ye."

He took his staff in his hand, and prepared to depart.  He embraced
his younger brothers, and tears were their only and mutual adieu.
His parent sobbed aloud.  "Fareweel, mother!" said he, in a voice
half choked with anguish--"Fareweel!"

"God bless my bairn!" she exclaimed, wringing his hand; and she
leaned her head upon his shoulder and wept as though her heart would
burst.  In agony he tore himself from her embrace, and hurried from
the house; and, during the first miles of his journey, at every
rising ground, he turned anxiously round, to obtain another lingering
look of the place of his nativity; and, in the fulness and bitterness
of his feelings, he pronounced the names of his mother, and his
brethren, and of Mary Douglas, in the same breath.

We need not describe his passage to London, nor tell how he stood
gazing wonderstruck, like a graven image of amazement, as the vessel
winded up the Thames, through the long forest of masts, from which
waved the flags of every nation.

It was about mid-day, early in the month of April, when the smack
drew up off Hermitage Stairs, and Adam was aroused from his reverie
of astonishment by a waterman, who had come upon deck, and who,
pulling him by the button-hole, said--"Boat, master? boat?"  Adam did
not exactly understand the question, but, seeing the other passengers
getting their luggage into the boats, he followed their example.  On
landing, he was surrounded by a group of porters, several of whom
took hold of his trunk, all inquiring, at the same moment, where he
wished it taken to.  This was a question he could not answer.  It was
one he had never thought of before.  He looked confused, and replied,
"I watna."

"_Watna!_" said one of the Cockney burden-bearers--"_Watna!_ there
ain't such a street in all London."

Adam was in the midst of London, and he knew not a living soul among
its millions of inhabitants.  He knew not where to go; but,
recollecting that one of the gentlemen to whom Mr Douglas had
recommended him was a Mr Davidson, a merchant in Cornhill, he
inquired--

"Does ony o' ye ken a Mr Davison, a merchant in Cornhill?"

"Vy, I can't say as how I know him," replied a porter; "but, if you
wish your luggage taken there, I will find him for you in a
twinkling."

"And what wad ye be asking to carry the bit box there?" said Adam, in
a manner betokening an equal proportion of simplicity and caution.

"Hasking?" replied the other--"vy, I'm blessed if you get any one to
carry it for less than four shillings."

"I canna afford four shillings," said Adam, "and I'll be obleeged to
ye if ye'll gi'e me a lift on to my shoulder wi' it, and I'll carry
it mysel'."

They uttered some low jests against his country, and left him to get
his trunk upon his shoulders as he best might.  Adam said truly that
he could not afford four shillings; for, after paying his passage, he
had not thirty shillings left in the world.

It is time, however, that we should describe Adam more particularly
to our readers.  He was dressed in a coarse grey coat, with trowsers
of the same colour, a striped waistcoat, a half-worn broad-brimmed
hat, and thick shoes studded with nails, which clattered as he went.
Thus arrayed, and with his trunk upon his shoulders, Adam went
tramping and clattering along East Smithfield, over Towerhill, and
along the Minories, inquiring at every turning--"If any one could
direct him to Mr Davison's, the merchant in Cornhill?"  There was
many a laugh, and many a joke, at poor Adam's expense, as he went
trudging along, and more than once the trunk fell to the ground as he
came in contact with the crowds who were hurrying past him.  He had
been directed out of his way; but at length he arrived at the place
he sought.  He placed his burden on the ground--he rang the bell--and
again and again he rung, but no one answered.  His letter was
addressed to Mr Davison's counting-house.  It was past business
hours, and the office was locked up for the day.  Adam was now tired,
disappointed, and perplexed.  He wist not what to do.  He informed
several "decent-looking people," as he said, "that he was a stranger,
and he would be obleeged to them if they could recommend him to a
lodging."  He was shown several, but the rent per week terrified
Adam.  He was sinking under his burden, when, near the corner of
Newgate Street, he inquired of an old Irish orange-woman, if "she
could inform him where he would be likely to obtain a lodging at the
rate of eighteenpence or two shillings a-week?"

"Sure, and it's I who can, jewel," replied she, "and an iligant room
it is, with a bed his Holiness might rest his blessed bones on, and
never a one slapes in it at all but my own boy, Barney; and, barring
when Barney's in dhrink--and that's not above twice a-week--you'll
make mighty pleasant sort of company together."

Adam was glad to have the prospect of a resting-place of any sort
before him at last, and with a lighter heart and a freer step he
followed the old orange-woman.  She conducted him to Green Dragon
Court, and desiring him to follow her up a long, dark, dirty stair,
ushered him into a small, miserable-looking garret, dimly lighted by
a broken sky-light, while the entire furniture consisted of four
wooden posts without curtains, which she termed a bed, a mutilated
chair, and a low wooden stool.  "Now, darlint," said she, observing
Adam fatigued, "here is a room fit for a prince; and, sure, you won't
be thinking half-a-crown too much for it?"

"Weel," said Adam, for he was ready to lie down anywhere, "we'll no'
quarrel about a sixpence."

The orange-woman left him, having vainly recommended him "to christen
his new tenement with a drop of the cratur."  Adam threw himself upon
the bed, and, in a few minutes, his spirit wandered in its dreams
amidst the "bonny woods and braes" of Teviotdale.  Early on the
following day he proceeded to the counting-house of Mr Davison, who
received him with a hurried sort of civility--glanced over the letter
of introduction--expressed a hope that Mr Douglas was well--said he
would be happy to serve him--but he was engaged at present, and if Mr
Brown would call again, if he should hear of anything he would let
him know.  Adam thanked him, and, with his best bow (which was a very
awkward one), withdrew.  The clerks in the outer office tittered as
poor Adam, with his heavy hob-nailed shoes, tramped through the midst
of them.  He delivered the other letter of introduction, and the
gentleman to whom it was addressed received him much in the same
manner as Mr Davison had done, and his clerks also smiled at Adam's
grey coat, and gave a very peculiar look at his clattering shoes, and
then at each other.  Day after day he repeated his visits to the
counting-houses of these gentlemen--sometimes they were too much
engaged to see him, at others they simply informed him that they were
sorry they had heard of nothing to suit him, and continued writing,
without noticing him again; while Adam, with a heavy heart, would
stand behind their desk, brushing the crown of his brown
broad-brimmed hat with his sleeve.  At length, the clerks in the
outer office merely informed him their master had heard of nothing
for him.  Adam saw it was in vain--three weeks had passed, and the
thirty shillings which he had brought to London were reduced to ten.

He was wandering disconsolately down Chancery Lane, with his hands
thrust in his pockets, when his attention was attracted to a shop,
the windows and door of which were covered with written placards, and
on these placards were the words, "_Wanted, a
Book-keeper_"--"_Wanted, by a Literary Gentleman, an Amanuensis_"--in
short, there seemed no sort of situation for which there was not a
person wanted, and each concluded with "_inquire within_."  Adam's
heart and his eyes overflowed with joy.  There were at least
half-a-dozen places which would suit him exactly--he was only at a
loss now which to choose upon--and he thought also that Mr Douglas's
friends had used him most unkindly in saying they could hear of no
situation for him, when here scores were advertised in the streets.
At length he fixed upon one.  He entered the shop.  A sharp,
Jewish-looking little man was writing at a desk--he received the
visitor with a gracious smile.

"If you please, sir," said Adam, "will ye be so good as inform me
where the gentleman lives that wants the bookkeeper?"

"With pleasure," said the master of the register office; "but you
must give me five shillings, and I will enter your name."

"Five shillings!" repeated Adam, and a new light began to dawn upon
him.  "Five shillings, sir, is a deal o' money, an', to tell you the
truth, I can very ill afford it; but, as I am much in want o' a
situation, maybe you wad tak' half-a-crown."

"Can't book you for that," said the other; "but give me your
half-crown, and you may have the gentleman's address."

He directed him to a merchant in Thames Street.  Adam quickly found
the house; and, entering with his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and
scraping the hob-nails along the floor--"Sir," said he, "I'm the
person Mr Daniells o' Chancery Lane has sent to you as a bookkeeper."

"Mr Daniells--Mr Daniells," said the merchant; "don't know any such
person--have not wanted a bookkeeper these six months."

"Sir," said Adam, "are ye no' Mr Robertson, o' 54 Thames Street?"

"I am," replied the merchant; "but," added he, "I see how it is.
Pray, young man, what did you give this Mr Daniells to recommend you
to the situation?"

"Half-a-crown, sir," returned Adam.

"Well," said the other, "you have more money than wit.  Good morning,
sir, and take care of another Mr Daniells."

Poor Adam was dumfoundered; and, in the bitterness of his spirit, he
said London was a den o' thieves.  I might tell you how his last
shilling was expended--how he lived upon bread and water--how he fell
into arrears with the orange-woman for the rent of his garret--how
she persecuted him--how he was puzzled to understand the meaning of
the generous words, "_Money lent_;" how the orange-woman, in order to
obtain her rent, taught him the mystery of the _three golden balls_;
and how the shirts--which his mother had made him from a web of her
own spinning--and his books, all that he had, save the clothes upon
his back, were pledged--and how, when all was gone, the old landlady
turned him to the door, houseless, friendless, pennyless, with no
companion but despair.  We might have dwelt upon these things, but
must proceed with his history.

Adam, after enduring privations which would make humanity shudder,
obtained the situation of assistant-porter in a merchant's office.
The employment was humble, but he received it joyfully.  He was
steady and industrious, and it was not long until he was appointed
warehouseman; and his employer, finding that, in addition to his good
qualities, he had received a superior education, made him one of his
confidential clerks.  He had held the situation about two years.  The
rust, as his brother-clerks said, was now pretty well rubbed off
Scotch Adam.  His hodden grey was laid aside for the dashing green,
his hob-nailed shoes for fashionable pumps, and his broad-brimmed hat
for a narrow-crowned beaver; his speech, too, had caught a sprinkling
of the southern accent; but, in other respects, he was the same
inoffensive, steady, and serious being as when he left his mother's
cottage.

His companions were wont "to roast" Adam, as they termed it, on what
they called his Methodism.  They had often urged him to accompany
them to the theatre; but, for two years, he had stubbornly withstood
their temptations.  The stage was to Adam what the tree of knowledge
was to his first namesake and progenitor.  He had been counselled
against it, he had read against it, he had heard sermons against it;
but had never been within the walls of a theatre.  _The_ Siddons, and
her brother John Kemble, then in the zenith of their fame, were
filling not only London but Europe with their names.  One evening
they were to perform, together--Adam had often heard of them--he
admired Shakspeare--his curiosity was excited, he yielded to the
solicitations of his companions, and accompanied them to Covent
Garden.  The curtain was drawn up.  The performance began.  Adam's
soul was riveted, his senses distracted.  The Siddons swept before
him like a vision of immortality--Kemble seemed to draw a soul from
the tomb of the Cæsars; and, as the curtain fell, and the loud music
pealed, Adam felt as if a new existence and a new world had opened
before him, and his head reeled with wonder and delight.  When the
performance was concluded, his companions proposed to have a single
bottle in an adjoining tavern; Adam offered some opposition, but was
prevailed upon to accompany them.  Several of the players
entered--they were convivial spirits, abounding with wit, anecdote,
and song.  The scene was new, but not unpleasant to Adam.  He took no
note of time.  He was unused to drink, and little affected him.  The
first bottle was finished.  "WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER," said one of his
companions.  It was the first time Adam had heard the fatal words,
and he offered no opposition.  He drank again--he began to expatiate
on divers subjects--he discovered he was an orator.  "Well done, Mr
Brown," cried one of his companions, "there's hope of you yet--_we'll
have another_, my boy--three's band!"  A third bottle was brought;
Adam was called upon for a song.  He could sing, and sing well too;
and, taking his glass in his hand, he began--

  "Stop, stop, we'll ha'e anither gill,
    Ne'ermind a lang-tongued beldame's yatter;
  They're fools wha'd leave a glass o' yill
    For ony wife's infernal clatter.

  "There's Bet, when I gang hame the night,
    Will set the hail stairhead a ringin'--
  Let a' the neebours hear her flyte,
    Ca' me a brute, and stap my singin'.

  "She'll yelp about the bairns' rags--
    Ca' me a drucken gude-for-naethin'!
  She'll curse my throat an' drouthy bags,
    An' at me thraw their duddy claethin'!


"Chorus, gentlemen--chorus!" cried Adam, and continued--

  "The fient a supper I'll get there--
    A _dish o' tongues_ is a' she'll gie me!
  She'll shake her nieve and rug her hair,
    An' wonder how she e'er gaed wi' me!
  She vows to leave me, an' I say,
    'Gang, gang! for dearsake!--that's a blessin'!'
  She rins to get her claes away,
    But--_o' the kist the key's amissin!_

  "The younkers a' set up a skirl,
    They shriek an' cry--'O dinna, mither!'
  I slip to bed, and fash the quarrel
    Neither ae way nor anither.
  Bet creeps beside me unco dour,
    I clap her back, an' say--'My dawtie!'
  Quo' she--'Weel, weel, my passion's ower,
    But dinna gang a-drinkin', Watty.'"


"Bravo, Scotchy!" shouted one.  "Your health and song, Mr Brown,"
cried another.  Adam's head began to swim--the lights danced before
his eyes--he fell from his chair.  One of his friends called a
hackney coach; and, half insensible of where he was, he was conveyed
to his lodgings.  It was afternoon on the following day before he
appeared at the counting-house, and his eyes were red, and he had the
languid look of one who has spent a night in revelry.  That night he
was again prevailed upon to accompany his brother-clerks to the
club-room, "just," as they expressed it, "to have one bottle to put
all right."  That night he again heard the words--"_We'll have
another_," and again he yielded to their seduction.

But we will not follow him through the steps and through the snares
by which he departed from virtue and became entangled in vice.  He
became an almost nightly frequenter of the tavern, the theatre, or
both, and his habits opened up temptations to grosser viciousness.
Still he kept up a correspondence with Mary Douglas, the gentle
object of his young affections, and for a time her endeared
remembrance haunted him like a protecting angel, whispering in his
ear and saving him from depravity.  But his religious principles were
already forgotten; and, when that cord was snapped asunder, the fibre
of affection that twined around his heart did not long hold him in
the path of virtue.  As the influence of company grew upon him, her
remembrance lost its power, and Adam Brown plunged headlong into all
the pleasures and temptations of the metropolis.

Still he was attentive to business--he still retained the confidence
of his employer--his salary was liberal--he still sent thirty pounds
a-year to his mother; and Mary Douglas yet held a place in his heart,
though he was changed--fatally changed.  He had been about four years
in his situation when he obtained leave for a few weeks to visit his
native village.  It was on a summer afternoon when a chaise from
Jedburgh drove up to the door of the only public-house in the
village.  A fashionably dressed young man alighted, and, in an
affected voice, desired the landlord to send a porter with his
luggage to Mrs Brown's.  "A porter, sir?" said the
innkeeper--"there's naething o' the kind in the toun; but I'll get
twa callants to tak' it alang."

He hastened to his mother's.  "Ah! how d'ye do?" said he, slightly
shaking the hands of his younger brothers; but a tear gathered in his
eye as his mother kissed his cheek.  She, good soul, when the first
surprise was over, said "she hardly kenned her bairn in sic a fine
gentleman."  He proceeded to the manse, and Mary marvelled at the
change in his appearance and his manner; yet she loved him not the
less; but her father beheld the affectation and levity of his young
friend, and grieved over them.

He had not been a month in the village when Mary gave him her hand,
and they set out for London together.

For a few weeks after their arrival, he spent his evenings at their
own fireside, and they were blest in the society of each other.  But
it was not long until company again spread its seductive snares
around him.  Again he listened to the words--"_We'll have
another_"--again he yielded to their temptations, and again the
_force of habit_ made him its slave.  Night followed night, and he
was irritable and unhappy, unless in the midst of his boon
companions.  Poor Mary felt the bitterness and anguish of a deserted
wife; but she upbraided him not--she spoke not of her sorrows.
Health forsook her cheeks, and gladness had fled from her spirit; yet
as she nightly sat hour after hour waiting his return, as he entered,
she welcomed him with a smile, which not unfrequently was met with an
imprecation or a frown.  They had been married about two years.  Mary
was a mother, and oft at midnight she would sit weeping over the
cradle of her child, mourning in secret for its thoughtless father.

It was her birthday, her father had come to London to visit them; she
had not told him of her sorrows, and she had invited a few friends to
dine with them.  They had assembled; but Adam was still absent.  He
had been unkind to her; but this was an unkindness she did not expect
from him.  They were yet awaiting, when a police-officer entered.
His errand was soon told.  Adam Brown had become a gambler, as well
as a drunkard--he had been guilty of fraud and embezzlement--his
guilt had been discovered, and the police were in quest of him.  Mr
Douglas wrung his hands and groaned.  Mary bore the dreadful blow
with more than human fortitude.  She uttered no scream--she shed no
tears; for a moment she sat motionless--speechless.  It was the
dumbness of agony.  With her child at her breast, and, in the midst
of her guests, she flung herself at her father's feet.  "Father!" she
exclaimed, "for my sake!--for my helpless child's sake--save! oh,
save my poor husband!"

"For your sake, what I can do I will do, dearest," groaned the old
man.

A coach was ordered to the door, and the miserable wife and her
father hastened to the office of her husband's employer.

When Adam Brown received intelligence that his guilt was discovered
from a companion, he was carousing with others in a low
gambling-house.  Horror seized him, and he hurried from the room, but
returned in a few minutes.  "_We'll have another!_" he exclaimed, in
a tone of frenzy--and another was brought.  He half filled a
glass--he raised it to his lips--he dashed into it a deadly poison,
and, ere they could stay his hand, the fatal draught was swallowed.
He had purchased a quantity of arsenic when he rushed from the house.

His fellow-gamblers were thronging around him, when his injured wife
and her grey-headed father entered the room.  "Away, tormentors!" he
exclaimed, as his glazed eyes fell upon them, and he dashed his hand
before his face.

"My husband! my dear husband!" cried Mary, flinging her arms around
his neck.  "Look on me, speak to me!"

He gazed on her face--he grasped her hand.  "Mary, my injured Mary!"
he exclaimed convulsively, "can _you_ forgive me--_you--you_?  O God;
I was once innocent!  Forgive me, dearest!--for our child's sake,
curse not its guilty father!"

"Husband!--Adam!" she cried, wringing his hand--"come with me, love,
come--leave this horrid place--you have nothing to fear--your debt is
paid."

"Paid!" he exclaimed, wildly--"Ha! ha!--Paid!"  These were his last
words--convulsions came upon him, the film of death passed over his
eyes, and his troubled spirit fled.

She clung round his neck--she yet cried "Speak to me!"--she refused
to believe that he was dead, and her reason seemed to have fled with
his spirit.

She was taken from his body and conveyed home.  The agony of grief
subsided into a stupor approaching imbecility.  She was unconscious
of all around; and, within three weeks from the death of her husband,
the broken spirit of Mary Douglas found rest, and her father returned
in sorrow with her helpless orphan to Teviotdale.









*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75771 ***